Interesting discussion!
Growing up in the 60's with Jdub missionary parents that were in their 40's there was no way in hell they were going to allow any rock and roll in the house on the radio, let alone spending $ that we did not have on vinyl.
My solution was to hook up my dad's SABA reel to reel to the stereo hit record while I did chores or homework. It was a great way for me to stay somewhat current with new music, and be exposed to a variety of music - FM stations were beginning to play longer "album" cuts, and played a wide range of music - BB King to the Doors, you know.
Fast forward to today - I could and do spend a chunk of change each month purchasing CD's, then put together and burn "best of" CD's for the car, working out etc. However, I will admit that my son turned me on to Kazaalite - and (sorry Hillary) I have downloaded some oldies that are hard to find. I also have used Kazaa for research - just knowing a snippet of the group's name, part of a title - voila - you get the info you need.
There was an interesting article I read awhile back regarding the sordid history of Napster, Morpheus, Kazaa etc. Off shore accounts - the island of Vautu?? sp? chasing down principles of the companies.
In fairness to the hordes of struggling musicians (I was a wannabe) I think downloading is wrong. I also agree that big record companies executives (not all) = casa nostra and regularly chew up and spit people out.
Bottom line, I would like to see more of this kind of promotion on the web that was posted a couple of days ago on this board:
http://www.cdbaby.com/cd/carothers6
You can listen to snippets of the artist's material and make an informed decision before you spend your hard earned money. As much as I liked some of the above artists songs - how can they get away with charging $16 for a CD from a relatively unknown artist?
The listening stations at many music stores do something similar, but who has the time to spend hours standing on their tired feet sampling tracks?
Clearly, the entire industry is in a state of flux and in my opinion, needs a http://rdmedicalonline.com/prodpage.cfm?Cat_Selected=11&SubCat_Selected=48&Product_Selected=DYND70102
Mak
OK - done rambling for the day.