Pray for the roads if a new Frank Ocean album drops
There are many fun ways to debut an album when it’s fresh out of the oven.
Blasting the new Phoebe Bridgers album on the living room speakers could be the move, or sitting silently on a train with noise cancelling headphones during the work commute could bode well.
But undoubtedly, the most exciting way to bump new music is in the car with mates, especially if you have a 2006 Subaru Liberty with a massive sub in the boot.
Based on new research from Harvard University, it might actually be time to step on the brakes, with researchers finding that music fans face a higher risk of being involved in fatal car crashes on the day their favourite artist drops a new album.
And with major releases from the likes of Fontaines D.C., Erykah Badu, Weezer, Prince and plenty more, music fans might want to start leaving their phones in the glovebox.
Researchers led by Dr Vishal Patel at Harvard Medical School found that fatal road traffic incidents in the US increased by 15.1 per cent on 10 major album release days between 2017 and 2022.
The tested albums included Taylor Swift’s Midnights, Harry Styles’ Harry’s House and Drake’s Scorpion.
Draking and driving is never the answer folks.
While the study couldn’t prove that music was actually playing during the crashes, Patel believes the increased engagement with smartphones could be the culprit.
Another theory suggests that new music might also demand more attention simply because it’s unfamiliar.
True engagement with a new album doesn’t just require listening, it usually involves checking the tracklist, scrolling through the lyrics or jumping back 10 seconds to feel the dopamine hit of a personally poignant part that just played.
It definitely isn’t exactly a hands-free experience in the car.
Patel went on record to say, “pick the album, hit play, put the phone down. If someone’s in the passenger seat, hand it to them, the increase showed up almost entirely among drivers who were alone”.
It might be time to pull over and debut albums a completely different way.
