Interesting Tim O'Reilly article.

One of the problems about the response of most people to music is that if you hear a piece of music often enough and have little critical musical facilities, it becomes familiar and comforting. At one time the now-common interval of a 3rd was considered discordant in western- world music by most people only used to unison, 4ths, or 5ths. So if you hear the current industry "playlist" often enough, you decide you like song x . You are "programmed" by Sony and the "music" industry. If you combine that with the "show-biz" stage and video presentations, Bingo ! , you have a hit. One of the good things that happened in the late 50s and 60s was that for a time the "Biz" got out of control of an industry that had fallen behind the current musical tastes. Whoops, correction made by the mid-sixties, and rigid enforcement and standardization of play lists brought "pop music" (and R&R for that matter) firmly under their control once more, and the independant recording companies were either bought out or marginalized. The result of course was the present ill-health of most music and the poor quality of musicianship. One of beacons that is encouraging is the indie labels and self- produced CDs, as well as the disdain for present product that is growing not only among an older generation but also among many younger musicians and fans. That I would suspect is a spectre haunting industry execs more than Napster and pirated CDs. It also relates to their efforts to control the i'net a potentialy very dangerous distribution rival. Lawrence On 14 Dec 2002, , Jeffrey Sharp wrote: lgwalker(a)mts.net bigwalk_ca(a)yahoo.com