Taylor Swift, Billie Eilish and the album comeback

By Riyah Collins, BBC Newsbeat

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Beyoncé released two in one go, Dua Lipa let her fans have three. Taylor Swift? She kept everything under wraps.

The Tortured Poets Department dropped last week with no singles released in advance and, next month, Billie Eilish says she'll be doing the same.

For years, commentators have been warning that the album is dead and the single reigns supreme.

That's partly down to streaming apps like Spotify and Apple Music which let fans pick and choose their favourite tracks from artists and curate personalised playlists.

But could two of the world's biggest stars opting to ditch singles breathe life back into albums?

Announcing Hit Me Hard and Soft, Billie said she wanted her fans to hear the album in one go.

And in an interview with Rolling Stone, she explained why.

"Every single time an artist I love puts out a single without the context of the album, I'm just already prone to hating on it," she said.

"I really don't like when things are out of context. This album is like a family: I don't want one little kid to be in the middle of the room alone."

Even though he's responsible for the weekly Official Singles Chart, Martin Talbot, the chief executive of the Official Charts Company, admits he's more of an album fan himself.

"It's fantastic that Billie Eilish and Taylor Swift are doing what appears to be something designed to push music fans back to the concept of an album," he tells BBC Newsbeat.

"There is a danger that music fans lose sight of what an album is and what an album represents.

"The album represents the kind of apex of the creative vision of a particular artist.

"And it's really important for the creative health of music and the cultural environment we preserve that."

Fans take control

In the 70-year history of the charts, Martin says collating the top 40 singles has changed dramatically.

It started with calling around a few record stores each week to ask which singles - specially selected and released by musicians - were their bestsellers.

Now, thanks to streaming platforms, anything can be a single - and anything can enter the chart.

"The great thing about the digital environment is that it puts the control in the hands of the consumer, in the hands of music fans," Martin tells Newsbeat.

"Billie Eilish and Taylor Swift, they may just be releasing albums, but each of those tracks that make up those albums is available to stream in isolation," he says.

"And if those tracks get enough streams, they will go into the singles chart, regardless of whether the artist deems them to be singles or not."

That decision could be a thing of the past for artists as big as Taylor and Billie, although Taylor did release a music video for one song - Fortnight - on the day her album dropped.

That went straight to number one, but other tracks that weren't officially promoted, including Down Bad and the eponymous The Tortured Poets Department, also debuted in the top five.

But for up and coming talents like Beth McCarthy singles are as important as ever.

"Singles are a massive part of what starts your career," the singer tells Newsbeat.

"It creates a way to release music without the pressure of making a whole body of work and figuring out an entire sound.

"It lets people get to know you but in short, little bits rather than having to do the whole big thing."

Beth, from London, will be performing at Radio 1's Big Weekend in May on the Introducing stage, and hopes to release her first album soon.

"I've been doing singles and EPs because they're a shorter way to create something that isn't going full pelt into an album," she says.