Maybe We Can Sell T-Shirts?

Stop telling me how to do things right in the music business. You know who you are. You don't know shit. You suck at your job. To keep it up another day is to confirm you are frauds, conmen, or desperately holding on to an idea whose time has fled:

LOS ANGELES (Reuters) - The biggest stars of the music world are gathering in Los Angeles for Sunday's Grammy Awards, while the business slides deeper into the abyss.

Every day brings more bad news for the $21 billion industry, which cannot work out how to get fans to pay $18 for a CD instead of stealing music from the Web.

Just this week, Grammy-winning jazz singer Norah Jones' much-anticipated new album opened at No. 1 on the U.S. pop charts, but its sales were less than half those of its predecessor three years ago.

Warner Music Group Corp. -- home of Madonna and James Blunt -- reported a worse-than-expected 74 percent slide in first quarter profits. And EMI Group Plc., home of Coldplay and Robbie Williams, laid off a number of U.S. staffers.

Still, don't expect the bad tidings to infect the Grammys, which begin at 8 p.m. EST (0100 GMT Monday) at the Staples Center in Los Angeles.

"It's not really the time to say, 'We don't know how to sell albums anymore. Please help us,'" said Craig Marks, editor in chief at music magazine Blender.

I will be happy to give your clients some pointers:

1. If you are in a musical act in it to sell CD's, then get out;

2. If you are competing against karioki, then get out;

3. If you think your babydoll, pillow-talk voice is going to make it, then get out;

4. If you think your musclular, fancy hat, aw-shucks stuff is going to make it, then get out;

5. Say something, stand for something, be somebody.

DJ's are committed, professional, experts on music. Let them play what they want. Pay them what they deserve.

Promote your music online with downloads.

Club owners cannot continue to promote a business model that exploits artists. Let them find a way to make money without you paying for it.