As the free availability of individual tunes results in more remixing, more collaboration and more playlisting a system that determines the optimal permutations will be very valuable. My guess is that the optimal permutations will be inferred from the behaviour of music fans on the web so no one will own it as such, however the experts and tastemakers will become more visible and may be able to monetise this ability.

Live recordings will become more important because as albums get broken up by file sharing the selection an artist chooses in concert will become more meaningful.

http://myplaylist.biz is a good example

Performance--people pay tickets for concerts.

Licensing--companies paying artists to play their music during TV/movies/commercials.

Merchandising--Artists selling concert t-shirts and posters for $60 a piece is the canonical example.

Advertising--Artists building their own "brand" and using their brand to shill other products. Beyonce comes to mind most recently. I've been seeing her all over the place selling everything.

Direct pay for content--The business model the RIAA is based on and that is dying.

Generally, music is now a digital download, and the artifice of the "Album as artform" is finally breaking apart. Truly some albums were art, but most were filler crap that was packaged around a high budjet single or two. People are barely willing to pay for a digital single much less entire albums.

Don't forget about that other "format" between single and album: the "EP". As a musician, I've always liked it: not as time consuming to produce as a 40+ minute "album" but more robust than a single track or two.

It's easier to digest and get your brain around (for listener and creator). Which means a lot...granularizing music consumption is good, I think more artists need to think in terms of EP when they are trying to break themselves. Plus, it trims the fat (i.e. filter yourself;-)

There are many forms of music that can't be performed live for both economic and technical reasons. For example, it isn't reasonable to expect that people will pay 200 times as much for concert tickets for a rapper that has a 200 person gospel choir in the background. Similarly, many forms of music aren't able to be reproduced live, like certain types of electronic and industrial sounds. If we say there is no longer any prohibition against unauthorized copying of music then, while it's unlikely we'll start losing entire genres of music wholesale, there are certain artistic choices and stylistic devices that just won't be easily available.

Creating a huge amount of playlists seems like (too) hard work.

Edit: OK, if music is free as in no purchase necessary, a whole new host of applications comes to mind. I think creating playlists will still be a valid task. Essentially it is already happening today, in the form of internet radio stations? Creating a playlist is basically what a radio station provides?

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.

I want an artist to release how they _want_ to release. I think some artists would be fine only releasing singles or covers or mashups. I think that others want a group of songs that are only meant to be together, with some physical content (album covers, etc, has anyone seen Tool's releases? I'm not really a fan of the music, but aesthetically and conceptually they are amazing), -and- some that may only be released with videos. I want to see distributors and publishers take a much smaller cut, but from more artists. This would take a cue directly from long-tail economics.

I want artists to be artists, and not to starve. The 'album' isnt dying, it's just shrinking, because it's relavence has dwindled, most artists make groups of singles that should be released as such, and the 'Dark Side of the Moon's and the 'Physical Graffiti's of the world are disappearing.

In short, they get money to act as a music recommendation filter.

Further, is the current lack of quality a reflection that artists are pushed before they have time to develop longevity or that talent isn't 'recognized' unless it fits the mold du jour?

Is the ClearChannel effect, the automation of radio, contributing to this need for homogenized pulp? It's such a large system to diagnose.

The shrink-wrapped $20 piece of plastic you buy today will soon be less common than vinyl.

I'll even go so far as to say that the music will be less enjoyable if it wasn't for albums. For example, compare U2's The Joshua Tree and Achtung Baby, both of which are fantastic examples of "tone" albums. If you would have taken half the songs from The Joshua Tree and put them on Achtung Baby, and vice-versa, both albums would have sounded like a mess. I don't think the individual songs would have had the same impact as they did when combined with other songs with similar tone.

And that's not even considering concept albums, which are always interesting. A world with no Dark Side of the Moon is not one I want to live in! :)

Truth be spoken, I'm not sure it matters anymore. Maybe I'm wrong. Does anybody know any albums that can compare with the greats of the past?

As went classical, so went pop music. It's just finished, and all the artistic people seem to have shifted to video games, which just keep getting better and better.

Don't mistake the pathetic state of pop for the state of music overall. There is loads of great stuff, perhaps more than ever - the difference is that little of the good stuff gets on the radio because the traditional music industry is killing itself, and is now in its death-throws.

I predict (or at least hope) that the web and a resurgence of live music will bring about a new golden age of sound (for all - not just those who make the effort to dig up the good stuff).

Edit: I'm not being allow to reply to mynameishere's request, "Name some", presumably because I've made too many comments in a short space of time (though I can't imagine there will be many spammers with 400+ karma). Anyway, here's what I was hoping to post:

It depends what genres you like - music is now extremely diverse and fragmented, and I am generally interested in less mainstream stuff, so I don't know about many great artists working in the traditional pop/rock genres. So here is a random, eclectic selection of groups that use guitars and that spring to mind (though I am a little out of touch for the past couple of years): Mars Volta, Deerhoof, OOIOO, Lightning Bolt, Strapping Young Lad, Mogwai, Neurosis, Godspeed You Black Empreror, Tool...

There are a host of other interesting genres with amazing artists and a lot of creativity you wouldn't hear from if you didn't look, like IDM, Dubstep, Hip-Hop...

I will readily agree that there isn't much like Hendrix or Led Zep and similar - but I would argue the current pop industy climate effectively prohibits the emergence of those sort of rock-stars.

The real problem is that ClearChannel has dominated FM and sapped all of the good content out, replacing it with the McNuggets and more advertising. Solution: get XM radio. Worth every cent.

Those two I'm familiar with and they don't compete at all.

Compare:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1969_in_music#Albums_released

Highlights:

  Abbey Road - The Beatles
  Led Zeppelin - Led Zeppelin
  Led Zeppelin II - Led Zeppelin
  Let It Bleed - The Rolling Stones
  Live/Dead - Grateful Dead
  At San Quentin - Johnny Cash
  Ummagumma - Pink Floyd
  The Velvet Underground - The Velvet Underground
  Yellow Submarine - The Beatles
  Yes - Yes (debut)

That said, 1969 surely was a watershed year for rock music, and there are few years that can compare.

Ever heard of a reality tunnel? Because I'm just not seeing this.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reality_tunnel

.. or maybe you are just getting old.