RIP Sgt Pepper.

The album is dead. Long live the album.

All throughout 2009 the slow disease was spreading, quietly, stealthily. The "bird flu" of the album, the Internet and downloads (both legal and illegal), all helped to start nailing the coffin lid shut. Sure, there was fightback; there was resistance like any body puts up when faced with a sickness like this. But the signs were not good. Now all we have left are the survivors, fighting valiantly by day and hiding from the infected by night, like something out of 28 Days Later or a George A Romero film.

During the last year, single sales have risen by 32.7% to a record 152 million, with 98% of those being digital downloads. Artists such as Lady GaGa, whose brilliant "Poker Face" was the top selling single of last year, have benefited hugely from this. Christmas also helped, what with so many people being given mp4 players and iPods. As for the album, it's having to try and fight back with downloadbable versions of itself. And what are we left with in terms of physical albums on CD that you can actually hold in your hands and place inside a stereo system? Susan Boyle's I Dreamed A Dream is the top selling album of last year. Hang on...just going to go and get the shotgun and take this sick animal out back...

Okay, so maybe it's not all as bad as I'm making it out, but it is an undeniable fact that the single is the new king of music, the great survivor in the digital boom, in the Age of Information. The golden age of the album - where an artist would release one single as a teaser before giving us all the juicy goodness of the other songs and often making the rest of the singles released somewhat obsolete.

It's not necessarily a bad thing. A couple of years ago I got the debut album by SugaRush Beat Company for Christmas on the back of two of their songs, which I thought were quite a soulful, funky kind of music. Imagine my disappointment when I played the first track and heard a loud cacophony of drumbeats and electronic whines that showed why we haven't heard any more from this group. I would have preferred for my parents to have bought me just the two songs now rather than that rubbish again.

There are, in my opinion, two ways in which the album could survive. Although "SuBo" (shudder) has been the top seller, close behind her was the aforementioned GaGa, whose brilliant The Fame just keeps on delivering. GaGa is such a creation, such an artist, that one could almost mistake The Fame for being (whisper) a concept album. Just like the glorious Sgt Pepper by the Beatles or 3 Feet High And Rising by De La Soul, it seems like an event album, something fresh and original. This does not mean that albums should all revert to this. I'm a huge fan of them - I got at least two albums by single artists for Christmas this year: the latest offerings from Jamie Cullum and Nerina Pallot. But none of these would have been top sellers (least of all, sadly, Nerina, who is brilliant but completely underrated).

The other way the album can survive seems to be compilation albums. The Now series is still going strong - I've had nearly every single one since Now 36 when I was eleven years old! Most of the time it saves money for yourself, because then you don't spend it on the actual singles, knowing you'll get them anyway for a fairly reasonable price. This does also mean, however, that once more you aren't paying for a regular album. No win.

The last post is about to be played. It's the last gasp for the soldiers in the ranks. It seems like the only thing left to do is something drastic - to go over the top. And we all know how that usually ends up.

Rest In Peace, Sgt Pepper.


Laters.