David Bowie Tells It Like It Is

David Bowie sees the future clearly in this NYTimes story:

His deal with Sony is a short-term one while he gets his label started and watches the Internet's effect on careers. "I don't even know why I would want to be on a label in a few years, because I don't think it's going to work by labels and by distribution systems in the same way," he said. "The absolute transformation of everything that we ever thought about music will take place within 10 years, and nothing is going to be able to stop it. I see absolutely no point in pretending that it's not going to happen. I'm fully confident that copyright, for instance, will no longer exist in 10 years, and authorship and intellectual property is in for such a bashing."

"Music itself is going to become like running water or electricity," he added. "So it's like, just take advantage of these last few years because none of this is ever going to happen again. You'd better be prepared for doing a lot of touring because that's really the only unique situation that's going to be left. It's terribly exciting. But on the other hand it doesn't matter if you think it's exciting or not; it's what's going to happen."

Update: Monday night on Letterman, discussing the fact that "Heathen" is being released on both vinyl and CD:

LETTERMAN: "Why do people still want some of them on vinyl?"
BOWIE: "They're crazy! I download everything on the Internet. I don't bother with any format."

(As reported by Brad Hill.)

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