Way back in 1982, Frank Zappa said “Ordinary phonograph record merchandising as it exists today is a stupid process which concerns itself essentially with moving pieces of plastic wrapped in pieces of cardboard from one location to another” in his Proposal For A System To Replace Phonograph Record Merchandising. Zappa was a visionary who loved stupid humor, hired only the most accomplished musicians and preferred working with machines. He imagined displaying “cover art, including song lyrics, technical data, etc. . .while the transmission is in progress, giving the project an electronic whiff” of the original album. Zappa predicted that “providing material in such quantity at a reduced cost could actually diminish the desire to duplicate and store it, since it will be available any time day or night.” And he saved the best for last in his proposal: “Most of the hardware devices are, even as you read this, available as off-the-shelf items, just waiting to be plugged into each other in order to put an end to the record business as we now know it.”

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