Depression is one of the largest sources of burden of disease in the UK and worldwide, and the support and care that the mental health sector can provide is limited. There is very urgent need to develop easily accessible, self-administered interventions to bring timely support and treatment to an increasingly large number of people. Music listening is a potentially effective and valuable intervention for depression. Music listening is a common, efficacious, and adaptable activity used by people to cope with negative experiences by alleviating negative moods and feelings, and strong evidence indicates that listening to music over a period of time can lead to a reduction in depressive symptoms. We are working towards the creation of methods and tools to make music listening an effective treatment pathway for depression with the potential to reach a wide range of people of all ages and help coping with one of the most challenging contemporary health problems in the UK and worldwide. Interventions based on music listening can overcome important immediate challenges in the treatment of depression: can be self-administered, bring timely treatment to a wider population and at low cost.