I sometimes wonder if artist signed to major record labels really listened to their fans, if music would take a different turn. There seems to be an outcry for change and usually it's the same dislike for something yelled out over and over, yet nothing changes. People tend to go with whatever is available and popular. If all you have are apples and oranges then people choose apples or oranges even if they really want a ripe, juicy mango. (Worst case senario is they choose never to eat fruit again and grab the bottle of V8 Tropical Splash.)
   Music at one point use to be a fruit basket of specific choices. Nowadays you'll be lucky to find just a slightly bruised piece of fruit that's still edible and not leaking onto any other piece.  Though when you're starving you'll just about eat anything.

 The fans are starving for good music and yet the industry is producing rotten records. Everywhere from punk, rock, rap and R&B, people are seeing a heavy decline in quality records, at least where mainstream is concerned. More and more people are getting their music from farms (underground) rather than the grocery store (mainstream). Have the record companies lost touch with what the people want? I think so.

In fact I think they're suffering from identity crisis.

  Punk sounds like pop, rap sounds like pop, r&B sounds like pop and pop sounds like disco.
Someone has been mixing apples and oranges and putting it on the market without tasting it first.

  Being a lover of all types of music I remember in the 90's and early 2000's being able to choose from different artist and genres fully expecting (and with success) to hear an array of sounds and styles. Tupac sounded different than Biggie Smalls, Brandy sounded different than Monica, Alanis Morissette sounded different than Fiona Apple, and The Offspring sounded different than Green Day. Switching the radio stations was more like eating an ambrosia where as nowadays switching the radio station is like throwing out spoiled bananas. Nothing seems to assuage my hunger for good music, and quite frankly I'm tired of eating the same tasteless produce.

  I look at us simple fans with music today as young children. We may not want to eat our peas but moms and pops make us anyway. We hate the peas but we don't have a choice, we ate all the good stuff first and now we're left with crap. And we can't understand why in heck mom keeps buying peas if she knows it's a hassle to shove it down our throats. When we ask her why, she says " You don't have a choice! I cooked them and you're going to eat it or you can sit at the table all night until you do!"

And sure enough we eat them just so we can get up from the damn table only to find out mom and dad never put any peas on their plates.

 Granted we're not children anymore, but that's very much the way these giant record companies treat us and I think it's about time we tell  our parents we're grown and we'll eat what we dag well please. Give us a choice or at least put something on the plate we can cope with without gagging.

 We as fans and artist can change the harvest and we need to follow our stomachs and sink our teeth into something flavorsome for a change. Go back into the streets and back to the people and give them something they really want to eat. Find out what they hunger for and cook something up. Try different seasonings and bases and add flavor to your music. Throw the recipe book out of the window and make music from scratch so that you can obtain something uniquely different and let your guest taste test it first before you package it up and ship it out.Change the sounds and turn the trends. Lets create the buffet of music there once was and force feed the arrangement down the labels necks.

Ya better believe it.