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"What's an album?" That question will come from some 12 year old kid in about 5 years.

He and/or she is just 7 years old right now and all they know is their iPod and begging their parents to download certain songs that their friends have from the internet. When he and/or she will ask that question, we'll laugh at them and show them CDs with actual artwork and liner notes longer than 140 characters. Or better yet, find some vinyl circular thing that our parents owned that we can no longer play. We'll follow it up with the fact that we used to walk a mile uphill to school – both ways of course.

Every music industry resource you can possibly read will tell you about the death of the album. Some say it's 10 years away, some say it's 5 years away, some say it's here already.

They don't suggest that music will go away. Music has been around since we wore but fig leafs (or is it "butt fig leafs?").

Music is art for the ears and it will never go away. To say music will go away is like saying that children will no longer draw when you put a crayon in front of them.

These experts just claim the album will go away and the single will make it's triumphant return, albeit digitally.

They tell us that the "new industry" is about a band releasing a single every month or two instead of an album every year or two.

I don't agree with them, but I sorta do.

Don't -> Albums are not flawed by design. They're flawed because record companies have, for decades, gotten away with putting 1 or 2 hits on an album and then 8 to 10 tracks of cats in heat and charging 10 times the price by doing so. You know it, people were paying 10 times the price they should have because they really wanted those 1 or 2 hits.

Do -> No longer are we handcuffed to the album, but if it's full of good music, isn't part of the joy experiencing the songs as a cohesive collection? The first track counts. The last track counts. Tempos, keys, melodies, and lyrics count. It all counts when it's well done.

Now back to The Essentials.

We're releasing an album in 2010. It's one that will be very near and dear to me because we've been planning on it for so long. As a matter of fact, we've been planning it for so long that we're basically ready to release two.

So, we're planning on releasing one in 2010 and one in 2011.

And no cats in heat on either of them.

We have the material, all the pieces in place, and plan to make these recordings really stellar.

We're also excited to be in the final negotiating steps with a really cool producer to do both albums. Once it's all finalized we'll let you know his and/or her name.

We're pumped about the next couple of years. All killer, no filler...as the saying goes.

So, in 5 years, when that 12-year old kid asks what an album is, you can hand over our 2010 or 2011 CD with pride and say, "Listen to this kid."