Music
Ed Ward concludes The Wrong Fight in the new Tekka with The Revenge of the Fifty-Quid Man.
All the alarm about file sharing, all the posturing and politics, is wrong -- it's running catch a mirage.
Mass-appeal popular music, consumed by the youngest demographic of consumers, is in crisis, but since this music is largely a transient phenomenon, the result of a culmination of trends which have reached their highest level and, therefore, have nowhere to go, its crisis is almost totally one of marketing.
The music industry learned, for a while, to exploit the increasingly-global tastes of a cadre of preteens who all want the same music at the same time. That was especially convenient for distribution, but the channel isn't what it used to be and neither are the kids.
Meanwhile, it's a big world. Lots of people listen to lots of music. There's a much bigger opportunity now -- people who have real, individual taste and passion and intelligence. People who have wallets (!) instead of an allowance.
