What's Happened With The Recording Industry?

I went into Borders yesterday to buy a Handel CD to listen to and to add to the music library out at the beach. The selection of classical CDs was meager, and most of them were priced extremely low: $5.99, $7.99, etc. I found some nice bargains including a couple of CD featuring Holst as well as the Handel I was looking for. However, I was alarmed at the paltry selection and the low prices. What has happened to the whole idea of purchasing and owning music in some hard format other than digital?

Tower records went out of business recently. A few years ago I would have thought that Tower would never go under. I used to love to browse in their stores and buy CDs from time to time. Recenly, the Recording Industry group, RIAA I think, sued a woman for something like a quarter of a million dollars for sharing copyrighted music on the internet. They won. A rock group recenly announced that you could pay what you want for their music, or not pay at all for it, presumably.

What will be the effect of all of this? I worry about the future availability of music, particularly classical, jazz, and the other less wildly popular types of music. Is the record business caput? If so, what will that mean for artists, orchestras, etc.? Or, is digital somehow going to ride in and save the day?

Jim

"A Thousand Days Hath September"

I'm a Sinatra fan and have been for decades. I enjoy Sinatra songs when I hear them on the radio from time to time, but at this time of the year, in September, I particularly enjoy listening to this 1965 Sinatra /Gordon Jenkins album. As the album notes state about the recording:

"Tonight will not swing. Tonight is for serious."

The songs are mostly ballads full of nostalgia, and Sinatra delivers them with the suave, worldly style of someone who has been around.

"He has lived enough for two lives, and can sing now of September. Of the
bruising days. Of the rouged lips and bourbon times. Of chill winds, of forgotten
ladies who ride in limousines. September can be an attitude or an age or a
wistful reality. For this man, it is a time of love. A time to sing. A thousand
days hath September." - from the album notes written by Stan Cornyn

Jim