Everyday I worry just a bit more about the future of music. I've never been one to complain about the quality of music that's out there. On that front I'm perfectly happy. If my life was driven by what's on the radio, well I wouldn't spend much time, effort or money on it but my life isn't driven by the radio. What concerns me is the proliferation, and success of online music formats. We've been made aware ad naseum of the plight of the recording industry. Sales slow down and it's front page news. If there's one thing that I'm confident in it's that the recording industry is going to come out financially smelling like roses.

Things change but in the end they seem to come out even stronger because of it. I wonder how much longer the album, as we know it will exist. It looks more and more we are heading back to the days of the single. Of course that's where it all started before the concept of the album came into being and I think the popularity and success of the online music sales are going to push things heavily back into that direction. For the most part labels seem content to sell a track here and a track there via I-tunes. Few artitsts seem to be resisting that approach to sales. From what I've read Metallica and John Mayer are some of the very few to require the download of an entire album (for 9.99) rather than allow fans to grab 'that one song'. They seem to feel that there is merit in the work as a whole and to split it up ruins what they have worked to achieve. Not too surprisingly most everyone else is happy to collect their dollar and move on to the next coustomer. I wonder how much longer it's going to be before they have no choice but to follow suit?

As I said, I don't think that the recording industry is going to be weakened by this approach. Seeing profitability rise I wouldn't be surprised to see the album become obsolte in the future. If there is only the downloadable profit at stake, where is the incentive to strive to create albums? Something else that I wonder about-if we move increasingly towards the online sales of singles as the biggest profit center, what's to keep entire albums comprised of 'filler' of the shelfs. Sure that situation exists today but does anybody actually think things will improve given current trends?

Play back of music we enjoy will probably suffer as well. People who invest in at least halfway decent equipment are clearly the minority. That millions of people are happy to play back MP3's as their primary medium is testament to this fact. That doesn't even take into account the boombox user, of which there are even more. The real pisser is that these MP3 players aren't cheap. Apple even makes one that takes a whole lot more money and time just to replace a battery and few seem to care. It's not like this medium is sounds better or costs a whole lot less and yet few seem bothered.

So this is what I see happening more and more everyday: single sales of MP3's played back on HD MP3 players becoming the medium of choice for the overwhelming majority of people in the not too distant future. Not wanting to miss out on a single dime the recording industry abandons the concept of the album to focus on the money maker. I think the advent of SACD and DVDA were attempts to hang on to the present but what's more prevalent-MP3 players or SACD players? Someone, probably J, has already posted information that there is already a trend towards more EP's and that's just the start. Personally I think it all sucks.

jc