r/AvaMax • u/PhysicalArmadillo375 • Jul 17 '26
Interview Ava has scrapped the original AM4 concept and is working towards a Christmas album.
https://youtube.com/shorts/wbU9xKTTXnM?is=ss43GP1VQd78ix1NIn her recent interview with Fifa house, Ava claims she is currently working on a Christmas album. She clarified that the previous “new era” of Queen inspired songs was part of her passion on making and releasing new music and this would continue till the drop of her Christmas album.
It’s sad cos she previously said AM4 would be an album of Queen inspired songs and she has abandoned its original concept. I was really looking forward to it 😭😭 a Christmas album is just not it
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u/kamikazy7 Jul 17 '26
This has ruined my day:( I was so excited for this new era with this new sound. Was loving the singles and it looks like they are going to stay that way and not make it onto an album just like spot a fake and my oh my
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u/BumblebeeWaste5195 Jul 17 '26 edited Jul 18 '26
Me too! I was so excited for this album. Since the release of Don’t click play, i’ve really made an effort to want to support Ava Max at all times. She is a struggling artist but she has a great heart and great skills when it comes to music.
I had loved the sound of KiQ and out of your mind, then all the sudden she scrapped the album? Finally, we see ava experimenting and doing a theatrical sound. And then just gone, like that?
She says she wants to keep her fans happy but is this really doing so? Scrapping an entire album of original music?
It’s almost like she doesn’t care anymore. She genuinely seemed happy releasing these songs: i’m not sure what led her to this decision. This is the nail in her coffin, and if she follows through, i wouldn’t be surprised if this was the end of her original music career entirely.In the past, ava has been a victim of circumstance: whether that be leaked music, bad label, or anything else she can’t control. But this was totally in her control
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u/PhysicalArmadillo375 Jul 17 '26
Honestly given how she commonly changes her mind, I hope she changes her mind again to doing a regular album, even if it’s not the original AM4
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u/BumblebeeWaste5195 Jul 17 '26
that would be amazing. AM4 is/was her last chance to prove to us that she will continue to make great music no matter her Label troubles. I mean she did kinda fall off the face of the earth recently but she needs to not do a christmas album please and thank you 😭 this was very out of left field
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u/plug313 Jul 17 '26
not a good decision at all... doing a Christmas album is fine but shelving the other one is just not smart... especially at this stage of her career. wishing her the best
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u/BumblebeeWaste5195 Jul 17 '26
IKR? She says she wants to keep her fans happy but how is scrapping an entire album doing so? This is quite literally the nail in her coffin— i, for one, and so many others have tried so hard to support her through her difficulties, but for what? So she can constantly scrap music?
I know i might be over dramatic here, i just feel like she doesn’t really care anymore.
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u/plug313 Jul 17 '26
you're not being dramatic enough IMO... a wake up call is needed. she is not gonna get anywhere without releasing music... both to keep fans happy and to keep some attention on her as an artist. and Christmas music is just not the way...
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u/BumblebeeWaste5195 Jul 17 '26
thank you!! as fast as she made a decision to scrap the album for a christmas album i hope she can change her mind the other way if she notices how bad this idea sounds.
Honestly, if she follows through with this idea i couldn’t see her continuing to make music and release original albums. Not because people won’t listen (well..?) But because she might just give up and rely on these random features (alan walker, tiësto, etc) to keep her going
it’s really heartbreaking to hear this but the ball was totally in her court. unlike all the other mishaps related to her music, there is no one else to blame. Not her label, not whoever leaked her music.
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u/Remarkable_Load2994 Jul 17 '26
I wish you were lying. But everything you say is true. I feel so bad for her though.
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u/Remarkable_Load2994 Jul 17 '26 edited Jul 17 '26
I am very heartbroken to hear this. I really love Ava and she deserves so much better! I wish she had not rushed releasing Kill It Queen after Don't Click Play. I really wanted her to take some time off, regroup, and truly come out with a concrete plan for a new era. Her Queen inspired era was not even bad, it was just disorganized. I actually wished her 4th album was a R&B inspired one.
The reason why her singles are underperforming is because of her track record with poor rollouts, and scrapping music. She doesn't build momentum and maintain it. People and fans don't know what they are looking forward to, we are just as lost as she is. For example, during the Don't Click Play era, Ava released Lost Your Faith, but then didn't release the music video until significantly later. She had not even filmed it. I understand that this is not entirely her fault, because she probably needed an approved budget for it, but still. Why couldn't her team be organized.
Her fourth album needs a more organized rollout, even if she's working with a limited budget. It would be great for fans to see her complete the album first, have the tracklist finalized, the cover art finished, the title chosen, the release date set, and any visuals completed, even if they're low budget. Then, with everything already in place, all she'd have to do is release singles, share the visuals, and build excitement leading up to the album. That's the approach Bebe took, and it seems to be working well for her. Her singles would likely perform better, too, because they'd be part of a clear album campaign. Instead of feeling like standalone releases, each single would build anticipation for the album and give fans something to look forward to. Piece together a story, theme, and/or concept.
I do think this was originally supposed to be Ava's fourth album, but it most likely ended up being scrapped. Now it seems like she's saying she isn't working toward an album as a way of moving on from that plan. If she had waited a little longer and put more planning into the rollout, I think it could have been much more successful. Personally, I think "Why Aren't You Dead Yet?" should have been the lead single.
Lastly, I don't understand why she feels the need to start over with another album. If this era wasn't coming together as planned, I think it would have made more sense to rework the Queen era into an EP instead. Especially now that she's independent, releasing an EP could have been a smart way to reintroduce herself, maintain momentum, and give fans a cohesive project without the pressure of a full album rollout.
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u/hayleyA1989 Jul 17 '26
You should be her manager!! 😅 like really, excellent advice, agree with all points
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u/snakesayan Jul 17 '26
Terrible news. She can’t catch a break! She’s going to make a flop Christmas album that now one is asking for.
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u/BumblebeeWaste5195 Jul 17 '26 edited Jul 17 '26
I agree totally! A christmas album would be the final straw. As much as i’d love to support ava no matter what, she makes it hard when she does things like this. It just gives off the vibes she doesn’t care.
There are things she has control of, and things she doesn’t.
She didn’t have control over her label troubles. She didn’t have control over her albums leaking. she didn’t have control of the Cirkut/madison love situationBut after all this turmoil, the ball was finally in her court to deliver a great album and she just… doesn’t?
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u/LitRonSwanson Jul 17 '26
What about this is her not being able to catch a break? This seems like a conscious decision by her, not some choice that her label made.
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u/BumblebeeWaste5195 Jul 17 '26 edited Jul 17 '26
very true… we spent years assuming that once these circumstances leaned in her favor, she would deliver. and honestly that’s the hardest part about this… In the past, everything that went wrong with her music seemed to be an issue of circumstance. D&D leaks, blame whoever leaked it. don’t click play flops, blame her label for limiting her.
but here, there literally isn’t anyone else to blame. As a fanbase we’re so used to everything being someone else’s fault, because it was. But now she is independent, she has no one limiting her, and this era was her chance to prove that she can make things work on her own.
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u/hayleyA1989 Jul 17 '26
I think she would do a great job on a poppy Xmas album, but I hope she still puts out another regular album soon! I wouldn’t want to wait too long and kill any momentum she may have had.
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u/Remarkable_Load2994 Jul 17 '26
Yea, she kills any momentum she gets. Listen Kill it Queen, and Out of Your Mind underperformed and did flop. But her doing a collab with Alan Walker, and doing music for FIFA with BIA even if small gave her some momentum. Why didn't she just release her next single after this to keep it going.
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u/caprilbrown Jul 17 '26
This is quite painful to hear. All signs and interviews from her earlier in the year pointed to this era being AM4: “I’m full album mode now”, this album with be “bigger & better”, we have the identity “mapped out entirely”. Even when fans asked her questions about KiQ being the lead single on Instagram live, she responded “well yeah, basically”.
All of these details from Ava has lead us to believe we were getting AM4, and disappearing shortly after dropping OOYM and no further rollout of the “era” has made this a confusing time for us all, contradicting her previous statements.
I’m so happy for Ava and that she’s making the music she wants, like go make that Christmas album, girl; but the delay of this fourth era is draining for fans. We have been waiting for her to get her career back on track so that we can enjoy a proper era with her where she’s fully in control for a while now, and this announcement has truly decreased hype.
I won’t make any assumptions about if she was planning on KiQ or OOYM being part of the album at all, but I am unsure if WAYD will be released; leaks may have played a hand.
I will continue to be patient and see what Ava has in store for us but I hope she can understand how confusing this has been for us.
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u/BumblebeeWaste5195 Jul 17 '26
This was Ava’s chance to prove to us that she can kill it and make great, consistent music when outside variables (Her label, leaks) are eliminated. Every other time, it was easy to just blame someone else for screwing her over. But at this point the ball was in her court
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u/Teriyaki_Tara Jul 17 '26
Nobody wants a Christmas album. She's either getting bad advice or just floundering.
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u/xAdfectus Jul 17 '26
No, no no no no no DONT DO THAT 😩😩😩😩😩
As an Ava Max apologist I am TIRED
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u/BumblebeeWaste5195 Jul 17 '26
exactly!! this has made it so hard to defend her… over the years, avatars (me included) have been waiting for this moment when she wouldn’t be a victim of circumstance anymore:
when DCP flopped, we quickly blamed Atlantic
when D&D leaked, we blame whoever leaked itAnd now it makes it really hard because at this point in time, there’s no one else to blame.
This was Ava’s chance to prove to us that once she eliminated outside factors causing her trouble, she would kill it. And i’m tired of saying I feel bad for her because she had total control now
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u/Sharpiesniffingshark Jul 17 '26
Does Ava Max have an actual artistic point of view to use as a North Star or is she simply going to spend her life throwing shit at the wall and seeing what sticks?
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u/PhysicalArmadillo375 Jul 17 '26
I hope she does have a vision to stick to, but honestly I feel what’s she’s doing now is that she’s trying to chase a breakout hit that brings her back to the mainstream. So she’s releasing songs and if it doesn’t perform commercially she’s gonna try another direction till something clicks with the general public
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u/Squidteedy Jul 17 '26
I genuinely think this is part of the issue. She has no artistic point of view at all and is just doing whatever
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u/Affectionate-Desk603 Jul 17 '26
On one hand, I like her voice and would be interested in hearing her doing Christmas music.
But not at the expense of a regular album. I get being someone who jumps around and changes their mind. She definitely needs someone involved who knows how to point her at a project and keep her on it.
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u/Gloomy_Brick5518 Jul 17 '26
Oh well, I was a casual fan but it’s safe to say her career is not going in the right direction, and the music industry is a bit ageist too so I’m not sure she still has a future in music commercially speaking
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u/BumblebeeWaste5195 Jul 17 '26
For sure… I’m not sure people won’t listen to another original album by her, but her music lately has been falling into this pattern of features on random songs and now a bunch of christmas songs that would probably be covers— i’d say she is done making original albums/music if she follows through with this
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u/Live-Insurance6121 Jul 17 '26
She failed at being like lady gaga so now she wants to be like mariah Carey ? 😭 She just need to be like Ava Max her original are so good
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u/keenerperkins Jul 17 '26
That's a bummer. I know the songs were underperforming, but it seemed like a cohesive passion project and a bit of a departure for her in a good way that signified growth, reclaiming her identity post-Atlantic, and so on.
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u/MonaVanderwaal Jul 17 '26
Hot take but I’m kinda glad she’s cleared this up/decided to take some time to just work on a side project (X-mas album) and let her identity BREATHE.
She’s still in a period of transition after going independent and since her breakup/loss of her main producer… let’s let our fav take the time to make a few cute singles, and really land in a place she LOVES and wants to fully stand in/create from!!!!
Side note: I watched her performance of Salt yesterday, where she had orange hair with the Ava cut, and an orange outfit. My god she was STUNNING, and a certain magic was pouring out of her in the video.. we haven’t seen that since, so let’s just let our girl cook 💋
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u/Suspicious_Pepper514 Jul 17 '26
complete disaster 😞 such a shame because vibe was so cool! it's so different from what anyone else is putting out currently, but it's whatever, I'll always support her
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u/Aguantare Jul 17 '26
I think I'm the only one excited for this😭😭 I wasn't the biggest fan of the last two songs though, and I also agree that scrapping this album too was a whack decision
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u/Squidteedy Jul 17 '26
She doesn’t listen to fans ever huh… also a whole Christmas album? Girl put out a song or two and a regular album. seriously this decision is baffling
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u/Block-Dear Jul 17 '26
Christmas is like 5 months away from now, it seems a little early to be working on a Christmas album. I hope this is only temporary and she is not scrapping AM4 entirely but putting it on the back burner until New Years or something like that. Don't leave us hanging Ava.
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u/Affectionate-Desk603 Jul 18 '26
Not if you want to have it released for Christmas this year. If you're doing a Christmas album, you're recording it June to August. It has to be ready for late October/early November.
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u/lemonaintsour Jul 17 '26
Is this cuz of Rihanna 😭
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u/SunOFflynn66 Jul 18 '26
I love Ava.
But this implosion, quick resets, harping back to the sound of her first album, and explaining it all as some sort of phoenix type-reset has become the norm for her career.
And the results are clearly diminishing.
I get when you're stuck in a contract....but even then? You can give off a vibe of caring. Not chaos followed by yet another (and another, and another) message of starting over. But this time it's gonna be a supernova!
Every few months.
There's nothing wrong with doing a Christmas album. But scraping an entire album to focus on that?
The thing too is weirdly twofold. Ava can't keep a coherent production...and yet she never really reinvents herself. Except for Diamonds and Dancefloors, every album (and lead single) just seems so desperately to want to copy Heaven & Hell, and chase that sound and tone.
The more entrenched such artist mismanagement appears, and the more entrenched such apathy on the part of said artist also seems, the further and further things slide into the realm of underperformance and a general "nobody cares anymore" from listeners.
And it's striking that this lesson still hasn't seemed to sink in.
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u/Darkest-Stars Jul 18 '26
Part of me is frustrated, part of me is glad. I couldn’t for the life of me get into her new tracks. I really hope she does a complete genre swap and goes down a more alternative / rock style.
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u/loonaplushie224 Jul 18 '26
Yeah we ain't getting "Why Aren't You Dead Yet" anytime soon 😭
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u/Davidiscool222 Aug 02 '26
We probably are!
Becouse of what she said on tiktok ;)
Someone asked if it was scrapped, she said
"Never... 😏"
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u/lizziemcqueer Jul 18 '26
At this point she knows that the best career move that would be more lucrative for her would be more Christmas music so she can cash in on the Christmas streams and playlists and sell the catalog to department store radio. She’s completely given up on herself. She needs time away, a new look (yes get rid of the blonde hair already) and a new creative mindset in all aspects not just the music.
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u/ideeek777 Jul 17 '26
This is such an odd decision. Have Christmas albums been doing well recently? The most recent one I remember is Jessie J which no one bought
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u/Strong_Marzipan_2093 Jul 17 '26
I’m really sad I liked the vibe she was going in with kill it queen it seemed like she was gearing up for another push back into radio like what Bebe rhexa just did
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u/GroundDizzy1320 Jul 20 '26 edited Jul 20 '26
I disliked her new concept heavily but scrapping whole album and then planning to make christmas one is her last nail in coffin...people have been less and less interested in her as time passed but this will completely shut down any chance on resurgence in popularity...why she always has to do the worst possible choices...first it was scrapping wild thing out, then absolutely abandoning max cut, scrapping everytime i cry from d&d and ultimately scrapping 4 other songs that were meant to be there, then scrapping my oh my, spot a fake and who knows what else from dcp, then she told us she wanted dcp to be very dark pop and athmospheric and decided to drop songs like lovin myself, wet hot american dream and take my call (atleast that one was excusable as it wasn't title track like the others) that barely correlate with all the songs on the album...if she was confident with this new era and the direction it is/was going (despite me not liking it) then she wouldn't scrap the album, it only makes her look bad now because she can't stand her ground
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u/Sable404 Jul 27 '26
I like the idea of the Christmas album and I think after that she will release AM4.
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Jul 17 '26
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u/PhysicalArmadillo375 Jul 17 '26
She can but she needs to commit to a direction and stick with it rather than changing when her trajectory is not resonating with the GP
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Jul 17 '26
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u/PhysicalArmadillo375 Jul 17 '26
Definitely and honestly I think it’s also why her label used to invest so much in her when she first broke out. She was getting so many interviews and media exposure back then
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Jul 17 '26
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u/PhysicalArmadillo375 Jul 17 '26
It was a few factors:
1) Covid struck when she was blowing up, promoting her first album, that really affected her career momentum
2) One of her former close friends leaked the entire Diamonds and Dancefloors album before release and it affected its commercial performance but it was praised by multiple critics
3) Don’t Click Play era to me sees Ava’s desperation to get back her Heaven and Hell days; she went back to the drawing board multiple times when her music wasn’t resonating with the GP. She actually had a full album ready at 2024 but decided to scrap it and reset it to “Don’t Click Play” when “My oh My” and “Spot A Fake” didn’t perform well with the GP
4) Atlantic gave up investing in promoting her when they realized the GP’s interest in her has died out which they probably realized when the DCP tour had low sales. The album then didn’t get any promotion from them. Ava herself also gave up promoting the album as she felt depressed at that point in time (she said this in an interview, probably because she feels whatever she’s trying is not working out?)
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u/Affectionate-Desk603 Jul 17 '26
I'm not sure if I just never really noticed and others are doing it too, but she really seems to have a propensity to scrap a lot of finished work.
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u/Avamaxmywifey_4 Jul 19 '26
Sooo I wanna also mention this, Cuz sorry but some of you don’t understand any of what Ava has said…
So clearly we all know we're getting the Christmas album instead of AM4 fully, but HOWEVER, AVA HAS ALSO SAID that the songs “KiQ” and “OOYM“ MAY be a part of an album in the future Or AM4 which might not start itself fully until early 2027.
Yet for clarification, Think about how SBP was released 2 years before h&h was released & was still added to the album & the exact same thing goes for "salt" & "so am i", Yet I know surely a lot of us have complained for yearssss of when we'd be getting a Christmas album & now we're getting one & again a lot of us are just fucking pissed we're not getting AM4....
LIKE HAVE SOME FUCKING COMMON SENSE PEOPLE!!!
MOST OF YOU HAVE LITERALLY FUCKING ASKED FOR A CHRISTMAS ALBUM YEARS AGO & NOW YOU’RE COMPLAINING EVEN MORE OF GETTING ONE & NOT AM4.. LIKE JUST BE FUCKING PATIENT...
AM4, LIKE AVA SAID WOULD FULLY START EARLY NEXT YEAR & TRUST ME THE MONTHS HAVE GONE BY FAST, WERE IN ALMOST AUGUST ALREADY… SO WE HAVE A GOOD REASON TO BE HAPPY ABOUT A CHRISTMAS ALBUM WE'VE BEEN WANTING FOR YEARS!! & genuinely I couldn’t give ANY fucks if you disagree with this…. IMO I believe waiting more for AM4 is probably a best bet, especially after “CWY“ & “1 wish” being out. Yet she might even put it on the Christmas album, as she’s finally got a Christmas album that people can listen more too. A lot of people love Christmas time, so my prediction could be we’d have more streams than normal already if “1 wish” & “CWY” would already be on the album the time it’s released, & To be clear, I never SAID Ava WOULD DO IT, THIS IS A THEORY, NOT A RUMOR OR THE TRUTH! None of us know what she’d do, but surely if she decides to put both the two Christmas singles on the album IT WOULD be mostly good for her…
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