People pay for media-less music all the time - Sirius and the music channels in TWC & Comcast, for example.
Personally, I want the highest quality format. I can live with downloadable content if, and only if, it is at least 16/44.1 resolution (lossless compression is fine), I can play it on any device I own or may own, and there is a method for re-downloading it should something catastrophic happen and I lose it.
Another important aspect is the ability to perfectly reproduce the full-album experience. For decades many artists made albums with a cycle of songs all tied together with overlap and auditory flow. Take Frank Zappa, Kate Bush, Genesis, Jethro Tull and others whose records were listened to like one long song rather than a collection of singles. I hate it when I am trying to listen to a real "album", like Quadrophenia, on my portable music player or phone and there are little half second gaps between the almost arbitrarilly defined track separations.
Personally, I want the highest quality format. I can live with downloadable content if, and only if, it is at least 16/44.1 resolution (lossless compression is fine), I can play it on any device I own or may own, and there is a method for re-downloading it should something catastrophic happen and I lose it.
Another important aspect is the ability to perfectly reproduce the full-album experience. For decades many artists made albums with a cycle of songs all tied together with overlap and auditory flow. Take Frank Zappa, Kate Bush, Genesis, Jethro Tull and others whose records were listened to like one long song rather than a collection of singles. I hate it when I am trying to listen to a real "album", like Quadrophenia, on my portable music player or phone and there are little half second gaps between the almost arbitrarilly defined track separations.