IT'S been an impending problem for a while now, but the closure of HMV's flagship Oxford Street store just a few weeks ago has arguably marked the final death of music in CD form.

The physical ownership of music is something people now consider pointless and space-wasting as they can store thousands of tracks on their laptops, stream music through Spotify, YouTube, 8tracks; and endless places on the internet. And although there are still some of us who may own a turntable with some vinyl's, it is more than obvious that the CD will never hold the same resonance within society as the vinyl did.

Yet, this was predicted. But what may not be predicted is its effect on the concept of releasing an album. In a few years’ time, will artists still be writing and releasing 'albums'? Perhaps, but the more likely consequence is that the album will be replaced with the personalized playlist.

Bournemouth Echo:

 With the online music hosting sites allowing you to compile playlists of single songs that you enjoy, or favourite/like tracks you can go back and listen to, whether will we be listening to entire albums in a few years time is very questionable.

People will just give up on CD collections, the beauty of having hundreds of songs at your disposal in physical form will no longer be.

Bournemouth Echo:

This computerization of music most definitely has the album on its last legs.

Due to the consumer obsession with playlisting, artists will have to begin simply releasing music - rather than an album, or singles. A song will be released online. And that's that, you can listen to it, and you can put it in your computer collection.

Listening to the flow of an album will be no more, hearing the tracks merge together, or the contrast of track 6 against track 7 will all be in the past. But apparently, CD's make great coasters.