In the world of sports, the cream rises to the top. If you are born with the skills to play in the World Series, chances are that you might realize your destiny. Art is not a level playing field. There is so much luck, so much left to serendipity, that the best guitarist since Jimi Hendrix might consider himself a success because he has finally become a full time musician.
You can’t visit The Cellar, where The Beatles found their twist of fate, because it no longer exists. But if you look down the street and around the corner, you’re bound to run across a little club with a band of nobody’s shaking down the roof. Support the Arts, support your local musicians. Go hear a band! And then buy their CD. And don't forget to put some money in the tip jar!

A lot of the beginning of this really irks me, though it does improve as it goes on. First they complain you can't make it in the industry if you're not young and beautiful, then they complain it's not "real" when a 40 year old man writes a song for a young girl... well what's a 40 year old songwriter to do? We praise authors and and actors for getting into a young girl's head, but a songwriter is not allowed? I'm sure the men they taped talking about doing it excited their songs were going to be "hits" are proud of the songs and have reason to be proud. They may not be the songs these people are most proud of, but it takes skill to write to a formula. Most of this documentary is fans with an agenda complaining the industry now isn't the same industry they remember... well it changes, and it's changed again since then... some of that change is looked to as hopeful as the documentary continues... well it'll change again. As long people try to sell art as a business there'll be people who play the game and people who don't, and there's nothing morally wrong with playing the game. You've gotta eat after all.

This kind of surprised me, I was expecting some low-budget video with underground kids slamming the industry but in fact was filled with well conceived statements on the current state of popular music. I will agree with other posters that if one has the means and better yet lives in a town with a vibrant music community they will never want for corporate radio to shine a light on the best new talent. The current environment of PTP trading and music blogs gives far better choices then the current incarnations of Rolling Stone or Spin or whatever the current rags are. And the independent music labels are taking advantage of this and, in their own small way, thriving for it. Just like the myriad of labels that existed before the great consolidation gave us so much great music. My only problem is the "Internet will save American music" idea.
Having grown up in a rural area I had no Idea what I was missing until I moved at 19 to Chicago and later New Orleans. I don't think I even heard the Velvet Underground until I was 20. All I had was the boring top 40 or the classic rock station, both of which in the beginning of radio consolidation just looped the same playlist every two hours like Stairway was the only song Led Zepplin ever recorded.
If one wants to find new music they first have to know where to look, and nobody was giving my 16 year old a** any hints. And if one wants to actually listen to it they will need first a computer (probably need to spend at least $500 here) and a DSL connection at minimum ($30 a month) which, if one is rural or poor (or like I was both) is not even an option.
A radio on the other hand can be had for $10 or less, picking up stations miles away (many, many miles if AM.)
I'm not saying all radio stations need to be some avant garde mind-bender but if DJs were at least allowed to play what spoke to them as opposed to what their corporate handlers were forcing on us Americas youth would be much better off.
My only hope is with the current state of radio the bosses will realize no one is listening anymore and their cash-cow is milked out. Then the indies can step up much as they have following the implosion of the recording industry.
I should point out that on the label front they didn't need to step up at all, they've been with us the whole time. There was and will always be a thriving (if hungry) underground, I'm just saying that pop music doesn't have to (and didn't always) suck.