Or to clarify, they'll no longer have a "CD Single" section. They will more than likely still import and sell "worthy" collector singles and simply stock them within the main section for that artist (for example, the various Metallica and Tori Amos singles).

In response, Chaos Music celebrates CD singles [Undercover]. Chaos are purely online and so do not have the store space issues that JB HiFi does.

The CD Single section of JB shrunk only recently to a section barely a metre wide. In the past few months the games section has grown, the DVD section has remained static, and the CD sections (albums included) have shrunk to fit.

Personally, the CD Single has been dead to me for years. I used to buy CD singles for the b-sides. Modern CD singles don't tend to have interesting b-sides, besides remixes.

B-sides as we previously knew them have moved to be bonus tracks on special editions of the album, or included on bonus discs, perhaps a special EP release, or worst, included in iTunes only bonuses to albums, encouraging you to buy digital.

Today, if you have an album for sale on iTunes, and you can purchase songs from that album individually, every song on that album is instantly a "single".

Case in point... without needing to lift a finger, Michael Jackson has sold almost 3 millions digital songs. He holds six of the top ten downloads on iTunes. In the past this would have required a rush release of physical CD singles.

For months we have had cases of songs being in the top ten without having a physical release (The Black Eyed Peas currently hold the number one with a digital only single).

What the loss of the CD Single means is that this will become the norm rather than the exception... and that it could be entirely possible for a song to be digital only and never see a physical release.

This therefore means there could be hundreds of popular songs in the near future that are never available on a loss-less format, forever existing digitally and lossy compressed.

This makes me sad.

However, it could mean a return to the early days of music, where bands released single after single, and only compiled an album when they had enough songs ready to go. For pop bands, that would be great.

But I presume there will remain a place for the CD album for a long time yet. There are still fans of a good crafted album. I think...