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Bulls#!t. - a music industry rant.

As you said, the music didn't die because of home taping. And last I knew, the music industry collected a certain percentage from tape recorders and blank tape.

In any case, it's my belief that a large percentage of the music industry is just greedy. If you ever feel sympathy for the poor folks in the music industry who want a bigger cut of your paycheck, just check out an episode of "MTV Cribs" sometime. True, not everyone in the music biz has a fleet of Bentleys and refrigerators full of $200 a bottle champagne, etc. But many do.

And they maintain downloading is "killing" the industry, too. And the RIAA continues their ridiculous witch-hunt, frequently going after grannies who don't even own computers, and schoolkids.

The industry pushes only the most unintelligent dreck down the throats of the consumer and ignores the wants of those with any modicum of taste. Go to Wal-Mart & you'll see row after row of run-of-the-mill crap artists. 20 copies of Britney Spears & Hilary Duff. Boy-bands. Toby "Boot In Yer Ass" Keith, and the like. Try to find a Miles Davis, Dave Brubeck or John Coltrane CD. Try to find Muddy Waters, John Lee Hooker, or even B.B. King. You might find a crappy off-brand 4.98 compilation, but an actual album? Doubtful. These aren't obscure artists, these are guys who are giants of their genres. At the Wally Supercenters, the Big K, etc. in my location, there are no blues or jazz CDs period, unless you think Kenny G is a jazz artist. Let alone artists like William Topley, The Jayhawks, The Minutemen, Bauhaus, Pere Ubu, or other more obscure artists.

There is good music out there. But it's not always easy to find unless you buy on the internet. And if you buy on the web, you usually get stuck with extra shipping charges.

And what about the countless dollars that downloading has made for the industry? What about the downloader who is hipped to a little known band that downloads an mp3 or two, winds up liking it & buying the CDs? CDs they never would have known about if they'd never downloaded an mp3 or two. 'Cause that does happen quite often. I know I wouldn't be willing to fork over $18 for a CD of an artist I'd never heard.

Here's what needs to happen for me to start buying new music:

1) Even the new-release CDs need to be sold at a more reasonable price-point. For example, $10. I think that's fair, since they cost maybe $2 to make and you can buy a far more technologically advanced and expensive to manufacture DVD for less than the price of a music-alone CD. Make it more affordable, and we'll buy it.

2) Give the consumer a choice. Instead of stocking Wal-Mart & Sam Goody with only multi-million sellers & the flavor of the week, make a wide variety of music available to the masses from brick & mortar stores. 'Cuz no matter how much you try to sell me a Godsmack or Britney CD, I ain't buyin' it. None of my friends like that crap either. Make it more available, and we'll buy it.

3) Commercial radio, by and large, sucks. In the major metro areas & college towns you may have a few interesting stations, but in middle America, fuggettaboutit... Even in the largest city in my state (Des Moines, Iowa-population around 250,000.) You have a plethora of stations, all playing the same stuff. It's either Top-40, Classic Rock, Country, or fluffy light rock. No real blues, no jazz, no real alternative music. KFMG was the last good station in Des Moines. And they went belly-up in the late 80s. :-( Consolidation is ruining radio & creating a culturally devoid world of musical "velveeta". So, you either download a few mp3s to expose yourself to interesting music that you would actually want to buy, or you listen to crap on the radio. Commercial radio needs to be more diverse. You don't need seven country stations, six classic rock stations, & five light rock stations on the dial churning out the same drivel.

4) The RIAA needs to stop treating their customers like criminals. Because many of the same people downloading a few tunes from the internet are the same ones who buy the most music. I know of several people who have downloaded stuff from the internet to preview it before buying. And they also have huge CD collections of prerecorded music of several hundred titles, and one guy has probably 4,000. True, some kids do download hundreds of mp3s & burn CDs. But do these kiddies have the disposable income to spend to really make a big difference? And fining someone thousands of dollars for downloading a song? What the Hell? These kind of bully-tactics are not endearing the RIAA to the record-buying public.

I personally have not bought a new CD for at least a couple of years because they're too expensive, and because I'm not willing to support an organization that uses tactics like these to cost thousands of dollars to people who have done nothing more than the modern equivalent of taping a song from the radio. And I'm not a downloader. I just buy used. (Usually on vinyl, when possible.)

Pardon the rant, but these ignorant RIAA people piss me off.

Peace,
Bobbo :-)

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