Tyler, the Creator Isn’t the Only Rapper Challenging New Music Fridays

“I think we should put music out again on Tuesdays, instead of Fridays,” he said. “My reasoning is: I know people think because of the weekend, they can listen to stuff and streams go up. And the streaming people are like, ‘Oh, streams go up on the weekend.’ But I think it’s a lot of passive listening at parties, or people get the time to go to the gym, so they’re not really listening.”

“People on the weekend, they want to chill and hang out, so they’re not really listening,” he continued. “But I think if you put it out during the week — man, that commute to work or that commute to school, just whatever that is, you really have that hour or 30 minutes to really dive and really listen. Because you know, once that’s over, you gotta get to work. I think, when that time is shorter — kind of like with procrastination — you get more done, even with listening.”

Although it’s commonplace for albums to be released on Fridays, there once was a time when projects used to come out on Tuesdays in the United States — other countries also had their own release days, too: France and the United Kingdom released albums on Mondays, while Germany and Australia release albums on Fridays. While the origins of why Tuesday used to be the day for new music aren’t really definitive, there are a number of reasons why that was the practice at least since the 1980s, including leveling the playing field between artists and the publication of Billboard’s charts on Wednesdays (now it’s Tuesday mornings or Wednesdays during weeks with Monday holidays).

“Tuesday is also a date that is firmly rooted in a culture that printed, recorded, shipped, unboxed, and bought albums in their physical form,” Vox explained in 2015. “When albums weren’t digital downloads, they required a lot of manpower. By placing the release date on Tuesday, record labels had the entire weekend to ship new inventory across the country to record stores, and stores had a full non-weekend day (Monday) to unpack albums and prepare the store for shelving.”

However, it would be that same year — 2015 — when Tuesday would be replaced by Friday for new music. There were two reasons for this: piracy (especially in a more interconnected world thanks to the internet) and Beyonce’s surprise self-titled album that was released on a Friday in December 2013.

So, fast-forward to now, and albums are often — if not always — released on Fridays. This is why Tyler releasing Chromakopia on Monday is so fascinating. But he’s not the only rapper with a notable release dropping this week on a day that isn’t Friday.

On Tuesday, Earthgang releases Perfect Fantasy, and on Thursday, Ken Carson and Westside Gunn release More Chaos and 11 respectively.

Now, are these artists releasing their albums because of a similar intent to Tyler’s? Who knows. Still, it is interesting that a handful of albums from well-known and popular rappers are releasing the same week but none on Friday. It’ll also hopefully signal to other artists — whether within rap or not — that you don’t need to ascribe to a Friday release for new music.

As Brian Zisook, the co-founder of Audiomack, said on X on October 17: “Releasing music at midnight on Friday is incompatible with consumer behavior. I’ve been beating this drum for five years. Releasing earlier in the week, preferably during daytime hours, allows for greater engagement and conversation while people are in the same weekday routine!”

Maybe it’s time to look past new music Fridays and return to Tuesdays, or allow artists to just experiment with different days and times and see what works for them. No matter what, this week is an interesting one for rap releases — and we’ll hopefully see more examples of this in the future.