Why independent artists are skipping albums for singles

Seven of this week's top ten tracks are standalone singles. Artists say singles give faster feedback and cost less.

Artists say a single can be recorded in a day and promoted for a month, while an album takes a year. Some still release albums as a "deluxe" edition after the singles have built an audience.

Listeners are shifting too: playlists, not albums, drove 68 percent of streams in the fictional survey.

This is a demo story: every name, place, organisation and figure in it is fictional.