Death of the Album?

The USA Today recently reported on the increase of digital music sales and its impact on the recording industry, once again raising the question whether this trend forshadows the obsolence of the album. Perhaps it will. Though, albums are not always compilations of related songs. Obviously, there have been exceptions. It would be refreshing if musicians and the recording industry dropped the confining album or compact disc format. This would at least rid listeners of songs written only to fill space. Why not bring back the groups of songs with a common thread? Rather than the ten to fourteen songs, perhaps a three song album . . . or twenty?

On the flip side, the demise of the fixed length medium is unfortunate for the artist in that listeners are likely less inclined to seek out additional music of a given artist, and have less on which to base their impressions. Great artists may get lost further in this immense backdrop before us.

Which raises another issue. The Internet is a tidal wave of creativity, with no lacky record label representative imposed filtering of what is marketable versus what is not. Is there a way to stand out in the flood?