Are mixtapes the new album??

Take A Rip of This!!!!!!

Were starting to see artist more frequently drop free mix tapes, rather then make a label produced album. Today in the music industry a lot of artist are suffering simply because no one is buying their albums, or at least not as many as who use to. Now a days you can search the internet and find a way to download anybody's music for free whether they have it for sale or not. In addition a lot of artist release free mix tapes as a means of promoting their studio album which has been an effective marketing tool, but still albums are just not selling like they use too. On the bright side while it use to take an artist almost 10 years to break into the industry, now all they have to do is release a successful mix tape and almost in an instant they catapulted in the industry, this method has been successful for a number of up-an-coming artist such as Chance The Rapper, Lucki Ecks, Mick Jenkins, Joey Bada$$, and Alex Wiley. Are mix tapes the new album?,  in a industry where artist now predominately makes a majority of their money touring the country and performing live shows of their music, unfortunately yes it is. Artist no longer aspire to even create a album instead most of them rush to make mix tape, thinking at least they didn't waste their time on something that would sale. But with the rise of independent artist i see albums making a comeback, when the mix tape is simply not enough and you want to be taken deeper into an artist world and experience their music on a level meant only for them to understand an album is essential.