Thanks for posting this article . . .

The last line of the entire article ponders who among the 50,000 indie artists will deliver the second SGT. PEPPER, and that dear friends, is the entire problem with the industry.

They are only interested in releasing nonsense like FRAMPTON COMES ALIVE II, MEAT LOAF BACK INTO HELL, and KISS ALIVE IV, instead of finding tomorrow's star, which we suffer for, because in the end, it is fewer good discs awaiting our arrival at the store.

Instead of dropping their prices in the face of Napster, the new Peter Gabriel CD is going to list for what--- $18.98, for a SINGLE DISC?!?!?!?

WTF?!?!?!?

The industry blew it. Their greed sent fans with money into other areas, like buying computers. And we all know what happened then, right?

The thing about Napster that got me really ticked off was Lars Ulrich making an ass of himself. For those of you who don't know much about METALLICA, they became popular when their song HIT THE LIGHTS appeared on a compilation LP (remember those?!?), and that led to their premiere release KILL 'EM ALL. Most people only heard that song and that band in the early days through cassette tape copies of the original vinyl release, even before they ended up at Elektra.

Napster was met with abject greed that was completely off the chart, instead of battling Napster with midline oldies pricing, and tiered pricing for the various formats, and along with the older releases, dropping the price when something is no longer on the charts.

Hell, that could have even got me my seventh DARK SIDE OF THE MOON.

So, by that behavior, Lars ends up forgetting that HE HIMSELF became popular in the same way he is bitching about now. Talk about forgetting where you come from.

Fatal error, Lars . . . you lose . . . .