Ready for a statement that will shock you to your very core? People don't buy albums anymore. "WHAT??" Yes, it's true. Calm down. Ever since the advent of Napster, musicians have been trying to figure out a way to move physical copies of their albums to a public that would rather download individual songs off iTunes. (Or through shadier, legally-iffy venues.) So what's an artist to do when they've sunk hours of hard work and literally pounds of cocaine into crafting a cohesive album and desperately wants consumers to listen to it the way people once listened to Pink Floyd? Well, they could go the route of 2010 Kanye West, creating a grandiose and complex masterpiece that made critics and fans alike gobble up every last morsel like it was their last meal on death row. That seemed to work pretty well. Or they could hide copies of their album inside an active volcano and force diehard fans to repel into the depths of potential magma to secure a 5-song EP of rough demos from the fissure vents before the lava melts their hands. Whichever. They both seem like good ideas...
