What is happening to pop music and pop culture? Synthesizers, samplers and MDI systems have allowed anyone with basic computing skills to make music. Exchange is now automatic and weightless, with the result that the high street record store is dying. MySpace, Twitter and YouTube are now more important publicity venues for new bands than the concert tour routine. Unauthorized consumption in the form of illegal downloading has created a financial crisis in the industry. The old postwar industrial planning model of pop, which centralized control in the hands of major record corporations, and divided the market into neat segments, is dissolving in front of our eyes.