These are the best of times and the worst of times in music. Examples of why it's the worst of times have been discussed here already. The reason it's the best of times is that anyone who can scrape together 20 grand can produce a really top notch CD and sell it on the internet without ever going anywhere near the A&R department of the major labels. As someone has said there really is a lot of good music being made these days, you just have to look for it because it ain't being played by ClearChannel.