Agreed tht most of what the "music industry" turns out is crap. But that's the case for almost any corporate output. Nothing new there.

What is new is the technology available to eclectic/uncommercial artists to make it easier to get their music out to a wider audience. It takes less and less money to put out CDs which one can now record and burn digitally on their home PC. I have a couple of these home-made CDs at home that I enjoy very much. And I'd never have known about them or about the artists who produced them with out the internet. The computers and the internet are wonderful tools of which the folk and non-commercial artist can make great use. And that's just part of the new, exciting avenues available to us all for getting our creative output before an ever widening group of like-minded people. Sure, you'll probably never get rich doing that, but I don't know many musicians, actors , artists, etc. who are fabulously well-to-do. One does this for the love of it. Money's nice, but not the biggest motivator.

Now... one can sit around and moan about those dirty, rotten corporate greed-heads and how they're ruining things for the rest of us. But, I really do think that that's wasted energy. The solution is not to complain and do nothing more, but to find a need and fill it positively. It's all about living skillfully and ethically.

- Sean
(Now alighting from his soapbox.:-))