3-mob.com 
Streaming services have seen an increasing trend towards curated musical content rather than full albums from artists.
Major star Calvin Harris is one of a few artists who have now indicated that they will abandon the long play format opting for singles which will be placed into playlists on services such as Spotify.
Playlists account for 31% of streaming while albums are at 21%. Singles are still dominant on 46%.
With a decline of 30% in album sales in the last 15 years some fear that the album may be a dying art or at least something for a niche market.
The trend might not translate to much of Africa for now where streaming as a service is still in its infancy. Add to that, services such as Spotify remain unavailable in most parts of the continent. That said, there are services used by many artists on the continent used to release music, mostly for free, onto the market. Added recently onto platforms like Soundcloud are ‘Stations’ which allow you to discover similar type of music and retain the ability to keep an eye on trends you follow.
However, with Spotify in talks to buy the popular Soundcloud platform it remains to be seen what direction it will take in offering the service.
As to whether the album will die, we don’t think so. There is still a huge market for people who want the full blown experience of their favourite artist telling a story. What might need a rethink is claiming that space and how to get people interested in the format again.
With information from iNews
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