Reason #1498 Why the Music Industry Sucks

You may want to cleanse after reading this, from Greg Kot's South By Southwest wrap-up:

And then there were the panels, in which self-congratulation and the occasional revelation ruled. The juiciest bit of insight into the rusted machinery that is the music industry came during a panel of talent scouts who revealed their criteria for signing artists.

"She had a bad complexion and small breasts when she came into my office and warbled a song," said one former record company executive, Michael Caplan, of Britney Spears. "I couldn't wait to get her out of my office."

The exec who eventually signed Spears, Jive Records' Jeff Fenster, said he based the decision not on a song in particular, but on a picture of the then-teenage Spears. She was sitting on a picnic blanket, wearing cutoffs and cuddling a puppy, Fenster said. "She looked like the sweet, All-American girl that you just wanted to defile and do bad things to, and that appealed to me."