I have read several great articles lately covering numerous ideas of how the music industry should work going forward (what the freak is a futurist anyway??).  I am amazed at the number of theories and theorists who suggest they have the answer, perplexed by the number of cocksure people who think they understand the industry of music and baffled by the number of people who spend their time reinventing the wheel.  Most of the time, people are really putting form before function.  The same who say that the problem is not the music business but the CD business are moving headlong in to what they feel is the new medium.  Well good for you for looking ahead but are you really looking far enough ahead?  Have you lost the essence of the lesson?

Just because you figure out what the next medium is, it does not  make you a music man.  The vast majority of us are no Ahmet Ertegun.  A friend of mine once suggested that when I look at an artist I ask myself “is the world really waiting for this?”.  If you really are blessed with what it takes to find and nurture a creative talent which would otherwise probably wallow in anonymity, you are the filter and the foundation.  AOL knows that filters and filling niche gaps are the way to move forward.  They may not execute very well but they have the idea.  If only they had the good sense to team up with real music people who can guide not just the music but the culture of the micro-sites, they would succeed.  Unfortunately, for them, and so many of the techy elite, music is just content.  You may get the medium and can build a foundation but you don’t get the essence and will never be the filter.

Artists need a foundation from which to build and grow.  The public, now more than ever, needs the filter because there is way too much stuff out there and, let’s face it, most of it sucks.   Be the filter and the foundation.  Format is transient.