Who is this blogger writing with self-perceived authority on topics that he has such glarringly obvious anecdotal knowledge of at best. I swear, everytime I come here the articles, with their self-righteous yet naive analysis, get more and more annoying. Did you ever think that the reason why these big name artist have not been selling well over the past four years is because the quality of music has pretty much sucked ass over the past four years! And now we have crap-artists like Lady Caca taking over the world with derivative gay-boy party music ... I mean Bad Romance, seriously, who has not heard that thumping electro-pop beat in a thousand different club songs over the past decade. Shit is so bad that people actually believe her music is innovative. People don't buy albums anymore because artists don't make albums, they make singles, they make songs that sound like effing ringtones because ringtones are priced higher than MP3 downloads and youngins buy them buy the buttload. And regarding the decline in album sales, the counter argument there is the fact that countless independent artists are now able to have viable music careers as a result of the exposure gained from sharing their music online for free. Yes, those artists have to do a little thing called TOURING to make ends meet, but that's what you are supposed to do if you call yourself a musician. People should be focused on making quality music and performing, not trying to put out some overly produced garbage and rake in millions of dollars. If illegal downloading does anything it forces artists to create music WORTH paying for and have at least a level of musicianship that makes you WORTH buying a ticket to see... hopefully that is the direction we will go in once the dust settles and record companies realize that this bullshit they are shoveling ain't working anymore.