I was trying to steal Carrie Underwood’s new album, "Carnival Ride". Now I know why the Nashville establishment was up in arms, angry that she didn’t get more recognition by NARAS, her music is actually GOOD! She can sing, and is the beneficiary of the best material in Nashville, the end result is a product that rockers of yore can identify with. Especially, "Last Name". It’s got the heaviness of the woman belters of thirty five years ago. Still, the track is not as good as Miranda Lambert’s "Gunpowder & Lead"… If "Gunpowder & Lead" ever crosses over to Top Forty, you’ll see a star bigger than Taylor Swift being born. I wanted to find out if the rest of "Carnival Ride" was as good. I fired up my P2P program and tried to download it.

A couple of the singles came down via screaming connections. So I searched inside the hard drives of these traders, but couldn’t find the entire album!

This was so non-baby boomer. We’re collectors. We’re completists. If we take more than one track, we want them all! But many people had four, maybe five Carrie Underwood cuts, but not the entire "Carnival Ride", or the previous album, "Some Hearts". This seemed unfathomable to me. And tons more work, I had to search for the entire album track by track.

Unfortunately, when I finally got Carrie’s material on my iPod, I was struck by the sameness. The more tracks I listened to, the less enthused I was. Maybe the public knew something I didn’t. Maybe you ONLY needed the hits!

Fuck saving the album, maybe the public just doesn’t want it!

They say today’s kids have a short attention span? Utter bullshit. Ever watch them play the same video game for twelve hours straight? They’ve just got an unbelievable SHIT DETECTOR! They only want what’s good.

The old paradigm, of saving your pennies to buy an album to play it to death, ultimately liking the whole damn thing? That’s GONE! There’s too much music out there, and it’s all available for free. And I believe P2P should be licensed, people should pay for music, but whatever the ultimate paradigm, people will have the history of recorded music at their fingertips, be allowed to graze at will, and will only want what they believe is good!

We can debate the economic impact ad infinitum, but the more interesting angle has to do with careers. Are you about the singles, or lifestyle? If you’re living and dying by the single, you’re in rough shape. People don’t want to dig deeper. They might come out to see you once, but after your single falls off the chart, they’ve moved on to something else. This does not bode well for Live Nation (AEG only scoops the cream off the top, so it’s less of an issue). How can you make someone a fan of the act, not only the track?

Just putting the music out is not enough. You must establish community, a relationship. There has to be a bond between fan and act. The bond can’t be with radio or TV, because neither of them buy tickets. You’re better off bypassing them and going directly to the fans. Like the jam bands. It’s a culture, the music is paramount, the listener is respected, so fans come out year after year, they support their acts. Maybe not in as prodigious a number as those going to hear the flavor of the moment at the arena, but when that moment is done… How many people want to see Rihanna? Hell, last time around she played CLUBS!

Which brings me to this Snow Patrol track.

Eighteen months ago, stuck in traffic on the 101, I got hooked on "Make This Go On Forever". I heard it on Sirius Spectrum. I tapped my fingers on the steering wheel, I contemplated the disappearing October sun. As soon as I got home, I downloaded the track. My iTunes library tells me I’ve played it 15 times, but I’m sure I’ve listened many more times than that on my iPod. And loving this cut so much, I searched through hundreds of CDs, I knew I had the album somewhere, I had TWO OR THREE CDs!

I finally found one, but when I inserted it into my computer, I didn’t play it all the way through, I got distracted.

But something inspired me to steal some Snow Patrol tracks two weeks later. They’re in my iTunes library. And a seventh track, that I downloaded last August, on what inspiration I’ll never know, because my library tells me I’ve never played it. This is "Shut Your Eyes".

I was driving down Chautauqua late last night, and just where it merges with PCH, I heard Snow Patrol’s "Shut Your Eyes", on the Sirius Spectrum once again. Wow did it sound fantastic. This is a KILLER!

I whipped out a pen and wrote down the title. And just when I was about to fire up my P2P program to download it, I discovered I already HAD IT!

Still, I’m not gonna listen to the album. I know that sounds stupid, but it’s true, I’m just being honest. I tried once, but it didn’t hook me. I needed the deejay to extract the right track, to spoon-feed it to me. With SO MANY things to discover, with so much great stuff, I don’t dedicate an hour of my time to anything that doesn’t grab me immediately.

Rail all you want, but this is how the younger generation does it. You’re better off releasing a handful of EXQUISITE tracks than an hour-long album. It’s too much to digest. And, in order to get me to go see you, to WANT to go see you, you’ve got to have six or eight tracks that I know, that have seeped into my consciousness serendipitously.

I’d say this is the future, but this is the now. Accept it.