A sign of the times
One of the music industry events that I attend every year is the Songwriters' Hall of Fame Ceremony. It's held at New York's Marriott Marquis and the event is attended by about 1,000 songwriters, music publishers, lawyers and other interested people. It's one of my favorite events because the people being honored are great artists, the musical performances are exhilarating and it's a great way to hear old and new musicians.
Like many similar events, the attendees are given a swag bag containing various goodies. In the past, there would be a half dozen CD's of music by the writers or publishers being honored. But this year, there wasn't any recorded music at all. I take that as a representation of how the industry has moved away from physical packaging of music.
In my life, the evolution of recorded music has gone through four basic generations of change: LP's, cassettes, CD's and now the digital domain. Fascinating.
