Why does music split my albums?

Since the rise of digital music, there has been an issue with music services like Apple Music and Spotify splitting full albums into individual tracks. Where an album used to be presented as a cohesive piece of work, the shift to digital has led to albums being split apart into individual songs. This can be frustrating for listeners who want to experience the full album as the artist intended. The splitting of albums can be traced back to how digital music libraries and streaming services organize and recommend songs.

History of Album Format

The original concept of an album as we know it today emerged in the early 20th century. In the early 1900s, recorded songs were sold on individual 10-inch, 78rpm phonograph records. These records usually contained only one song per side and had a limited playback time of around 3 minutes. Initially, records were played on wind-up gramophones that could only play one record at a time. To listen to a collection of songs by an artist, the listener had to manually change the record after each song.

In 1909, the Pacific Record Company started selling multiple 78rpm records packaged together in a bound book that resembled a photo album. This format allowed multiple songs to be packaged, stored and played together in sequence, creating an early version of the album. The origin of the word “album” comes from these early record albums that compiled multiple songs into a single bound collection. Other record companies soon adopted this format as well. Throughout the 1910s and 1920s, record albums became the standard for distribution of recorded songs, allowing listeners to enjoy a series of songs by their favorite artists.

[source: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Album]

Rise of Digital Downloads

The rise in popularity of digital music downloads in the early 2000s coincided with the launch of the iTunes Music Store in 2003. For the first time, music listeners could purchase individual digital song downloads rather than having to buy a full album. According to Apple’s support article (https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT204088), iTunes allowed users to compile custom playlists and albums by purchasing singles. This marked a major shift in music consumption habits.

With iTunes and other digital stores, albums were split up track by track. Listeners cherry-picked hit songs but didn’t necessarily buy full albums. Artists and labels had to adapt to this new format. While it offered more choice for consumers, it disrupted the traditional concept of an album as a cohesive artistic statement or collection of songs.

Streaming Models

On-demand streaming emerged as a popular music listening model in the mid-2000s, allowing listeners to play any song at any time through services like Spotify and Pandora. As Wikipedia notes, the rise of streaming began in 2005 and continued to grow as consumer preferences shifted away from purchasing and downloading music to streaming on demand. On-demand services like Spotify, launched in 2008, gave listeners access to vast catalogs of music that could be played instantly and customized to their tastes through playlists and recommendations.

This on-demand model was a major shift from traditional radio or owning physical/digital albums. Listeners could now easily browse and play individual songs at will rather than passively listening to a pre-programmed playlist. Music streaming brought back some of the freedoms of physical music ownership while offering expanded access through the cloud. Streaming services invested heavily in recommendation algorithms to connect listeners with new music based on their listening patterns and preferences.

As streaming emerged as the dominant music listening model in the 2010s and beyond, artists and labels adapted to new distribution and royalty models. Streaming offered more data on listening habits but posed challenges for album formats and compensation. Still, on-demand streaming undeniably transformed how listeners experience and access music, providing convenience and choice through vast digital libraries in the cloud.

Listener Habits

The rise of streaming has significantly altered how listeners experience and engage with music. Whereas albums used to be the primary format, streaming has led to a trend of cherry-picking individual songs over full albums. According to research from Spotify, playlists have become much more prevalent, with over 4 billion playlists created by Spotify users in 2022 alone.^[1] This allows listeners to easily compile customized sets of their favorite tracks. In a NYU News article, experts note streaming services have changed listening habits to be more “impulsive” and based on individual songs rather than full albums.^[2] The ability to access virtually any song instantly caters toward short attention spans and on-demand satisfaction.

Royalties & Licensing

With the rise of music streaming, royalties are now paid per track play rather than per album. This has fundamentally changed how artists and rights holders earn money from their music.

Streaming services like Spotify pay out royalties whenever a track is streamed. The specifics vary by service, but the typical per-stream rate is between $0.003 and $0.005. Rather than paying out based on album purchases, these micropayments are made for each individual track play (https://www.billboard.com/pro/music-streaming-royalty-payments-explained-song-profits/).

This granular per-stream royalty model represents a shift away from the album-focused royalties of the past. In the download era of the 2000s, an album purchase would generate a single royalty payment that was then split between the artist, songwriters, producers, and rights holders. Now those album “pots” are split into individual track plays.

For artists and labels, the implications are significant. First and foremost, streaming has put the focus on individual hit songs rather than full albums. Short attention spans and playlists further encourage this emphasis on singles over albums (https://royal.io/blog/streaming-royalties). Additionally, niche tracks receive fewer plays, meaning less royalty revenue. This structurally incentivizes catchy mainstream hits over experimental material.

Analytics & Recommendations

One of the main reasons music services split out albums into individual song tracks is to better analyze listener data and provide more accurate recommendations. With the rise of streaming, platforms like Spotify and Apple Music utilize advanced analytics to track every stream and create detailed listener profiles. As Omarimc notes, these platforms process immense amounts of data like “number of streams, listeners, playlists added, skips, saves, shares, etc.” This granular, per-song data allows them to understand not just what albums people listen to, but their individual song preferences.

Powerful recommendation algorithms then leverage this data to serve users customized song suggestions versus recommending full albums. As Soundcharts explains, platform recommendations are “based on the individual tastes and listening history of every user.” Recommending standalone tracks aligned to each listener’s preferences increases streaming engagement and platform revenue. Consequently, music services have a strong financial incentive to split albums and analyze per-song streaming data for their recommendation engines.

Mobile & Short Attention Spans

With the rise of mobile devices like smartphones and tablets, music listening habits have shifted towards shorter sessions focused on individual tracks rather than full albums. According to a 2021 study, the average mobile listening session is just 3.5 minutes long (Kuch, 2021). This aligns with the shorter attention spans people demonstrate on mobile devices compared to laptops or desktops.

The small screens and portability of mobile devices lend themselves better to shuffling through playlists or streaming singles rather than listening to albums start to finish. People tend to use mobile devices while multitasking or on the go, which leads to shorter bursts of music listening. Additionally, features like crossfading between tracks are not optimized for mobile music listening.

Streaming services have adapted to these mobile listening habits by creating playlists and enhancing recommendations for individual tracks. Musicians now also optimize their singles for streaming rather than focus on full album experiences. Mobile listening provides greater flexibility and portability, but it has changed the album format that was popular in the past.

Artist Perspectives

Many musical artists have expressed frustration with album splitting and how it impacts their art form. As albums were originally conceived by artists as cohesive bodies of work meant to be listened to in order, random splitting can disrupt the intended flow, tone and storyline (https://www.tunecore.com/blog/2022/08/album-splitting-streaming-music-metadata.html). According to musician Stevie Wonder, “We need to stop disrespecting the cohesiveness of albums” (https://www.rollingstone.com/music/music-news/stevie-wonder-blasts-spotify-apple-music-we-need-to-stop-disrespecting-the-cohesiveness-of-albums-1337230/). Many see streaming services’ propensity to split albums as interfering with the artistic vision. However, the causes of album splitting are complex.

The Future

With music streaming firmly established as the dominant model, there are possibilities for technology to bring back more album-focused experiences in the future. Some experts predict that artificial intelligence could enable platforms to analyze listening data and sequence tracks specifically for each user to recreate the album flow (Future of Music Streaming: 5 Exciting Predictions for 2024). Adaptive music that responds to user biometrics is also emerging as a possibility to provide more personalized, cohesive listening sessions tailored to each moment (Five predictions about music streaming’s future | MUSIC x). As streaming aims to enhance its value proposition against piracy, new technologies may emerge to recreate album experiences within seamless, on-demand platforms.