Here are three brilliant online essays/pieces I've read about the music business over the past few days:

Musicians! Please be brilliant or get out of the way!
http://www.musicthinktank.com/blog/dear-musicians-please-be-brilliant-or...
This articulates something I haven't been able to for a long, long time, namely if the means of music creation and distribution is now within the hands of the artists, why has no one figured out a brilliant way to make it all work.

http://www.toomuchjoy.com/?p=1397
A chap who used to be in a band dissects his royalty statement for digital sales. Scary stuff.

http://www.negativland.com/albini.html
An old piece by Steve Albini about the mechanations of the music biz and how easy it. Is to become a band locked into a crappy deal in a lot of debt.

Enjoy!