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I've seen this sentiment a lot recently ("the album as an art form or musical journey is dead/dying"), and this question is about as subjective and volatile as asking if arcades are dead on a video game forum, but...it just seems like the idea of releasing a bunch of songs that have some relation to each other in a physical form is becoming more and more antiquated (sp?), and the focus is more and more on individual songs. On one hand, it frees the artist from having to keep to a common thread and release albums on a timetable of every other year. At the same time, however, it could cause some people to shy away from experimenting or doing mood pieces because those sorts of things don't always hold up on there own-could you imagine Providence out of the context of Daydream Nation, or Scooter + Jinx out of the context of Goo? And this question easily leads to other questions, like what is role/purpose of the B-side if all songs are singles? How can up and coming musicians deal with this change or exploit it to their advantage?
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