(Another wild claim here: Napster destroyed the $18 CD because the studios were no longer paying for high-quality CDs, so there was only a single good track on

(Another wild claim here: Napster destroyed the $18 CD because the studios were no longer paying for high-quality CDs, so there was only a single good track on an album, because the studios weren't paying to gloss up all 11 tracks. Pretty sure that's not how In Utero worked!) Here's another interesting take on what you said: I used to work for a small wireless shop in MN. We managed Prince's Studio (Flyte Time) and handled all of their phones. We'd get them new lines, fix their old phones, send in insurance claims, yada yada. Terry Lewis would come in and I always made a point of going slow with whatever he wanted me to do in order to chat him up about the music industry. It was the late 90's and Prince's war with Sony had finally finished and Prince was all over the map. I asked Terry WTF was he doing, why is he trying to be so protective about his music (I was pretty naïve at the time). Terry tells me, "Listen man, Prince wants to protect his rights to his own music, which means he also wants to release music when he wants to. He doesn't want to have to put out an entire album if he wants to just put out one or two singles. He doesn't want his fans to have to wait for an entire album of songs, when he can just release one banging joint, you know? He wants to be on his own schedule and release music as he sees fit." The last thing he said to me as he was walking out the door, "Listen to me man, Prince is going to revolutionize the music industry. Pretty soon, it won't be about albums any more, the music will be all about singles, I'm telling you, just wait." I'll never forget him telling me that. In 2001 what happens? Apple starts iTunes. How does iTunes sells its music? SINGLES. I still think about that conversation that happened just a few years before music piracy began to fade, iTunes took over a huge chunk of the music industry and singles became the defacto way a new generation of kids started buying their music. Kind of prophetic that conversation and I'll never forget it.