I completely agree with Dramnek here. And yes, I'm one of those persons who didn't only start buying more CD's because of Napster/AudioGalaxy, but also expanded his taste drastically to a point that any billboard chart music is just not interesting at all anymore. Like Dramnek said, the record companies are only trying to place it the safe way and keep coming up with things they think the people want, the same old boyband/teenage singer/nu metalband/r&b or hiphopact/etc. over and over and over again. Cliche after cliche, and since many people's tastes are heavily influenced by the music which is often played on the radio and tv, these big record companies are actually deciding what's "hot" or not. The many bands who never get any exposure at all on radio and tv may get incredibly good album reviews, hardly anyone is actually going to head to the record store (in the hope it can even be found there!) to listen to a sample of the music, at least not as many people who get Britney Spears stuffed in their face day after day.
Now however there's suddenly the mp3, and even more interesting, the mp3 filesharing program. Music fans now have the ability to download those songs from artists (especially signed by smaller or independent record companies) they've read about but never really had a good opportunity to check out, because the acts from the bigger companies take up all the radio and tv airplay and/or the CD's are hard to find. People get to listen this hardly ever played music more often because of the mp3s and instead of buying the CD's the bigger companies used to stuff in their face, they decide to buy CD's from those smaller acts instead. Big companies get pissed and start lawsuits, while smaller acts get more publicity than they would ever had in the old situation.
Examples of bands of whom I don't think they would have become really big in the old situation: Rammstein, Blink 182, the entire nu metal wave. And those are just the acts which were overtaken and cloned by the bigger companies soon thereafter (and also acts I don't really like, but alas
).
As for myself? My taste has changed drastically over the past few years, starting 3 years ago with Napster, from middle-of-the-road rock to way more varied and experimental music. Only last month I have bought CD's from bands like Motorpsycho, Beulah, De Kift, The Notwist, Pavement, Queens of the Stone Age, And you will know us by the trail of dead, Sonic Youth, Sunny Day Real Estate, Einstürzende Neubauten. And earlier on CD's from acts like Seafood, Fireside, Godspeed You Black Emperor!, Sigur Ros, Fiona Apple, Autopulver, Caesar, Low, Sparklehorse, Pinback and Day One. And the list goes on and on... And you know what? Most of those acts I'd never even have gone into if there weren't mp3s of them available online. And I'm just one of many music fans...
And yes, Leonis, it's illegal. But if you just look upon it from a neutral perspective, it's only harmful for the big record companies who don't care about signing and promoting original acts but try to focus on the category of people who don't really like music in the first place, or are still too young to look beyond boybands or shameless coverversions of older hitsongs. The big record companies are the ones with the monopoly position when it comes to radio/tv airplay, and they like to keep it that way on the Internet as well.
Both Napster and AudioGalaxy have done miracles for the smaller record companies and many beginning acts, as it was the best publicity for them they could never have dreamed of in the pre-Napster period. [img]smile.gif[/img]
[ 06-18-2002, 04:45 PM: Message edited by: Grojlach ]