Albums are great. Singles have always been released as a means to get people to stump up cash for the album, and this should still be the case. There are many a

Albums are great. Singles have always been released as a means to get people to stump up cash for the album, and this should still be the case. There are many albums that have great songs on them, but these songs are probably too unsuitable/unprofitable to be released to the mainstream audience; thus, the release of "appealing" singles to get fans and new fans to go and buy the album. Albums also provide variety by exposing listeners to different styles X if everyone just bought the singles, then everyone would only buy the "club bangers" that get released or become popular. If the whole system goes to a buy-per-single model, albums, per se, will probably evolve into "bodies of work" for that period of an artist's life, which could actually benefit the artist because it will allow them to release material that would not normally make it onto an album, essentially allowing the artist to say "buy whatever you want". Buying-per-single will also be a real ball-ache if you have to preview every song to find the ones you want; hence, my support for albums. If the music becomes free, then money will probably come from concerts, merchandise, etc. Heaven forbid that there will be no ad-supported model! Imagine having to listen to adverts between tracks...oh, the inhumanity! Personally, I like albums and will buy them over a couple of singles because it will add up to the same cost and be much more convenient. Ideally, the whole industry should follow the model of a particular website where you buy music by the megabyte, which is obviously linked to the quality that you have it encoded at.