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No guitar virtuosity? Are you joking?

Here try this: Necrophagist - Stabwound

Or this if you prefer cheesy: Dragonforce - Fury of the Storm (sorry, couldn't find a good mp3 of it)

Or for something different I just discovered yesterday: Direwolf - Final Flight

There's plenty of good music around (virtuosic or not), you just need to look a bit...

Anything even approaching mainstream?

Off the top of my head, in recent years Radiohead, Peter Gabriel, Tool, and the Flaming Lips have all put out very good major-label records that, while not concept albums, are much more than just collections of singles. Others have mentioned Dream Theater; if you like metal and occasionally gratuitous displays of extreme musical talent, you should check them out.

I agree that it's sad that mainstream music has mostly abandoned the album in favor of easily marketed plastic shiny things. There are still a lot of good albums being made, though; if you're into the hard stuff I recommend looking at just about any band on Relapse Records.

This is cool, and definitely a step in the right direction. But for $9.99 I can buy a used copy of most any album, and get full quality sound and the cover art package (which is important to me, although my tastes aren't primarily in electronic music, which seems to often have pretty sparse packaging). If they were selling MP3/ogg singles for, say, 50 cents or less, I would probably buy a bunch as a replacement for things like Kazaa, which are mostly try-before-you-buy mechanisms for me. Still, way to go Warp.

Now, when Relapse Records gets on board with this, I'll be all over it. Those old 7" splits are fucking hard to find.

Depends what style of music you like. Some good places to check out are sites like epitonic & insound. They carry or have reviews of lots of good indie stuff, and a wide range of styles.

If you like punk/indie rock/hardcore, check out Dischord, Reptillian, Ebullition, Level Plane, Magic Bullet, Kill Rock Stars, K Records, Drag City, Happy Couples Never Last, Three One G, Load Records, Robotic Empire, Sound Virus, Exotic Fever, Lovitt... There are hundreds more. Most of these labels have MP3s of their bands, so check em out and see if you like em.

If you like metal, check out Relapse or Hydrahead.

Some of my favorite bands (which you should be able to find in the above sites) include Tragedy, Orchid, the Oath, Saetia, Page 99, Usurp Synapse, Q and Not U, Fugazi, Lightning Bolt, Books Lie, Killsadie, Pig Destroyer, Mastodon... and the list goes on. (Note : I didn't check all the links, just typed what I was pretty sure they were. Use google if one you want is broken.)

Admittedly, these record labels run along the more extreme vein. However, if you are into heavy/angry music, the bands you can find through these labels produce albums FAR better than the dreck you'll find getting shoved at us through the major labels.

As poot_rootbeer said, perhaps you should try some alternate sources of music for better quality artists! :)

Bryan

Try a few of these : (notable bands in parenthesis)

Dischord Records : Independent for close to 20 years. (Minor Threat, Slant 6, Nation of Ulysses)
No Idea Records : punk, hardcore, emo (Small Brown Bike, Hot Water Music)
Troubleman Unlimited : post-punk, post-hardcore, post-rock (Camera Obscura, Red Scare)
Jade Tree : all about the emo rock (the Promise Ring, Cap n Jazz, Jets to Brazil)
Lovitt Records : Indie Rock, Emo, some Electronic-tinged (try Milemarker, 400 Years)
K Records : Indie, Folk, Other (Beck, Dub Narcotic Sound System, Sebadoh, IQU, Make-Up)
Kill Rock Stars : Indie Rock (Bikini Kill, Sleater-Kinney)
Three One G : crazed hardcore, No Wave, some electronic-type rock (try Black Cat #13, the Locust)
Ebullition : hardcore punk, some emo (try Orchid, Bread and Circuits, Reversal of Man)
HydraHead : the best in metal and straight edge(Botch, Cave In, Soilent Green)
Relapse : metal, hardcore, tough guy stuff. (Napalm Death, Exhumed)
Reptillian Records : a variety of sounds, from garage rock to grindcore to rock'n roll (Page 99, Electric Frankenstein)
Revelation : More hardcore and metal. (Rancid, Brandtson, Isis)
TrustKill : Tough guy stuff. (Poison the Well)

All guaranteed (as far as I know) to be RIAA free!

Josh Sisk

If you're in to hardcore: Hydrahead
and
Relapse
There are plenty indie labels with music much better than alot of RIAA crap.