For me it is most of all personal taste. While I acknowledge that not everything needs to be permanent, I do value the lasting monolithic form of album, as opposed to "pop up" nature of sound clips, ultra limited tapes and such. Which are meant to exists only in certain moment, for certain audience and then vanish. There is time and place for them, but the good album is relatively timeless. Absolute best and most inspiring albums something what may set up good standard for listeners as well as makers of sound. You know - match the level of Pleasure Corpse or Artificial Invagination, and you know your stuff is pretty good...
I also appreciate that things I like, are in format that lasts. I'm not the kind of person who comes and goes and does things and moves on, but it is rather life long quest and many good things are good references and reminders for perspective.
I was just talking with a friend who concluded that in upcoming decades, we might experience quite horrid situation, where past decades will be just one big black hole. While from early days of underground movement, till turn of millenium, you got hard copies of basically anything. Someone has them. Now, countless webzines, music file archives, forums, etc. all gone. This came matter of discussion after him trying to find specific COIL interview that was always there, and now, no longer is.
Even this forum - I'm sort of tempted to look at some of the relevant topics and think how they could be transformed into print worthy form. G.R.O.S.S. appreciation or such topics that could have some information value. While I keep promptly paying the bills to keep this forum up, nobody can estimate what will happen when unexpected happens.
