I have a feeling as if music is not being regarded important anymore. Look what has become of MTV, what's played on the radio (haven't listened to the radio for years, at least not willingly)...
The music sections of the department stores are getting smaller and smaller, many CDs are flogged for 3 to 6 € nowadays. At first glance, the price drop is nice as it gives me the chance to enhance my collection without going bankrupt but on second thought, I'm afraid that is just indicating the death of the CD and that I'll be forced to purchase crappy MP3 files one fine day.
Another observation: I daily read the website of a particular Danish TV station. They have a gossip section on that site and until recently it was decided into the categories movies, music, TV, royal, etc. The category music has been abolished, so apparently music does not seem to matter much anymore. By the way, as far as I remember,
HCTB did pretty bad in Denmark while this guy was #1 of the charts:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aYITrbTaahE.
(Don't ask me why they fancy an Austrian singing that kind music and German lyrics...
Even Lady GaGa couldn't compete with him.)