A Boomer With Attitude

Some Days You Burn the CD, Some Days the CD Burns You

© 2003 Dan Sherman

I just got off the phone with the president of the Recording Industry Association of America who called to personally kiss my Converse sneakers, plus offer me carnal knowledge with my choice of any of the women in his family, for recently purchasing a new CD at its full gouge price of $87.50.

It was actually $20. But it felt like $87.50. Have you ever seen a grown man cry, other than when his team gets robbed in a play off game? Well, you should have been in the music store as I gripped that Jackson firmly, tears of disbelief on my cheeks, the counter girl staring nervously at me wondering whether to call Ripley's Believe It Or Not, the National Enquirer or the men from the funny farm because here was, incredibly, an actual person actually PAYING for music.

But I have an excuse: This latest product from Corporate America was the new CD from Boston, my favorite band during a hazy period in my life when I remember being very interested in the twin pursuits of backgammon and Cuervo Gold. The CD was called, I am not kidding, "Corporate America."

Because I've played the first Boston album so much now that the laser in my CD player disintegrated it, I thought, "I've been burned before buying CDs where I only like one song, but this is BOSTON!" I just knew it was going to be GREAT.

Not everyone does their patriotic consumer duty and buys music. You could have winged a Beatles 45 (teens, that's a small wax record) down the aisle of this music store and not hit a patriot or consumer. I recently read that Best Buy had closed 90 Sam Goody music stores. Not coincidentally a second article reported that KaZaA, an Internet music-sharing program, is on 157 million computers, exactly one million MORE than have a bootlegged Sports Illustrated Swimsuit Edition Screen Saver.

I got a first hand look at music downloading courtesy of my 14- year-old nephew who pulled up KaZaA on his computer and showed me how easily he could pick any song, download it and burn his own CD of his favorites hits - like a real record executive, only one with zits who had to go to bed when his mom said so.

As I watched him, I flashed back to when I was in college and buying music was a Religious Event. Our favorite Rock Gods would release an album. We disciples would rush down to the Music Temple and pay our $7 offering. Then we'd rush back to the dorm for the Rite of the First Listen complete with the ceremonial medicine that the High Priest (ha ha!) had dropped off.

Now, it seemed so antiseptic sitting in this little kid's room, working at a PC that had more juice than my college's total computing capacity, plucking songs from the ether as easy as Elizabeth Taylor selecting husbands. But my new Boston CD was going to be GREAT!

So what caused this phenomenon? "The music industry did this to themselves," the music buff interviewed by USA Today said. "CDs cost too much money-if things weren't so expensive people wouldn't be going to these alternative methods to get music."

How true. For $7, you used to get 10 songs on a wax platter that if you didn't like, you could use as a perfectly good Frisbee. Now, for $20, you get a miniscule silver disk in a plastic case that shatters the first time you open it. For $20, they should enclose these in platinum.

Maybe if there was some good NEW music, people might want to pay for it. In my city there are 37 different CLASSIC rock stations playing hits along the decibel scale from Little River Weenie Band to All AC/DC All The Time. There's a station for "classic rock that rocks," one for "classic rock that shakes your molars loose," one for "classic rock that causes internal organs to explode," etc., but no NEW rock stations. I guess I could always listen to rap. Or I could have weasels suck my brain out. Same thing.

So am I going to join the Downloading Generation? Half of me says, "No, it's stealing the hard work of talented, dedicated artists." The other half says, "Hand over $20 for an ALBUM? I'd rather lie down in front of speeding Hummer!" So maybe I will. If I can find the patience to wait 2 hours to download one song on my hamster-powered two kilobytes-a-decade phone connection.

Oh, yeah. That $20 Boston CD I bought? I liked one song. I figured that.

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Here's an idea... let's put together one of those "Starving Artist's" shows. All the bands from the generation could get together and hawk horrible imitations of their "classic" music... or do really tacky paintings on velvet; either one is fine with me.