Today, I turned on the TiVo to watch something, and noticed that there was a video by MC Lars in the main menu. I like MC Lars, and if you are unfamiliar with him, you really ought to go check him out. While you’re at it, look into Frontalot and Lady Sovereign. These folks and people like them are new voices in [hopefully soon-to-be] popular music.
Anyway, it is a video for MC Lars’s Download This Song. It is a catchy tune about the fundamental shifts taking place in the music industry whether the music industry likes it or not.
The funny part is that at the end, there was no way to — in fact — download that song.
I remember in the seventies, walking in downtown and being pitched by beautiful young ladies about Scientology. One woman showed a chart to a friend and I as we stood on the street and discussed the relative merits and demerits of the psuedo religion. Her chart depicted a cartoon face in a range of emotional states; my friend studied the chart quietly for a while and then asked: “where is the happy face?”