How can you even begin to tell most of the bands apart? Nickelback? Creed? Cough. Might as well throw Default in there too and Puddle of Mud and any other of the clone bands of the past two years. Flash in the pans all of them. They all have a certain "sound" so they've been promoted by the record labels and radio stations (which are definitely paid by the labels, not just advertisers) - too bad for the music buying public (us) they all share the very same "sound." Wouldn't surprise me if they got together on the weekends to write all their music together.

The MadTV skit was funny and as true a commentary as you'll find.

The Oasis/Blur ego thing. That was mostly the Oasis (Gallagher brothers) ego thing and heavily perpetuated by the media. They still put any of the recently mentioned bands to shame. And Blur is on another level completely. But it's a big scale, and bands like Suede, Pulp and The Charlatans are at an unreachable distance beyond those still.

Lastly the mention of Matchbox 20 brings up a memory. Last year they played in the area and ticket prices were in the neighborhood of $70 Canadian. I guess playing with Santana got the lead singer thinking his little band deserved those kinds of prices. This is a band that should still be playing $15 club gigs by all accounts. But that's still $15 more than Creed and those other bands should be getting paid (they're nearly as phony as the boy-"bands")

Bruno