started when cost of production went down while return on investment went up. i wish i had time to source numbers, but bascially the music industry created a huge bubble pre-internet which set their expectations for sales super high (think of those platinum plus debuts). We forget this was all before the internet. they were risking big budgets for quick high returns and it was working. so they repeated it. then the internet popped up (around the same time consumers were wising up to the glut) numbers drop back to *normal* but the expectations stay high. since then it's been basically a free for all, trying to live up to those past expectations. but those were all very controlled case studies. today they don't have half the control.
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Big PEMFin H & z's
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"I ain't no entertainer, and ain't trying to be one. I am one thing, a musician." © Miles Davis

"When the music stops he falls back in the abyss."