Albums and their associated tactile pleasures are dead. With the rise of the iPod and legal digital downloading, songs are free once more of the album format and even of the individual artist, the way they were back in the Tin Pan Alley era. Your neighbor's teenage kid takes in music on an iPod Shuffle that functions as both a mobile jukebox and eternal soundtrack for the movie that is his life. My daughters consider liner notes, even photos of the band, distinct curiosities.
An immediate, disposable, and startlingly pure relationship between listener and song has achieved primacy, one that trumps even the glory days of the 45 single and "American Top 40."
Something similar is happening at the movies.
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