What is missing is the tiny monies earned with streaming; the crucial part that people no longer want to own music, just to listen to it; from analogue to digital to downloads to streaming. If only I'd become EMO Global Chairman. The music world would be a very different place. Still, change must come and we all grow old.

What's interesting about what makes K/J-Pop so lucrative is that people DO want to own it. They can stream it and probably do, but they also want to be part of something and be proud to own the music. Remember when buying and handling records was a pleasure? The fold-outs, the artwork, admission to fan-clubs, badges, stickers etc? I understand that the "package" they buy is a lot more than just the CD/Vinyl too.

In the UK the industry saw CD's as a way to make more money whilst putting less into the product, downloads and streaming stripped it down to the core.

A whole generation has grown up here not knowing any different and I struggle to see that we'll ever get it back.

Greed.

Yes times change - the industry should have made certain they replaced the desire for physical product (usually in order to have pictures of pretty boys or girls) by something else; just as retail should early on (I was going to do it in 2000 - with EMI owning the HMV stores - by having desks manned by lovers of different genres of music, to suggest other artistes) and to do deals with download companies (buy a download through HMV and get a 50% discount on online prices). I was going to start both a radio and TV music station online (way ahead of You Tube). And EMI would have started an iTunes type sales base (buying up online rights to other companies music). But Surrey Police (on behalf of Max Clifford) moved in instead. It was not to be.

I go to independent record shops for my music. The owners always say if it wasn't for the vinyl revival we wouldn't be here.

Don't get me started on retail; one of my projects as Global EMI Chairman was going to be making shops offer special cut price deals on downloads - so customers would come into stores rather than simply buying downloads online. That way the workers in the shops, many of whom loved music, could turn on potential fans of different artistes in similar genres. At the time I thought online would only be a small but vital part of hearing and owning music. But when it took over completely, this idea would have saved many shops, turning them into meeting points.

I intended EMI to obtain the online rights to the other big corporations at the time, representing them all in return for a royalty. PolyGram, Decca, Warners, Sony would have gone along with it, then regarding online as an even smaller part of music. My EMI online radio & TV stations would have played (and promoted) the best of music from ALL companies and labels, thus giving the other companies a reason to join the EMI retail conglomerate.

But it was not to be (Surrey Police, prompted by Max Clifford - because, it is rumoured, of a disgruntled ex employee's wife).