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Album-Centric Record Deals Come Under Growing Scrutiny

In a world of TikTok-driven singles, album-centric music deals are somehow hanging on.
Vinyls are displayed for sale at indie record store Flashback Records in London on April 18, 2024.

Photographer: Benjamin Cremel/AFP/Getty Images

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Welcome back to Soundbite. The music industry has always revolved around one specific nucleus – the album. But as the industry as a whole shifts toward one-off songs, the popularity of which is increasingly driven by the unpredictable cadences of social media, a long simmering question is growing harder to ignore. Do album-centric record deals make sense anymore? We’ll dig into it.

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