A great many pundits have predicted the imminent doom of the music industry, citing such disparate factors as illegal file-sharing and downloading, increased consolidation in the radio industry, exorbitant pricing, one sided artist royalty contracts, a young audience distracted by computer games and the Internet, and a distinct lack of artist development producing new superstars.

These days, technology, the fuel that spurred almost 20 years of unprecedented growth in the music industry, threatens to tear it apart by replacing objects and actual products that can be sold with a series of 0's and 1's that make up digital music. But for the record industry to embark on another growth period thorny issues of copyright, music ownership and solid business models for peer-to-peer file sharing must be resolved, and not just flouted.

As long as there are adolescent teenage boys and girls whose testosterone and estrogen levels are on the rise, there will be popular music. And as long as those same teenagers mature into 20-year-olds who want something more than bubble-gum Top 40, there will be an abundant supply of all styles of rock & roll, pop music, singer-songwriters, hip hoppers and the like. There will always be a music industry but it will look a lot different, with new companies like Apple, Microsoft, Real Networks and their ilk taking over the traditional role of the record label.

With the merger of Sony-BMG about to be approved, there will only be four major companies, and, if EMI and the Warner Music Group team up, as is expected, there will be three. That could mean an increasingly depressed atmosphere for music, but it could well be that the business can't grow unless it's leveled first, and then built back up.

The major labels are big corporations now run by accountants and lawyers and, too often, they just don't get it. It's a numbers game to them but music has always been a feelings game. You can't tell that to bean counters and expect them to have an inkling of what you're talking about.

To them it's more like "get me a lead singer" — sort of an androgynous blonde hair pretty boy type, and a guitar player who wears a hat and is very dramatic, and a pounding drummer and an olive skinned bass player — but no keyboards because I don't like keyboards, and we'll call them the Funky Punks and we'll spend $500,000 promoting them — and we'll make tons of money." (OK, I'm exaggerating a bit ... but just a bit. You have no idea - or maybe you do).

Record companies have a unique set of problems — they're despised by politicians (for supposedly corrupting youth), by Webcasters (for demanding royalties), and by their customers (for inflating prices). The Tower Records, the Virgins, the Sam Goodys of the world are having an impossible time just trying to survive. For the big stores — the Best Buys, the Targets, the Wal-Marts who account for 50% of a label's sales — the record companies mean nothing to them because they only account for a miniscule percentage of their gross revenues. The bottom line is this - the big stores control the music business and, to some degree, its content, too. (In this day and age major corporations are particularly sensitive to anything that might offend potential customers and one could conclude that music is being censored)

Years ago promoting records was relatively simple. You went to the PD of a radio station and turned him on to the music, and you stood a good chance of it being aired. These days, in today's broadcast universe, you have to go to Regional Programmers, who must go to their Regional Vice Presidents, who must go to their superiors in a way that almost completely eliminates music from the equation. With programming decisions centralized at the corporate level, most stations now follow a mandated play list. In some cases its just 14 songs per week - leaving little airtime for the introduction of new artists and, as a result, the majority of records go absolutely nowhere.