The death of the album

Online copyright infringement may well play a role in the declining revenues of the recorded music industry over the last few years, but other, stronger forces are at work. Chief among them: the shift to digital singles, the death of the album, and the rise of streaming. To an industry accustomed to fattening up on album-only CD revenue for two decades, this new world has been tough to accept.

The independent digital music distributor TuneCore reminded us of just how much people prefer singles to albums—and that this preference isn't just reserved for teeny-bop bands on major labels who put out "crap CDs."