Calvin Harris: Strictly Streaming?

The music industry is always evolving to keep up with our culture and Calvin Harris is at the forefront. Last week Harris released cover art with the words “MY WAY” and a simple caption: “16th”. Speculations about a new album quickly began. Those rumors have since been squashed and we now know “MY WAY” is the title of his newest single, which was released on the 16th, but this brought forth a bigger announcement– Calvin Harris may not release another album, ever! The superstar producer isn’t going to stop making music, instead he’s rethinking the way it will be distributed.

As we continue to move further towards all-digital era it only makes sense music would follow that trend. The numbers show that albums are not selling the way they once were and that the use of streaming services may be to blame. An insider close to Harris was quoted as saying, “Albums are time-consuming and limit artists to cycles rather than having a persistent presence in the charts. Calvin is one of the most-streamed artists in the world so it would make sense to exploit that success.” Calvin Harris’ most recent LP, Motion, for example, sold less than 100K copies, while the tracklist individually has been streamed over one billion times.

Considering the massive success of his singles, such as this summer’s hit “This Is What You Came For”, which has reached almost 500 million steams on Spotify alone, perhaps moving away from a traditional format in exchange for a digital one is a smart move. The beloved album will most likely never go extinct, but this ‘streaming only’ movement could certainly change the music industry moving forward.

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