Forced to change: The music industry not as powerful as it once was

Remember the days when the music industry held the dreams of many aspiring artists in the palm of it's hands? Remember when young musicians with dreams of making it big in music would camp out in front of the offices of major record labels hoping to ambush it's head of A&R or even it's CEO? Well those days aren't over but they surely are scarce. In this new digital age where wannabe artists can record and sell their music from their desk top in their bedrooms, labels are slowly becoming last resort for many individuals seeking the music dream. The tables have turned a bit where labels are not stalking unsigned artists with a major following online. The music industry as we know has changed and some labels have changed along with it and some are still stubbornly running on the same outdated model. Aspiring  artists are becoming instant stars overnight by putting themselves out their via the countless social and self broadcasting networks available to them for FREE. One of 2009's biggest selling artists, Susan Boyle picked up steam via the web. The New York Times looks back at the changes  and gadgets that forced changes in the industry, from napster.com to MP3.com to the first digital music players. And now in what it implies is the geek age:

The 2000s were the broadband decade, the disinter-mediation decade, the file-sharing decade, the digital recording (and image) decade, the iPod decade, the long-tail decade, the blog decade, the user-generated decade, the on-demand decade, the all-access decade.