Does That Need to Be an Album?

a.k.a. Tracklist bloat in the digital era.

Last year, Spotify claimed that 60,000 tracks were being uploaded to its platform every single day, and though that number has since been disputed—Bill Werde, a former Billboard Editoral Director, estimated that it’s more like 23,000 (at the most)—one thing remains clear: an enormous amount of music is being released these days. Over the past few decades, technology has helped to (somewhat) democratize both the process of music making and music distribution, and while it’s difficult to measure the results of that in any concrete way, it’s probably a fair assumption that more music is now being produced and released than at any time in human history.

At first glance, that’s great. Although things remain far from equitable across the board, many people who in years past would have been shut out of the music world for any number of reasons (e.g. gender, race, sexuality, language, geography, lack of resources, etc.) have now been granted at least some level of access. From a creative standpoint, music (and art in general) often benefits from the addition of new voices and perspectives, and few would advocate for turning back the clock to a time when fewer people had a seat at the table.

There’s just one problem though: people aren’t listening to all these songs.