Musically Enriched.

I have to give a big hand to the Grammies this year, and the musicians in general. I felt enriched after watching the Grammies this year by not only the integration of many disparate musical forms that performed live, but also by the kudo's that the industry offered their own. Seeing, for instance, the Foo Fighters play with Chick Corea, or Sean Patrick perform with Sting, and the entire Funk portion of the show, filled me with hope that the music industry has a future.

See I think the Same Old Pop that the industry puts out is really mindless garbage. Yes there will always be Christina Aguillara almost falling out of her outfit. But seeing, for example a band called Black Eyed Peas for the first time, and listening to their very uplifting rap lyrics filled me with hope for all genres. See I don't have a problem with this cross genre molding. Whatever your personal opinion of say Kid Rock, he is pioneer in bring Country, Rap and Heavy Metal together.

Please don't think I'm getting soft. I still find the difficult and challenging music much more interesting than the easy to listen to. But there is a place for these Grammy headliners as well as a place for bands like Magma or other RIO (Rock in Opposition) bands in the hearts of all music listeners, and hopefully in their pocket books.

Finally watching the much-pilloried Yoko Ono Lennon almost cry onstage when quoting John's lyrics almost brought tears to my eyes as well. This year the awards were almost a secondary attraction to the musical acts and the tributes to some of the musicians who have left our lives this year, such as Warren Zevon and the Cash couple.

Alas the awards were closed out by an important but ultimately futile new ad campaign to stop digital downloading. My personal opinion is that the quality of the music being offered to the public, and the competition for the 18 - 35's dollar from DVD and Game Systems far outweighs any loss of income that the industry gets from piracy. However I don't condone it either. But studies have shown, that these sorts of ad campaigns just don't work. The people that they are supposed to affect just laugh at them, and those who are already in agreement just nod sagely.

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