A very, very interesting article from the Telegraph on whether the global music superstar is to become a thing of the past.

But as the music industry struggles to come to terms with collapsing sales, diverging international markets and the internet-fuelled emergence of highly personalised and parochial buying patterns, is the era of the global musical superstar drawing to an end?

Mergers, profit warnings and cost-cutting at the ever-shrinking number of major labels (currently down to four: Universal, SonyBMG, Warners and EMI) have demonstrated that the music business is struggling to come to terms with the challenges of download distribution.

But there is more than just new musical delivery systems and the problems of piracy at play - there is a change in the whole culture of how music is consumed.