First off, I have to agree on a point Peruvian Sky and squarenuts brought up - the writer of this article is clearly ignorant. Avril, Michelle, and Vanessa are basically clones? "They were created to imitate each other"? That is a pretty ridiculous claim. And 50 Cent is groundbreaking? NWA was groundbreaking, 50 is not. Such statements nearly ruin whatever point she was trying to make.

Nonetheless, the general public's lack of enthusiasm about buying music over the past few years may very well be because they might think that there isn't much quality music out at the moment. I'm not sure if I'm totally sold on the notion that the cost of CDs and the ease of downloading music off of the net is causing this year-by-year slump. Take a look back at 2000. CD prices were the same and Napster was at its height, yet it was one of the most successful years in the history of the industry.

One could rack this up to the cyclic nature of the business. The huge rise of urban music and the reemergence of bubblegum pop drove the industry to great heights in the latter half of the 90s. Maybe music is waiting for the next BIG thing.