Ever since I purchased my first ipod, I fell in love with the shuffle feature; shuffle was just about the only way I'd listen to music anymore. This week I decided to return to some of my favorite albums, so I turned off the shuffle and scrolled through my options: The Beatles' Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band, The Who's Quadrophenia, Pink Floyd's The Wall, and The Cure's Kiss Me, Kiss Me, Kiss Me, just to name four. There are tons more of course, but I immediately realized that most of them are from around thirty years ago and none are from the twenty-first century. I haven't checked thoroughly, but I'm not sure I could even find an album from the nineties that would qualify as a favorite.^*

Why is this? Does all current music actually suck? Certainly not. Was rock back then that good? I'm not that sure.

Most of the music released today seems to be made for the shuffle format. It's delivered in small bites and not often presented in the context of a full-length concept album; instead it's all mp3s. Why? Because this is how we're all listening to it now. When I buy a new album, I'll give it one or two listens all the way through, and then I'll throw it in the entire Itunes library. From then on, I'll hear it in bits and pieces among all that other music in there. With almost 9,400 songs and growing, it could even get lost for a while.

It's a shame, really. Ipods killed the classic rock album. Internet killed the album star.

* Perhaps some Radiohead or Flaming Lips. As I said, I haven't done a full inventory here.