----- Original Message ----- 
From: "Roger and Allison Kulp" <[log in to unmask]>
> This brings to mind a number of points;
>
> *There may never again,be anything new to come along to completely revitalize
or revolutionize the industry,in the manner rock and roll did,in 1955,or
rap/hip-hop  did at the end of the 70s.Barring this,the industry is just
coasting on past glories.
>
This we DON'T know! Remember that teenagers...and, even more importantly,
the sub-teens to whom pop music is currently marketed...are basically
"herd animals." IF some brand new fad shows up...suddenly all of the
herd will NEED (or think they do) the available examples. Of course,
how they obtain the copies, as well as in what format, could be changed
by changes in technology (as well as what would seem to be an ever-
increasing decline in morals and ethics...?!). I'm still waiting to see
what musical form will eventually replace the current "rock"-derived
music...today's "urban dance" is nothing more or less than a
"supposedly" improved version of what James Brown was laying down
(much better) c.1962...!

> *As with news reporting ,the internet has greatly changed the way music is
made,and distributed.In both cases,the power has been taken away from the
big,globalist corporations.This is possibly the most exciting development,of
my,and many other people's lifetime.The old way of doing things has been swept
aside,and big boys at the corporate borg do not like it one bit,which is why
they are trying so hard to control the web.
>
The point is, the Internet...and similar digital developments...are NOT a
sort of toothpaste to be "put back in the tube"...! "Un-inventing" things
is simply not possible...even though it would be, in a number of cases,
advantageous. Further, the Internet is simply too amorphous to be controlled
by a single entity, or even a small group thereof.

Consider that bandwidth and file complexity/accuracy have been increasing
at near-exponential rates over the last half-century or so. In 1957, one
stored and exchanged data using 80-column "IBM" cards, and electronic
memory was extremely expensive with its use kept to a minimum. A quarter-
century ago, "home" computers had just begun to appear...most had a few
(up to 64) kilobytes of on-board memory, and two "floppy drives"...or,
if one was well-heeled, a 10MB "Winchester." At that, they were better-
equipped than the huge IBM 360 machines of less than a decade earlier!
>  Decentralization is a good thing,be it in media,in business,or in government.
>
> *Places like Stax,and Sun studios,are  considered shrines,and rightly so.It is
considered waaay cool,to say you recorded there.This will probably never change.
>
No...these are considered "shrines" by the baby-boomer crowd, who grew up
listening to the hits cut in those studios! By, say, 2037 (excluding
the possibilities of planet-wide nuclear warfare or complete ecological
collapse...!) there will only be a few doddering geezers/geezerettes
who dimly recall "Elvis Presley" and "soul music!"

After all, had (RCA) Victor elected to preserve their acoustic studio
in Camden as an intact, working operation (where MANY important recordings
had been cut...!)...who, in our age group, would have wanted to record there?

Steven C. Barr