“Looking on my iPod, there’s no physical barrier between Maxwell, Melvins, Messiaen, Metallica, Miles Davis, Mouse On Mars, and Mozart. They are peers. They’re all songs on a global album. This is promising—and weird.
[…]
But so, this iPod. When I buy CDs, I immediately transfer them to the iPod and then shelve them, where they sit untouched. My vinyl is long gone. The album as a discrete unit containing 10 or so songs feels increasingly dated.
I am entering a post-CD era in which one single disc (my iPod) holds thousands of songs—the new unit of measurement. […]
The record album is going away. So are you. Don’t mourn yet.
