Summer is coming to a close, and it's time for us to dole out an award for the most out-of-context quote of the semester: Prince's now-famous uttering of "the Internet is over."
Similar to when Al Gore said he invented the Internet, not a moment went by before people came out of the woodwork to jump on the music icon for what they perceived as ignorance. A quick read past the headlines, though, reveals his actual message - the Internet is over as a viable way to distribute and profit from music.
Even though we couldn't agree more, there are bound to be some skeptics out there - probably the same crowd who seems to forget that the mastermind behind "Purple Rain" predicted the fall of the major-label system and pretty much invented texting acronyms.
The greatest music of the past 50 years has come in the form of albums: Dylan's "Highway 61 Revisted," The Beatles' eponymous white album, "Thriller." Not one of them made their mark by selling their individual songs online for 99 cents a pop.
Albums cost a lot of money and, as Prince pointed out, sites like iTunes are not in the business of doling out advances. And forget record labels. The way they're struggling to survive isn't conducive to funding multi-million dollar magnum opi by big acts.
We can blame the death of the music industry as we know it on any number of things - Napster, Limewire, or even iPods - but the harsh reality is that consumers are to blame. People have become so keen on taking music at face value by downloading all the hits and trimming off the fat, but that's not how art should be treated. You have to absorb it, not twist it for your own means. All that does is suppress musicians and keep them from taking chances.
So let's prove Prince right by going against the grain and buying albums again. Maybe then our generation could afford to commission some more memorable music than Nickelback.
