Add music industry analyst and consultant Barry Sosnick to the list of long tail naysayers. Sosnick wrote a piece titled "Long Tail Will End In Heartbreak" for The Register that argues too broad a product assortment can confuse shoppers and that low barriers to entry demand either price competition or some other way to compete. He summarizes at the end:

"While 'Long Tail' is the newest catchy business phrase, but is just another name for a market segmentation using broad assortments. It is not the ultimate competitive advantage. In fact, reliance on broad assortments can confuse and alienate consumers and inadequately differentiate a retailer from its competitors."

For additional reading, go to an article Sosnick linked to in the article, "Searching For Seach Clues" at MIT Sloan Review. It argues that after the elimination of search costs "fierce price competition is likely to ensue, making brand largely irrelevant and driving prices close to marginal cost." In context of the music business, long tail search costs are far from zero. At some online stores, the search process is a miserable experience that requires much scrolling through lists of albums. Such search costs encourage a user to migrate toward more coherant content like recommendations and top sellers. Those needles in a haystack? Too hard to discover.