The internet has nothing to do with being open about what work you're doing and when it's going public... in fact it makes it much easier to be open about how your work is going and when people can expect to be able to pay for it. The internet solves this.
In certain circumstances that can work, but for most artists, it doesn't. Most artists don't have fan bases that are willing to sit there and get a constant stream of updates to the production/writing side of a project. This isn't like game development. The process can be very hit or miss. I've seen artists announce projects years out and some of the hype just dies out. A release like this benefits from the internet because people can be in the moment discussing or listening to it together. You can't do that with some hype build up bullshit for many months or years.
Charli XCX has a fan base that is very interested in her constant flow of updates. She was able to take her latest album and fill people in on the demos, the writing process, the production side... through Zoom calls and her Instagram. Her fans also are super into the production side of her music and to an extent, understand some of the process because she's so transparent about it. So what you're talking about makes it easy for her... but most artists don't benefit from that. And most artists aren't as genuine to pull it off.
I agree though that the 1 week release is kind of weird, but also realize that the production side of this is extremely limited right now. Vinyl is months out for orders and someone as big as Taylor is bound to sell a lot more than the typical 5,000 pressing most modest artists request. So this is more of a preorder than anything for a window they were probably given. COVID fucked things up.
It took me months to get an Arca vinyl that had 1,000 vinyl pressed.
He also worked with Taylor on 1989.
Oh, I'm aware. I'm a huge Jack fan. He's one of the best producers out there today and just about everything he touches is instant classic. I think people underestimated him early on for his typical Bleachers-anthem style production but he's done so much diverse music in such a short time with a huge variety of artists, it's staggering.
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