What Has iTunes Done to the Album?

I am wondering today what iTunes (and “shuffle”) has done to the concept of the album, as a whole.

Typically I import music, and put iTunes on random. I have several Smart Playlists that give me a random selection of unrated songs by genre. This allows me to rate songs for better iPod/iPhone distribution.

In my car, I have an MP3 CD player with an iPod adapter. When I’m not listening to the iPod (playlists or “Shuffle Songs” mode), I have one of a few mega MP3 CD collections in the system.

I don’t know when the last time was when I just sat down and listened to an album, all by itself, in the order it was recorded.

Today I’ve done just that, listening to The Killers’ “Day & Age.” I don’t know why I didn’t have shuffle on, but I rather enjoyed it, and plan to do it often in the future.

I’ll pick a few albums per week and drop them into a playlist to listen straight through.

In these days of $.99 for a single song, or downloading an entire discography, we should give a little love to the album, by itself and in its entirety.