the fourth place

• How powerful is management?
• Who owes whom a favor?
• What independent promoter's cousin is the drummer?
• What part of the fiscal year is the company putting out the record?
• Is the royalty rate for the artist so obscenely bad that it's almost 100 percent profit instead of just 95 percent so that if the record sells, it's literally a steal?
• How much bin space is left over this year?
• Was the record already a hit in Europe so that there's corporate pressure to make it work?
• Will the band screw up its live career to play free shows for radio stations?
• Does the artist's song sound enough like someone else that radio stations will play it because it fits the sound of the month?
• Did the artist get the song on a film soundtrack so that the movie studio will pay for the video?

These factors affect the decisions that go into the system. Not public taste. All these things are becoming eradicated now. They are gone or on their way out. We don't need the gatekeepers any more. We just don't need them.

And if they aren't going to do for me what I can do for myself ... on my own Web site, then they need to get the hell out of my way.