“While what the album contains will change, I think the concept of the album will live on for some time. The entire current music catalog is based on albums, and the change necessary to move to a different unit of music—other than the song—will take some time.”
Interesting. I agree with most of what the author says. An Album is just a name, it’s contents has changed throughout history but i find it hard to believe that the vast majority of the audio lovers would resign to purchasing individual musics stripped of any context or surrounding.
On a side note, i dream of a day where your hi-fi stereo system picks its music from a household central NAS while an upgraded iTunes app supplies the artwork, lyrics and any other extras that might have come with the album to your iPad/iPhone/other device so that you can have the same experience of a current album now. Sometimes reading through the lyrics, the authors message and just handling those images while listening to the music is what makes the album special.