Last week I bought a copy of Genesis's Nursery Cryme on vinyl and was tremendously tickled to see this logo printed ominously on the inner sleeve:

That's a pretty scary image, right? Look at the little crossbones under the cassette tape! However, reports of music's demise in 1971 were overstated.

The major labels then were concerned about the re-recordable audiocassette wiping out the vinyl market, but here in 2008, cassettes are completely dead while there at least remains a small cult of vinyl devotees large enough in size to justify the release of new recordings in the format. If you've bought a CD lately (I don't know why you would, but just suppose) you've probably noticed the equally intimidating, official-seeming "FBI Piracy Warning" printed larger than the track listings on the back.

It seems to me as if the same record labels (and in many instances, the same people, note the long, fawning piece on Clive Davis in the new Rolling Stone) are in business today despite the ubiquity of home tapers flying the cassette-and-crossbones flag back in the 1970's. So perhaps current hair-tearing and garment-rending taking place over the apocalyptic menance of Internet file-sharing is an overreaction. It's true that the uncertainty right now allows for the possibility for the paradigm to change; artists seizing control of their own rights a la Radiohead or signing more full-service personal management/live promotion deals as Madonna and Korn have could become the norm rather than the exception. But it's probably not a good idea to bet against the infrastructure and capitalization of the established music industry -- if they could only get out of their own way and stop fighting battles they've already lost.

On an entirely unrelated note, I wanted to mention somewhere that the third and fourth episodes of "Breaking Bad" really raised the stakes for the series, and the first two episodes (which can you watch online) were already pretty darned good. There was one long scene in the third episode, in particular, that struck me as just about the best filmmaking I had seen all year. Vince Gilligan clearly spent a ton of time working out the tone and arc of the whole series; I love the way "Breaking Bad" uses long interludes of silence (which is almost unheard-of for television) and huge contrasts between dark interiors and sun-blasted New Mexico exteriors. Fans of the Coen brothers' crime movies and Sam Raimi's A Simple Plan are strongly encouraged to get on board with this one.

And also: I am so fired up for "Idol." I think I'm more excited than I was for the Super Bowl or the "Lost" relaunch. At least with "Idol" we'll get to watch the action unfold in an unbroken line from now until the end of the television season; all our scripted dramas will not be so lucky.