The cash registers of silence.

Driving past the local branch of a national music chain today was a bit of a sobering experience. I've never seen the lot so barren during daylight hours. It was as if there was a critic's only screening of a Pauly Shore/Keanu Reeves variety show. Not a soul in sight...and the place was open!

The 'net is scatterred with news of a slump in the music industry, and the top brass has no clue why. Want to know? It's simple. Look around. The problem stems from two sources. Combine them and you have nitroglycerine.

First, you have a group of A&R people who could care less. I mean, have you listened to what they're flooding the mainstream with? You get one or two decent or at least tolerable tracks to a disc, then fill the rest with of the album with whatever is lying around. Not quite USDA Chuck, if you catch the gist. Thing is, they go for the singles. End of story.

Second, you have music chains which let you listen to the disc before deciding if you want to buy it. That means you find out how little you really want the CD before giving Alex Hamilton to Columbia.

You want a way out? Simple. Don't just make a record based on the single. Go for the whole enchilada. If you wouldn't want to own it, why are you trying to push it on other people? I'm not saying this as a 28-year old. Some of the younger readers may be saying "You're out of touch with the music." Bologna.

Here's the situation. To sell an album, you hae to hit two markets, the short term and the long term market. The short term is the single sales. The long term is the group of people who continue to buy the CD 20 years down the road. I mean, Meat Loaf's Bat Out of Hell is still selling 20 years later. You don't get that kind of staying power out of a dead battery.

To prove my point, take this example. Alanis Morrisette. Known as the Debbie Gibson of Canada before Jagged Little Pill came out. Now, she is the holder of the biggest selling debut album ever. Why? Glenn Ballard. Producer of the album and co-writer of the tracks. He wasn't going to let the CD hit the street until he was sure the album was more than fluff. Sure it took a little while to hit, but when it did, it spread faster than anyone would have thought.

Compare and contrast Tag Team. Just one year before Morrisette's Pill started curing her career, Tag Team topped the charts with "Whoomp! There it is!". Where is it now?

Regardless the track, if it's not able to be backed by a strong album, it will go nowhere. In five years, compare Los Del Mar's Macarena with Blackstreet's Another Level. See which one is still selling and which is in Joel Whitburn's trivia file.

The biggest mistake Alanis made was not to acknowledge the contributions of Ballard. It may be a long time until we see any new singles from her, and that's a tragedy, but sooner or later, we'll see someone else put work into the music. It will sell. Oh yes, it will sell. And the A&R boys will be scratching their heads again. Get it straight. We're not a group of mindless automatons who buy what you sell just because it's there. We buy what we like.

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