Reality

Someone just emailed me about an act. Entitled _____ _______.

This woman raved, as fans are wont to do.

I pulled up the album on Spotify. In fifteen seconds I was done.

Forty years ago, if someone gave me an album I'd play it all the way through, multiple times, waiting for it to reveal itself. Records were scarce. They required a good sum of money to produce, to both record and manufacture. If someone had navigated that gauntlet, I'd pay attention. And I had very few options. On my shelf weren't 18 million tracks. I was always foraging for something new. And starving at the same time. It'd be like a hungry kid turning down a Happy Meal. It'd never happen. Hell, a hungry adult wouldn't turn down a Happy Meal. But if right next to McDonald's was Spago and In-N-Out and everything was cheap, McDonald's might go out of business.

Food ain't cheap, but music is. I'm oversatiated. I've got the history of recorded music at my fingertips. And for me to spend time listening to your track, when I can listen to the Beatles and the Stones and Radiohead and Joni Mitchell, it's got to be damn good.

Ergo the blockbuster mentality. You blame the studios, the record labels, but they're not at fault. It's the customer. Who's got very little time and wants only the best. Which is oftentimes what their friends want.

Now let me be clear. There's a concomitant niche village on the other side. Where everything is handmade. Just like there are people who only eat raw food and others who won't wear leather. But it's not the mainstream. Occasionally, something will cross to the other side. But very rarely. You can put in 10,000 hours, play on the road for twenty years and still not become mainstream. Hell, it's harder than it's ever been, ever since the advent of recorded music.

So, if you're happy being niche, fine. But if you want to be more, know that it's nigh near impossible.

Look at videogames. Once upon a time it was a burgeoning industry. Now it's only about the hits, the franchises. People want to play World of Warcraft, because that's where all their friends are.

_____ _______ ain't bad. And in the decades of yore, that was good enough. Now you've got to be spectacular or we instantly move on. We're not interested in good.

Think of how many marketing messages you get in a day. It's not only me that's inundated with salesmanship. And I'm sophisticated. Do you really not think I know it's you hyping your own album? Telling me it's one of the best of the year? Or that you're the agent of the act you say has recorded an LP that's phenomenal from start to finish? Everyone's sophisticated now, because of the plethora of bullshit they've been exposed to.

That's one of the reasons why there's only one Google, one Amazon and one Apple. You don't need a second site/company when one is so good. It's not like we can shop at Korvette's or drive ten miles to the indie store. It's not like Google doesn't have enough links, Amazon doesn't have enough SKUs, it's not like people are bitching their iPads don't do enough and are breaking down.

This is the world you're living in.

It's easier than ever to make music, and it's easier than ever to be ignored.

It's harder to fly on people's radar screens and stay there.

And this has got nothing to do with piracy, nothing to do with short attention spans, nothing to do with money, it's got to do with technology and culture. Technology that makes recording cheap and distribution easy, culture that is a smorgasbord of options, even though you can only partake of one at one time.

If I listen to your record, I can't listen to another. I can't watch television. I can't talk on the telephone. Hell, even phone calls used to be scarce. Every house had one handset, and there was no call waiting. You were thrilled if someone called and you were lucky if no one else was home telling you to get off the line. Now, even ten year olds have their own handsets, and they don't want to talk on them, they'd rather text, because they don't want to waste any time, texting's more efficient.

And if a ten year old is worried about efficiency, if it's built into his life, what about the adolescents and adults? Sure, there's a long tail, your grandma will buy your album on iTunes, but no one else will. We now live in a nation where winners take all. There's not only been consolidation in industry, but in music too. You've got the illusion of power. But that's all it is. Truly, your odds of reaching mass public consciousness are close to nil. You're better off playing the lottery.

So stay in college. Earn a professional degree. Buy insurance.

Or else live in the land of hopes and dreams which we all pay lip service to but laugh at behind your back.


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