my thought is that the hit single is just a marketing technique for selling albums

I think Tony's point is that this is the way it is now, but in the past and possibly in the future, media formats will yield a more single oriented market.

Yes, Tony, that history is correct, as far as I can remember. And dbrashear, I have the same listening habits. I only listen to whole albums, and stay away from singles and compilations.

It's my impression that artists and groups create albums as a part of the art of making music. It doesn't have to be a concept album, but most of the time there is a logical flow of tracks throughout the disc. Perhaps the most basic pop artists don't do this (the boy bands don't even write their own music, so how could they?), but when I listen to Superunknown by Soundgarden, an album over 70 minutes long, I want to listen to it as a whole.

I tend to think that a shift towards a singles market is bad for music. Like someone said, the "filler" tracks can sometimes be your favorites, or even prove to be great hits ("No Rain" wasn't the first or second choice for Blind Melon).

The other thing I wonder is how you deal with live recordings. I don't want to have to piece together a bunch of songs from every which-way in order to get a full concert off of iTunes or something.

Ah boy I'm rambling again. What do I know, nobody even listens to or likes the same music I do