For many artists who release independently, whether they’re rappers dropping mixtapes or punks with tape labels, quick-and-furious releases are nothing new. But even main-label pop stars are at it. Ariana Grande launched her album Thank U, Next just six months after her previous LP, Sweetener; inside two months, she had moved on again, releasing the non-album single Monopoly, later adopted by Boyfriend, and is now at No 1 with Don’t Call Me Angel, a collaboration with Miley Cyrus and Lana Del Rey. This month, before listeners had barely had a chance to listen to all of Del Rey’s new album, Norman Fucking Rockwell!

A double album was out of the question. “A lot of the songs would get misplaced,” Krivchenia says. The band decided to record the albums in two “distinct, however related processes”, making UFOF near Seattle, then heading into the desert a few days later for Two Hands, and recording each one on different kinds of tape.

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Yet he thinks the format will final a very long time. Striving to make something cohesive that’s 30 to forty minutes lengthy is a “nice, useful constraint”.

“ARIA Charts – Accreditations – 2001 Albums”. Australian Recording Industry Association. Philippakis is among a rising variety of artists responding to this quick-shifting dynamic by upping the tempo of his releases. Foals will launch their second album of 2019, Everything Not Saved Will Be Lost Part II, in October (Part I was released in March, and nominated for this yr’s Mercury prize).

While Philippakis needs to experiment with a extra fluid releasing and touring course of, he says Foals will definitely maintain making albums. Oborne describes how his 12-12 months-old daughter, a streaming fanatic, lately got actually into an album for the first time thanks to Billie Eilish – proof to him that even in a time of “immediate-grat tradition”, albums are “at all times going to be essential”.

But Oborne says there are extra existential causes behind the 1975’s choice to release two albums in quick succession. He says he and the band’s frontman Matt Healy have the sensation that “we’re sort of running out of time. I would put some of that down to the shape the world is in, how scary it’s.” He says meeting and collaborating with the environmental activist Greta Thunberg and her family this year injected the band with a sense of urgency to maneuver as shortly as attainable to “use Matthew’s platform in a conscientious way”. If you’re writing about topical points – Healy’s songs reference the local weather crisis, politicians, even viral tweets – the material is best launched shortly.