Great article, great reply, and I agree with Rosskol too.

I wonder whether today's kids, who are addicted to old Rock hits via RockBand and Guitar Hero, and who understand how to make and distribute recordings via YouTube and its future progeny, will manage to create a vibrant scene for music again.

Say what you will about the old hits, even corporate rock has a great deal to teach about song structure, timing, etc, and Rock Band and its ilk might just be the ideal classroom for this generation. And as we all know, Youtube is addictive as hell. A really great song, slapped up there even as a crappy little recording, might do the work that radio stations used to do before the advent of the self-shorting reporting devices that Mellencamp decries.

When it comes to music, I remain optimistic. On the economy, it's another matter. But hey, bad economic times will tend to produce great music . . . so at least the world gets something out of being so fabulously screwed by its governments and corporations.

Herring405