re: #56 Killgore Trout

I think most of the blame would come from the record studios. From Elvis, the Brit invasion bands the record labels learned that there’s a lot of money to be made. A few companies ended up with a monopoly on distribution and radio play. Eventually they started producing stuff by formula and music acts were manufactured with a target demographic in mind. I think we’ll see a lot of evolution over the next decade or so as the old system falls apart.

That’s the way with pretty much all the creative “industries” these days. Remember hearing the interview the other day with Steven Spielberg about Red Tails, about how Hollywood didn’t want to fund it because it was a film with an all-black cast, which they felt couldn’t be marketed because they’ve pigeon-holed all-black cast films into the “low-budget comedy” category.