"Where did all the good music go?"
I've asked myself this question 1000's of times over the years. I flip channels on the radio constantly and never find the music I'm looking for. Who picks these songs? Not me. Not anyone I know.
I stopped buying music years ago. I don't pirate music. I don't steal something I don't like. Instead, I flip radio channels owned by big business that don't represent me or my musical interests.
Independent artists have given me some relief. I enjoy the Indie scene. Some of the artists are very good. To find them, you need to listen to Indie radio stations. Indie radio stations are mostly available over the internet, because regular radio is sooooo expensive to own and operate.
Now the FCC (really just an arm of the RIAA and SoundExchange) has decided to shut down Indie radio. Like most politicians, they're not doing it directly. They're using the SoundExchange/RIAA monopoly to charge Indie radio stations more money for playing music than they can make off advertising. If Indie radio dies, only big business wins.
Quoting from http://slashdot.org/articles/07/04/29/0335224.shtml:
"With the furor over the impending rate hike for Internet radio stations [that would put most if not all independent internet stations out of business], wouldn't a good solution be for streaming internet stations to simply not play RIAA-affiliated labels' music and focus on independent artists? Sounds good, except that the RIAA's affiliate organization SoundExchange claims it has the right to collect royalties for any artist, no matter if they have signed with an RIAA label or not."
And that is how the Indie music artist was gagged, because free speech just costs too much.
Me, ... I'm going to see if I can figure out how to work the scan button on my car radio. Good music can't stay gone forever, can it?