> Am I wrong to be skeptical about this?


I guess the real question is whether or not these labels are even going to 
be necessary regardless of format. If the main benefit was control of radio 
for exposure to music to drive people into stores, what happens when the 
paradigm truly shifts to internet radio and really independent labels? While 
I appreciate the effort to save the album, I think all of these moves would 
have made more sense ten years ago...isn't the horse out of the barn and 
beyond the horizon by now?

I'm not really interested in having books driven to Kindle, music driven to 
iPod and movies driven to my Blackberry (um...when I get a Blackberry), but 
I'm admittedly stuck in the old school tactile methods. I like to hold a 
book and waych TV/movies on a large screen, and I much prefer stereo rigs to 
music over a computer or earbuds (although I admit that 80-90% of the time, 
I'm now listening at my desk or in my car...and I do appreciate the ease and 
convenience of even the cheapest MP3 player over cassette/CD players when 
travelling).

Having grown up through eras of both singles and albums I still enjoy both 
and I still read voraciously, so I'd prefer the ability to voluntarily hang 
on to my preferences. And if not, I'll evolve. But I'm clearly not the 
demographic.

b