Dear Recording Industry,

I got a bunch of CDs from Amoeba Records last night. It was just like college, coming home with a half a dozen discs to eagerly unwrap. Of course, in college, when I was buying a mix of vinyl and CDs, sometimes excitement turned to disappointment when I realized I hadn't discovered a Wire or Pixies or Meat Puppets or whatever, but held in my hands something much more run-of-the-mill. That said, I'm still nostalgic for those days, because now my disappointment is inevitable and immediate. It occurs before I've even put the disc into the CD player. And you know why? Because of those goddamn piece-of-shit jewelboxes you insist on packaging 90% of your offerings in! What's the most common sound I hear when I listen to a new CD? Majestic power chords? A wicked bassline? Nope. It's the plink-plink-plink of all the little broken plastic pieces of the hub of the jewelbox falling to the floor like the teeth of a boxer who walked into a right cross. But you know what, recording industry, I'm a big boy. I can adapt. I've gotten used to this insult to my long-running support of your artists and their products. Sure, I could punt the whole "buying" music and just pirate it from friends and strangers. Still, I like the artwork and liner notes on CDs, even though they're just a pitiful echo of the artwork we used to get on vinyl. Anyhoo, I've give you the jewelboxes. Eff it. No worries. Bygones. We're still pals. You know what though, I'm not going to give you a free pass for the motherfucking security stickers you insert inside the jewelboxes. I opened my new Los Lobos CD and tried to take the sticker off. You know what happened? Yep. Riiiiip. Bye-bye artwork. The jewelboxes are bad, but at least they're ostensibly for my benefit. So I can take up 50 cubic feet of shelf space for 200 cds. But I don't care if stores have a problem with shoplifters. It's not my problem. It's their problem. And if you insist on making it my problem, guess what, I won't buy from stores anymore. Not even Amazon.com, which also sends CDs with those confuckingfounded security stickers in them.  Of course, last night, it hit a new low. The new Elvis Costello record comes with an FBI warning on the back of it. "FBI Anti-Piracy Warning: Unauthorized copying is punishable under federal law." Right next to a spiffy FBI logo. Sweet fucking mother of fuck, you coprophagous little parasites. Not only do you give me a shitty case and think I'm a shoplifter, but you also want to bully me into believing the F.B. I.  gives a flying fuck about whether I burn a copy or fifty of the Elvis Costello CD I just bought. Thankfully, to Costello's credit, he put a line above the FBI bullshit, stating that "This artist does not endorse the following warning. The F.B.I. doesn't have his phone number and he hopes that they don't have yours." Great, now recording artists are fighting with the Feds on the back of my album collection. Wonderful.

Yours sincerely,

Harold Check

[Fade to white. Cue the iTunes logo...]

P.S. - Kudos to SubPop and Epitaph for putting their CDs in those folding Digipak cases that don't suck, allowing me to enjoy the new records by Rogue Wave and The Black Keys without shaking my fist at the Man.