Racing Toward Extinction

I was terribly bored at lunch, so I was perusing the entertainment portion of the Sunday paper that was still sitting on the table. As I skimmed, I saw by chance a review of a new CD by Dido, and it wasn't the review per se that caught my eye, but the description of the industry approach to reviewers:

Because record companies no longer send out advance albums because they're convinced that all music critics moonlight as pirates with CD pressing plants in their backyards, we attempted to download the new Dido album from several rogue Web sites based in Russia, only to wind up with a desktop full of naughty videos (thanks for that!) and nasty viruses (not so much!).

Now, I know that the recording industry has been trying to kill online music for a long time, claiming that their old business model was the only one that would work. But now it appears they are trying to tick off all the reviewers who drove sales of their old model. Brilliant: Driving the reviewers to the pirates so they can hear the music they review!

They're doomed, and they don't even know why.

BTW, the review of the new Guns N' Roses CD on the same page was pretty funny. I suppose a review that starts out with "Axl Rose is an idiot." can't really end well for Rose.