Are album's shuffling off the mortal coil?

I read this article today in the BBC News Magazine.

It's an interesting debate, which doesn't have a 'right' answer, but presents a ripe opportunity for me to comment.

Firstly I'm happy to admit that I download, a lot. It's convenient, fast, and cheap (or free depending on how legal you want to be). More than that, I can upload my MP3's to my iPod and have my whole music collection with me 24/7. That's a lot of music and a lot of choice.

That said, I also purchase and collect vinyl. When I'm in the house, I'll listen to vinyl rather than CD's or MP3's. Without going to much into it, it simply sounds better.

The main point however of the article above, is listening to an album, unedited, uninterupted and most importantly how the artist intended. The 'Record Clubs' believe that the culture of 'shuffling' or picking and choosing individual tracks from an album is contributing to the lost art of the album.

On one hand I completely agree. For most credible musicians, an album is surely the pinnicle of their creative output. And over the years certain artists have embraced this to an art form. Amongst others 'Darkside Of The Moon', 'Ziggy Stardust And The Spiders From Mars' and 'Kid A' come to mind as albums that need to be listened to in full. Certainly I enjoy listening to an album in full. It's good to hear songs in context and to hear more than just the singles that the record companies have deemed worthy of release.

However, anyone who knows me, knows I love to make playlists. I love hearing a song in amongst it's peers and musical influences. I love the juxtapostion of hearing Jeff Buckley next to Jay-Z next to Ella Fitzgerald. As I without musical talent myself, creating playlists is the nearest I get to creating something.

I certainly don't disagree with the dismantling of albums, even those classics. Even though it is 'art', once art is in the public domain, the artist no longer has complete ownership over it. People in the article have asked 'would you rearrange a Picasso?' The simple answer is we can do what ever we want with it, providing of course due credit is given to the original artist and we conform with legal copyrights. Music is constantly remixed, remastered, covered, sampled and shuffled. This is our right to do, firstly as creative people ourselves, but perhaps more importantly as the consumer.

Given all the above, I do really like the idea of listening to an album from start to finish, on a decent sound system, completely shut off from the world. In silent. I'll pick one and let you know how I get on.