An open letter...

When Shawn Fanning invented napster more than 10 years ago and the program broke out into the mainstream it was like being directly lifted up into heaven-- All of us who really love music must have realized instantly that this was going to totally change our worlds, the mp3s and the idea of sharing freely all the music of the past that had been hidden and kept secret in warehouses, record stores, people's collections, or even used record bins. I remember it like it was yesterday... I spent days and days finding album after album I had wanted to hear but couldn't, out of print stuff, rarities you could never find in stores, masses of regular albums I could never have bought. You might recall when napster was about to be shut down in 2001 and we frantically tried to download as much as possible before the end doing all-nighters just like in university. Some moved to winmx, I moved to audiogalaxy where there was no concept of leeches or hoarding, everyone was forced equally to share and take because of the set-up of that system. I never really thought about hoarding albums away until I learned about the record collectors who were so unwilling to part with their prized possessions, most of which turned out to be terrible! To pay 100 dollars for what is musically worthless-- no one can possibly argue that this is a good thing, unless you have invested so much you are past the point of no return. Music is bigger than any one of us, it's for sharing. We are in a minority, there are not a lot of progressive fans out there, why does it make sense to keep music away from the few people who can enjoy it? To be secretive with something so valuable -- as we must all agree, this stuff is valuable art-- it really seems pointless. I have never heard of a writer hiding his great novel away from people for fear of it getting well-read and well-known. I have never heard of people hiding a book of poetry they love to make sure no one else reads it. Even jd salinger only did this after he became rich from catcher in the rye.

If a really really good album is lost forever to the world because the only people who own it are a couple of collectors guarding it in a bank vault safety deposit box, isn't it kind of a tragedy for humankind? I think because of my children I worry about this kind of thing a lot, and this is my reason. A given album on the blog is downloaded by perhaps 1000 people total, but this is in the whole world. And that's pathetic, out of a population of 7 billion humans almost. Instead let's try to spread the word and share everything.