Americans Copying Shitty Music They Refuse to Buy

ecord companies were faced with a 10% drop in CD sales from 2000 to 2001, and are quick to point the finger squarely at internet music piracy and illegal CD copying. Now the awful songs and albums consumers refuse to buy are available to them for free elsewhere.

“It used to be someone would have to buy an album just to find out it was crap,� said recording industry lawyer Snig Partridge. “Now they spend hours downloading it, take one listen, and mutter they’re glad they didn’t buy it.

“That’s our money!� yelled Patridge, leaping across the desk and savagely attacking this commune reporter.

There is some validity to the maniacal lawyer’s complaints. A recent survey conducted found nearly 25% of respondents were downloading or making hardcopies of CDs they didn’t want to buy. Numerous reasons were cited, such as the expense of purchasing CDs, the ease and availability of pirating materials, the chic of bragging about burning or downloading something, the lack of new Beatles material, but most popular among the answers was “just don’wanna.�

Many record industry analysts are puzzled by the slow down in CD sales, given the height of artistry of popular music with acts such as Britney Spears, Nelly Furtado, Creed, Pink, Uncle Kracker, and No Doubt topping the charts.

“It’s obvious music is experiencing a renaissance,� remarked some dreadlocked teen at a music store, in a voice that didn’t sound at all sarcastic.

“I don’t get it,� said Marx Kapital Records CEO Fred Ingells. “People hear the single. They like the single. They hum the single. They don’t buy the album. Something’s not right here.�

In 2000, music product sales totaled $14.3 billion. A year later that amount had dropped catastrophically to $13.7 billion.

“$13.7 billion! How are we supposed to live on $13.7 billion?� shouted Snig Partridge, this time leaping out from behind a Volkswagen on the street and attacking this commune reporter long after our interview had finished.

Across the music industry, response from record company representatives has ranged from perturbed to dismayed.

“Y’all fuckin’ my money now, biatch,� growled A’ight Records President Tru Dat Williams, cocking a Glock and firing blindly out the window in a confessed effort to hit potential music pirates.

“What makes me sad is the poor artist,� said Ingells. “When you steal a CD by bootlegging it from a friend or downloading it from the internet, you’re stealing a dollar out of their pocket. A whole dollar, or considerably less if we’re talking just singles and EPs here.�

Several artists were contacted to hear their reaction to this matter, but instead of listening to the interview tapes we burned copies of them and sold them on eBay as bootleg interviews. Snig Partridge then leaped out of our filing cabinet, knocked this commune reporter unconscious and made off with all our unsold copies.

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"When I was a boy, every year Dad would take Goose, Stephanie and I to the State Fair. Mom would never come, on account of her belief that the State Fair was the devil's yard sale.

So once every fall, Dad would pile all of us kids into the family car, and we'd head off to the State Fair while Mom went down to the airport to throw rocks at foreigners. Personally, I never much minded riding in the back hatch of the car with the luggage, since I knew how much Dad enjoyed having the passenger cabin to himself while he drove and worked out his dirty limericks aloud.

But leave it to Goose to find something to complain about in every situation. This may have been due in part to his permanent role as the foundation of the Hartwig children stack, which was only natural since he was the least claustrophobic of the Hartwigs and less given to breaking out in spontaneous hives or untimely urination when sat upon during long car rides, unlike Stephanie and myself, respectively. He may have thought it unfair, but Goose was born the low man on the totem pole, and far be it from the Hartwig clan to challenge God's natural order on that one.

Dad was truly in his element at the State Fair. Never was there a man born who could eat more corn dogs without getting sick on the Tilt-a-Whirl. It was all the three of us could do to keep up with him as he sprinted from attraction to attraction, tossing rings, flirting with schoolgirls and gawking at the state's biggest pig all at once. One of my fondest childhood memories is of Dad challenging us kids to guess the fat man's weight, and the fat man coming out from behind the cotton candy booth and punching dad in the mouth.

Without Mom being around to Yin his Yang, or however the Chinese work that, Dad sometimes got a little carried away in his State Fair enjoyment. That being said, he was still nothing but a hero to the three of us kids the year he drove the family car straight into the bumper car gallery, declaring himself the Grand Champion of All Time."

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"I was one of the first people ever to give up smoking. I have no proof of that, really, but you can take me for my word.

The year was 1950, when everyone had just started smoking. Already I knew it was a bad habit—my clothes smelled terrible, I would get nervous and jittery when I went a long time without a cigarette, and my genitals would burn terribly and catch fire. Usually that was because the ash would drop in my lap while I was on the toilet smoking, but your crotch catches fire once and you decide that's enough of putting lit things in your mouth.

It had become very addictive already and was very hard to give up. Back in the day the superstition was that you could give up smoking by drinking water upside down or having someone scare you. After one near-drowning and countless times where my neighbor jumped out from behind the bushes yelling 'sabotage!' I realized he probably wasn't the one to cure my smoking.

To discourage smoking, I put Tabasco sauce on all my cigarette butts whenever I opened a pack. That only served to get me addicted to Tabasco sauce, an addiction which I still have yet to shake. I then tried satisfying my oral fixation with celery, but the fumes from a celery fire make you very unpopular at parties.

Eventually, I turned to hard drugs, and let me tell you, call me old fashioned, it works wonders. I have yet to really shake my heroin habit, and I'll be a heavy drinker until I die, but the smell of smoke doesn't make me crave a cigarette in the least.

I should really tell Mr. Polkit I quit smoking in 1950, but I hate to break his heart when he still enjoys leaping out of the bushes and yelling 'sabotage!' Whatever keeps him young at heart."

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