The era of the traditional album rollout is over. But have we hit peak gimmick?

Artists are resorting to increasingly untraditional album rollouts because there is so much noise to compete with these days

Ad man: Chris Martin and Coldplay announced details of their new album in local papers (Getty)

Rejoice! Or despair! Coldplay have a new album coming.

Chris Martin et al didn’t announce their eighth record, Everyday Life, through a traditional press release. Instead, they took out ads in local papers around the world, listing the tracks for their double album (yep, double) alongside notices for fridge freezers and hay bales. And through this calculated display of humility, they made far more headlines than a bog standard PR email would have done.

This kind of stunt is increasingly frequent at a time when every artist, especially if they’re a big star, is trying to be more “surprising” than the next. I blame Beyonce – ever since the unannounced arrival of her brilliant self-titled album in 2013, gimmicky releases have become the norm, and surprises have become less and less surprising.