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  • Mezzanine

    • 6 out of 10
    • Massive Attack
    • "Black Milk" knocks me off my feet in this collection of moody and eclectic songs. Massive Attack uses samples and keyboards in a very unique way, but not all the songs pack the same punch.

  • Jagged Little Pill (Acoustic)

    • 6 out of 10
    • Alanis Morissette
    • Ten years after the original release, comes the traditional celebratory acoustic re-recording. The album has held up remarkably well. While it is not as meaningful to me as it was when I was sixteen,
  • Modern Lovers

    • 10 out of 10
    • Modern Lovers
    • This timeless masterpiece is little known, but it has inspired almost as many bands as The Modern Lovers' own inspiration -- and only slightly better known -- The Velvet Underground & Nico.

  • Aretha Sings the Blues

    • 6 out of 10
    • Aretha Franklin
    • While she didn't always have the best taste in song selection, Aretha Franklin is a must-study for anyone with interest in the human voice. She has the kind of powerful, recklessly passionate deliv

  • The Last 5 Years (2002 Off-Broadway Cast)

    • 10 out of 10
    • Jason Robert Brown
    • The soundtrack to this moving off-broadway musical is heart moving. The lyrics follow a couple in a relationship for five years, one point of view going forward in time, and the other tracing time fr

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News

C|NEt Cites Music Industry for Pale Prescriptions

Music executives got together at the Digital Music Forum East earlier in the week. They took turns bashing Steve Jobs and offering pale prescriptions for what ails the music business, according to Charles Cooper at C|Net.

The music industry was taken to task for several generations of abuse followed by wonderment at the customer reaction. "With all due respect to the high-quality bands working for a living, the studios have always chosen the easy out by shoving numbingly formulaic, bad music down the public’s throat. For most of the post-war era, that was the way things worked. Then came the Internet, which ushered in the revenge of the music buyer," Mr. Cooper wrote.

To date, the music industry’s prescription for success has been to sue their own customers and desperately cling to DRM as if it were a lifeboat. Ted Cohen, managing director of music consulting firm TAG Strategic, told the forum attendees, "We’re running out of time... We need to get money flowing from consumers and get them used to paying for music again." To which Mr. Cooper responded by wondering why a more creative approach hasn’t been shown instead of simply pointing fingers at peer-to-peer technology.

The C|Net executive editor hit on a key point: "...people didn’t stop buying books or maps when the Xerox machine hit. Customers will pay for worthwhile products, even if they can get free lower-quality copies."

That, by the way, is the problem Apple solved. A better user experience and higher quality music for a fair price. For all their conferences and forums, one has to wonder what the music industry has similarly accomplished.

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