you have ramona summed up the dichotomy of the post lp world quite nicely. one need only spend some time at a convenience store on a friday afternoon to see first hand the power of promise in a get rich scheme like in that case a lottery but the same holds true for the big record contract. the fact remains that for many young artists the medium itself, the entire recording industries' procession of talent agents, star makers promotion moguls etc. is itself the end to which the music is simply the means. many young people crave the blinding light of fame more than anything else and something that almost by definition negates that, like p2p schemes, is threatening and must be challenged. the music industry didn't create that facet of human nature but they're sure glad that nature did. and they're more than happy to take advantage of it at every opportunity.
one of the most amazing things about napster for me was the discovery process whereby i would set out in search of some artist or song to fill a collection gap and wind up with the best tune i'd heard in months from a band i didn't know existed until that very hour and then finding out that they'd been around for years and had six albums! a case in point was komeda. i first stumbled across them browsing someones' file one day and soon i was playing this previously unheard of gem at one of my shows. this became a regular occurrence and almost overshadowed my original reason for using napster which was to find (known) obscurities, out of print rarities, and develop an unparalleled rock, pop & jazz collection that i naively thought in the beginning of the process last year would be complete at 50,000 titles. when i hit 10,000 and realized i HADN'T EVEN STARTED i evolved a new awe and appreciation for the sheer volume of tunes the planet pours forth regularly. and therein lies the problem that has brought us to this point.
but more on that in another post. it's memorial day weekend & we all have things to do & enough to read.
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