“The single is now over. Not the pop song, of course, which blasts over everything from car ads to party political broadcasts, but the single record, which has now gone the way of the tape-to-tape. Just before Christmas, it was announced that more songs were downloaded from the internet than were bought as CDs or records in shops, and, this week, it emerged that sales of new songs were being outstripped by their sales as mobile phone ringtones. Downloading means no physical record, no sleeve, no artwork of any kind, just a piece of sound that will most often be deployed now by young people as a way of alerting them to another sound they like much more: the sound of each other talking. When the song becomes tired, consumers will simply press “delete”. Given that pop music has always been the most nostalgic of art forms, the new disposability might sit oddly.”