Album sales experienced their worst week ever in August. The music industry blames their customers. Their customers blame the music industry. As I write @ the American Spectator, years of pushing horrible music on the public has resulted in terrible consequences for the recording industry.

Exactly. The only recent recordings on my Zune are country western or bluegrass. Rock and pop are creatively destitute and seriously rap/hip-hop is not music.

I hate to be an agist here, but my thoughts on this are that 'artists' of today are not necessarily less talented but are less creative and have adopted what the youth of today are somewhat famous for in looking for the easy way and a general laziness by degree.

Until this last round of musical artists, people had less and were sometimes forced to have creative outlets with little more than the basics.

ipods, internet, tv with multiple channels and unlimited movies and other media have taken the place of practice and creativity and the modern musician and the quality of their work reflects this. In my opinion.

Actually, I would suggest that the multitude of mediums out there has given everyone the false assumption that no more good music is being created...simply because you have to sift through so much crap to get to the good stuff. It is there...you just have to look harder.

The Arcade Fire...Wolf Parade...Stars...plenty of worthy bands out there.

There is so much new music -good and bad- out there that it is absolutely mind boggling. The internet has made it possible to find it all instantly. I used to listen to the radio for hours for the chance to record my favorite song on a cassette recorder.
I think it's great. It saves alot of time, and there are endless dicoveries to be made of artists both new and old.

That is why I'm gaining a music education with Sirius XM. Channels like The Loft, Octane, Outlaw Country and on and on play some great new music as well as old classics. You wont go back to regular radio.

Marty

And the great irony is that the music video, that allegedly made a performer's image more important than sound, is not to be found on MTV, VH1, or any other television outlet.