The music recording industry needs to change its business strategy used to sell albums, said Newsweek music critic Lorraine Ali Monday night.

For that to happen, Ali said, MTV and the five major record labels need to focus on the quality of music produced, rather than the number of albums a particular artist can sell.

“As our world has gotten bigger, our scope of music has gotten smaller,” Ali said. “The world feels like it’s ready to blow apart — and Nelly is still singing ‘it’s getting hot in here, so take off all your clothes.'”

About 150 people gathered in the Great Hall of the Memorial Union for Ali’s speech, titled “Music and the World Outside of MTV.”

Ali’s lecture was originally scheduled for Feb. 3, but was rescheduled due to inclement weather conditions.

Ali discussed the state of popular music and how musicians must step outside of the boundaries established by the music corporations if they want to see a change.

“There are lots of artists who aren’t going to do politically charged music, but they’re not going to speak about it either,” Ali said. “[The record companies] aren’t going to kick Sheryl Crow off of the label — she makes too much money.”

Ali also spoke about her beginnings in music journalism. She said that those interested in the profession shouldn’t be afraid to take chances and stray from what is considered normal in modern entertainment reporting.

“I was a pretty basic kid growing up — there wasn’t really an ‘Almost Famous’ moment in my life,” Ali said.

“I had to figure out how to write so your mom gets it and your friends don’t laugh at you,” she said.

Ali also spoke about the impending conflict with Iraq.

She addressed the implications a war could have, including an immeasurable effect on both music and American culture.

Ali, who is Iraqi-American, said Americans tend to forget civilians living in enemy countries are still human beings with families.

“My family — my father’s side of the family — lives in Iraq,” Ali said.

“I don’t see it as a strategic bombing point. I see it as the place where my uncle works and my cousin shops.”

Despite the situation in Iraq, Ali said the music industry is doing very little to give significant meaning to the music that is produced. However, Ali also said the public is simply allowing bad music to be produced.

“There’s a numbness — people are just shutting their eyes,” Ali said.

“That kind of music is being nurtured by people who don’t want it to change. It might sell less records,” she said.

The avoidance of this big-business attitude of sales over the product, Ali said, is what sets artists with morals and beliefs apart from much of the mainstream media.

“The best music is made by self-centered individuals,” Ali said.

“But they also look outside their studios and their own lives to see what’s going on in the world,” she said.