In reading the "The Way That Music Died," it really pains me to read the comment about MTV:
" "What it did really is make the business a one trick pony — and everything became about the three minutes, the single, the hit single," entertainment attorney Michael Guido tells FRONTLINE. "I think the album died with MTV. The culture in the record companies in the last 20 years has been to reward artists for three minutes of music, not for 40 minutes of music." "

In reading this book, of which I'm halfway chapter 8(total of 9), the industry was created around providing music to people to make them as "culturally rich" as the Europeans while making it American at the same time. These records were intended to represent the highest standard of what culture should be, as defined by Eldridge Johnson, maker of the Victor Talking Machine. By the time the Depression hit, and the record industry mostly tanked, the ideals of "high society" were pushed aside to make records featuring popular tunes. The popular tunes, as developed and persued by Jack Kapp, were to be songs that sounded the same, but were different from each other. Also, these songs needed to be addictive to the ear and resonant with musical memory, while not growing annoying and repetitive - essentially, this was the birth of pop music as we know it - except then it was called dance, swing, and croon.

For more info:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eldridge_R._Johnson
http://community.mcckc.edu/crosby/jackapp.htm
http://www.victor-victrola.com/
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Victor_Talking_Machine_Company

-Douglas

http://myspacetv.com/index.cfm?fuseaction=vids.individual&videoid=9468811

(not sure if the video will post, so I'm including the url as well)
http://myspacetv.com/index.cfm?fuseaction=vids.individual&videoid=9468811

And the personal blog of a Hollywood writer: KungFu Monkey He covers a lot of different topics (comics, politics, etc) but he has some great posts about the writers' reasons for the strike too. Here's search results for the strike on his site.

- Sarah Fichter