After changing the name of his album four times and offering a free pair of his infamous Yeezys and concert tickets for his “Season 3” tour to anyone who could correctly guess what the album title, T.L.O.P., stands for Kanye West finally released the his seventh album.  Although West premiered The Life of Pablo at the “Yeezy Season 3” presentation at Madison Square Garden in New York and had it screened in cinemas globally on the eleventh, the album itself was not available for download until after his “Saturday Night Live” performance on the thirteenth.

Pablo was sold for $20.00 on Jay-Z’s streaming service Tidal but taken down after a short period of time.  West said on Twitter that he had “decided not to sell [his] album for another week” since he still had some changes to make.  After expanding the track-list to include seven additional songs, T.L.O.P. is once again available for streaming exclusively on Tidal.

West has also stated that the album would “never be on Apple. And it will never be for sale… You can only get it on Tidal.”  Other streaming services, including Spotify, have not received access to the album and instead display messages like, “The artist or their representatives have decided not to release this album on Spotify just yet. We’re working on it, and hope we can change their minds soon.”

What is truly remarkable about The Life of Pablo, other than the typical outlandish “Kanye-ness” of it, is the way that it was marketed and released.  Normally, an album release is a simple one-act event that has been hyped up for a few weeks on social media.  As of late, artists like Beyoncé have made the experience even shorter and more abrupt by randomly posting full-length albums to the surprise and joy of fans.

West on the other hand allowed fans to be involved with the entire process of the album by utilizing social media, specifically Twitter, to announce and get feedback on every decision that he made.  In that sense, the seemingly ever-changing format of Pablo makes sense and is a true reflection of today’s popular culture.