So, now that I’ve gone on about how I feel about pop music, I’m about to
destroy any kind of credibility I may have had by going on about my actual
musical tastes.

Because I’d recently been to the Burton Cummings Community Center here in
Winnipeg, I wanted to hear some Burton Cummings. I did a search on 1000
gnutella hosts (just to see if it was there, heaven forbid I should download
any music, I pay for everything I listen to! Really, I do!), over 200
Terabytes of data, and got not a single successful find.

Then I looked for Dr.Hook, aka Shel Silverstein, who is to this day my
favourite songwriter. 0. No Sylvia’s mother. No Cover of the Rolling Stone.

The Guess Who. 1 hit. (American Woman)

Randy Bachman. 0

BTO: 2 (Both Takin’ Care of Business)

Plum Tree: 0

Cornelius: 0

Powderfinger: 1

Enriqe Iglesias: 320 hits.

Human nature makes me nuts. I don’t mean to propose that any of the bands I’m
looking for are -better- than what’s popular right now (Well, okay, yes. I
have a moral indignation to bands who don’t write, play, or for that matter
even sing thier own music. Which is basically every band in the Pop/Rock Top
10 this week), but there’s such a disparity in the availability of genres of
music that I’m disappointed by the network’s inability to reach it’s
potential.

I think basically what it says is that the RIAA have nothing to worry about
in terms of musical piracy. The only bands being ripped off are the
overproduced shlock groups that make up the bulk of their profits from
selling posters and magazines anyhow. Also, I suspect that the gnutella-using
demographic is exactly the same as the MTV-watching Demographic… 12-18 year
old girls and 15-23 year old boys.