After all, in a streaming environment, songs and albums are fundamentally just a combination of 0s and 1s that algorithms analyze and spit out as sound, to fans who pay a monthly subscription for access.

Artists no longer need to commit to manufacturing tens of thousands of physical records upfront and hope that they all sell. Streaming hypothetically throws this nightmare out the window. Even if an artist or label did want to modify an album, it would be a marketing and logistical nightmare: They would have to issue entirely new physical copies to reflect the change, then make sure that new version got out to all the fans who wanted to hear it. Albums would be delivered to consumers via physical formats like vinyl LPs, cassettes, and CDs, the contents of which were fundamentally unchangeable. Historically, artists and record labels treated the album as a static collection of tracks that were complete upon release.

Four years ago, Kanye West rewrote the definition of an “album” in the streaming era.

Kanye life of pablo full album