Music Packing—now

With the introduction of the mp3 and digital music downloads, it's quite possible to say that the sleeve or even the music's packaging became very much irrelevant to the modern mass market.
Packaging, the premium product and the charts started to accept the digital download.

The rise of mp3's and the current popularity of streaming makes the record sleeve feel less and less relevant in the modern era. It still exists because millions of old records are sat in them, and vinyl pressing plants still exist; but vinyl sales for a modern artists are a niche market.

Above is a screenshot of me streaming my favourite David Bowie album; of which I own on vinyl.

I'm using this album as a case study because I bought this record as one of my first records, and I bought it almost completely blind, based on the design.
I knew who David Bowie / Ziggy Stardust was, and I had heard his music before, but I had never actually sat down to listen to this album before buying it that day.

If you look at how Spotify (the largest music streaming service) displays the album, you can see where my argument comes in. On the left is a 400 x 400 square image of the album's front cover, though it's only there because I chose it to be there; otherwise it's minimised by default.

Then in the centre, above the tracks is an even smaller shot of the album, which is half coved by the 'playing' symbol. It's like this because for people using streaming services the draw of the record sleeve doesn't matter. There is no need for them to look at the high quality photograph, because they aren't purchasing the record, and there is no need to read any of the information because it's not a tangible item—all that is needed is the ability to hear it and to know the name of each track.

Effectively the packing is little more than the name and a small image; when compared to the 12", thick card sleeve that contains a thick circle of vinyl, and a paper sleeve is the previous owner took care of it.

If you look at it this way, it very much feels that for the mass market has no time for the record sleeve and it's relevance is all but faded. But on the other hand, with the recent rise of popularity for vinyl, perhaps there is an exception that proves the rule.