>>First up the price of music
Yes, this is an issue. As Sean said before & I agree - extreme greed is killing the music industry or what's left of it! Consider what it takes to actually phyiscally make a CD-ROM & what the price of music is. It's close to 1000% mark-up! Yes, the musicians need to be paid & people w/ special talents are always rewarded more than the avg. human being. But, there are 601 middle-men in the whole music distribution scheme who EACH need 100% profit!! How much greed is enough? In this, too much is not enough! Yes, the music industry does not exist as a charity or a not-for-profit organization. I agree & accept that. However, how much profit-gouging are they going to do before they think it is acceptable? As it stands today, it is totally unacceptable by me & by most of us.
>>Is it the quality of the recordings that's an issue?
Yes! For many recordings on digital medium this is an issue. If you are going to charge an astronomical price for music, atleast record it to the best of the medium's capability! In yester years, the recording industry was learning how to make CD recordings & so one can forgive the mistakes made there. However, over the years, thru the world-wide knowledge of this industry, recording houses have made leaps & bounds of progress in this domain. These days it does not take a rocket scientist to make an excellent recording. It should almost be a given that anyone in this field should be learned in the art of recording, mixing, mastering (I don't mean that the same person should be but it's entirely possible that it is). Using Digital Theory 101, it should be relatively easy to make an excellent digital medium recording. Is that we the users do not demand this from the recording houses? Is our collective population ill-educated such that the recording houses can feed us any crap & we swallow it? As a parallel example: how do you think that, say, Toyota has become the world-class car manuf. that it is today? They stumbled upon it? Ask a Japanese citizen what they *demand* from their automobile. It is clear that Toyota stepped up to that challenge. So, quality begins at home. So, maybe the masses should wizen up & demand better quality recordings for even mass music rather than accepting hot recordings with significant compression in the peaks.
>>Finally there's no new good music.
This is a very personal choice. I always felt that music (literature, art) always reflected the sign of the times. If you look thru history, this is clearly reflected. So, this line of reasoning seems to be validated emperically. Today's times seem to be vastly shallower than times gone by & the music reflects it. Many of us accept today's music. Fine by me. Many others complain that "there is no good music". Perhaps one should ask them what their definition of "good" is. For those that I personally polled, I found the answer all too close to mine - that there is no depth to the music or the lyrics as compared to yester years. Yes, I have & am expanding my music tastes. I think that I have come a long way in the last 2 years & I have a long way ahead of me. However, there is some genres of music that I cannot accept as music. Simple a matter of taste & personal opinion. It is as correct as the fellow standing next to me. It is very likely that people yearning for "good" music are yearning for times gone by. Looks like those times have gone by.....Today's information age has certainly diluted our objective of why we are alive (my opinion). Our music certainly reflects that.
Yes, this is an issue. As Sean said before & I agree - extreme greed is killing the music industry or what's left of it! Consider what it takes to actually phyiscally make a CD-ROM & what the price of music is. It's close to 1000% mark-up! Yes, the musicians need to be paid & people w/ special talents are always rewarded more than the avg. human being. But, there are 601 middle-men in the whole music distribution scheme who EACH need 100% profit!! How much greed is enough? In this, too much is not enough! Yes, the music industry does not exist as a charity or a not-for-profit organization. I agree & accept that. However, how much profit-gouging are they going to do before they think it is acceptable? As it stands today, it is totally unacceptable by me & by most of us.
>>Is it the quality of the recordings that's an issue?
Yes! For many recordings on digital medium this is an issue. If you are going to charge an astronomical price for music, atleast record it to the best of the medium's capability! In yester years, the recording industry was learning how to make CD recordings & so one can forgive the mistakes made there. However, over the years, thru the world-wide knowledge of this industry, recording houses have made leaps & bounds of progress in this domain. These days it does not take a rocket scientist to make an excellent recording. It should almost be a given that anyone in this field should be learned in the art of recording, mixing, mastering (I don't mean that the same person should be but it's entirely possible that it is). Using Digital Theory 101, it should be relatively easy to make an excellent digital medium recording. Is that we the users do not demand this from the recording houses? Is our collective population ill-educated such that the recording houses can feed us any crap & we swallow it? As a parallel example: how do you think that, say, Toyota has become the world-class car manuf. that it is today? They stumbled upon it? Ask a Japanese citizen what they *demand* from their automobile. It is clear that Toyota stepped up to that challenge. So, quality begins at home. So, maybe the masses should wizen up & demand better quality recordings for even mass music rather than accepting hot recordings with significant compression in the peaks.
>>Finally there's no new good music.
This is a very personal choice. I always felt that music (literature, art) always reflected the sign of the times. If you look thru history, this is clearly reflected. So, this line of reasoning seems to be validated emperically. Today's times seem to be vastly shallower than times gone by & the music reflects it. Many of us accept today's music. Fine by me. Many others complain that "there is no good music". Perhaps one should ask them what their definition of "good" is. For those that I personally polled, I found the answer all too close to mine - that there is no depth to the music or the lyrics as compared to yester years. Yes, I have & am expanding my music tastes. I think that I have come a long way in the last 2 years & I have a long way ahead of me. However, there is some genres of music that I cannot accept as music. Simple a matter of taste & personal opinion. It is as correct as the fellow standing next to me. It is very likely that people yearning for "good" music are yearning for times gone by. Looks like those times have gone by.....Today's information age has certainly diluted our objective of why we are alive (my opinion). Our music certainly reflects that.