No Rock And Roll Fun

STAYING IN IS THE NEW STAYING IN: So, the news from America is that a third of a million people fewer saw the Top Fifty tours there is the first half of 2002 compared with that all-important same period last year. Some of the blame is being laid at the feet of our old friends Clear Channel, who've hiked prices (the big fifty tours pulled in an extra 6 percent cash despite those shrinking attendances), but we think there's a broader point here. See, when record sales fell, the RIAA was able to make a case that this was because everyone was stealing music. The fact that fewer gig tickets are being sold, however, backs up the more likely explanation that the shrinking of America's music market is because what's on offer isn't encouraging people to pay out an increasingly thick wad of greenbacks for it. Unless, of course, the industry wants to tell us that people had bought stilts on the internet and were watching over the wall for free...
Billy Joel still doing well [Rolling Stone] - the news just gets worse...