I can clearly remember the last time I heard an ‘album’ on the day it was released. The Stone Roses;  March 13, 1989. In a squat in Stoke Newington with the legendary Phil M…and our friend M came round absolutely fizzy with excitement with this 12″ of vinyl. We listened to it on a record player much like a dansette. There’s at least three people’s lives in this particular story, and a sad ending (from what I heard) of one of them. I’ll save the detail for my memoirs.

Less than twenty years later I’m buying a new cd by Goldfrapp and listening to it for the first time on a computer. I could probably have downloaded it directly from the web, if I knew how or had the inclination.

At this rate of technical change, how will people be buying and listening to music in the next 20 years? Maybe they won’t be buying music. Maybe there will be an international overall of the existing system and we will all share things.