OK, so Brooklyn Park isn't exactly next door to St. Paul. But that matters not. From the
Minneapolis Star-Tribune (you may need to sign in, so I'm just reprinting the whole thing):
Or maybe the music's bad
So the music industry thinks that sales are down over the past 10 years because people can download music (Star Tribune, Sept. 5). The industry seems to be ignoring the obvious.
They have been selling recordings by "artists" who shout, rather than sing, who apply a U.S. inner-city dialect to cadence rather than a voice to a melody. Or, if you prefer, they sell female "divas" who can't play an instrument, don't write songs and can barely carry a tune.
In either case the subject of the recordings is almost exclusively sex or violence. The industry has been selling cheap trash that is unlikely to appeal to anyone living outside the urban cities or over the age of 25.
As a middle-age, empty-nest professional with two graduate degrees, I have disposable income -- but not an abundance of time, or the desire, to fiddle with computers. I would like to buy more music, but there is little new material worth buying.
The industry can't seem to figure out my children either. My kids have the time, the know-how and the equipment to download but they don't because they prefer my music. The last concert my 24-year-old son went to on his own was Styx. Similarly, my 22-year-old daughter went to see the Guess Who.
So, to the music industry I say thank you for bringing me closer to my kids by not giving their generation anything of value with which to identify. Perhaps one of these days you will get in touch with reality.
Lewis Passmore, Brooklyn Park.
(crossposted from Hipster Detritus)
― Nate Patrin (Nate Patrin), Monday, 8 September 2003 22:32 (twenty-two years ago)
So, to the music industry I say thank you for bringing me closer to my kids by not giving their generation anything of value with which to identify. Perhaps one of these days you will get in touch with reality. This kiss-off (especially the last sentence) is funnier if you picture the dad looking like John Waters, lowering his eyelids, pursing his lips and shaking his head like Katherine Hepburn while he says it.
― Eric H. (Eric H.), Tuesday, 9 September 2003 17:58 (twenty-two years ago)