French Montana’s New Album Features 126 Songs

French Montana returned on Friday (February 23) with his latest project, a mixtape titled Mac & Cheese 5. The set is not your average album, though—it’s much, much longer—and it’s likely to test just how much new music fans of an artist can handle.

Mac & Cheese 5 is surely one of the longest releases of the year, and perhaps of Montana’s career. The mixtape includes a total of 126 tracks. It runs just over six hours long, according to Spotify.

What makes Mac & Cheese 5 so long? Those who love Montana and his music shouldn’t get too excited, thinking that they’re getting 126 original tunes. Instead, the set features just 21 tracks, but each one is available in many different forms.

Every song on Mac & Cheese 5 appears six times in a row on the tracklist. Each tune is offered in its original, explicit form, as well as in a clean, edited edition. On top of those editions, Montana has also included a sped-up, slowed-down, instrumental, and a cappella take on each of the tracks.

The goal here is clear: to rack up as many streams as possible. Many musicians are now accustomed to releasing singles, and within a short span of time, also dropping alternate takes on those titles. It’s common practice for singers and bands to produce sped-up, slowed-down, instrumental, a cappella, clean, and remixed versions of their latest wares, so that’s not new.

The idea is that superfans of a musician will stream or buy multiple versions of a song, if they want to support the music and the person behind it. All the plays and purchases of one title are grouped together for charting purposes by Billboard, so dropping multiple editions is beneficial to most artists. This plan is tried-and-true by now, but it’s usually limited to one track at a time, not an entire album’s worth of material.

Whether Montana’s fans will do what he and his team are clearly hoping is yet to be seen. A musician asking their fans to listen to one extra version or buy two or three copies of a cut is one thing, but providing more than 100 tracks at a time is a lot of music to consume. Chances are all the streams that Mac & Cheese 5 racks up in the coming week will help it land on at least one or two Billboard charts the following frame, which is the goal.

Mac & Cheese 5 marks Montana’s first release in that series since 2016, when MC4 arrived. This latest mixtape features contributions from a slew of hip-hop superstars, which may also help it become a commercial success. The title includes verses from the likes of Kanye West, Rick Ross, Lil Wayne, Lil Durk, and Bryson Tiller.

MORE FROM FORBESKanye West Breaks His Tie With Elvis Presley With Another No. 1 AlbumBy Hugh McIntyre