One midnight this January, I received this ominous message in my house group chat: “Everyone should be scared because I’m going to become a completely different person. I’m genuinely trembling.” After a concerned back and forth, my friend revealed the source of her excitement – Harry Styles was releasing an album after four years of silence.
There had not yet been an official announcement, his single was not out, no release date confirmed. Instead, there was a trail of breadcrumbs for fans to follow: hints in a YouTube video released last year, cryptic billboards in cities worldwide, a website redesign, voice notes sent to fans. For Harry’s diehard fans, this was enough. Evidence was compiled, TikToks made, fanpages erupted. The album didn’t exist yet, but the anticipation did.
Harry Styles is far from the only musician to master this art. Billboards seem to be a particularly popular method of drumming up hype, with artists from Chappell Roan to Slipknot all using them in recent years. In April 2024, Slipknot teased a “one night only” event with a cryptic billboard put up in California, including a link to a retro website full of hints and references to previous releases. Just a cursory look at the band’s Subreddit reveals how effective this was at capturing audience attention, with members sharing theories, and other evidence they had collected.
When people think of current artists who leave Easter eggs for upcoming releases, Taylor Swift is usually the first name that comes to mind, and her fans are famously avid connectors-of-dots. But it is not only artists of the scale of Taylor Swift who coordinate creative promotional campaigns. In 2017, Southampton rock band Creeper teased their debut full-length album Eternity, in Your Arms with an imaginative campaign. They wiped their social media accounts, supposedly kidnapped, and released a missing poster with a phone number, which, if called, would lead you down a mysterious rabbit hole with clues relating to their new album. This sort of creative promotion however requires a pre-established fanbase to work. Newer artists certainly also use social media to tease their work, but the formula is generally more straightforward. I’m sure you’ve seen it before – musicians about to release their first single, posting TikTok after TikTok over the same clip of a song, in hopes of it becoming a trend.
In the age of social media, where small clues can be projected across the world, and interrogated by thousands, less really is more. All it takes is wearing a suspiciously coherent colour palette, and a change in Instagram profile picture, and big artists can get the world talking. In a time when we have access to all the information we could ever want, all of the time, this waiting game is especially tantalising. It heightens the emotion, and gets fans invested, before they even know what the album sounds like. There is also a parasocial side to it. Fans feel like they are being let in on a secret, and spotting a clue becomes a source of pride, a proof of devotion. This creates a sense of collective buzz among those in the know, bringing fanbases closer together.
From a marketing perspective, this slow-burn is perfect for promotion. Before making any outright announcement, fans advertise new releases to each other and theorise widely online. Algorithms reward engagement, speculation, and discussion, which these prolonged teases feed into, encouraging us to comment, share, and check pages for updates. So while a clear announcement might trend for a short time, a long build-up can stretch excitement over weeks or months. Building hype early is also a reliable way to ensure an album is well-received. Long periods of anticipation mean that listeners’ verdicts are half-formed before the first note even plays. Someone with this more cynical view might bemoan fans spending more time waiting for the album to be released than actually listening to it.
While the tools may be new, teasing music releases is anything but. Artists have long done publicity stunts to attract attention for upcoming releases. In June 1995, Michael Jackson erected ten 32 feet statues of himself across the world to promote his album HIStory: Past, Present and Future, Book I. Garth Brooks took a completely different approach in 1999. The successful country star wanted to try out rock music, so created a persona, Chris Gaines, to promote his album, Life Of Chris Gaines, whilst also allowing him the space to explore a new musical genre.
The biggest difference between now and then seems to be scale. Whilst in the past, big stunts which got the attention of traditional media seemed to be the move, recently, social media has allowed artists to leave a more subtle trail for devotees to follow. This can also be a lot more interactive, and create a greater sense of personal satisfaction for fans who have ‘figured it out.’
Ultimately, promotion seems to be a part of the performance for many artists, setting the stage for the project they are going to release, and priming their audience for what is to come. What some dismiss as a marketing ploy, taking advantage of fanbases for free promotion, I choose to see more positively. Teasing albums gives fans, often young women and girls, something that connects them – a reason to meet new friends, to discuss and speculate together, and to have something exciting to look forward to. Can that really be a bad thing? After all, getting there is half the fun.
