The platforms on which people have listened to music have always changed. At one point in time, you would have to buy physical copies of music or listen to the radio hoping that a song you liked would come on. Just a decade ago, Apple introduced iTunes store, a digital marketplace on which consumers could buy and download music online. Recently, there has been a boom in online music streaming platforms like Spotify, Soundcloud, and Apple Music, which offer a plethora of music for a relatively cheap price or even for free.

With more albums available at cheaper prices, more people will start listening to albums through streaming services. Increased album listening will put more pressure on musicians to write better albums as a whole, instead of writing a few good songs that they can just release as singles.

Streaming services offer a seemingly infinite amount of available music. Listeners can easily access nearly any album they like and discover new music they didn’t even know existed. This is a big step-up compared to several years ago where listeners would physically have to go to the store to buy albums and had no guarantee on whether they would find them. Fortunately, rather than having to listen to the radio to hear only a select few songs from artists you liked (if you were lucky), you can now listen to entire albums with only a few clicks.

Most streaming platforms offer music through a subscription service, offering music for a significantly cheaper price than it once was. Rather than paying $10.00 for an album, you can pay that same amount per month for almost every available album. In the past, singles had thrived since most people could only listen to the songs and artists they liked on the radio. With the affordable price most services now offer music at, consumers will not have to rely on buying physical copies allowing them to listen to more albums than they’ve ever been able to.

Many streaming services also promote and recommend music solely based on someone’s listening habits. Services like Spotify have features dedicated to recommending albums and even playlists themselves, which are a staple of music streaming and can help to promote an album. If there’s a track you like on a playlist, it can get you interested in that artist’s work, and from there, you’ll probably want to listen to some of their albums.

On the other hand, all of this assumes that the person is actively involved in listening to the music. There are many people who are satisfied in just listening to a few playlists they found. Despite that, as time progresses where there is a change in the way we listen to music and how it is distributed, there will be a decrease in passive music listening.

It seems streaming services are tailor-made for listening to albums and are having a large influence on music listening in general. They offer millions of songs for significantly cheaper prices than they once were, and can promote music without the help of single. Now as more streaming platforms are being created and growing in popularity, there is bound to be an upward trend in album listening.