Reply #43: File Sharing Myths

[NashVegas]

File sharing is not causing sales to go down. Well, maybe for Britney Spears and Madonna it is, and if so, that's as it should be. OTOH, a couple of years ago, I had a 17 year old Swedish kid (ICQ) ask me to recommend a band to him. I gave him the name of 4 Replacements tunes to seek out on Napster. Two weeks later he was living in nirvana from the 5 albums he'd bought and loved as a result. Albums that never got played on mainstream radio.

The problem is how radio and records work together. Labels will decide what they are going to budget for promotion; radio will play the suckiest act in the world if they are convinced a label is going to devote major resources to MAKING that act a hit. They won't look or listen twice at the best album of the year if they don't think it will get support.


Kids own computers the way their parents owned rock. That's why sales are down. Not because little Jimmy is downloading songs, but because if Jimmy has to decide between buying comp. supplies and buying a fucking John Mayer CD, the supplies win. And if he gets curious enough, he can download. And if he thinks it's good, *maybe* he'll buy.

And Jimmy can do things with him computer Alan Turing never imagined in much the same way Jimi Hendrix did things Les Paul never thought of. Jimmy can find things to do with him computer from online message boards and other geeks, who are freely posting about things they think are cool, just like the way your favorite DJ used to be able to pick out and play music they thought was cool, in the days before their station managers turned to computers to control the playlist (how ironic is that?).

Bottom line: sales are down because record labels refuse to let the youngest generations of record buyers decide for themselves, what should be promoted and be popular.