That's a huge part of the problem. Even if I wanted to pay for any music that I get, almost none of it is worth buying anymore. The entire 'music scene' that we all used to love is dead. This is all due to the major recording companies love of money rather than music.
I don’t like hearing that the music scene is dead. The musicians didn’t disappear, new musicians are being trained to replace Hall and Oates :P
The idea of a “scene”, as sold to Westerners through mass media for the last 100 years is dead though. Geospatial definitions of new art doesn’t work well anymore.
In a one week period, it is possible to d/l more quality music from musicians freely distributing music than any person would ever have enough time to listen to. I’ve got almost 50 hours of European/South African/Indian music (all genres) I still haven’t gotten around to listening to. Being really tired of East Coast emo wankers trying to relive the glories of musicians a generation ago, I just looked online and got stuff from abroad.
I believe the music industry began its inevitable slide into mediocrity after the deregulation of radio and television stations in the 1990s. Now, all the radio stations in this country are owned by a few giant media conglomerates — which explains why all the music sounds the same. Also, these media giants also own record labels as well — and their radio stations are an ideal venue to “self-promote” their own music. That’s why most radio stations play the same crap repeatedly for weeks/months on end.