In the first nine weeks of 2025, three of my favorite artists each released deluxe albums: Sabrina Carpenter, Role Model, and Kelsea Ballerini. And while I will never argue against hearing more music from my favorite artists, it made me start to think about how common deluxe albums are in today’s music. It’s almost as if every album turns into a deluxe version a year or so later. Last year, it was Olivia Rodrigo, Megan Moroney, Lizzy McAlpine, and Gracie Abrams. The year before, it was Noah Kahan and Carpenter again.
There’s nothing inherently wrong with wanting to revive an album’s popularity by releasing a couple of new songs. For Carpenter, her hit “Feather” on the deluxe version of Emails I Can’t Send began her meteoric rise to stardom in the last year. Yet, the question I keep coming back to is that if we keep making deluxe versions of albums, what’s the point of even making a regular album in the first place?
The way we listen to music today has already changed from what we knew, and in turn, it has diminished the importance of “the album.” Most people in the modern world use streaming services like Apple Music or Spotify as their main avenue to consume music, which is a stark contrast from listening to music as a record. With streaming, you don’t have to listen to an album in order or even all of the songs on the album.
Records, however, make the process of picking out a song much more difficult. I grew up listening to vinyl records, and I think that’s a big reason this topic is so important to me. Abbey Road by The Beatles, Traveller by Chris Stapleton, and Melodrama by Lorde have become some of my favorite albums because I spent years listening to them front to back on my record player.
Yet, now, not only are we losing the value of albums from streaming, but I also believe that these deluxe versions might be tarnishing the idea of “albums.”
In my mind, an album is a singular art form, its closest relative being museum curation or collection. Creating an album is like creating a singular body of cohesive (or maybe not cohesive, in the case of Taylor Swift’s 2012 release, Red) work with an artist’s statement stamped all over it.
Speaking of Swift, albums also help create defining eras that make a superstar. So much of Swift’s popularity and stardom has been made by the clear differentiation between each of her albums that it led to her Eras Tour. You could say the same about Beyoncé and her trajectory of iconic albums, from B’Day to Lemonade to Cowboy Carter. If the average person divides their life by age, level of schooling, or job, a musician’s career is divided by each of their albums.
So, if artists keep making deluxe editions of their albums today, are they still cohesive? Is it still a carefully thought-out body of art? Kelsea Ballerini, whose deluxe version of her album, Patterns, came out just last week, admitted that the new tracks were written months after the original songs. And in that case, I’d rather her release an EP than a deluxe. Are these songs still capturing a feeling or a moment in time? Do these extra tracks add to the meaning of an album, or are they taking away from the original creation?
These are the questions I keep asking myself.
I don’t think there’s a right or wrong answer, but to me, it’s clear by the fact that releasing deluxe albums has become a trend that the music industry is changing—altering how we consume music. For that reason, it’s at least something to take a second to think about.
What do you think about deluxe albums?
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