It's been over 9 years now since I started making music. I was 14, entering quite an awkward phase of my life, and ended up leaning on the act of making, listening to and learning about music to find a sense of stability. There were a few months at the start of this where I exclusively listened to Kanye West’s first 3 albums - this was my first proper experience of rap music. I had an old iPod touch which I loaded these albums onto. Over time, the library of music grew to include most of Kanye’s albums, Chance The Rapper’s Acid Rap and 10 Day and many miscellaneous tracks from Jay Electronica.

Around a year later, I was very early on BROCKHAMPTON, their YouTube had under 10K subscribers when I found them. Watching the full rollout of their SATURATION trilogy was a formative experience of my youth. I’m not sure I’ll ever feel such intense feelings as a result of an overall album rollout again. They just kept announcing new albums, tours, merch and dropping music videos all the time - I suppose having 16 members allows you to operate at that level of productivity whilst maintaining quality and innovation.

A bit later after that, I had moved off to London for university. During these moments, Slowthai, particularly his album TYRON, was heavily in rotation along with Roddy Rich.

Each of the artists mentioned above, for a wide range of reasons, have “fallen off” from the heights they once reached. I’m here to ask - how much does that really matter?

As Gen Z and the music we grew up listening to grows older each year, it’s only natural that like all businesses (as that’s what commercial artists really are), some acts will have more staying power than others. I am noticing, though, a mindset among some people, which is also backed up by streaming data and music discourse as a whole, that once an artist has “fallen off”, fans can be soured and be less likely to return to their music over time.

I want to pose the question - Why can we not appreciate one album and not take for granted that there will be more. The idea of falling off essentially discredits the artist’s previous work. Everyone falls off eventually. We are losing out on music we once loved if we adopt this mindset.

One of the main cases I remember was Chance the Rapper. Back in around 2017, Chance was viewed as one of the top talents in rap music. Up with Travis Scott and Tyler The Creator as one of the main ‘new generation’ acts. His brand of positive and independent backed music was genuinely interesting and good to listen to. He made a big point of only releasing ‘mixtapes’ as his first few projects. This could be discussed in a separate article, the mental gymnastics which go on in defining EP’s, Mixtapes and Albums.

So in 2019, Chance dropped his much anticipated debut album The Big Day, to terrible acclaim. YouTube reactors, Pitchfork, Anthony Fantano - they all came together to tell everyone this album was a 0 or 1 out of 10. I had a few songs that I liked off the album, but overall I agreed that it wasn’t great.

Unfortunately, for a long time, it appeared Chance would never recover from this (as of writing this, Chance dropped his first album in 6 years, Starlight, which appears to be a return to form). We will never know what was happening in his personal life around this time, we are not entitled to this information from the artist. Whatever the overall background story is, from the outside looking in, it looks as if Chance dropped a flop of an album, but despite his many years to building up his reputation in the industry, he was not able to get back up to the place where only a few months ago, it was accepted that he had earned.

I went back to Acid Rap by Chance The Rapper, there are some great tracks on there full of nostalgia that I’ve subconsciously neglected due to the fallout of his disappointing debut album The Big Day. As an artist myself, do I want to be perpetuating a mindset that artists must be at the top of their game consistently, forever, otherwise they are thrown out in the rubbish? No is the answer.

Roddy Rich has a new album out in a few months. This was originally meant to come out last summer, but it has since been delayed three times and is now slated for a late 2025 release. To me, he is in the category of artist who has earned his place in music based on musical talent, rather than branding or other factors (not saying one is better than the other). I hear his new singles like “Survivors Remorse” and wonder ‘Why is this not getting traction?’ He is another example of an artist who had an album which didn’t resonate with his audience and is feeling the effects of it.

A big part of music discourse in 2025 is first week sales, especially in Hip-Hop. This was not always the case, and it almost certainly wasn’t what drew most fans to listen to their favourite artists in the first place. The same phenomenon can be noticed in football, where more information than ever is made public about player wages, bonuses and club transfer negotiations. If fans are presented with financial information, it can influence their perception of what they are supporting, often even unconsciously.

Fans, now armed with financial knowledge they do not have the full picture of, have opinions and feelings around business negotiations and transactions they have no part in. For example, Dan Runcie from Trapital found that the average investment per million streams on Spotify is around $5000. Almost everyone would look at the stream count and think the artist released the track and it got traction on its own, this is barely ever the case. Artists are then judged by these metrics, even though the stream count is out of their hands and widely controlled by budget and who is on their promotional team.

I suppose the end idea comes down to this, if we want progressive music, if we want new sounds we can define the 2020’s with (not just leaning on nostalgia of past eras), we must do our bit to lift the pressure from artists who are trying to make that leap. At the same time, we must consider the artists who for whatever reason are not making work up to the same quality they once did.

If your favourite artist has fallen off, go back and listen to their old music, it’s still as good as it once was.