CRISTINA SCABBIA: "Metal Music Is Maybe The Only Genre Where Physical Support Is Still Very Important"

Lacuna Coil is working on new music, but they're not releasing it until 2024 thanks to the delay in creating physical copies. In an interview with She's With The Band, Lacuna Coil vocalist Cristina Scabbia pointed out that waiting is the only solution because metal fans are some of the only fans that still care about the physical product.

"We are already writing music. But I think it's going to be 2024 [before the new album is released]. The problem is not really the music that we write. But now, in order to deliver a record, it takes a lot more time. The pandemic delayed everything. And metal music is maybe the only genre in which the physical support [is] still very important.

"Because there are a lot of collectors, a lot of fans [who] really want to keep the copy of the record in their hand. And it takes time to print vinyls, to print CDs. You need sometimes one year in between the delivering of the master and the release of the record, because you have to set up a lot of things. That's why I'm talking about 2024. Maybe we will record an album in 2023, but it probably will be delivered in 2024. But we are definitely writing new music."

Scabbia is certainly on to something with her comments. One look at how the numbers break down for the Billboard 200 and a lot of non-rock and non-metal artists are charting thanks to insane streaming numbers.

Country artist Morgan Wallen (America's love for shitty bro country continues), for example, still has his latest record One Thing at a Time on the charts thanks to 111,500 equivalent album units earned – 105,000 of which are from streaming. Whether that means non-rock genres have a physical media problem, or metal has a streaming problem, remains to be seen.