Jimfusilli.com Website Review

A few years ago, it occurred to me that the music industry had little regard for grownups. It chose to ignore us when marketing new music and emerging musicians. Instead, for the most part they fed us reissues of long-ago albums with one, two or more tracks previously considered unworthy of public display. It was as if industry executives believed we were incapable of appreciating any music that was created after, or wasn't as*ociated with, our high school or college years. In some cases, they were correct. There were grownups who weren’t worth marketing to. These people were dismissive of music they hadn’t heard or spent time with, and aggressive in their endorsement of rock and pop from decades ago. They were a minority, to be sure, among music fans of a certain age, but in numbers enough to suggest a trend. It wasn’t much fun to engage in conversation with them. Obtuse and offensive, they were easy to dismantle because they were so obviously wrong. But I began to realize there were ramifications to their positions: it was possible that some reasonable people might believe they knew what they were talking about — because the industry hadn’t made the effort to prove them wrong. The the publication for which I have been writing about rock and pop since 1983, was entitled “Meet the Gee Bees” — my code for the generationally biased. The article caused quite a stir and some of the reader comments suggested that I had cut too close to the bone. Their anger, disproportionate for anyone but the guilty, told me I might be onto something. I decided to respond by putting my trust in people who are the opposite of Gee Bees—that is, secure in their status and welcoming of new ideas. Because the industry was ignoring them, what they needed was information. They needed to know that they would find delight in much of the new music that was pas*ing them by. If they were invited to participate, they could root around and make up their own minds. I deduced that the easiest thing to do was to create a