loren: Good point, I forgot about all the middle-men/women. I always consider the CD store, manufacturer, and record label (and, hopefully, artist) as the primary middlemen. Yeah, then artists, producers, and FRIGGIN marketing!! Yeah, gotta have part of my $18 go to banner ads on CDNow and Yahoo showing Faith Hill's friggin ugly mug.

But that's why I like paying $10 to guys like your record-label friend. Less middle men and, most likely, higher quality music than overproduced major label crap. I'll pay any talented folk singer at a show $15 for a CDR of their music in a cardboard sleeve. But I digress...

So, I guess the saying is true: "Buying CD's doesn't support the artist, it only helps keep the music industry alive." But, with low-talent rappers and rock stars getting million-dollah record deals, why SHOULD we support them? So they can be part of a pointlessly self-fueling inferno which consumes and destroys the collective good-taste of those who are blindly drawn to it like moths? Um, no, I'll mail my $10 "along with a self-addresses, stamped envelope" to my local indie label.

(by the way, Fatboy Slim rocks. I'm listening to his CDs now after not hearing them for years. I'd say that's tallent).