Say, are you running a little low on Righteous Indignation these days? Were you sailing right into a long weekend with no fire in your belly about some issue or other that sticks hard and fast in your craw? Well, we can't have that, now, can we? So we're going to suggest that you try to get good and riled about something that can sustain a slightly elevated blood pressure for the next three days, because really, what other form of exercise are you realistically going to get? See, we're just looking out for your welfare, here.

As far as topics go, may we suggest the state of the music industry? What with the major labels trying to bolster their bottom line by suing twelve-year-old kids instead of by selling good music at fair prices, it's sort of a hot-button issue these days-- and nowhere is that more apparent than in the recent Frontline interview with David Crosby-- he of Crosby, Stills, & Nash, et al-- that was pointed out to us by faithful viewer greekcow. If you're at all interested in music, it contains some fascinating insights from a forty-year veteran into how far the business has fallen into a baseline state of corporate greed. He speaks pretty eloquently (well, okay, he does lapse into caveman talk at one point, but it's just for effect) about the "cardboard cutout"/"flat tummy" nature of mass-produced modern pop and the "de facto censorship of the commercial power of the conglomerates." It's engaging and impressive stuff, especially considering that this interview was recorded just two days before the guy got busted on drug and weapons charges again.

Of course, the last thing we want is for you just to get ticked off about how the recording industry is run by a pack of fatcat weasels who are only "selling units," because that's nothing but stress and doesn't do anyone any good. But the great thing about this particular David Crosby interview is that the man heaps so much praise upon the iTunes Music Store that you'd think he's seen the face of God or something. (We could mention the drug charges again, but it'd be too easy.) Check out this warm fuzzy: "I think the only way to sell records that I know about now that does look really, really, really promising is iTunes. I think Apple is the smartest company in the country, and they are doing something brilliant."

In a nutshell, Crosby thinks that the music business as a whole is "going in a tank" (while he's "standing on the sidelines applauding") because the suits aren't "going to look for a new way" to do their thing. "But I see Apple out there doing it," he says; "iTunes is a good idea. It delivers the music to you cheap, pays us, doesn't cheat anybody, and it cuts out all middlemen." Which is all terrific, though of course it's not true... yet. As you all know, Apple currently pays a sizeable chunk of each song sale to the label who owns the recording, not to the artist who recorded it; sure, the artist gets paid by the label (theoretically), but as it currently stands, the system is still all about middlemen.

That's not to say, though, that it'll be that way forever. Apple would never have stood a chance getting the iTMS off the ground without offering the major labels' songs, so it was a necessary deal with the devil. But let's say that a few years down the line, the iTMS is a ubiquitous delivery mechanism supplying digital music to Macs, PCs, and directly to player devices in every home-- and the RIAA as we know it is no more. (Maybe it gets bludgeoned into oblivion by rampaging mobs after it sues some blind six-year-old with cancer for being in the same hospital room as a guy playing a Kazaa'd Metallica album on his laptop. Whatever.) In addition to continuing to sell songs from independent labels, who's to say that Apple couldn't start offering music direct from the artists themselves?

And that's what's so cool about David Crosby; the man honestly seems to think that the major labels will eventually collapse under the weight of their own greed and the iTMS will survive the transition to a more direct artist-to-audience sales model. You just gotta love the optimism. Of course, to a certain extent ol' Dave seems to think the transition has already happened, but, well, you know... the drug thing, and all.

Oh, like we never take the easy ones. Deal with it.