As a kid growing up, music was something I could always confide in. No matter how difficult situations became, music was always there. It is an art form.

It is something beautiful that comes in a raw format, an avenue for people to express their inner emotions, struggles and triumphs.

Music has brought people together for centuries. Through it, artists explore limitless paths of musicianship, pushing the boundaries of possibilities as far as their creativity and imagination can take them.

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However, one can not turn a blind eye to what the music industry has become. In my lifetime, we have seen an industry focused on the honest talent of so many different artistic minds change to an industry increasingly more interested in revenue and image.

Seeing what the music industry has become scares me, as a fan, for the future. We now live in a country where artists like Justin Bieber and Miley Cyrus (not to call them out or anything) have become the spotlight for an entire community of musicians.

What happened?

What happened to the days where the youth idolized musicians who wrote inspirational lyrics or played instruments merely out of pure joy and passion for what they were creating?

What happened to the days when MTV showed actual music videos instead of non-stop reality television?

I would call my musical preferences unique to say the least. However, I do have a great appreciation for the amount of time and effort it takes to compose a song for any artist across all genres of music.

But the more I turn on the television, all I see is an image. Every time I log into social media, there is a new Internet “meme” showing a famous musician doing something embarrassing or their most recent mug shot.

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I can’t help but be scared for our future generations if the music industry continues to follow the path it is currently on. Will the use of instruments completely die out and electronic DJs with a large personal music library and a laptop take over?

Will we flock to concerts where the artist stands on stage and lip-syncs while the talent and synchronization of a full band falls by the wayside?

Imagine living in a world where you turn on the radio and each song contains lyrics about “twerking”, partying until you drop and making money. No longer will you turn the knob on your car radio and hear technical guitar rifts, like you would in Eric Clapton’s “Layla,” or inspiring lyrics from The Beatles telling us, “Love is all you need.” Scary right?

What scares me the most is if I am blessed in this life with children, it is their minds being molded by this image the music industry has become. I will try to make sure they are familiar at a young age with the timeless compositions by classical historic icons such as Beethoven, Mozart and Bach, but if television, radio and the Internet constantly surround them and tell them who they should look up to, it could be difficult.

Other than pop music, we have also seen the decline in talent within the hip-hop and country music communities.

Remembering family road trips when I was young where my father and I would listen to Johnny Cash albums, containing songs illustrating the trials and tribulations of a young man from a small town in Arkansas.

Now, all you hear on the radio is country songs, which all sound the same to me, containing nothing but lyrics about trucks, women in tight jeans and alcohol.

We see the same type of decline in hip-hop. Rap used to have a poetic feel to it. We saw politically charged lyrics from groups like Public Enemy who stood for the rights and concerns of the African-American community. We saw rappers like Ice Cube, acknowledging the struggles of growing up in poverty but also talking about trying to get away from it, while rappers of today idolize the very essence of what Ice Cube wanted to get away from, like drug-dealing and violence.

We saw a young white male from Detroit, Eminem, emerge among a predominantly African-American community reluctant to give him a chance to speak. However controversial his lyrics are, it is impossible to listen and not become emotionally attached to the passion he breathes into his songs.

Time and time again, we see the destruction of the music industry as we used to know it and how it was known before I was born. I find myself concerned with what it has become and where it is going.

The music industry has not completely collapsed, but if we continue to praise those who give it a bad name, who knows what will happen? But for now, all I can do is sit back, pop in another Grateful Dead album to soothe my soul, and wait.