Some of my favorite albums are "concept" albums;
Operation Mindcrime by Queensryche is one of the best examples. The whole disc tells the same story, and while there are some songs that stand well alone, many wouldn't make sense except in the context of the whole work. Much of
The Wall is that way, too.
Still, is anyone gonna try to say that it matters what order you put your Sugar Ray MP3s onto a disc? For fluff that like it doesn't matter, IMO (no knock on Sugar Ray, I actually like 'em quite a bit).
That said, I somehow doubt that the "single" or "track" will become the only way consumers identify with music. Certainly people our age and older have memories of albums, although maybe the kids that will be tomorrows audiophools will grow up with a very different understanding of and feelings about music.
There's one upshot to this; the compilation of tracks and the ordering thereof is an act of creativity in and of itself. What you include, what you omit, the order of songs and the way they flow is all very important when making your discs. That's one of the main ways the end-listener can interact with the music.
Or, uh, you could
rip 'em to MP3 and let the computer just dump them on alphabetically...
