2 posts in one day, damn I'm on a roll.

I was driving home today, playing Kidz in the Hall's latest release (The In Crowd) on my Ipod. As I skipped driving down the block, it hit me, I hadn't listened to radio in a long ass while. The digital age, well really apple's Ipod and the apple care replacement plan, made it possible for me to never have to listen to the radio or buy CD's.

Judging from apple's brisk sales of Ieverythings I am definitely not alone. This got me to thinking, with the cost of computers, Mp3 players, and broadband internet connections declining, how long much longer will the vast majority of people listen to the radio? Think about it. Primarily, I used to listen to the radio while in cars. However, with the advent of the CD player and cd player cassette adaptors the radio was abrubtly cut out of my life. With cars becoming more and more digitally intergrated, as any Cadillac or Ford Commercial will attest, will radio completely die out?

Well maybe I'm being a little morbid, radio will live on, I think that there will always be people who will listen to it the profitability of sattelite radio seems to attest to that. But the CD's lease on life seems to be inching toward a close, with declining CD sales and increasing use of the internet to get music it seems that the internet is quickly replacing CD stores. In my three years at college I have bought less than a quarter the number of CD's that I bought in my last three years of high school. This is not to say that I bought fewer albums, the number of itunes charges on my credit card statements can speak to that, but I made fewer trips to the CD store.

The greater implication for the death of the CD format is what will happen to music distibution. Itunes has been a great success, but it essentially works within the confines of the traditional label machinery. Radiohead's digital release of in Rainbows is a different beast, done without a label, their radiohead's independant digital release might revolutionize the music market. Why shouldn't independant artists raise money through shows buy hot beats, make a hot album, and sell it to people through the internet. They can build buzz via youtube, myspace, facebook, imeem, countless music forums, and countless music blogs. Think about all the possibilities of actually doing this, the main and most important one would be real artistic Freedom. Had Nas done this we might actually be looking foward to an album with the powerful name Nigger, instead of a much less interesting sounding title, Untitled.

I mean there's nothing new under the sun, so I'm sure that someone has begun the process I've described above already. I wish them luck

in the meantime I'ma leave you with some radiohead, complements youtube:



enjoy!