A social media driven society desires more and more content, prompting entertainers to be transparent and feed that incessant need with new projects — seemingly dropping every other week.
The oversaturation is welcomed, whether the quality of music has waned is a continuous debate between music lovers.
Standing on the side of unpopular opinion is the legendary Barrington Levy, who believes less is most certainly more.
According to Levy, “I have like five albums that’s not released. I don’t release albums like how I see these other artists nowadays. I released an album in 2015 and I’m not going to put out a next album till the end of 2016, so that will be a two-year period. I’ll be giving it time to spread itself out. It’s hard times and I don’t believe in releasing albums every year.”
In comparison to other artists, Levy doesn’t understand the motivation behind putting out multiple albums, mixtapes, and singles back-to-back. In his opinion, what’s more important is creating a good album that is worth being listened to and given the appropriate breathing room to make its way around the world to be appreciated.
“I can’t keep up with artists releasing song after song after song, they use good songs to kill good songs. The world is big and it takes time for music and a good album to circulate around the world and be appreciated,” he said.
Nominated for his first-ever Grammy despite his long career, Levy is competing against artists including Jah Cure, Luciano, Morgan Heritage and Rocky Dawuni, who may have all been inspired by his beloved sound and style.
The honor comes after his May release of “AcousticaLevy,” and while it is about time, he also does not fault the recognition considering he has not put out any albums in 23 years.
“It’s a great look, I really appreciate and love the nomination,” Levy said. “I think it’s about time. I’ve been in the business a long time. Some of these people I see getting Grammys — at the end of the day I still cannot say that I deserve a Grammy because I didn’t release an album for 23 years. I’d have to blame myself for not releasing an album even though I was making albums and saving them on my harddrive.”
Levy is wasting no time following the ball drop as he intends on getting right back into the studio to polish off an upcoming single, “Great Survivor,” and begin working on a new body of work.
While he is gearing up to once again put out another album, do not expect Levy to drop the project in 2016; instead, anticipate the album sometime in 2017.
“I’m going back in the studio January morning to finish up a new single called ‘Great Survivor’ and getting ready to release my other album,” he said.
Stay tuned for the upcoming 58th Grammys airing Sunday, Feb. 15, 2016 and remain on the look out for Levy’s upcoming new music.
