An Open Letter to the Record Companies

Dear The Record Companies,

Okay, you're making me mad again. I mean, I was already a little perturbed by the whole Napster thing, your illegal lawsuits, and Rob Thomas. But this is a whole different thing.

Please explain to me this new trend of releasing the shittiest songs on the album as singles. I'm completely boggled. This summer alone you've done it with Audioslave, Nine Inch Nails, Dave Matthews Band and Oasis, to name a few. For years you've been doing it to my countrymen, Nickelback, to the point where I sound like an idiot when I try to tell people who haven't bought their albums how great they are.

(While we're on the subject of Nickelback, are you ever going to release Curb for sale in the US? No one believes me that their best album has never been released in the States.)

But anyway, I don't understand you. "Be Yourself?" It sounds like Chris Cornell set his therapist's notes to a riff he found in Kim Thayil's trash can. "Hand That Feeds?" The least creative three minutes of Trent Reznor's entire life. "American Baby?" Never would have made it onto a DMB album in the 90's. And "Lyla," well...you may not be at fault there. I don't know yet that the entire album isn't that bad.

The only explanation I can think of for this disturbing direction of indecent indiscriminacy is that it's a punishment leveled against the public for all the money you still think you're losing to online song sharing. "Only buying one song at a time?" you sneer, grinding your metaphorical molars, "Fine! Download the single! And we'll just save the good music for the real fans, the ones who still go to the record stores! HA HA HA hahahaha heh...heh."

But see, some of us still listen to the actual radio. The old FM kind, with commercials and everything. I think. Sometimes I think I'm the only one. I don't own an iPod and my car doesn't even play CDs. I still go to the record stores (well, Target; this is Minnesota), but I buy the albums with the songs I've heard on the radio. That I LIKE. You know, Disturbed? Coldplay? For Pete's sake, the first Audioslave album?

Sigh. My fear is that the readers of my blog don't know what I'm talking about. They are all cooler than I. They have iPods and download music I've never heard. Of. They listen to The Current, which I'm glad exists but listen to pretty much only for the rap. And none of them, to my knowledge, work for a record company, but that's not the point. I take my soapboxes where I can get them.

The point is, stop it. I want to hear the good songs on the radio. Then, and only then, will I buy the albums. Otherwise, we'll stop listening to the radio. The few remaining ones of us who still do. We'll stop. And you won't be able to use ClearChannel to tell us who we like anymore. We'll just listen to our old Wallflowers and Rage Against the Machine albums and download the songs we hear in iPod commercials.

Please understand, I'm not one of those guys who hates you all and thinks popular radio is garbage. I love most of the stuff you shove down my throat. Nobody asks me what I've been listening to lately; they already know. I think you do a decent job of finding good musicians and putting them out there. Thanks for The Killers. Thanks for letting Beck do his thing. Tell Maynard to get his ass in gear with that new Tool album you keep talking about. And when you pick the single from it...well, you can disregard this whole letter because there won't be a throwaway on it. That's why we love Tool.

Cordially,
Joshua S. Fuller

P.S. - And tell Axel no one cares about Chinese Democracy anymore.