"Now how the f**k did this metamorphosis happen? From standing on corners and porches just rappin to havin a fortune or more kissin @ss!" Good question Slim. How did music transform into such a lucrative business? In the old days, before record labels, overpriced concert tickets, and music stores people sang. But why would you sing if you could not make any money? The answer to that is simple, singing feels good. Singing often helps us release what we feel deep inside, whether we are happy or sad it feels good when we release those emotions. It also feels good to listen to music; sometimes it helps us to better understand what we feel inside when we hear someone singing about something that we can relate to. Music can both soothe and inspire at the same time. Music reflects culture; every culture has its own beliefs and its own style of music.

   American culture is a mixed bag of all cultures. We encourage diversity and appreciate new ideas and beliefs; we love all forms of music. Unfortunately we are also a very capitalistic culture, we also love money. We believe in supply and demand. One day someone realized that people love music. This person also realized that people would pay him money if he could supply music to them. And so the first record label was born. Business started to boom. Elvis's hip shaking was mesmerizing teenage girls all over the world. The overall popularity of music increased and so did ticket and album prices. Both artists and record companies became very wealthy. Everyone was happy, Musicians were making money and fans were being entertained.

    Now let's talk about a nerd who could not sing but still wanted to make a lot of money. That nerds name is Bill Gates; Bill had this product called a personal computer. He also had a vision for his product; Bill wanted every home in America to own a personal computer.

   Well the year is now 2002 and just about every home in America has a personal computer, looks like Bill's vision is a reality. In fact I bet Bill had no idea how much potential his vision had, you see another huge entity arose. That entity is called the internet. Anyone who had access to a personal computer and the internet also had access to an unlimited amount of information. At first the internet mainly consisted of pornography and second rate comedy websites, until another man with a vision came on to the scene. That man's name was Shawn Fanning (creator of Napster), Shawn too had an idea. Shawn figured out a way to share files on the internet free of charge. The files contained songs. The songs were written by famous musicians. The same songs were being sold to the public in record stores. The same public that was buying the songs in record stores started downloading them instead of buying them. The same musicians who wrote the songs got mad at the same public who loves their music so much that they sit at a computer for hours downloading that artist's songs. 

     Ok now that I gave you a little history you can go take a break; read a book, take a piss, eat a banana, have sex, read the bible, get drunk, download a song...Did I just say download a song? But isn't that a bad thing? No it's not a bad thing, unless your name is; Britney Spears, Nelly, Eminem, P.O.D., Ludacris, etc. These people put downloading a song in the same category as robbing a music store. They feel you are literally taking dollars out of their pockets by downloading their songs. They don't appreciate the fact that you like their music enough to seek it out on the internet and download it. All they care about is money. In fact they even are going as far as making commercials about how unfair it is to them when you download a song that they wrote. 

   www.richcyr.com thinks that today's musicians are ungrateful and spoiled. All they care about is money. You don't see famous authors protesting libraries because people can go and borrow their books as often as they want free of charge. Writers are satisfied just knowing that people are reading their books. Musicians on the other hand only care about royalties and propaganda. Musicians are blaming the internet for the current drop in record sales. Perhaps they should take a look at the current quality of their "product" instead of blaming the internet. Granted the internet allows us to listen to a CD and see if we want to purchase it or not. Take Eminem's new CD The Eminem Show it leaked on the internet before it was released and still was a huge seller in record stores. The reason why it was able to sell despite it's accessibility on the internet is because it is a quality Album. Let's face it there is a lot of crappy music out there and the internet just enabled us to smell the crap before we buy it.

    My message to today's musicians is this, There is no 100% way to stop music from being downloaded so stop whining. Why don't you focus on your live performances? They can't be copied or downloaded. Maybe the money a person saved by downloading your album will go to purchasing a ticket to your next concert. What is it you love about making music? Do you love to record it in a studio and make money or do you love the feeling you get every time you perform your songs in front of a live audience? There is an old saying "The rich get richer and the poor get poorer." It seems like in the music world "The rich b*tch when the poor get richer!"