Most every pop music enthusiast looks with melancholy at the music shelf where albums of favorite artists, gathered with care in the good old days, may still sit aligned in a clean, precise order. But the days when one anxiously awaited for a particular album to be released so are, for better or worse, long gone.

Or are they?

Something extremely interesting is happening in the music industry regarding the album format. The pop album’s glory days may lay in the past, but the medium may not be necessarily dead.

Yes, with the development of the digital era and audio streaming services, the pop album has become an endangered species. You no longer have to wait for months to enjoy a new song from your favorite artist. You can find freshly released material year-round on websites like YouTube and Spotify.

Online personalized playlists offer limitless hard drive space to store the largest of collections. And these playlist programs are becoming smarter, anticipating what they think you may like, and making suggestions to expand and enrich your playlist. With so many features now available on streaming websites, why should artists work hard on releasing albums, when they can simply release a song within a matter of minutes?

Some music execs advise that artists should abandon the album format completely––and use the extra time for new creations–– releasing their music solely in the digital domain.

But there are a handful of artists, like Justin Bieber and Taylor Swift, who remain loyal to the more traditional methodology of releasing albums along with singles.

It seems that albums are still an integral step in the evolution of an artist.

A number of established artists have released albums that were extremely well-assembled; “statement albums” as they have come to be called. These are released both in physical form and in the digital world.

Beyonce, Drake, Rihanna, and Kanye are a few names on this list. These artists release singles, but also take advantage of the album format’s expanded canvas, where many pieces of music can be presented as a cohesive whole.

These artists’ works are evidence that the pop album is not only still appreciated, but very much alive and kicking.

Few predicted this would happen, believing that ever evolving technology would change everything.

And it’s true, a lot of things did change. But an artifact that was of great importance to the music industry has managed to survive, and find ways to adapt itself to the rules of the New Game.