As Americans preferred digital to physical music in 2011, I said goodbye to CDs and hello to an iPod. When wax gave way to magnetic tape, and later when magnetic tape yielded to polycarbonate plastic, the album reigned supreme. For myriad reasons, the album can't survive the digitized tomorrow. Read my article @ the American Spectator on how the iPod triumph of the song over the album brings us back to the future.

While I agree with you about the audio output quality, I totally disagree with your requiem for the album. I listen to more albums straight through now (with my iPod) than I ever did before. You seem more focused on the micro-transaction trends from iTunes, Amazon, etc., than the fact that concept albums like the ones you reference are few and far between - and were even when they were more common. Even fewer are albums where all the songs are worth hearing. I guarantee that if someone could put out a Moondance or a Rubber Soul, people would gladly buy all the tracks. But even when the great albums you reference were coming out, they were surrounded by crap. I'm not sure much has really changed.

That I can have, essentially a customizable jukebox, that can also feed my need to hear the entirety of something like Wish You Were Here on a long train ride, and enables me to carry MY ENTIRE music collection wherever I go is fantastic. If I could get it to sound as good and as full as my LPs, that would be a real achievement.

You listen to more albums on your iPod, Homer. But you grew up with albums. For the iPod people coming of age in the last decade, I wonder if they ever listen to a whole album. I also wonder if recording artists create music with this in mind (even more emphasis on the big single than before, no concern for the album tracks). They already have changed the sound of the recordings to cater to iPods rather than stereos, so I don't think it's a stretch to think that in a song-over-album world that they are deemphasizing the deep cut. I think very soon the whole packaging of songs in the LP format will die because there no longer seems any rhyme or reason to it other than that that's the way it's been done for the last half-century or so. I agree we gain much with the iPod. I think people who only know the iPod will not understand that we have lost much, too.

I’m getting older by the minute and related to this topic the result seems to be how much in awe I am at how far we’ve come with regard to personal electronics, especially electronic entertainment.

I and three of my kids have iPhone 4,s and it’s almost unnecessary to have any other device! I tell them of the days when I watched black and white TV with three channels and had a transistor radio pressed to my ear constantly to hear the same tunes over and over again. Blank stares and crickets.

Happy to say that I still have a turntable and albums. But only in rare cases of nostalgic inspiration or the need to listen to something old and obscure, do I have reason to use them.

At the end of the day, I like digital music and the portability and convenience it offers and can certainly do without vinyl, tape (especially 8 tracks) and cd’s.

Long live MPIII and it’s eventual offspring!

Your assessment of youth listening/buying habits might be correct, I don't know. But I'm really not sure the emphasis on the big single ever really went away. We went from the radio/78s, to jukeboxes/45s, back to radio/LPs, and now back to Jukeboxes (iPods)/youtube. I think the single as always been supreme.

Of course, all of this was made possible by the original "song played at parties/sheet music sales" that preceeded the above pairings. That was when we had a culture that was brought up on the fundamentals of music, and where almost no family was without at least a competent musician and/or a piano in the front room. Fats Waller, Big Joe Turner, Jerry Lee Lewis, Benny Goodman, Little Richard, Elvis Presley, Otis Redding, on and on -- all the early influences on the albums and music you reference in your article started by playing music or singing at their respective churches.

As the family disintegrates, and that sort of community involvement loses importance, music starts to suck. So, yes, I just blamed the crappy music of today on the American family crisis.

“As the family disintegrates, and that sort of community involvement loses importance, music starts to suck. So, yes, I just blamed the crappy music of today on the American family crisis.”

That is a valid assessment I think.

And, as I’ve been known to do, I’ll take it a step further. My contention is that society goes as women go. And with the advent of the Women’s Movement, the concept of the family (if one was ever started) began to crack and disintegrate. Thus, husbands don’t come home or stay anymore; kids don’t come home to a ‘family unit’, and there is no family to participate in activities with.

As noted here, I remember growing up always having an instrument in the house with somebody able to play it – singing and dancing would result. And if there was a lack of instrumental accompaniment, the family would still have something to sing about, the result often being improvisation and musical creativity on top of being a lot of fun.

But I digress…..?

"And, as I’ve been known to do, I’ll take it a step further. My contention is that society goes as women go. And with the advent of the Women’s Movement, the concept of the family (if one was ever started) began to crack and disintegrate. Thus, husbands don’t come home or stay anymore; kids don’t come home to a ‘family unit’, and there is no family to participate in activities with."

I couldn't agree more with this entire statement. Pretty interesting perspective if your change you mindset to think that society goes where women go.

As far as my Ipod goes, I don't use it much. Although the generation below me is absolutely in love with Apple products.

Jesse from 1TB Portable Hard Drive

Interesting read here. My IPod is my life to be honest. I don't think artists will focus anymore on the big single hit than they did before. The star single on a full album is promotion for the other songs. I don't see that going away anytime soon.

Chris from TV Wall Mount Reviews

I believe that. I think that women are and always have been the power that drives societies. Men are often more driven and typically more creative in tangible ways (i.e. inventiveness, problem solving, etc.), but the old saying that "behind every great man is a great woman" can not be diminished. In fact, our civilization would not have come about without the need to maintain the family and that is in most part been acheived with women's innate drive and perserverance.

Whether we like it or not, we all have our roles, no matter what rules some folks want to apply to modern society.