Eras are probably too short now but I don't understand why artists released so many singles in the 2010s and sometimes stretched the era out over two or three calendar years. It was very rare for a sixth or seventh single to smash and usually they just got lazy tour videos and no promotion. And surely if someone was going to buy the album they would've done it by then anyway

I prefer long eras in then a 2 year break after

Maybe if every artist's seventh single was as good as Janet's Love Will Never Do (Without You) they would've gotten a #1 hit

in the 2010s no one was buying albums anymore

worst case of an album overstaying its welcome is probably christina's dirty, even though I love that album

in my opinion, the perfect era is 2-3 years.

thats enough time to network, promote ur material, campaign for awards, and go on tour. in my eyes, an era doesnt end til the associated tour is over.

depending on the impact of the album. labels tend to push more singles. also back in the day deluxe versions & eps had their own individual eras too making the parent album era longer.

Because it's a successful era? So they gonna milked it until it's last. Like Katy's TD or Dua's FN eras.

1 minute ago, swiss3234 said:

Because it's a successful era? So they gonna milked it until it's last. Like Katy's TD or Dua's FN eras.

i mean more like where the singles stopped being hits after the 3rd or 4th one but they still kept going with 2 or 3 more

1) you keep releasing singles as long as they keep being hits. Like why should Katy Perry have stopped at firework? In the digital era, because album sales were so low, it was possible to still get a hit single about a year after the era started. This happened with Taylor and Wildest Dreams, Rihanna with cheers, Bruno with the Lazy Song, etc.

2) people kept buying the album post a year into the album cycle. And if the singles were still profitable, there was no need to stop.

back in the 10s, artist had digital downloads working in their favour, so it generated revenue for the artist. Nowadays with streaming, it's kinda different I think.

It worked for albums in the 2000s to early 2010s - people were still going out to buy albums and more singles meant more promotion. Katy, Rihanna were the definition of alow and steady to end up going Diamond

Long eras were the perfect way to establish name recognition, sell a lot of singles, tour tickets etc. Shorter campaigns had to be pretty recognizable, like Rihanna's, or you would get lost in the mix or not be interesting enough.

54 minutes ago, gelato said:

i mean more like where the singles stopped being hits after the 3rd or 4th one but they still kept going with 2 or 3 more

At least in the 90s, those "flop" singles would still push album sales. The Hot 100 didn't reflect popularity. For example, a single might've flopped on the Hot 100 but could've been a huge hit on rhythmic or R&B radio, which therefore would drive up album sales. Same goes with MTV. Look at how Britney's later singles would perform from her Oops and Self Titled album. They "flopped" on the Hot 100, yet were being played all over MTV, which would increase album sales. It never hurts to release more singles, unless you're paying for payola or a big budget music video.

11 minutes ago, UseYourIllusion2002 said:

At least in the 90s, those "flop" singles would still push album sales. The Hot 100 didn't reflect popularity. For example, a single might've flopped on the Hot 100 but could've been a huge hit on rhythmic or R&B radio, which therefore would drive up album sales. Same goes with MTV. Look at how Britney's later singles would perform from her Oops and Self Titled album. They "flopped" on the Hot 100, yet were being played all over MTV, which would increase album sales. It never hurts to release more singles, unless you're paying for payola or a big budget music video.

And this is the tea. Albums used to be more expensive for consumers so long eras existed to push those sales. Shania's album got a three year push because it sold 33.5M+ globally. In 1997, an average album cost about $18. That's $603M in revenue from album sales, which adjusted for gross is almost $1.2B.

In the 2010s, streams and YouTube made almost no profit and while albums weren't as profitable, touring and digital single sales started growing. A lot of artists made their money from airplay, light digital single sales and then touring. The singles typically existed to push touring numbers - which is why so many pop girls used to drop touring videos or drop new singles just in time to promote their tours (Britney, Rihanna, Katy, Taylor, Gaga, Madonna, etc. did this). It's also why we saw so much growth in branded products - artists branched out because music wasn't super profitable anymore.

Nowadays, tours are based on legacy so you don't need a new single to promote it. It's better to just constantly dump new music because it affects streaming algorithms and gives your music a bigger push. We also don't see music videos because streaming on YouTube brings in less revenue than streaming on Spotify and Apple Music.

Edited December 31, 2025Dec 31 by Eternium

radio and music videos used to be primary ways to learn about and consume new music during that time. those formats heavily favor singles as a means of keeping an album/era fresh in people's mind throughout the year and encouraging people to actually go and buy the album if they haven't yet.

streaming killed that because it drove people away from those formats and most music listeners basically have access to every album all at once on their phones, so there's no reason to use an extended run of singles to drive people towards an album once it drops.

Art not charts.

2 hours ago, gelato said:

I don't understand why artists released so many singles in the 2010s and sometimes stretched the era out over two or three calendar years.

Streaming has killed the excitement for singles post-album release.

Before we used to get excited for a later single rollout cause that meant we would hear it more often and it would get traction, we could watch the music video over and over again cause that's the only type of visual we'd get.

Streaming has made single releases a lot less eventful especially if the album had already been out for months.

It's more like "okay cute new video, but I've been streaming this song for months now. I'm over it… on to the next" back then we were forced to sit with it with no streaming, laggy video quality, and very low GB space for music.

Edited December 31, 2025Dec 31 by CristianGarcia

Umm because the artists hadn't made their transition into full on capitalist piggies yet, so they would finance their own music videos and harass their labels to extend the eras so they had more to add to their legacy and more to give to their fans because it wasn't JUST about maximizing profits and minimizing spending like it is now. Hence now why we get a lead single, oftentimes without a music video, an album drop, and then nothing.

I can't really think of many eras where there stopped being hits after 3-4 singles and they kept going. Long eras like Come On Over or Rhythm Nation kept having hits and the album kept selling so why not.

4 hours ago, Toxic Love said:

Maybe if every artist's seventh single was as good as Janet's Love Will Never Do (Without You) they would've gotten a #1 hit

Imagine if State of the World had a proper single release.

So you want eras like Man best friend where she's released 2 single & has gone ghost since?

If that's what you rather have you have a very low self esteem. I'm sorry

Edited January 1Jan 1 by Appletree

The logic was that an era that lasts 2-3 years makes an impression and resonates with the GP more than these quick-little eras that fade out after a year and people only return to for a quick throwback listen. This is why despite having 1 solo album, people consider artists like Fergie an icon or MPG because that one era was huge and made such an impression. It is much more lucrative to have a long era because it proves that the music was so good that the GP is turning back to it long term after the first 6 months of listening to it. I'd much rather artists go back to this type of rollout than these annual rollouts that diminish the impact of the era and are so focused on music trends. Why would an era with longevity be viewed as a negative?

It is easier to chart now due to streaming, so if artists of the 2000s + 2010s had streaming and were using these longer rollouts, their sales would be even more impressive today. Social media has convinced labels to oversaturate the GP with a project for 6-12 months so they can grab that 360 tour money off hype instead of invest in an era that will actually be a memorable pop culture moment.

Yea, what most have already said: Long eras used to be the norm pre-streaming. They go back much further than the 2010s. Once the CD became the standard music format in the late 80s, labels wanted the return on the investment so you had to get out there a shake a tail feather for them radio hits and album sales. Not just pop artists either, everybody who was anybody in a genre was out there in the trenches pushing their album as far as it could go.

Edited January 1Jan 1 by Soda Pop Queen