Great Things - Echobelly

Picked up the Britpop-tastic debut album by Echobelly on CD (obvs) a few weeks ago and found the original receipt tucked into the booklet. The original buyer had snapped it up for £13.50 from Woolworths in 1995, it should have been £14.99 but they got a 10% staff discount. Bargain! £15 in 1995 equates to roughly £28.77 nowadays, just a tad more than the 75p I paid for it. It struck me how many jobs that single CD supported back in the 90s, from the band itself and the studio staff through to the graphic designers, the CD manufacturers and distributors to the reps and PR people, the shelf stackers and cashiers...and now? I suppose you might still have some studio involvement (although you can probably do most stuff in your bedroom) but I'm guessing the majority of music goes straight online. With the looming spectre of AI already costing tens of thousands of jobs in the UK alone you have to wonder what people are going to do to earn an honest living in the future.