• Business Week, Friday, January 27, 2006 11:15 AM

It used to be easy: Big-brand rock bands would periodically release the CD, radio stations would place it into heavy rotation, revenues would flow, and all was right with the music world. No longer. Technology has helped change the way the industry operates, and Jon Fine, Business Week's media columnist, seems not entirely thrilled with the result, although he appreciates its meaning. "Today's key entry points for music consumers are iTunes and ringtones," he writes. "The former favors singles over albums and thus further unbundles rockers' preferred medium, and the latter is peculiarly inhospitable.... Rock hasn't minted a star with the pop-cultural legs of 50 Cent or Eminem in this century." Modern rock is being undone because of modern technology. "Once it was so much easier," bemoans Fine. "And so somewhere the thinning bangs of a music exec hang limp as he quietly sobs at his desk, overwhelmed by a sudden nostalgia. Who'd have thought he'd miss Grand Funk this much?"

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