Some people think the traditional album is on its way out as ipod users look for singles to add to their digital collection.
As for the concept album ... well, that may have been a big thing 25 years ago but it's all but extinct now, certainly in the mainstream.
But Evermore, arguably New Zealand's biggest band -- at least in all genres bar comedy -- is out to revive it. And anyone hoping for another Light Surrounding You will have to go back to watching carbon emission-filled TVNZ promos, at least for this album.
Their third album offering, Truth Of The World: Welcome To The Show, puts behind them the pop tunes that made them big in Australia and New Zealand for an album which takes aim at popular media culture.
The album takes listeners through news broadcast on Truth Of The World, a Fox News-type channel with a greater celebrity focus and which encourages listeners to enhance their experience with a drug called Truthogen, "your new best friend".
And if fans - and the band - continue to enjoy it, it may not be the only time Evermore visits Truth Of The World, as there is plenty of material left which didn't make the album.
"The first album leaves you on a bit of a cliffhanger," singer Jon Hume says.
"We have written the second part of the story, we haven't finished recording the songs, but we're not really sure what we're going to do with it.
"We're going to wait and see, we'll see what happens with this one first." He said the band -- he and brothers Pete and Dann -- have had more fun making this album than their previous two, Dreams and Real Life.
"We kind of threw out the rulebook and whatever came into mind we tried it out to see what happened," he says.
"We really wanted to challenge ourselves to go somewhere new musically." To go with their concept, the sound on Truth Of The World is much edgier and heavier.
"There's songs that are quite orchestral and symphonic and then songs that are quite electronic and have a much more dominant rhythm section," Jon Hume says.
"I think it's the most danceable album we've ever made." The album is very cynical towards mass media -- the single Hey Boys And Girls tells listeners in the voice of fictional reporter Donovan Earl that "we're here to entertain, so disconnect your brain".
But the band says the album is not anti-media, particularly as they realise they're part of the media themselves.
"We're poking fun at a lot of things, sometimes ourselves in this record, and it's not a complete downer, there's quite a bit of humour there as well," he says.
"We're musicians, we're part of the media, we use it every day, that's how we get our music out there, and we do interviews," Pete adds.
"We're all part of it, and the same as consumers reading gossip mags. It can be fun and that's part of the way we're doing it, in a way we're kind of wallowing in it." Evermore understand that selling a concept album to the ipod generation might be difficult, but they say it's worth it to follow an concept which they say is the most enjoyable work they have ever done.
"When we started making this record someone was trying to tell us that albums are dying out and you guys should do something like three EPs, three lots of small amounts of songs," Jon says.
"But the album is perfect though -- just under an hour of music is the perfect length. You can sit down and listen to it and absorb the whole thing. Any shorter than that you can't get as much across, and any longer than that your mind starts wandering." "It's like if someone said don't make a movie, you should make about three shorts," Pete adds.
"You're not going to engage people as much I don't think." As can be expected the early reviews have been both positive and not so positive, but fans have been responding.
Hey Boys And Girls is in the top 10 in New Zealand and in Australia it's on the rise in the top 20 and on top of the charts for "Australian" singles in that country, where Evermore have lived for some years now.
The brothers say there is no plan for an entire video album release, but they are working hard on a multimedia live show which will hit New Zealand in June.
"We're going to be following the whole album in order in the live show. We're making the live show like a movie," Jon says.
"We've got these screens, the big stacks of screens, we've got a wall of about 200 of them and we're using that to get across video footage that helps tell the story. It's almost like a theatre thing." Pete says live music is probably now the most important way for a band to connect to its audience.
"When I was young if you owned a CD you felt like part of a club, you were like a supporter of a band, but if it's just on your ipod you've got thousands of songs so if you're into a band you go to see a show and you feel the connection." * Truth Of The World: Welcome To The Show is available now.
