Music

Less than 10% of Spotify users streamed a full album last month

by Jeremy Mersereau

Perhaps there are some music fans still out there who still believe the concept of “The Album” is alive and well, and that the music-listening public doesn’t just skip through relics like Rumours or Dark Side of the Moon  to get to the good stuff. To them, whoever they might be: what’s the rent like, under that rock? Are utilities free?

According to research undertaken by Universal Music Group on the habits of Spotify’s free stratum of users, less than 10% have listened to a full album over the past month.

“Based on research that we did at Universal a year and a half ago, we looked at free users, we looked at their album listening habits within a one month period, and we found that fewer than 10% of them listened to an album in full within that period. That’s something everybody’s got to wake up to,” said former UMG employee Justin Barker at a ‘List for Life’ panel discussion about the newfound importance of curated playlists.

Whether paying users of streaming platforms are more likely to stream albums in full, even broken up over time, the research doesn’t say… but it seems unlikely paid tier users’ listening customs are much different.

What will replace the album? Curated playlists, at least according to panelists at the symposium.

“We’re in an age where the consumer is driving what all of us are doing, and they clearly want playlists,” said Sammy Andrews, MD of Sabotage New Media. “We’ve never had access to more music… but in playlists, it’s resurfacing back catalogue that has potentially never been monetized before. I don’t think the album is dead by any means: a few albums this year have proved that. But we are maybe consuming differently, and entering albums in different ways than before.”