Around 1999 when Napster first broke on the scene the music industry was arrogant, brash, and over inflated. In those days even 3rd rate rappers like N.O.R.E could move a platinum albums without blinking and the strength of just one hit (In his case the Hip Hop classic Superthug produced by little known duo at the time called the Neptunes). The music industry had full control, the Compact Disc was THE format. Vinyl and the cassette had been virtually eliminated as a choice and the economy was still rolling under Bill Clinton. But with Napster’s creation of peer to peer SHARING of MP3′s you could get free music over the internet, so why did you need to buy music the old fashioned way any more? I found out about it in 2000 and i only had Dial up at the time so it took me like 15 mins to download one song but i just hit DL and went and did something else and came back PRESTO a MP3 of the Next Episode by Dr Dre.

So what did the music industry do? Did they try to embrace the new technology as a way to reduce cost to the consumer and create there own network set up based on Napster’s idea and deliver high quality music and a better price and guarantee the downloads didn’t have virsuses? NOPE they tried to kill it! WIth lawsuits, threats and strong arm intimidation. It didn’t work the Genie was out of the bottle, people were used to getting free music online. Computers became cheaper so everyone had one, and the economy crashed ensuring people had less money to spend on music that they could find MP3′s of on the internet for free anyway. Fast forward to 2012 and stores that sold exclusively music are going out of business and stores that carried a big section of music like Best Buy an Wal-Mart have music aisles that keep shrinking virtually every month! In the late 90′s it was nothing that 25 different rap acts would have a platinum album today you will be lucky to find 4 that can do it! Eminem, Jay Z, Lil Wayne and T.I usually pull it off!

All of these factors add up to a collapsing industry. and it brings me to my point, why cant they just sell CD’s for $5. The profit margins would shrink but it would have people like myself actually buying MORE MUSIC. the last CD i bought was Maxwell’s Black Summers Night in 2009. THATS was 3 years ago. If music was $5 the music I would’ve bought in the last 2 years would’ve been Melanie Fiona, The New Jill Scott’s Light Of The Sun, British soul singer Adele 21, and Lupe Fiasco’s Lasers. I get 4 solid albums to listen to for $20 and the music industry gets 1/5 of a Franklin off me. But instead all these titles cost $13 a piece at Best Buy, so im paying $52 and i believe thats too much for it considering it probably cost them a dime in materials to package it. So why not take my $20 thats better than me giving you NONE! As a concession some labels have sold their catalog material for $5 as a start. I recently saw a RUN DMC greatest hits package with 12 of their best at Best Buy for just $4.99. Its a start but new HOT stuff still cost you a premium. The labels in cohorts with there minions in the record stores (the few still left) did price gouging, going UP on the cost of Whitney Houston products to capitalize on her death and going UP on the cost of Adele to profiteer on her big Grammy win. How classy!

And what about the artist?? The music industry isn’t paying the artist worth anything anyway (artist usually make 90% of there money performing or endorsing products if they have that type of juice) The record companies used there money to buy Private planes for there CEO’s and swank coked filled parties and building big shiny buildings! You’ve grifted consumers too long and now the consumers have struck back. You MUST deflate your products now or its GAME OVER!!

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