7...and Last... "Turn it Up (or Turn it Down!)"

Long live the 45! (or in this day and age, online downloads) as CD sales continue to slide while downloads continue to grow. True, many of the downloads are downloads of entire albums, but more often than not fans are cherry picking their favorite cuts for their Ipod or Zune or even that dinosaur desktop computer. That’s almost like the olden days when songs were released as the A side of a 45 RPM single, with a weak filler song on the B side. Albums, until The Beatles released Sgt. Pepper in 1967, were largely fluff and filler fleshing out the LP around the A cut single. (Unless you were The Beatles, who didn’t include songs released as singles on LPs until Abbey Road.) So if 2009 points us back to the future, expect more attention on single songs (and more 1960s AM radio-type formatting?) before some new technology swings us back to longer pieces, song collections, groupings, or even (horror!) more “concept” albums (thank you, Green Day!) in the years to come. Don't forget to vote!