Oooo, talk about your artistic temperaments. For music-lovin' plebs like us, the iTunes Music Store represents a minor revolution in the way that we can discover, purchase, and enjoy music, but apparently to artistes the likes of Linkin Park and Metallica, the iTMS represents no less a destructive force than an insidious corruption of their unique and creative vision. Why? Because it allows uncultured shmoes like us to purchase songs one at a time, instead of buying the whole album. Truly, the muses themselves do weep at such a transgression.

That's why, according to a Reuters article, you won't find any music by Linkin Park, Metallica, Green Day, or the Red Hot Chili Peppers showing up on the iTMS anytime soon: Apple requires that each song offered on its service be available for purchase individually for 99 cents, and reportedly the above artists "would rather not contribute to the demise of the album format." Never mind that over 40% of the songs sold via Apple's music service were sold as part of complete albums; according to these guys, consumers have to protected from their own ignorance: listen to each song in the context in which it was envisioned, or don't listen to it at all.

Which is, of course, hypocrisy at its most laughable. We're going to give each of these bands the total benefit of the doubt, here, and assume that they aren't just occasionally noticing that they have ten new songs and throwing 'em on a disc willy-nilly: we are going to grant that they really are conceiving each album as a complete work of art. (You may well choose to be less kind.) But if these guys are so deathly opposed to people hearing their songs out of the context of the whole, why does Green Day have a greatest hits album called International Superhits!? Why do the Chili Peppers have one called What Hits!? And what about non-downloadable individual song releases, like Metallica's CD single of "One"? Heck, for that matter, if access to single songs is such an affront to their high-falutin' artistic vision, why aren't these bands blocking their songs from radio airplay, unless the stations agree to play the entire album in its entirety?

Don't get us wrong, here; we're not anti-album by any stretch of the imagination. Some of the greatest music in human history was conceived and executed as a complete album, and we're not suggesting that, say, David Bowie's The Rise And Fall of Ziggy Stardust And The Spiders From Mars be disassembled and sold purely as unconnected parts. But at the same time we don't see the harm in somebody being allowed to buy and enjoy just "Suffragette City" if he or she so desires. Offer it both ways; if the album is good (relatively speaking), people will buy it. Apple's own iTMS sales statistics back that up. If, on the other hand, there's only one good song and the rest is lame filler, well, the sales will probably reflect that situation.

Which is probably, to be perfectly pessimistic about this whole issue, exactly why single song downloads scare certain people in the recording industry even more so than the concept of karma does: if consumers are allowed to pay a buck for one good song instead of fifteen bucks for one good song and nine crappy ones, the entire system collapses under the weight of its own crapulence and a whole lot of rich, evil people in suits might actually have to get real jobs for a change. Metallica's management company can claim it's more of a "creative issue than a financial issue" all it wants, but if you ask us, the whole thing smells of trying to prop up an age-old machine designed to maximize the production of filthy lucre and has next to nothing to do with the actual creation of music. ("The artists? Who are they?")

That's why we're just a leetle bit suspicious that we're not hearing these alleged protests from the musicians themselves, but rather from their management companies. Not that the bands can't be evil money-grubbing corporate sellouts, of course, but hey, we always try to be optimistic about something.