Good points Tony. There are some other factors to keep in mind here as well: Increasingly the record companies are loosing control of this business, and it’s not just due to mp3s. I am working on an album right now that we are recording in my best friend’s spare bedroom, and the quality is absolutely stunning. Now granted he has quite a bit of hardware, but the barrier to having a quality studio is MUCH lower than it was even ten years ago. Why does this matter? Well, the truth is that you can get a good recording for much cheaper now, which makes you start wondering: what do we need the record companies for anyway? Oh right, they can get you played on the radio. But see, this is becoming less of a factor too. I’ve scoured mp3.com and found a lot of really great independent stuff as well as even more really terrible stuff, but the point is I don’t have to waste time listening to DJ’s and commercials to find good bands. So maybe being on the radio isn’t such a great big deal anyway. So soon we may be able to cut record companies out of the equation all together (not that they won’t still exist, but possibly they will become more “optional”).

If this all happens the way I think it will, then we may end up seeing a lot of “singles” getting promoted on the radio and becoming “one-hit-wonders.” And “albums” may bite the dust. But then we’ll get something else entirely. For those who just record their own high-quality homegrown stuff (and like I said, the technology is almost here), they’ll just start putting out a TON of stuff with no intention of ever getting “single” type radio play. They may not have “albums”, but you won’t have to worry about not getting the occasional “experimental” track. In fact, what you’ll probably see is the cutting out of a lot of the “single” garbage that bands put out just to get noticed (then again, maybe not. Even on the Internet something has to point you in the direction of a band). The point remains that people will just be able to record whatever they want and stick it out there.

So I think that you might be right about the death of the album. But I don’t think it will be a bad thing. The only thing we’re going to really need is a way to filter through all the stuff that’s about to be available. It used to be we could rely on the record companies for that, but they’ve forgotten their purpose. Now something else will have to rise up, whether is like mp3.com or something I haven’t conceived of. Sorry to ramble, but that’s where I think this is all going. But who can tell at this point?