Music

Do you ever wonder just how much brilliant music is out there that you'll never ever here?
The wonder of the internet and those many thousands of blogs etc that post music have over the years introduced me to tons of bands and musical styles I'd never have heard if I just listened to radio and bought music CD's.
Everytime I download an obscure bands songs from some blog just because I like the name and find out it's really good, or just go browsing through the millions of MySpace band pages and listen to some of their songs it makes you realise that you'll never live long enough to hear everything.
Plus there is over 60 years of stuff already recorded that I'll probably never ever hear, and in amongst it there is probably tons of songs that I would absolutely love.
Many of my favourite ever songs are album tracks that have never been released as singles, so the chance of hearing them on the radio is very small.

I still believe that a lot of artists record music because they want people to enjoy it, but if you've got to pay out over a tenner a time to buy a CD you're going to be choosy and the majority of people won't buy an unknown bands CD if they've never heard it.
I guess there are hundreds if not thousands of new albums released around the world every week so the chances are without the internet 99% of these would never be heard by people other than followers of the specific band.
It's nice to see so many high profile artists cottoning on to the trend such as Prince, Radiohead, Nine Inch Nails and most recently Iron Maiden all releasing their albums free on the net knowing that if people like the music they're far more likely to want to go and see the band or even buy some back catalogue, clever stuff.
But still the record companies are trying to hang on to their profits by hounding the free music sharers still believing that one day everyone will have to go back to the old method of having to buy all your music and paying the inflated prices charged by record companies.
Those days have gone thankfully, and despite the warnings of P2P etc killing the music industry, it is probably in the healthiest state it's ever been due to the rise of thousands of bands who got their fame due to the quality of their music and the ability of people being able to listen to it for free.