Saturday, August 11, 2007

The rotten music industry

Record companies take a lot of heat for ruining the music business, and rightly so. Unfortunately, much of what's wrong with the industry comes from the artists themselves.

Hip-hop artist 50 Cent has announced that he'll quit his solo music career if his new album is outsold by Kanye West's new album. Many may shrug and say "So what?" in response to something like this -- competition is nothing new in the music business. No, it's not anything new, but that doesn't make it good for music.

When we see things like this, it's the most blunt reminder that too many musical "artists" are really business people. They're not creating art, they're manufacturing a product they're convinced will sell.

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