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Can't we just start a startup to eliminate record labels entirely? Perhaps a YC for musicians?

Would be great. According to my buddies, CD Baby + iTunes is rather painless if you want to get your album out as an independent artist. The problem that has to be solved isn't so much getting the music to the market, but with associated costs and legwork like promotion, tours, associated expenses before you're profitable, etc. As an example, in India, Only Much Louder (http://oml.in/) is trying to fix this.

A few years ago we used CD Baby to distribute records right about the same time that they began offering digital distribution to the iTunes store. It was an awesome tool for us as an independent label. It sure beat consignment agreements with record stores.

Artist have a pain, record label greed and shady business practices. Amazon, Apple, etc. have a pain, record label greed and shady business practices. The question I have is how do people discover new music now? There was a time when radio airplay and MTV was a major contributor to a record's success but what ways are most effective today?

I wouldn't be surprised if those kinds of questions weren't Apple's reasoning behind Ping.

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