We will have to agree to differ.

The musics you describe survived in recorded form because they were either profitable or, if not directly profitable, then they were a politcally or culturally desirable part of a wider corporate or social strategy. It was never a charity. There was always a wider purpose.

Warners bent over backwards to sign a mediocre seller like Miles (a mediocre seller by early 80s standards) from under Sony's nose because they knew it would please Prince and it would make it easier to attract other interesting artists who admired Miles' music. It might even tempt a really big hitter like Michael Jackson to make the switch from Sony. That was the strategy.

Bob Krasnow (he of Elektra records) used to say that while he didn't much care for Motley Crue's music their profits made it possible to invest in Nonesuch and to spend money on interesting artists who needed time and nurturing over a series of records.

There was money for music that was neither instantly understandable by a mass audience nor part of the rock and pop zeitgist. There was money for art music, there was money for artists to make that music and for it to be heard.

This is what we are losing. That's what has all but gone. And yet the cool kids, like a new generation of dot.com investors, still insist that there is a new dawn over yonder if we just keep our filling our fat little faces with free music. Well, like the dot.com investors, the cool kids are going to get the new business model they deserve and have in the process all but fucked the future of large areas of recorded music as an art form and as a vibrant creative force to a degree that Warner, Sony, EMI and Universal never had on their agenda let alone within their power. Of course recorded music will survive but there are forms of recorded music that wont get the investment and the exposure they deserve. That is what this cultural rampage will cost us as listeners and as music lovers.