The online era has created a scary trend within music listeners. Songs are becoming much more important than the albums they come from. This has been a dream come true for the casual listeners who loooooove the song they heard on the radio but don't have time to waste listening to any of the other songs on the album that don't have a platinum-selling-single seal of consumer approval. This trend creates a scary possibilty for the future of music, one where the Album is dead and in its place is fragments of songs that made it up. This trend is already showing up more and more in singles being sought out by listeners after appearing in movies, tv shows, commercials, or the ever so popular MTV and radio. While this theme is perplexing, I'm not very worried because it seems good bands continue to use the concept of the album to convey more complex stories and themes than can be told in just one song (and I'm not just talking about My Chemical Romance concept albums).
Apparently, I'm not the only one that thinks this way as iTunes is changing its policy on buying albums. Using their Complete My Album function you can buy the rest of an album from a single you've already purchase without having to pay for that song twice. In the past, you could buy as many single songs as you wanted off an album but if you wanted the whole thing you had to pay the full price. Now, you only have to pay for the songs you don't already own. While it seems like a small deal, I believe it will have a strong effect on people buying whole albums after liking single songs. This will have a strong effect on how musicians distribute, and in the long run, make music. Hopefully we'll be treated to the musical collection format that has brought some of the most amazing and epic concepts in music history.
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