think:

A while ago i mentioned how The Beatles Abbey Road album just doesn't work as well on CD. It was designed to be a double-sided record as each side starts solidly and then finishes with a closing song. This habit faded with the invention of the tape player and completely vanished with the CD.

The White Stripes Elephant is probably on of the best CD albums ever made. And i'd throw Oasis' Definitely Maybe, Foo Fighters The Colour and The Shape and The Streets A Grand Don't Come for Free as other examples of great CD albums.

But lately I’ve been pondering this question. In this world of iPods and iTunes stores will we see the death of the album and the re-emergence of the single and the EP?

It’s almost a recycling effect. Are we heading back to the compression of the medium that was around when we first had records and only one or two tracks could fit on each side?

A band releases an EP onto it’s website and charges one native dollar for each track. You can buy the whole thing or select an individual song to purchase. It might even enable bands to get a bit more experimental in what they do.

Or will bands just whack more mediocre stuff on their albums since people are only buying what they like off the online stores?

The next ten years will be really interesting in music.