It’s never been easier for an artist to record and release music.

Anyone with a laptop and rudimentary skills can record songs and upload them to Spotify, post them on YouTube and / or share them with their friends and followers through social media. And those who don’t have any talent at writing, singing and / or playing, can type prompts into AI and call its creations their own.

A study floating around earlier this year claimed more music was released in a single day in 2024 than in all of 1989. Whether one believes those numbers or not — and I’m skeptical — there’s A LOT of new music out there, and it’s tough to get people to care unless performers spend more time on self-promotion than they do on their craft.

“Interest in stuff becomes less when you have access to everything,” Youngstown musician Anthony LaMarca said. “I often talk to friends about, like, ‘What’s gonna be the Sgt. Pepper of the past 10 years?’ The answer is nothing.”

The environment that allowed one album to make such a cultural and creative impact no longer exists, LaMarca said, so he decided to take a different approach with his latest release as The Building. Maybe people will care more if they have to work a little harder to find it.

Unlike four previous albums by The Building, “Weapon,” isn’t available on Spotify. None of its songs have been put on YouTube. They won’t be used as the soundtrack to a TikTok video that hopes to go viral. There’s no physical copies on vinyl or CD.

It’s not even available on the indie artist-friendly Bandcamp site, at least not visibly.

The only way to get “Weapon” is to find a copy of the PETRA Int’l Herald, an 8-page newspaper LaMarca created. On the back page of each edition is a unique download code that can be used for a digital copy of the 10-song album, which downloads as a single 41-minute audio file.

The newspaper does provide song titles, lyrics and running times so listeners can skip to the start of specific tracks.

The idea was inspired, in part, by his experience working with fellow musician Dean Anshutz and Peppermint Productions’ founder Gary Rhamy as the Peppermint Pals, releasing previously unheard music from Mahoning Valley bands from decades ago.

“It’s so much easier to sell those records than it is to sell a new album,” he said.

“I feel like the difference is that sense of discovery. I think what draws people to the reissue stuff is, ‘Oh, this is music that’s never been heard before.’ You’re discovering something. It’s the same feeling me and Dean get when we’re going through the studio archives — ‘Oh my God, we found this tape.’ “It’s a really exciting feeling, and it’s something that is definitely missing from new music and how you hear a new album from a band you love or how you anticipate a new album from a band. It (‘Weapon’) is trying to get at that tangible emotion of someone receiving something physical.”

Those who previously purchased The Building’s music on Bandcamp received a copy of the newspaper in the mail. He also put stacks of the newspapers at Cycle Breakers Records and Tapes inside Westside Bowl and a few other locations.

“I think at some point I’ll put it up on Bandcamp, but it’s been really cool to see how people react to this. People seeing the newspaper, they’ve just been like, ‘Whoa, what? Like, you made this? This is crazy. This is weird.'”

Sonically, “Weapon” is similar to earlier Building releases. Multi-instrumentalist LaMarca is a one-man band except for cello and handclaps, provided by his wife, Megan. He also embeds audio files in several tracks, Sometimes they work almost like another instrument in the mix and other times they serve as a contrasting voice to LaMarca’s.

But previous albums dealt primarily with personal stories. “PETRA” was written and recorded while LaMarca underwent chemotherapy for multiple myeloma, “Indianola Pizza Dough” chronicled his Italian immigrant family’s life in the Mahoning Valley and his father’s death inspired many of the tracks on 2024’s “Aspiration.”