Songza To Google

It's not about the product.

That's the dirty little secret of all these tech companies, the goal isn't to create a good product, but to SELL OUT!

It's like a game of musical chairs, where the buy-in is millions, and everybody's afraid to be left without a seat at the table when the music stops.

And the problem is it's affected music too.

Today's game is to find someone to fund your art, get someone else to sponsor it, and to then focus on lifestyle. Your goal is not to thrill the alienated poor at home who lay their hard-earned money down to support your career, but to remove yourself from them, live behind a wall and fly private.

It's income inequality, it's the coarsening of society, it's elected officials who are beholden to corporations and lobbyists, not their constituents.

We used to look to artists to be the anti, but today they just want in. Everybody in Hollywood wants in. Universal's got an incubator. WME invests in tech. And Ashton Kutcher is revered not for his acting ability, but his investment prowess.

And I find Songza unfathomable. There are too many playlists, and when you find the one appealing to you, you find a dreck to hit ratio that's horrifying. Because it's about filling out the list, not true curation, where every cut counts, like the deejay used to do.

But deejays don't get paid enough, the radio ones, not the club ones.

And Jimmy Iovine said it was all about curation, but if he truly cared about art, Beats headphones would sound better and we'd all be talking about the playlists on Beats' music service, but we're not. There was a flash of publicity, and then...nothing, other than a sale to Apple.

As for Songza, I don't need a cooking playlist, I just need ten damn tunes I want to listen to all day long. Hell, I'll listen to the same ten songs for a week. Ever buy an album and do that, play nothing but it for seven days straight, I have numerous times. I want to go deeper, I'm not a grazer.

But grazing is the new pastime, what else can the festival be called.

So where's the antidote?

Give credit to that Kickstarter progenitor who refuses to go public, even though I find the service shaky. At least that guy is all about the vision. And art is all about the vision.

We love Neil Young because he does it his way, because he won't make a deal with anybody, fearful they'll taint the only thing that counts, the music.

But everybody under sixty believes selling out is a badge of honor. We're inundated with statements that kids don't care. But that's untrue. That's just businessmen pontificating, looking for their cut.

So a bunch of nerds bought the music app of a bunch of faceless New Yorkers.

We don't need more tech, we need more artists!

And the truth is we've always got time for the original who's got something to say and the ability to say it, the ability to play and sing.

And this is no one on the "Voice," that's the worst exponent of selling out, both the contestants and the judges.

And this is no one writing songs by committee.

But there must be people out there who believe the music is enough.

Certainly the audience feels this way. They're hungry for authentic. What's number one rolls off their shoulders, what speaks to their souls is FOREVER!


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