10 Reasons Why Album Delays Kill Your Career

When you stall on dropping an album, everyone gets hurt.

Tick-Tock: That Killer Album Clock - Album delays plague us poor fans. For whatever reason, artists get trigger happy and tell the world an album is coming on a specific date. It’s almost like the kiss of death. Not all the time, but most of the time that date never happens. These are the ways album delays can kill a career. —Jon Reyes(Photos from left: Kevin Mazur/WireImage for Parkwood Entertainmen, Frederick M. Brown/Getty Images)

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Tick-Tock: That Killer Album Clock - Album delays plague us poor fans. For whatever reason, artists get trigger happy and tell the world an album is coming on a specific date. It’s almost like the kiss of death. Not all the time, but most of the time that date never happens. These are the ways album delays can kill a career. —Jon Reyes(Photos from left: Kevin Mazur/WireImage for Parkwood Entertainmen, Frederick M. Brown/Getty Images)

People Will Stop Caring - In the case of 50 Cent and Animal Ambition, people will straight up forget if you prolong an album release long enough (six years in this case). For 50 Cent, that delay equaled 124,000 units sold. Yikes.(Photo by David Becker/WireImage)

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People Will Stop Caring - In the case of 50 Cent and Animal Ambition, people will straight up forget if you prolong an album release long enough (six years in this case). For 50 Cent, that delay equaled 124,000 units sold. Yikes.(Photo by David Becker/WireImage)

Social Media Will Take Over - Sometimes social media is too much of a distraction. That might be why Broke With Expensive Taste took so long. Kidding! Delay it long enough and all you’ll have left to do is tweet all day long.(Photo by Taylor Hill/Getty Images)

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Social Media Will Take Over - Sometimes social media is too much of a distraction. That might be why Broke With Expensive Taste took so long. Kidding! Delay it long enough and all you’ll have left to do is tweet all day long.(Photo by Taylor Hill/Getty Images)

Photo By Photo by Taylor Hill/Getty

...because they tried a Beyoncé - While Queen Bey is the blueprint, not everyone can do “a Beyoncé.” It took about a year (Super Bowl halftime show and a world tour later) for us to get the self-titled album that everyone downloaded in a night. Don’t try that at home kids. Only she can do that.(Photo by Kevin Mazur/Getty Images for Anheuser-Busch)

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...because they tried a Beyoncé - While Queen Bey is the blueprint, not everyone can do “a Beyoncé.” It took about a year (Super Bowl halftime show and a world tour later) for us to get the self-titled album that everyone downloaded in a night. Don’t try that at home kids. Only she can do that.(Photo by Kevin Mazur/Getty Images for Anheuser-Busch)

The Months Will Become Years - Unless you’re like Dr. Dre, who can work on the side for years producing for other people and creating gigantic deals with Apple, you might not be able to justify a 16-year gap between projects.(Photo by Paul Archuleta/FilmMagic)

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The Months Will Become Years - Unless you’re like Dr. Dre, who can work on the side for years producing for other people and creating gigantic deals with Apple, you might not be able to justify a 16-year gap between projects.(Photo by Paul Archuleta/FilmMagic)

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Your Magazine Might Be Out of Date - Frank Ocean’s third album, Boys Don’t Cry, was supposed to be accompanied by a magazine when it was rumored to be released in July. We’re pretty sure that mag is stale by now.(Photo by Jason Merritt/Getty Images)

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Your Magazine Might Be Out of Date - Frank Ocean’s third album, Boys Don’t Cry, was supposed to be accompanied by a magazine when it was rumored to be released in July. We’re pretty sure that mag is stale by now.(Photo by Jason Merritt/Getty Images)

Family Quarrels Will Take Over Your Career - In the case of Lil Wayne's album delay, his resulted in a big fight with Birdman that just got resolved. Though with such an absence of music (alright and some mixtapes), all you heard about was this feud. Fam will be fam.(Photo by Gary Miller/Getty Images)

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Family Quarrels Will Take Over Your Career - In the case of Lil Wayne's album delay, his resulted in a big fight with Birdman that just got resolved. Though with such an absence of music (alright and some mixtapes), all you heard about was this feud. Fam will be fam.(Photo by Gary Miller/Getty Images)

Petitions Might Not Work - Back in 2011, Lupe was having all his fans sign a petition for Atlantic Records to release his Lasers album. That one totally worked. But last summer when Kanye fans started a petition on the White House website to have the executive branch of our government force Yeezy to release SWISH, it was a dud. They shut that down so fast the album won't be coming out until February of the following year.(Photo by Daniel Boczarski/Redferns)

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Petitions Might Not Work - Back in 2011, Lupe was having all his fans sign a petition for Atlantic Records to release his Lasers album. That one totally worked. But last summer when Kanye fans started a petition on the White House website to have the executive branch of our government force Yeezy to release SWISH, it was a dud. They shut that down so fast the album won't be coming out until February of the following year.(Photo by Daniel Boczarski/Redferns)

Your Sub-Genre Might Go Extinct - Neo-soul was booming back in the '00s. The genre has evolved so much it’s almost nonexistent. Maxwell, where you at?(Photo by Earl Gibson/BET/Getty Images for BET)

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Your Sub-Genre Might Go Extinct - Neo-soul was booming back in the '00s. The genre has evolved so much it’s almost nonexistent. Maxwell, where you at?(Photo by Earl Gibson/BET/Getty Images for BET)

Ups the Ante (or the Anti) - With enough delays, an album might not live up to expectations. Let’s hope that in the case of Rihanna, that won’t happen. Fingers crossed.(Photo by Kevin Winter/Getty Images for CBS Radio Inc.)

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Ups the Ante (or the Anti) - With enough delays, an album might not live up to expectations. Let’s hope that in the case of Rihanna, that won’t happen. Fingers crossed.(Photo by Kevin Winter/Getty Images for CBS Radio Inc.)

Your Fans Might Think You Took Money - Back in November, TLC fans were side-eyeing the group for their delayed album. Especially since it was funded by fans on Kickstarter. Questions began to be asked and, well, it was touch and go for the group, especially after T-Boz unapologetically told a fan that if she wasn't happy she could ask Kickstarter for a refund. That’s cold.(Photo by Ethan Miller/Getty Images)

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Your Fans Might Think You Took Money - Back in November, TLC fans were side-eyeing the group for their delayed album. Especially since it was funded by fans on Kickstarter. Questions began to be asked and, well, it was touch and go for the group, especially after T-Boz unapologetically told a fan that if she wasn't happy she could ask Kickstarter for a refund. That’s cold.(Photo by Ethan Miller/Getty Images)