The single returns from the dead, digitally

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“For me growing up, there was nothing like listening to an album that you could literally sit down and listen to from the beginning to the end,” she said. “It can’t just be about singles. That’s the purpose of an album, it’s almost like a story within itself.”

Avril Lavigne, 22, whose latest album “The Best Damn Thing” on RCA (also a part of Sony BMG) debuted at No. 1, is also still in love with the album: “I’m so all about going to the store and buy a CD.”

“(But) times are changing,” she added. Someday “people aren’t going to do records, they’re just going to do singles, probably.”

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That would have been hard to believe just a few years ago, given that the single — which gave birth to the recording industry and dominated it for decades — was virtually phased out at a time of huge industry profits. While there are still physical singles in stores, the numbers are so minute that Nielsen SoundScan doesn’t even track them.

“We tried to stop selling a commercial single because people were making great, great records and albums were selling like hotcakes,” says longtime music industry executive Steve Rifkind, founder Street Records Corporation, home to platinum singer/producer Akon, and Loud.com.

But removing the option of purchasing a single may not have helped the album much, either — and may have actually boosted the original illegal downloading services like Napster, says Mayfield.

“The notion that someone would jump to an album-length purchase because they couldn’t find the one song they wanted available was a naive one,” he said.

Rifkind acknowledges that “we are definitely in a singles market,” — but blames the problem on a lack of creativity and “lazy” executives.

“People are going after one hit. They are not really caring what the album sounds like ... They are not into artist development anymore. If us as an industry went and started developing talent again, and not worrying about one hit, it would be more than a singles-driven business again.”

In a recent interview with The Associated Press, Jay-Z, the superstar rapper and president of Def Jam Records, also blamed the quality of the music for the current climate.

“We’re making disposable music. You can’t make disposable music again and again and again and again and not expect anything to happen. We have these huge radio records ... and then won’t sell any records,” he said. “If you’re making just songs, they’ll listen to it in the clubs, that’s great, they’ll listen to it in their car, that’s beautiful. Will they buy it? No.”

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