According to Billboard: Wal-Mart plans to price the 15-20 best-selling titles at $10 each, hits and current titles at $12, top catalog titles at $9, midline catalog titles at $7 and budget releases at $5.

While Wal-Mart maintains that the proposed price drops are a healthy move for the customers, the deal has stirred up much concern in the labels, prompting a music industry executive to say, “The decision might come down to: Do we give up 20 percent of our business (i.e. Wal-Mart) in order to not lose the entire business?”

Weren’t prices originally supposed to come down for CDs after they made the transition from vinyl? It’s hard to have too much sympathy for the labels when most have been re-buying the same music over multi-platforms (vinyl, cassettes and CDs) for years without a break.

Rolling Stone explains why the sound quality of new music doesn’t measure up to yesterday’s standards and no, it has nothing to do with Britney.

Terrestrial radio is not dead, it’s just not very good very often.

You can blame the record labels or you can blame the FCC, heck you can even blame an audience full of dunderheads who can say thay love The Stones and Maroon 5 in the same breath. The fact remains, that no matter how many numbers they put on the dial our options are often limited to Country, Soft Rock, Country, Classic Rock, Country, Rap, Country, Oldies, Country, Today’s Hits, and Country.

When I was young (I think my hip started to break as I typed that) we had 89X. Oh glory of glories was 89X in the early to mid 90’s! Sweet salvation from the dreck of modern radio.

Translation: They played Sloan.

Which, they still do from time to time (but not nearly enough). To hear the fab four nowadays you would be subjected to hours upon hours of corporate punkish metalish trash disguised as anti-establishment. Not worth it. Even for Sloan. You heard me.

Today, at this second, free radio has nothing to offer me. 89x is no good, and they were my last hope.

So, that’s what I thought, until a few months ago. On their last trip through Detroit Sloan’s (sorry) St Andrew’s Hall show was sponsored by 93.9 The River. That struck me as a little off, because I was under the impression that 93.9 was kind of Celine Dion friendly.

So, I asked a girl who appeared to be an intern what was up with that…yo? I told her of my pre-conceived notions regarding the schlock level of her station registering off the charts. She reassured me that, although in the past 93.9 had been a bastion for dentist’s offices and retirement parties, they were now in a position to gain credibilty.

“We play some pretty bad%$$ $%*%,” was her exact quote. We both laughed. Hers was a knowing laugh. Mine was a laugh of utter disbelief.

She was right, sort of. while the  $%*% they play isn’t entirely bad%$$ it is more often that not the stuff I like. You know, good stuff. Not the boring stuff you like.

So, if you gave up on traditional radio, give 93.9 a listen and you will be pleasantly surprised.

Also, they play Sloan… a lot.

My apologies to any fans of country music.

My friend Dave sent me this link.

Very interesting thoughts on why not to sign with a major label.

WARNING: Potty Mouth.