perspectives on the music industry

because i'm in the music industry, and specifically, working on the future of music, about 15 people forwarded me this article in the nytimes about rick rubin. if you don't subscribe to the times, you can probably find it excerpted on the web somewhere.

however, no one forwarded me this blog post by the craziest man in the music blog biz, bob lefsetz.
i say crazy in the sense of that lefsetz really is crazy, but in this new game, that isn't always a bad thing. for a first rate example, read lefsetz's full post. his money line is this:
"The youth come up with Facebook. Columbia comes up with Rick Rubin. Where would YOU put your money?"

basically, his point is this - when the going gets tough, you have to ask tough questions, and actually answer those questions. you can't just do things a different way without examining why. especially when different just means a different way of doing the same old thing.