Have we lost our love for music?

Hey punks! What is the word? How's everybody doin? Glad to see you're still checkin out the new blog and hopefully spreading the word to all your friends. Something had me laughing yesterday. I watched my show on Fuse and I kept thinking I was gonna head into Fuse this week to shoot the next show. I guess once you fall into a routine you have to learn how to break out of it when you don't have to do it anymore. Had me crackin up a bit.

Anyways onto more important things like rock n' roll! Well as I figured (as I'm sure we all did) Metallica's new album Death Magnetic was number one in album sales last week selling close to 500,000 copies. Apparently people no longer want to care about older metal gods when you can have the Jonas Brothers instead. Yes it's true...the Jonas Bros. sold more albums in their first week than Metallica.

What the Fark?!

OK maybe it's just me being biased because "bands" like Jonas Bros. aren't real bands and appeal to wider demographics being that their fanbase runs anywhere from 8-16 years old. Yet Metallica's fanbase is anywhere from 18-45 years old. Here's the problem though. The download. Yup that's what it is. Downloading has simply made us stop buying albums altogether (even online). But why is it that even though younger kids probably downloaded the Jonas Bros, their album still sold more than one of the biggest bands in the world?

Think about it for a second. The younger demographic buy the albums and the merchandise because they honestly feel a connection to the band. Even though younger kids these days still download music in vast quantities, when a band comes along that they all can rock out to they get up and help that band out by buying everything that the band makes. What bothers me, though, is the fact that that feeling you had when you were younger eventually goes away.

We get older and we realize that we have new things to pay for like food, rent, insurance...things that are absolute necessities. But then when it comes to things like music we tend to put it in the back of our minds and just download it. Now i'm not saying downloading is bad. I actually think it's great for music because you get to discover more. But when we download, we lose that special feeling of going to get that new album from our favorite band and uploading that record into our iPods and getting that kick of listening to new music.

Essentially what I'm saying is this. Don't stop downloading but don't stop supporting your fav bands. I still buy albums to this day for a few reasons.

1) I like having a record collection.
2) I still enjoy getting that feeling of opening a new CD and getting new music.
3) I try to support these musicians as much as I can.

In the end, it is us that decides whether bands stick around or go away. We are in charge of their careers based on the concert tickets, albums and merch that we buy. When those numbers start to drop then that's when a band either has to step it up and capture our interest again or fade into the background.

Start getting excited again. Try to re-kindle that feeling you had when you were younger and your number one band was coming out with new music. They make it easy for you now by simply going to iTunes or Rhapsody or wherever and just clicking a button to buy the album. You don't even have to go to the record store anymore. And don't gripe to me or anyone else about the price of albums. Yes I know the prices are higher and yes it sucks...but would it really set you back that much if you spend 11-16 dollars every so often on something that makes you happy?

Sorry Rock Nation but when I read stories like "Jonas Brothers sell more than Metallica" it gets me frustrated and makes me want to talk about things like this. But I think i'm on to something here.

Don't lose your love for music or for your band. They've been there for you. Help them out a little bit.

Rock it out!

Sami