Mollie's Bubbles

Announced in the middle of 1981, the Digital Music Company, operating as Home Music Store, would provide music on demand 24 hours a day. […] Von Meister thought it was a great idea. So did his backers. Music delivered to your home with a sound quality better than records or tapes? Titles on demand at a big discount? Who wouldn’t like it?

When an announcement of the service appeared in Billboard, record retailers were livid. If people were buying music in their homes, they wouldn’t be going to record shops. Store owners threatened to refuse to offer records from any label who worked with the Home Music Store. Copyright holders and organizations that represented them, like the American Society of Composers, Authors, and Publishers (ASCAP), had a few things to say as well. […] Although he claimed to have “informal agreements” with Warner Brothers and some other, unnamed record companies, he never got anything on paper, so the Home Music Store didn’t get off the ground.

I am always on the precipice of having nothing to say. Writing, sometimes, is such an act of faith. I have to sit down, make myself stare at my open Word document, and just believe that if I start playing with quotations, asking myself questions and composing tentative answers, it will turn into an argument. Usually it does, but only if I believe.