I'll be shocked if the album format is still around five years from now in most popular music. Why waste studio time with a bunch of songs no one will want to pirate anyway, much less buy. How many of us just listen to three or four songs from a CD? Who knows? Maybe pop music will be an internet only thing, since that seems to be where the music industry's demographic has gone. My daughter has already caught onto the convenience aspect of downloading. Even when I try to dissway her from spending up to $1.29 per track, she points out that its still way cheaper than buying an entire CD, not to mention the cost of gas to get to a store. (she could care less about sound quality)

I think public interest in concept albums could spurr some revival of albums as stand alone artistic statements, but it could also bring on a rash of poorly concieved concept albums as well, and we still see a glut of those in the prog market. Many double albums of the past were better off being pared down to just one disc. How many 70 minute-plus CDs do you own that you think are over long? Country music has pretty much stayed the course and they still put out 35 and 40 minute albums, spaced about 8 or 9 months apart, expecting to release one to two singles from them (although a few have ventured past the 45-50 minute mark recently). I think music labels and artists should re-examine shorter time durations, rather than feeling compelled to fill up an 80 minute disc capacity. There have been only a few artists (ever-in any genre) who could really put out albums worthy of more than 60 minutes of listening in one sitting.


Of course, all this rhetoric could be a tad short sighted, since lack of interest in this country hasn't killed concept albums, or prog for that matter, in Europe. There is enough passion for album oriented rock in this country amongst our youth that many aspiring rock bands are setting their sites on European markets, and not just starting or stopping with the US. Take for example, acts like Mastadon and Iced Earth, both of which put out concept albums with the last two years. They're only fringe or niche acts in this country, but they can't walk down the street in most European cities. Iced Earth albums have sold 'gold' in the country of Greece with every release! Starting your tour in Greece would not suck. Porcupine Tree might play dives and ballrooms in the US, but they sell out arenas in Europe and that includes multi-night sell-outs in one city. So the term 'revival', whereas concept albums are concerned, only applies to the US. Europe has kept prog and concept albums alive and kicking for the last 30 years, even though a lot of music writers in this country think it was just a '70s thing. Maybe Europe will start to drive the music market in the US somewhere down the road.