I'll be surprised if the new digital album concept takes off. While it is true that downloading a track or an album offers less tactile pleasure than the old vinyl records did, the on-line experience is actually much richer and deeper. As I listen to a newly-downloaded album, I can easily access the band's bio, reviews of this and all previous releases, song lyrics, album artwork and anything else that is posted on the web. Any package that they put together is going to be a subset of all of that - probably nicely formatted and heavy on graphics, but all of that content will be posted and available for viewing very rapidly. Unless they find ways to protect it all, which will require cumbersome and irritating security devices that will raise the ire of music fans yet again.

I do remember the vinyl album experience fondly though. Whenever I bought a new record, there was always that moment of anticipation - would the inner sleeve be full of lyrics, photos and other interesting bits - or would it be a disappointing plain anti-static sleeve?