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If iTunes has changed anything in the music world, it has been a return to a singles-friendly era.

In the CD era, "you had an incredibly cynical attempt by a very small number of publicly traded corporations to just leech every possible dollar out of music consumers," says Michael Bracy, policy director for the Future of Music Coalition.

Bracy refers to the fact that record labels raised the price of albums when they changed to the CD format, though CDs cost less to produce than vinyl albums.

Fans are still angry: Three-quarters of music fans say CDs are too expensive, according to a poll conducted for The Associated Press and Rolling Stone magazine.

"You were forced into this package, which isn't exactly the choice you wanted," says Paul Resnikoff, founder and editor of DigitalMusicNews.com, referring to CDs. "Maybe you just really wanted the three songs. The '80s mix tapes were all the rage but also a sign of rebellion — people listening to what they want to listen to.

"In the digital age, they can make any mix they want. In fact, they can have thousands of songs with a crazy playlist mix. It's all-of-a-sudden infinite choice and a total solution to something that has been bothering people for decades," he says.

Artists such as Prince have taken to offering MP3 singles through their Web sites, bypassing the usual business model.

Big Head Todd & the Monsters have taken it another step — giving away nearly an album's worth of new music, one song at a time, free through the band's Web site, www.bigheadtodd.com online.

"We took a long, hard look at what to do with what is the next album," said Big Head Todd manager Mark Bliesener. The band had several offers from record companies to put out a traditional CD, but "what does it really do for their career?"

Unless a band sells hundreds of thousands of units, the band doesn't see any royalties. The costs of recording and pressing CDs dig into any profits.

"The record has traditionally been the loss-leader to focus attention on the tour and the other ways where you can actually make some money," Bliesener says.

So given that the band would be on its winter tour anyway, "we decided to do these podcasts and release the record that way."

Bliesener adds: "It's free. You can have it. You can download it and do what you like with it. You decide what the single is."

It has created such a buzz around the band that its current East Coast tour is selling out faster than ever.

"With a conventional (CD) release, I have a four- to six-week window" to get people to pay attention, Bliesener says. "Doing it this way, I've got virtually a whole year where I can be referring people to the Web site and talking about new music."

Digital music downloads offer a level of consumer choice that's completely unprecedented, says Geoff Mayfield, senior analyst for Billboard magazine.

"Even in the heyday of singles, there were only X-number of songs released as retail-available singles. In the world we're living in right now, as soon as an album comes to market, in most cases virtually every song on that album is available a la carte."

All of which is not to suggest albums will go away, Mayfield says.

"The Bruce Springsteen fans aren't going to cherry-pick the songs. They're going to buy the Springsteen album. Same with Madonna fans. There are always going to be artists who sell albums."