itunes

“[iTunes has shown that] the natural unit of the album is the track.” This is a quote (more or less direct) from David Weinberg, and I was reminded of it while reading Chris Anderson’s article “The Long Tail” in Wired magazine, when he discusses the online music industry, since he appears to assume a similar viewpoint to what Weinberg stated explicitly. Put briefly, they are both wrong. The natural unit of the album is the album, and the track relates to the album as a chapter relates to a book.