Projecting feelings of angst and unsettledness, Placebo used their experimental art-rock to capture the emotions of the audience, making for an almost mystical experience. Greg Graffin Bad Religion frontman Greg Graffin delivered the keynote address to the convention. He used the Markovian theory of evolution to illustrate the current state of the music industry and to predict future problems he believes it will encounter. He continued with a list of examples including Pearl Jam and Creed, NOFX and Blink182, Alanis Morissette and Meredith Brooks, and Sarah McLachlan and Paula Cole. It is even harder to sell, so record companies try to avoid the risk of experimenting with different sounds by favoring artists similar to successful ones.
People continue to buy it because they have little choice or exposure to alternatives.
This is a serious problem because current artists inspire future ones and if the future artists have a limited pool of influence, the art of the future will suffer. Music will continue to lose its diversity. Graffin suggested a changing of values on the part of record executives as the solution. He stated that bands should be judged on emotional and intellectual, rather than economic, levels. If delivered to a room full of record executives, his solution may have had more of an effect.