My point is that your boycott isn't going to be felt by the executives or the artists (the "fat cats"). It'll be that guy that fetches supplies or the janitor at the studio or some other person that starts getting minimum wage. Take that as you will - I certainly don't think that you pay for a CD thinking of the dude who tuned the guitars, but I'm just throwing that idea out there.
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Originally Posted by Ilow
As for the promotion, i wholeheartedly agree with Seaver, it only takes one or two Ashley Simpsons to realize that most of these record companies are not making the music available to us as much as shoving it down our throat. It's too bad that there's not a more democratic process for selecting which artists are produced; I'm sure each of us knows a half dozen bands or artists who are amazingly talented and just need "that big break."
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Well, the truth is that record companies are out for nothing other than to make money. Because of that, the process they have for selecting artists actually is rather democratic - you're supposed to vote with your dollars. Each of you may indeed know of half a dozen bands looking for a break, but you won't be able to agree on them - otherwise the break would have already happened. It isn't like Sony/Universal et al aren't spending a lot of money to figure out what you are likely to pay for... Like it or not, as Kutulu pointed out, A. Simpson brings the dollars in - and revenues from her sales do two things (other than provide paychecks). First, they encourage the label to make more records with her and more records like her. Second, they subsidize the production of other things that won't make money. This might be your favorite "indie" group, or it might be the entire jazz and classical division...
My next point doesn't really contradict you, but people should realize that online distribution won't make music any cheaper. Hell, in a CD, the most expensive thing you buy (in terms of physical objects) is the liner notes, not the disc itself. You might get to pay less online because the packaging is different - meaning you only buy the tracks you want, but the production cost is essentially the same. The money goes into making the master copy of the album, not the copies people buy.
There is another change that this sort of distribution will bring. Bands won't record "albums" anymore. The days of an album sold as a group of songs that are meant to be listened to in order, all in one chunk, with a planned sequence of tension and ideas are numbered. There won't be a way to get people to buy such a thing, let alone listen to it. Bands and labels will just have to strive to churn out hits. On ther surface, this may seem like a good thing, but it will only lead to further dumbing down the music for the audience. I don't know that there is a solution for this, but I see it as a major ramification of the changing distribution systems.