It doesn't matter.
This is the kind of question that's gummed up the works, and public perception, for the better part of two years. As if stars like Taylor Swift and Jay Z could affect human behavior, as if we don't live in a world where the consumer is king and the rest of us float in their effluvia.
To put it simply, no YouTube and Taylor Swift is on Spotify in a heartbeat.
Tidal either morphs into something else or goes out of business. As for a sale, pennies on the dollar at best. Because exclusives are meaningless. Ask Dr. Dre about being exclusive to Apple. The greatest impact his album had was in its publicity, did you hear it?
You want to be everywhere all the time.
Unless you put money first.
And the music business is one of hustle, of uneducated men and women trying to get rich, employing subterfuge if necessary, because it's all about the individual and nothing's going to stay in their way. It's as if doctors didn't need diplomas and didn't care about serving humanity, but making the most money.
If Adele decides not to put her album on streaming services it will only be about one thing, the money. But even her team can see the lack of wisdom in such a decision, because it would hurt her career. Then again, in music the acts are fungible and no one looks long term and mistakes are made constantly.
The only reason to not be on Spotify, et al, is because of the money. If you think any artist can fight the future that is streaming you've got your head up your rear end and don't realize streaming already won. The agitation of acts over payment is a non-story that just keeps people from paying, that keeps them streaming YouTube videos, only in the music business can an industry not embrace a game-changing technology. It would be like computer companies refusing to install Wi-Fi. Microsoft not upgrading Office. Nokia saying the future is flip-phones, and they're gonna keep on making them only.
Did you see that Microsoft wrote down $7.6 billion on its Nokia purchase? Give the company credit for seeing the light, for wiping away the past and embracing the future. And note that Steve Ballmer led them to the precipice, it was he who couldn't see the future, not only with the Finnish phone company, but with so many other choices. After all, it was Microsoft, king of companies, right?
Wrong!
Don't overestimate Adele's power. If she never put out another record the business would survive. Hell, the Beatles broke up and music marched on. People died and music marched on.
But the press loves an angle, the press loves getting you to talk about something irrelevant so you'll miss the real issues.
Same time next year there won't be this discussion. Because sales will have faded that much more and streaming will have been embraced that much more. We're in a transitory moment. No one puts out an album that's not on the iTunes Store anymore, but do you remember when that was an issue? When bands wouldn't go digital? When they didn't want their album broken up? Hell, ask anybody under fifteen, they don't!
Or why don't you do an exclusive with Walmart! How many bands walked through that door? Now Walmart itself has stalled, with Amazon eating its future lunch.
Distribution comes and goes, it's the music that remains.
Led Zeppelin was on vinyl only. And then 8-track, cassette, CD, file/MP3/AAC and now stream. Did any of these carriers affect how you felt about the band? Of course not. As for being prescient, their manager sold out their royalties believing their catalog wasn't worth anything. Elvis's manager did this too. No one would do such a thing today. Because those in the know realize the money is in longevity.
But Peter Grant and Colonel Tom Parker were hustlers. They got the money now. Today it's about tomorrow.
So I'm not saying Adele won't hold her album back from streaming services. But if she does, it'll be for a brief window only. It's just that you can't point to this action and draw any conclusions that it's about anything but the money.
It's too much about the money in society and certainly in the music business, where the acts scalp their own tickets while pledging fealty to their fans.
But it only goes so far. Tidal was a disaster in the announcement and the aftermath. People won't follow you over the cliff.
But that does not mean a streaming company won't pay Adele for an exclusive window. Thinking it burnishes their image and will deliver new subscribers.
But it won't for Tidal, we've already seen that.
And Apple's market share is too small for most people to jump in based on this.
The only company which could benefit from an exclusive is Spotify, the same way XM could have benefited by making a deal with Howard Stern, it would have put a stake in Sirius's heart.
And, of course, Stern went to Sirius, which eventually devoured XM, but Sirius had deep pockets and other programming, it took a long while for Stern to get his footing there, to increase paying subscribers. Stern's footprint and influence were minimized. Only by going on AGT did he resuscitate his image and regain his place in the national marketplace. But Stern was on radio nearly every day. Adele puts out an album every four or five years! A mistake now would hurt her career!
But she might do it.
And if she does, laugh, heartily.
It will mean she missed the memo.
And the memo is that there's plenty of money in music, albeit not as much as in finance and tech, yet there are bunch of people, both old and young, yearning for the old days wherein selling a piece of plastic generated instant income, they want those days to return. But while they're at it, why don't they have you give up Netflix and Hulu? Meanwhile, HBO realized streaming is the future and jumped in!
And you might claim that it's different, there's no freemium tier.
I might say how do you expect people to pay when you keep muddying the water, vilifying streaming services, holding your music from them?
Today you're lucky if you've got an audience at all. Do your best to keep it. Rappers give out free mixtapes, they got the message. Eric Church sent his album to fan club members free and unannounced. Super-serve those who care, otherwise few will care at all. And only give up the short term money if you don't care about the long term cash. And know that anything that is inaccessible is hobbled, because distribution is king and no act, no content is bigger than the pipe.
Adele, put your music on streaming services, all of them, be a beacon for hope as opposed to a rearguard operator, you can do good here.
Or don't, I don't care. And neither does anybody else other than a cadre of losers who believe someone stole their cheese and refuse to embrace the present, never mind the future.
Life's gonna get really hard for them.
Keep on movin'...
Embrace change or die!
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Saturday 7 November 2015
Friday 6 November 2015
New Release Paradigm
1. NO FRONT-LOADING
That's an old game which pays few dividends in the modern world. Used to be it was about making a big first week splash so retailers would reorder, now physical retail is de minimis and nearly irrelevant. Hype should begin no more than a week out.
2. RALLY THE TROOPS
Speak to those already converted, don't try to convert those who don't care or don't know right out of the box, it's a wasted effort. It's key to be able to contact your tribe. E-mail is best. But social media works too, albeit less efficiently. Your core fan is eager to hear new material. He or she will stream it immediately and spread the word, especially if it's good. Never forget, the word of your fan is more persuasive than the word of the media. The media moves on to a new story tomorrow, a fan lives and breathes your work. A fan can get friends to listen, and the more someone listens to anything, the more they like it.
3. STREAMING NUMBERS ARE EVERYTHING
Ironically, it's the major labels who know this most, that's right, the supposed antiquated are the hippest. Majors know it's all about metrics, they're looking for a reaction. If there is one, they can leverage it, for television appearances and radio play. Press is trumped by cold hard numbers. No one cares what the critic has to say, but they can't argue with facts, i.e. numbers. Forget the "Billboard" chart, it's caught up in transition, trying to bridge the gap between sales and streams, and doing it very poorly. The metrics that mean most are Spotify and YouTube. YouTube is great for the single hit, but the Spotify numbers for more than the single are key, they show fan devotion, they illustrate that the act is not fly by night.
4. PLAYLISTS
You want to be on them. Fans discover music by driving by, via hit and run. When something jumps out of the playlist they add it to their library and play it again. I discovered Kurt Vile's "Pretty Pimpin" this way, it was on the Songpickr playlist, it jumped right out of my phone. With almost no traction in the mainstream media, "Pretty Pimpin" has racked up 4,585,957 listens on Spotify. That's even more than on YouTube, which shows 1,534,655. YouTube is reactive, it's not where things are started amongst music devotees, it's where the young and unwashed go to listen to music. The hard core is on streaming services, and despite the hoopla about freemium, the hard core eventually pays, because it wants to be able to pick and choose on mobile and music means that much to them. I was further energized about the Vile track when Keith Urban testified about it, we always want to know what our heroes are listening to, especially if it's obscure/unknown. This is the future of breaking
acts, playlists, where tracks are ultimately embraced and spread, slowly. Everything but the hit spreads slowly today.
5. LISTENS, NOT SALES
You've got to find a way to worm the music into the public consciousness, to get people to not only play it, but keep playing it. This is not only the way you get paid for recordings, but the way you truly make money, on the road. In today's world, where the morning news story is forgotten by six o'clock, it's your job to stay in the public mind, to be part of the discussion.
6. HITS GROW YOUR AUDIENCE
If you want to be bigger than you are, you have to deliver a catchy track that grabs the listener in four seconds or less that they not only want to hear again, but tell everybody about. You don't get more time. People judge immediately. And good is not good enough. If your album doesn't have a hit, you're preaching to the converted, whose size probably won't grow, but shrink, because people are drawn to that which is hot. Once again, a hit is not necessarily something that plays on the radio, but something that gets someone to jump out of bed, toss their pajamas, dress up and walk to the all night record shop to buy. That's what Ahmet Ertegun said, the only difference today is you grab your mobile and search for it on Spotify or YouTube. The essence is the same, you've got to hear it again. Everybody's overloaded with input, you can only break through with your work, no media campaign, no amount of imploring can make you a star anymore, you either have the goods or you don't. And
if you don't, you'll know right away and need to go back to the drawing board immediately and make new music. Don't beat a dead horse, it's sad and ineffective.
7. RADIO ONLY WORKS IN POP
And if you don't make pop records ignore it. Oh sure, you can get a start on NPR, but you'll probably hit a wall. Same deal with Active Rock radio. Niche formats mean something, but not much. Your job is to go online and find your tribe and grow it, the niche radio stations are an echo chamber. But pop radio is a behemoth. If you make pop music you must have a hit, it's not about your cred but your CV, what you've done for us lately, record a bunch of hits and you can play arenas, can you say "Rihanna"? Pop artists are not in the album game, their album sales illustrate devotion, but not truth. Non-pop artists are all about the body of work, the audience wants to dig deeper. Which is why you must shorten the release interval to satiate listeners who might otherwise drift off to someone else.
8. LIVE IS YOUR FRIEND
We expect live videos on YouTube. Forget imperfections, someone who's searching for this stuff doesn't care about you getting it right, they just want to cement the bond of fandom and feel like an insider. Your phone comes with a camera, shoot and post video constantly. It doesn't all have to be music, but most should be. Do your songs acoustically and do covers. Covers illustrate roots, they can demonstrate your own personal fandom, the more you illuminate your identity the more people bond to you.
9. EVERYTHING'S SLOW EXCEPT WHEN IT ISN'T
Monster pop hits can be instant, but even Lorde's "Royals" didn't go nuclear until it was on the radio. But there are very few "Blurred Lines" and "Wake Me Up"s. Sure, you want an instant response to show you're on the right track, but you're not gonna have instant stardom. Look how long it took Fetty Wap to break through! Pop radio is especially slow and those who find out this way are mostly casual fans, but they will still stream your songs and go to your show, but probably not if you don't have another hit.
10. HIP-HOP IS ABOUT CULTURE MORE THAN HITS
Sure, there are hip-hop hits, and you can't argue with success. But today's hip-hop is an ongoing story, with mixtapes and a constant flow of information. The rest of music could learn a few lessons from the rappers. Best to be totally engaged, to constantly deliver something new, and know it's less about the unicorn and more about the entire animal, your identity, your body of work.
11. BE ORIGINAL
When you tell everybody it's your greatest work and detail all the friends you employed to make it, most people puke, it's like reading Walter Scott's Personality Parade. That might work for movies and TV, and I can argue it doesn't, but not in music. Music is the most honest medium, it touches people's hearts. And you should speak from yours. The more authentic you are, the more honest you are, the more you reveal your warts and insecurities, the greater chance you have that people will check you out and bond to you.
12. SINGLES/ALBUMS
It's about body of work. If you've got something new to say, record it and drop it online. Your fans will find it. The smaller your circle, the more albums work. Because your hard core is anticipating a lot of material and will play it and digest it. If you're a superstar, the album is nearly irrelevant, at most it's a revenue-generating event. People just want the hit. But they want to dig deeper, which is why you must have more than one track on Spotify. And people play the tracks of a new find in descending order, from most popular on down. And if you don't have a bunch of ear-grabbing tracks, forget it, people are gonna click on. If you want someone to listen to your music four or five times to get it, you want to be a small act. There's nothing wrong with immediacy, it demonstrates skill. Hooks come in all shapes and sizes. Sometimes it's a sound, sometimes it's a riff. Atmosphere can be enough. Be accessible, don't get on your high horse and say the audience must come to you.
This will happen once you deliver for them and embrace them.
13. FUTURE
It won't be about the release, but the aforementioned body of work. Career artists want to keep adding to it. Lead with your music, it's the essence of your career. Sure, employ social media, but it's overrated. Social media can't make a musical star, at most it can get someone to check something out. But if they don't like it in the initial four seconds...
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That's an old game which pays few dividends in the modern world. Used to be it was about making a big first week splash so retailers would reorder, now physical retail is de minimis and nearly irrelevant. Hype should begin no more than a week out.
2. RALLY THE TROOPS
Speak to those already converted, don't try to convert those who don't care or don't know right out of the box, it's a wasted effort. It's key to be able to contact your tribe. E-mail is best. But social media works too, albeit less efficiently. Your core fan is eager to hear new material. He or she will stream it immediately and spread the word, especially if it's good. Never forget, the word of your fan is more persuasive than the word of the media. The media moves on to a new story tomorrow, a fan lives and breathes your work. A fan can get friends to listen, and the more someone listens to anything, the more they like it.
3. STREAMING NUMBERS ARE EVERYTHING
Ironically, it's the major labels who know this most, that's right, the supposed antiquated are the hippest. Majors know it's all about metrics, they're looking for a reaction. If there is one, they can leverage it, for television appearances and radio play. Press is trumped by cold hard numbers. No one cares what the critic has to say, but they can't argue with facts, i.e. numbers. Forget the "Billboard" chart, it's caught up in transition, trying to bridge the gap between sales and streams, and doing it very poorly. The metrics that mean most are Spotify and YouTube. YouTube is great for the single hit, but the Spotify numbers for more than the single are key, they show fan devotion, they illustrate that the act is not fly by night.
4. PLAYLISTS
You want to be on them. Fans discover music by driving by, via hit and run. When something jumps out of the playlist they add it to their library and play it again. I discovered Kurt Vile's "Pretty Pimpin" this way, it was on the Songpickr playlist, it jumped right out of my phone. With almost no traction in the mainstream media, "Pretty Pimpin" has racked up 4,585,957 listens on Spotify. That's even more than on YouTube, which shows 1,534,655. YouTube is reactive, it's not where things are started amongst music devotees, it's where the young and unwashed go to listen to music. The hard core is on streaming services, and despite the hoopla about freemium, the hard core eventually pays, because it wants to be able to pick and choose on mobile and music means that much to them. I was further energized about the Vile track when Keith Urban testified about it, we always want to know what our heroes are listening to, especially if it's obscure/unknown. This is the future of breaking
acts, playlists, where tracks are ultimately embraced and spread, slowly. Everything but the hit spreads slowly today.
5. LISTENS, NOT SALES
You've got to find a way to worm the music into the public consciousness, to get people to not only play it, but keep playing it. This is not only the way you get paid for recordings, but the way you truly make money, on the road. In today's world, where the morning news story is forgotten by six o'clock, it's your job to stay in the public mind, to be part of the discussion.
6. HITS GROW YOUR AUDIENCE
If you want to be bigger than you are, you have to deliver a catchy track that grabs the listener in four seconds or less that they not only want to hear again, but tell everybody about. You don't get more time. People judge immediately. And good is not good enough. If your album doesn't have a hit, you're preaching to the converted, whose size probably won't grow, but shrink, because people are drawn to that which is hot. Once again, a hit is not necessarily something that plays on the radio, but something that gets someone to jump out of bed, toss their pajamas, dress up and walk to the all night record shop to buy. That's what Ahmet Ertegun said, the only difference today is you grab your mobile and search for it on Spotify or YouTube. The essence is the same, you've got to hear it again. Everybody's overloaded with input, you can only break through with your work, no media campaign, no amount of imploring can make you a star anymore, you either have the goods or you don't. And
if you don't, you'll know right away and need to go back to the drawing board immediately and make new music. Don't beat a dead horse, it's sad and ineffective.
7. RADIO ONLY WORKS IN POP
And if you don't make pop records ignore it. Oh sure, you can get a start on NPR, but you'll probably hit a wall. Same deal with Active Rock radio. Niche formats mean something, but not much. Your job is to go online and find your tribe and grow it, the niche radio stations are an echo chamber. But pop radio is a behemoth. If you make pop music you must have a hit, it's not about your cred but your CV, what you've done for us lately, record a bunch of hits and you can play arenas, can you say "Rihanna"? Pop artists are not in the album game, their album sales illustrate devotion, but not truth. Non-pop artists are all about the body of work, the audience wants to dig deeper. Which is why you must shorten the release interval to satiate listeners who might otherwise drift off to someone else.
8. LIVE IS YOUR FRIEND
We expect live videos on YouTube. Forget imperfections, someone who's searching for this stuff doesn't care about you getting it right, they just want to cement the bond of fandom and feel like an insider. Your phone comes with a camera, shoot and post video constantly. It doesn't all have to be music, but most should be. Do your songs acoustically and do covers. Covers illustrate roots, they can demonstrate your own personal fandom, the more you illuminate your identity the more people bond to you.
9. EVERYTHING'S SLOW EXCEPT WHEN IT ISN'T
Monster pop hits can be instant, but even Lorde's "Royals" didn't go nuclear until it was on the radio. But there are very few "Blurred Lines" and "Wake Me Up"s. Sure, you want an instant response to show you're on the right track, but you're not gonna have instant stardom. Look how long it took Fetty Wap to break through! Pop radio is especially slow and those who find out this way are mostly casual fans, but they will still stream your songs and go to your show, but probably not if you don't have another hit.
10. HIP-HOP IS ABOUT CULTURE MORE THAN HITS
Sure, there are hip-hop hits, and you can't argue with success. But today's hip-hop is an ongoing story, with mixtapes and a constant flow of information. The rest of music could learn a few lessons from the rappers. Best to be totally engaged, to constantly deliver something new, and know it's less about the unicorn and more about the entire animal, your identity, your body of work.
11. BE ORIGINAL
When you tell everybody it's your greatest work and detail all the friends you employed to make it, most people puke, it's like reading Walter Scott's Personality Parade. That might work for movies and TV, and I can argue it doesn't, but not in music. Music is the most honest medium, it touches people's hearts. And you should speak from yours. The more authentic you are, the more honest you are, the more you reveal your warts and insecurities, the greater chance you have that people will check you out and bond to you.
12. SINGLES/ALBUMS
It's about body of work. If you've got something new to say, record it and drop it online. Your fans will find it. The smaller your circle, the more albums work. Because your hard core is anticipating a lot of material and will play it and digest it. If you're a superstar, the album is nearly irrelevant, at most it's a revenue-generating event. People just want the hit. But they want to dig deeper, which is why you must have more than one track on Spotify. And people play the tracks of a new find in descending order, from most popular on down. And if you don't have a bunch of ear-grabbing tracks, forget it, people are gonna click on. If you want someone to listen to your music four or five times to get it, you want to be a small act. There's nothing wrong with immediacy, it demonstrates skill. Hooks come in all shapes and sizes. Sometimes it's a sound, sometimes it's a riff. Atmosphere can be enough. Be accessible, don't get on your high horse and say the audience must come to you.
This will happen once you deliver for them and embrace them.
13. FUTURE
It won't be about the release, but the aforementioned body of work. Career artists want to keep adding to it. Lead with your music, it's the essence of your career. Sure, employ social media, but it's overrated. Social media can't make a musical star, at most it can get someone to check something out. But if they don't like it in the initial four seconds...
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Thursday 5 November 2015
You Oughta Know
This is the last old school Christmas in the music business. Never again will you see the media industrial complex rallying around the product of a superstar trying to gin up fourth quarter revenue. Because it's no longer about sales, but streams. Did you see Jason Aldean quietly caved and put his music back on Spotify? It's just a matter of time before the Beatles and Taylor Swift are there too, because sales are shrinking to a de minimis proportion of exposure, never mind revenue. You have to be where the action is. And now the action in the music business is in the long term, a hit is something people listen to, not that which they buy, and they're not necessarily the same thing.
But the book business has not learned this lesson. This fall has been inundated with the release of celebrity tomes, as if we care about the lives of everybody from Cindy Crawford to Beverly Johnson to David Spade. This is the last dash for cash, when you've got no projects in the pipeline, when there's a lull in your career, when you're trying to keep yourself in the public eye. And as Leah Remini said, no one on TV will ask hard questions, because it's sell, sell, sell all the time.
I heard her say this on Howard Stern, where I heard all of the above personages hyping their books. And it was somewhat interesting, but these hacks have no center, there's no there there, and then I heard "You Oughta Know."
That's right, Alanis Morissette is on the sales trail too, it's the twentieth anniversary of "Jagged Little Pill," it's her moment to illustrate she's still relevant, when the truth is anything but. She had that album and "Uninvited" and then she was done, overwhelmed by her initial success.
And we could say that's sad.
Yet unlike so many musicians, Alanis is intelligent. But she exudes too much touchy-feely sentiment, and then she opens her pipes and sings "You Oughta Know."
It was different in 1995, most people had never heard of the internet, radio still ruled, you could dominate the public conversation if you were good enough, and Alanis was. Like Nirvana nearly half a decade before, Alanis went from obscurity to ubiquity in an instant, and it was all about "You Oughta Know".
"I want you to know, that I'm happy for you
I wish nothing but the best for you both"
She's being facetious, putting up a good front. Just a good girl doing the right thing. And then...
"An older version of me
Is she perverted like me
Would she go down on you in a theatre"
Probably the most famous lyric of the nineties. We were shocked, BJ's were not part of public conversation. As for doing it in a public place, all of us playing the home game thought...THAT NEVER HAPPENED TO ME! Who is this chick?
"You seem very well, things look peaceful
I'm not quite as well, I thought you should know"
Honesty, it's absent from the landscape. While the rabble-rousers spew hate online those with a profile love everybody and everything, they're totally together...do you know anybody like this? No one admits fault, no one is guilty, no one is depressed, unless it's part of their world domination program. How do you expect people to relate?
They don't.
That's why music is in the dumper. Oh sure, plenty of people listen, but it doesn't resonate in quite the same way, it's lost the je ne sais quoi that makes it the hottest artistic medium. And then you hear something like the live performance of "You Oughta Know" on yesterday's Stern show.
"Well, I'm here to remind you"
That I was genius back then and I still am. That unlike the auto-tuned celebs I had the pipes and still do. In an era where even Mariah Carey struggles live we expect little from faded icons, but then Alanis Morissette hits us right between the eyes and we remember the revelation she once was.
"Did you forget about me Mr. Duplicity"
You needed a dictionary to make sense of the lyrics. Instead of dumbing down, Alanis was educating.
"And every time you speak her name
Does she know how you told me you'd hold me
Until you died, til you died"
That's what they don't tell you, how painful it will be when you see them with someone else, when everything you had between you is shredded. How do you make sense of all this? Does time heal all wounds? Did the original words mean that little? And will time wound all heels?
"'cause the joke that you laid on the bed that was me
And I'm not gonna fade"
This is not Glenn Close in "Fatal Attraction," this is no joke, no crazy broad painted broadly that we can instantly dismiss, rather this is me and you, and we're PISSED!
It's happened to all of us. Unless you married your first date. Unless you took no risks or didn't date at all. Things are going along swimmingly, you might even be married, but then your beloved does a one-eighty and not only dumps you but replaces you, how do you make sense of all that?
You can't!
So you put on a record and look for the connection.
And that's what Alanis was selling.
When you broke the shrinkwrap, you found out it wasn't only "You Oughta Know," the opening cut "All I Really Want" was just as intense, angry and honest. Everybody playing the home game, alone in their abode, could relate, they'd found their icon.
"And what I wouldn't give to find a soulmate
Someone else to catch this drift
And what I wouldn't give to meet a kindred"
That's the essence of existence, the communication with like-minded people, not the dollars in your bank account. You're open, you're honest, but you just can't connect, you just can't find your tribe, never mind that special someone. You believe it's gonna come, but then it doesn't. Just like the pot of gold at the end of the rainbow you were planning on acquiring evaporated when the 1% laughed in your face and claimed you just weren't working hard enough. Used to be artists pushed back, back before Jay Z took Samsung's money and thought he won. If you aren't pushing against the corporate industrial complex your words are not worth listening to.
And as downbeat and intense as "You Oughta Know" and "All I Really Want" were, that's how upbeat and hopeful "Hand In Pocket" was...because no matter how bad life is, there are their moments when it's fine, fine, fine.
And Alanis told Howard that she didn't love "Ironic" because Glen Ballard cowrote the lyrics, she had an urge to make her own statement, she wanted it to be her autobiography and just hers.
And that's what makes "You Oughta Know" so great. There's no committee involved, there's there there, it became a gargantuan success because it was exactly what we were looking for, something made for its own excellence, pandering never came into the equation.
Kind of like HBO.
That's why that outlet is so vaunted, it doesn't meddle, it sets the artists free, something the music business did for decades, until there became too much money involved, until the execs thought they were smarter and more important than the artists.
I want you to know that when I heard Alanis Morissette sing "You Oughta Know" on Howard Stern's Sirius XM show I was stopped in my tracks, tears came to my eyes, because this was and still is the experience I'm looking for, the truth, straight from the heart.
You oughta know.
"Alanis Morissette Performs 'You Oughta Know' On The Howard Stern Show": http://bit.ly/1Ngfqpq
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But the book business has not learned this lesson. This fall has been inundated with the release of celebrity tomes, as if we care about the lives of everybody from Cindy Crawford to Beverly Johnson to David Spade. This is the last dash for cash, when you've got no projects in the pipeline, when there's a lull in your career, when you're trying to keep yourself in the public eye. And as Leah Remini said, no one on TV will ask hard questions, because it's sell, sell, sell all the time.
I heard her say this on Howard Stern, where I heard all of the above personages hyping their books. And it was somewhat interesting, but these hacks have no center, there's no there there, and then I heard "You Oughta Know."
That's right, Alanis Morissette is on the sales trail too, it's the twentieth anniversary of "Jagged Little Pill," it's her moment to illustrate she's still relevant, when the truth is anything but. She had that album and "Uninvited" and then she was done, overwhelmed by her initial success.
And we could say that's sad.
Yet unlike so many musicians, Alanis is intelligent. But she exudes too much touchy-feely sentiment, and then she opens her pipes and sings "You Oughta Know."
It was different in 1995, most people had never heard of the internet, radio still ruled, you could dominate the public conversation if you were good enough, and Alanis was. Like Nirvana nearly half a decade before, Alanis went from obscurity to ubiquity in an instant, and it was all about "You Oughta Know".
"I want you to know, that I'm happy for you
I wish nothing but the best for you both"
She's being facetious, putting up a good front. Just a good girl doing the right thing. And then...
"An older version of me
Is she perverted like me
Would she go down on you in a theatre"
Probably the most famous lyric of the nineties. We were shocked, BJ's were not part of public conversation. As for doing it in a public place, all of us playing the home game thought...THAT NEVER HAPPENED TO ME! Who is this chick?
"You seem very well, things look peaceful
I'm not quite as well, I thought you should know"
Honesty, it's absent from the landscape. While the rabble-rousers spew hate online those with a profile love everybody and everything, they're totally together...do you know anybody like this? No one admits fault, no one is guilty, no one is depressed, unless it's part of their world domination program. How do you expect people to relate?
They don't.
That's why music is in the dumper. Oh sure, plenty of people listen, but it doesn't resonate in quite the same way, it's lost the je ne sais quoi that makes it the hottest artistic medium. And then you hear something like the live performance of "You Oughta Know" on yesterday's Stern show.
"Well, I'm here to remind you"
That I was genius back then and I still am. That unlike the auto-tuned celebs I had the pipes and still do. In an era where even Mariah Carey struggles live we expect little from faded icons, but then Alanis Morissette hits us right between the eyes and we remember the revelation she once was.
"Did you forget about me Mr. Duplicity"
You needed a dictionary to make sense of the lyrics. Instead of dumbing down, Alanis was educating.
"And every time you speak her name
Does she know how you told me you'd hold me
Until you died, til you died"
That's what they don't tell you, how painful it will be when you see them with someone else, when everything you had between you is shredded. How do you make sense of all this? Does time heal all wounds? Did the original words mean that little? And will time wound all heels?
"'cause the joke that you laid on the bed that was me
And I'm not gonna fade"
This is not Glenn Close in "Fatal Attraction," this is no joke, no crazy broad painted broadly that we can instantly dismiss, rather this is me and you, and we're PISSED!
It's happened to all of us. Unless you married your first date. Unless you took no risks or didn't date at all. Things are going along swimmingly, you might even be married, but then your beloved does a one-eighty and not only dumps you but replaces you, how do you make sense of all that?
You can't!
So you put on a record and look for the connection.
And that's what Alanis was selling.
When you broke the shrinkwrap, you found out it wasn't only "You Oughta Know," the opening cut "All I Really Want" was just as intense, angry and honest. Everybody playing the home game, alone in their abode, could relate, they'd found their icon.
"And what I wouldn't give to find a soulmate
Someone else to catch this drift
And what I wouldn't give to meet a kindred"
That's the essence of existence, the communication with like-minded people, not the dollars in your bank account. You're open, you're honest, but you just can't connect, you just can't find your tribe, never mind that special someone. You believe it's gonna come, but then it doesn't. Just like the pot of gold at the end of the rainbow you were planning on acquiring evaporated when the 1% laughed in your face and claimed you just weren't working hard enough. Used to be artists pushed back, back before Jay Z took Samsung's money and thought he won. If you aren't pushing against the corporate industrial complex your words are not worth listening to.
And as downbeat and intense as "You Oughta Know" and "All I Really Want" were, that's how upbeat and hopeful "Hand In Pocket" was...because no matter how bad life is, there are their moments when it's fine, fine, fine.
And Alanis told Howard that she didn't love "Ironic" because Glen Ballard cowrote the lyrics, she had an urge to make her own statement, she wanted it to be her autobiography and just hers.
And that's what makes "You Oughta Know" so great. There's no committee involved, there's there there, it became a gargantuan success because it was exactly what we were looking for, something made for its own excellence, pandering never came into the equation.
Kind of like HBO.
That's why that outlet is so vaunted, it doesn't meddle, it sets the artists free, something the music business did for decades, until there became too much money involved, until the execs thought they were smarter and more important than the artists.
I want you to know that when I heard Alanis Morissette sing "You Oughta Know" on Howard Stern's Sirius XM show I was stopped in my tracks, tears came to my eyes, because this was and still is the experience I'm looking for, the truth, straight from the heart.
You oughta know.
"Alanis Morissette Performs 'You Oughta Know' On The Howard Stern Show": http://bit.ly/1Ngfqpq
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Wednesday 4 November 2015
People stopped sharing.
"34% of Facebook users updated their status, and 37% shared their own photos, down from 50% and 59%, respectively, in the same period a year earlier."
http://on.wsj.com/1Q7BQyg
Or as Michael Wolf put it in his monster WSJ slide show...
"Messaging will blow past social networks as the dominant media activity."
http://read.bi/1hUgir1
Turns out throwing your vitals, your hobbies, your irrelevancies, into the ether is ultimately ungratifying. At first you get caught up in the hoopla, but when you realize no one's reacting, no one really cares, you stop.
We've seen it again and again in the internet sphere.
Remember when everybody was gonna have a blog?
And then there was Friendster, MySpace, Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, Snapchat...
They're all fads. People have a fantasy others care, but they don't. And once you're disabused of the notion that everybody's waiting for your words and pics of wisdom, you stop playing.
Meaning those enterprises that are built upon the efforts of the crowd, that supply infrastructure and nothing more, are doomed. It's all about content. And the best content is not that created by nobodies, but pros. Why do you think YouTube is challenged and starting to charge? There's no money in everybody's home movies!
Yes, Facebook just reported stellar numbers. Give the company credit for moving quickly to mobile and doing a good job of selling space to advertisers. But we've seen advertising costs plummet around the web, will they plummet on Facebook? Is amassing eyeballs upon bogus content the future of the internet?
That's why we have linkbait, so companies can generate impressions that they can sell to advertisers. But the rates keep going down because the ads make no impression, people ignore them if they don't block them entirely.
Which is what Apple allows you to do on iOS. Users are thrilled, outlets basing their revenues on advertising are not. And then there's PewDiePie, the king of the aforementioned YouTube, who claims that 40% of YouTubers block all ads. (http://bit.ly/1LFvbs3)
Making Apple once again the smartest enterprise on the planet. Knowing that there has to be a there there, and you gain advantage by establishing trust with your customers, as opposed to employing subterfuge and selling their data.
But the dropping posts on Facebook prove that everybody is not a star. That the wild west atmosphere of the internet is a phase. And as things solidify, cyberspace resembles the rest of society... There's a very thin layer of superstars/winners, a small class who believe the low barrier to entry means they can win the lottery, while the rest have checked out and are interacting one to one and consuming when they're not.
Same as it ever was. Passivity reigns. TV never became interactive and the websites built on this premise, that if you build it they will come and spew their data and make you rich, is flawed too.
You can't control the customer. And what the customer has said again and again is not only will he gravitate to free, his allegiance is temporary at best. You've got to create a product worth paying for and continue to improve it otherwise you'll be passed by.
So, those who create visual content professionally are still in good shape. As are the news titans. They've just got to wait out the chaos, as the major labels did in the music business.
Remember, the majors were gonna die. But now they're even more powerful than before, because of their relationships. In an era of chaos, they're the only ones who can gain traction on a product!
So Wall Street is behind the times, not as lost as the government, but clueless as to what's coming down the pike. Anybody who used a mobile device knew that BlackBerry was toast, but Wall Street propped it up for years, and believed theoretical comebacks, even though we know it's impossible for classic rockers to have another hit, hell, Robin Thicke may never have another hit!
The big wheel keeps on turning.
We're a nation of grazers, not builders. We don't want to waste too much effort constructing that which will not pay dividends.
So we talk to our friends and click through to the greats.
Facebook may end up being a primary destination, but housing the efforts of its users will yield diminishing returns. It's all about first class content.
"Forbes" let the lunatics into the asylum, letting everyman post, and it ruined their brand, never mind their financials.
HBO skims only the biggest talent and scores big in subscribers.
Because we don't want to waste time on nobodies, only stars.
And the truth is there are very few of them.
And you're not one of them.
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"34% of Facebook users updated their status, and 37% shared their own photos, down from 50% and 59%, respectively, in the same period a year earlier."
http://on.wsj.com/1Q7BQyg
Or as Michael Wolf put it in his monster WSJ slide show...
"Messaging will blow past social networks as the dominant media activity."
http://read.bi/1hUgir1
Turns out throwing your vitals, your hobbies, your irrelevancies, into the ether is ultimately ungratifying. At first you get caught up in the hoopla, but when you realize no one's reacting, no one really cares, you stop.
We've seen it again and again in the internet sphere.
Remember when everybody was gonna have a blog?
And then there was Friendster, MySpace, Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, Snapchat...
They're all fads. People have a fantasy others care, but they don't. And once you're disabused of the notion that everybody's waiting for your words and pics of wisdom, you stop playing.
Meaning those enterprises that are built upon the efforts of the crowd, that supply infrastructure and nothing more, are doomed. It's all about content. And the best content is not that created by nobodies, but pros. Why do you think YouTube is challenged and starting to charge? There's no money in everybody's home movies!
Yes, Facebook just reported stellar numbers. Give the company credit for moving quickly to mobile and doing a good job of selling space to advertisers. But we've seen advertising costs plummet around the web, will they plummet on Facebook? Is amassing eyeballs upon bogus content the future of the internet?
That's why we have linkbait, so companies can generate impressions that they can sell to advertisers. But the rates keep going down because the ads make no impression, people ignore them if they don't block them entirely.
Which is what Apple allows you to do on iOS. Users are thrilled, outlets basing their revenues on advertising are not. And then there's PewDiePie, the king of the aforementioned YouTube, who claims that 40% of YouTubers block all ads. (http://bit.ly/1LFvbs3)
Making Apple once again the smartest enterprise on the planet. Knowing that there has to be a there there, and you gain advantage by establishing trust with your customers, as opposed to employing subterfuge and selling their data.
But the dropping posts on Facebook prove that everybody is not a star. That the wild west atmosphere of the internet is a phase. And as things solidify, cyberspace resembles the rest of society... There's a very thin layer of superstars/winners, a small class who believe the low barrier to entry means they can win the lottery, while the rest have checked out and are interacting one to one and consuming when they're not.
Same as it ever was. Passivity reigns. TV never became interactive and the websites built on this premise, that if you build it they will come and spew their data and make you rich, is flawed too.
You can't control the customer. And what the customer has said again and again is not only will he gravitate to free, his allegiance is temporary at best. You've got to create a product worth paying for and continue to improve it otherwise you'll be passed by.
So, those who create visual content professionally are still in good shape. As are the news titans. They've just got to wait out the chaos, as the major labels did in the music business.
Remember, the majors were gonna die. But now they're even more powerful than before, because of their relationships. In an era of chaos, they're the only ones who can gain traction on a product!
So Wall Street is behind the times, not as lost as the government, but clueless as to what's coming down the pike. Anybody who used a mobile device knew that BlackBerry was toast, but Wall Street propped it up for years, and believed theoretical comebacks, even though we know it's impossible for classic rockers to have another hit, hell, Robin Thicke may never have another hit!
The big wheel keeps on turning.
We're a nation of grazers, not builders. We don't want to waste too much effort constructing that which will not pay dividends.
So we talk to our friends and click through to the greats.
Facebook may end up being a primary destination, but housing the efforts of its users will yield diminishing returns. It's all about first class content.
"Forbes" let the lunatics into the asylum, letting everyman post, and it ruined their brand, never mind their financials.
HBO skims only the biggest talent and scores big in subscribers.
Because we don't want to waste time on nobodies, only stars.
And the truth is there are very few of them.
And you're not one of them.
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Tuesday 3 November 2015
Cancellation
Don't cancel on me. Unless your mother died or you got in a car accident, show up, live up to your commitments, otherwise I know I'm just not that important to you, and that's fine, but why did you reach out to me in the first place?
Happens all the time. Always with someone higher up the food chain. Who believes their value is greater than mine. All cool, but you came looking for me, I'd never cancel on you. As a matter of fact, I had a car accident back in February and still made it for a TV taping. Because I live up to my commitments. Does anybody live up to their commitments anymore? In a nation where it's a badge of honor to drop out of college? The value comes in staying the course. And if you think money is everything, you don't have any.
These are the lessons you learn from your parents. But that was back when your mom wouldn't write you a note so you could stay home and watch your favorite TV program, never mind go on a family trip. School was a sentence, kind of like jail, where you went for years to pay penance for being born in this great country of ours, back before we started arguing about whether evolution could be in textbooks and they removed the arts from the curriculum, when if the teacher sent home a note you shook as you handed it to your parents, today said mothers and fathers believe their child is flawless and march straight to the administration to complain, everybody in America is complaining, as they climb the greased pole, afraid to give up anything they've got. Hell, if we lived in their world we'd all still be using dial telephones rented from AT&T. Sacrifice is anathema in the United States, and so is living up to your obligations, coming through, being honest, doing what's right.
But if the President lies about a blow job and VW cheats on emissions tests and the billionaires sell your data with impunity why should you play by the rules? We live in a cheating economy. And if you're an honest, hardworking bloke, the joke's on you.
I don't say yes to everything. But when I do agree to meet, I'm there, on time. That's how you know the person getting together with you doesn't respect you, when they're late. Even in L.A., where traffic is horrific, you can arrive on time, maybe early, just to show the other person that you mean business.
And so many of the titans running today's corporations do this. You'd be astounded how many household names show up on time. But the entrepreneurial class, those who we revere so much, play by their own rules, they believe they're gods. This is the same viewpoint that has them agitating for lower taxes because they're the job creators. They buy the politicians and then start a disinformation campaign to convince the uneducated, who can't parse the truth, who didn't go to school, or didn't go to a good one, that they're right. Telling the unwashed how they made it on hard work and you can too, leaving out that their parents were rich and they went to the best schools and know all the right people. Yup, who you know is critical, which is why people set up these meetings to begin with, they're afraid they're going to miss out. I'm here to tell you you're missing out every single day, you can't know or do everything, but you can be nice to people.
Then there are those who are nice to your face but screw you behind your back. Because everybody's afraid to be honest anyway, for fear someone won't like them. I've got a whole bunch of people I don't like, I don't care if they know it. And then there are some who are hated in the press but are completely reasonable up close and personal, they've been denigrated because someone has an agenda.
Everybody's got an agenda.
All but the rich and powerful, the famous, are expendable. They can lose their right to organize, as we lionize a long gone President who fired air controllers. If you can't organize and stand up for your rights, you're feeding at the trough on Maggie's Farm. But you're afraid, you don't want to lose what little you have, while the man keeps taking more and more and telling you it's for your own good.
And dishonesty rules. Hillary Clinton says she's for the death penalty because she's running for President and she's afraid to piss some voters off. Even though trends say it's gonna go bye-bye and when the wave gets stronger she'll flip-flop, the same way she did on gay marriage.
And only in America can we have an entire news outlet billing itself as "Fair and Balanced" when it's anything but.
I was brought up in a different era. When rich meant a million and status was a Cadillac. Where the corporation felt workers were family and you had a job for life. Where who you were was more important that how much money you had, or what job you did.
And if you don't think it's going to get worse, you don't think it's going to get better.
The left says manufacturing has to come back, not telling you that a flat screen will now cost two grand. A nonstarter if there ever was one.
The right says government is bad, as if government doesn't fix the roads and enforce safe building regulations. Whenever there's an earthquake buildings topple in the rest of the world, because they weren't up to code. Rarely happens in the U.S. That's what government will buy you.
But you don't want this because you want to keep your tax money, because you think you know better, because you think you can win at the roulette wheel of life. You're not so smart, no one's that smart. We thrive on the wisdom of the crowd, we're all in it together, and I'm willing to do my part...BUT DON'T CANCEL ON ME!
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Happens all the time. Always with someone higher up the food chain. Who believes their value is greater than mine. All cool, but you came looking for me, I'd never cancel on you. As a matter of fact, I had a car accident back in February and still made it for a TV taping. Because I live up to my commitments. Does anybody live up to their commitments anymore? In a nation where it's a badge of honor to drop out of college? The value comes in staying the course. And if you think money is everything, you don't have any.
These are the lessons you learn from your parents. But that was back when your mom wouldn't write you a note so you could stay home and watch your favorite TV program, never mind go on a family trip. School was a sentence, kind of like jail, where you went for years to pay penance for being born in this great country of ours, back before we started arguing about whether evolution could be in textbooks and they removed the arts from the curriculum, when if the teacher sent home a note you shook as you handed it to your parents, today said mothers and fathers believe their child is flawless and march straight to the administration to complain, everybody in America is complaining, as they climb the greased pole, afraid to give up anything they've got. Hell, if we lived in their world we'd all still be using dial telephones rented from AT&T. Sacrifice is anathema in the United States, and so is living up to your obligations, coming through, being honest, doing what's right.
But if the President lies about a blow job and VW cheats on emissions tests and the billionaires sell your data with impunity why should you play by the rules? We live in a cheating economy. And if you're an honest, hardworking bloke, the joke's on you.
I don't say yes to everything. But when I do agree to meet, I'm there, on time. That's how you know the person getting together with you doesn't respect you, when they're late. Even in L.A., where traffic is horrific, you can arrive on time, maybe early, just to show the other person that you mean business.
And so many of the titans running today's corporations do this. You'd be astounded how many household names show up on time. But the entrepreneurial class, those who we revere so much, play by their own rules, they believe they're gods. This is the same viewpoint that has them agitating for lower taxes because they're the job creators. They buy the politicians and then start a disinformation campaign to convince the uneducated, who can't parse the truth, who didn't go to school, or didn't go to a good one, that they're right. Telling the unwashed how they made it on hard work and you can too, leaving out that their parents were rich and they went to the best schools and know all the right people. Yup, who you know is critical, which is why people set up these meetings to begin with, they're afraid they're going to miss out. I'm here to tell you you're missing out every single day, you can't know or do everything, but you can be nice to people.
Then there are those who are nice to your face but screw you behind your back. Because everybody's afraid to be honest anyway, for fear someone won't like them. I've got a whole bunch of people I don't like, I don't care if they know it. And then there are some who are hated in the press but are completely reasonable up close and personal, they've been denigrated because someone has an agenda.
Everybody's got an agenda.
All but the rich and powerful, the famous, are expendable. They can lose their right to organize, as we lionize a long gone President who fired air controllers. If you can't organize and stand up for your rights, you're feeding at the trough on Maggie's Farm. But you're afraid, you don't want to lose what little you have, while the man keeps taking more and more and telling you it's for your own good.
And dishonesty rules. Hillary Clinton says she's for the death penalty because she's running for President and she's afraid to piss some voters off. Even though trends say it's gonna go bye-bye and when the wave gets stronger she'll flip-flop, the same way she did on gay marriage.
And only in America can we have an entire news outlet billing itself as "Fair and Balanced" when it's anything but.
I was brought up in a different era. When rich meant a million and status was a Cadillac. Where the corporation felt workers were family and you had a job for life. Where who you were was more important that how much money you had, or what job you did.
And if you don't think it's going to get worse, you don't think it's going to get better.
The left says manufacturing has to come back, not telling you that a flat screen will now cost two grand. A nonstarter if there ever was one.
The right says government is bad, as if government doesn't fix the roads and enforce safe building regulations. Whenever there's an earthquake buildings topple in the rest of the world, because they weren't up to code. Rarely happens in the U.S. That's what government will buy you.
But you don't want this because you want to keep your tax money, because you think you know better, because you think you can win at the roulette wheel of life. You're not so smart, no one's that smart. We thrive on the wisdom of the crowd, we're all in it together, and I'm willing to do my part...BUT DON'T CANCEL ON ME!
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Monday 2 November 2015
Walk The Moon At The Greek
Were the eighties special, or did they just feel that way because I was there?
I went to the Greek last Thursday because it was the last Nederlander night. From now on, it's an open building. Will the city make more money or less? Well, there are a lot of shows that will no longer play the building, because the promoter can no longer make money on them. I guess it'll all play out. Either the city will do well or the building will go back up for bids.
And once upon a time the summer season was from late May until early September. I remember when the Universal Amphitheatre stretched into the first week of October in the late seventies, it was a special event. But now not only is the Universal Amphitheatre gone, especially in its topless incarnation, it hasn't been cold in L.A. for seemingly ever. Well, until today. I know you've been dealing with freezing temps and precipitation, but it's been in the eighties here for weeks, even in Santa Monica, where normally it doesn't even get that warm at the apex of summer.
Which is to say it was not a brisk evening. No jacket required.
Did you see that Phil Collins is gonna make a comeback? Is anybody salivating? And I'm a fan! But as acts age it's tough to get their audience out, never mind get the word out.
But everybody knew about the Walk The Moon show, at least those who cared. And they came out in prodigious numbers, they filled the place, they painted their faces, they sang along and I wondered...did I miss the memo?
Or could this just be the modern world, wherein everybody's narrowcasting and it's nearly impossible to break out of your lane, you might be hyped by the mainstream media, but still very few care.
So, to be honest, I b.s.'ed in Rena's office through the opening acts, two, like in the days of yore, at the Fillmore. Actually, Rena took her troops to the Bill Graham exhibit, to show them her roots, what once was. And my roots include the heyday of MTV, all those English acts that burned up the airwaves before Michael Jackson came along and changed the channel into a pop outlet. You know, Haircut 100... All those acts with synths and high voices and melodies, like Walk The Moon.
I'd like to tell you they were bad, but they were not. The band was completely competent. No, they were better than that, they were talented. The lead guitarist could shred. And the drummer could pound. And the lead singer could not only do that, but noodle on the keyboards too. It's just that I thought I'd heard this sound before.
But to the girls in attendance, it was brand new. And they were girls. The ratio was at least 70/30, and the boys in attendance all had girls by their side. And there were no parents like at a 1D show, this crew was old enough to drive, and unlike their 'rents, they thought nothing of going out on a Thursday evening, just a few days before Halloween.
I was fascinated, how could something that meant so much to so many...mean so little to everybody else?
I wandered down into the pit. Everybody was dancing. The lead singer had the assembled multitude lift their arms in the air. And blathered on about how the band relied on the audience, they made it together, all the cliches you've heard for decades, but to these people...it was all BRAND NEW!
Which, once again, begs the question, was our music not that special, is it all just cyclical?
But unlike the bands of the MTV era, no one in Walk The Moon was a babe. They were sartorially challenged. It was about the music. Well, along with the energy. On one level you had to give them credit, on the other it got kind of repetitious.
Turns out they're from Ohio. And they've been at it for the better part of a decade. And the lead singer went to Kenyon. Same as it used to be, when you lived in the hinterlands and practiced until you got your chance. And Max Martin is not involved, but there are some secret weapons, but the band has an undeniable hit in "Shut Up And Dance."
"She took my arm
I don't know how it happened
We took the floor and she said..."
This is every boy's dream, we're pressured to be macho, to lead, but what we're looking for is a signal, a green light,...
"Oh don't you dare look back
Just keep your eyes on me
I said you're holding back
She said shut up and dance with me
This woman is my destiny
She said ooo ooo ooo
Shut up and dance with me"
And the band is pogoing, and so is the assembled multitude, whose knees are injury-free, they're running on sheer adrenaline and optimism. Just like...we did in the eighties.
You remember that era, or maybe you don't. Reagan was President, we didn't know the middle class was on its way out, we just believed happiness was our destiny. And our soundtrack was...all those bands on MTV.
I'll argue Culture Club was unique. Maybe Duran Duran too. But were the rest really that different from Walk The Moon?
Not that much.
So when I got home I played the album, "Talking Is Hard," over and over again. Hell, I didn't realize it was repeating, that's how much the songs run together. You know how you listen with one ear until a track jumps out? Well, other than the hit only one other track did. Which is kind of like the eighties too, all those English new wave acts only had one good cut on their albums.
But this other cut, "Aquaman," it's a winner.
"See the thing you've been chasing, honey
You'll never find it wearing a life vest
You gotta risk your neck
Know in your heart it will be worth it"
I believe that, that's good advice, not quite poetry, but nor were the words of Kajagoogoo. And if you've never heard Kajagoogoo...it's new(s) to you!
So what we've learned, first and foremost, is that those who say the music business is dead are completely wrong. Today's generation is just as passionate as we were. And sure, the music may not on the level of the Beatles or U2, but so much of the rest...was it dreck? Is my life insignificant? Is everything I believe wrong? Is what I thought was special not?
I'm still contemplating all this.
But I also know it's hard to hate Walk The Moon. Unlike so many of the highly-hyped, they did it their way, the old-fashioned way. It wasn't about rich moms and dads, it was about banging it out in the basement, running on practice and desire until you come up with something special, we're only interested in what's special.
And "Shut Up And Dance" is. Along with "Aquaman."
Does the audience grow up and out?
Don't underestimate the bond today's fan has with the act. When the songs disappear from the radio, they still live online. Along with live YouTube clips and other info on social services. The mainstream media may have moved on, but you don't have to. And if the band develops, if it writes another hit...
You're gonna know about it, you're paying attention.
But what about the rest of us?
What is driving the acceptance of these acts? To say it's radio is too simplistic. Usually radio is just the icing on the cake, the thing that blows it up bigger. The kids don't need no stinking radio. But somehow they know.
How do they know?
Spotify: http://spoti.fi/1XKRLoh
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I went to the Greek last Thursday because it was the last Nederlander night. From now on, it's an open building. Will the city make more money or less? Well, there are a lot of shows that will no longer play the building, because the promoter can no longer make money on them. I guess it'll all play out. Either the city will do well or the building will go back up for bids.
And once upon a time the summer season was from late May until early September. I remember when the Universal Amphitheatre stretched into the first week of October in the late seventies, it was a special event. But now not only is the Universal Amphitheatre gone, especially in its topless incarnation, it hasn't been cold in L.A. for seemingly ever. Well, until today. I know you've been dealing with freezing temps and precipitation, but it's been in the eighties here for weeks, even in Santa Monica, where normally it doesn't even get that warm at the apex of summer.
Which is to say it was not a brisk evening. No jacket required.
Did you see that Phil Collins is gonna make a comeback? Is anybody salivating? And I'm a fan! But as acts age it's tough to get their audience out, never mind get the word out.
But everybody knew about the Walk The Moon show, at least those who cared. And they came out in prodigious numbers, they filled the place, they painted their faces, they sang along and I wondered...did I miss the memo?
Or could this just be the modern world, wherein everybody's narrowcasting and it's nearly impossible to break out of your lane, you might be hyped by the mainstream media, but still very few care.
So, to be honest, I b.s.'ed in Rena's office through the opening acts, two, like in the days of yore, at the Fillmore. Actually, Rena took her troops to the Bill Graham exhibit, to show them her roots, what once was. And my roots include the heyday of MTV, all those English acts that burned up the airwaves before Michael Jackson came along and changed the channel into a pop outlet. You know, Haircut 100... All those acts with synths and high voices and melodies, like Walk The Moon.
I'd like to tell you they were bad, but they were not. The band was completely competent. No, they were better than that, they were talented. The lead guitarist could shred. And the drummer could pound. And the lead singer could not only do that, but noodle on the keyboards too. It's just that I thought I'd heard this sound before.
But to the girls in attendance, it was brand new. And they were girls. The ratio was at least 70/30, and the boys in attendance all had girls by their side. And there were no parents like at a 1D show, this crew was old enough to drive, and unlike their 'rents, they thought nothing of going out on a Thursday evening, just a few days before Halloween.
I was fascinated, how could something that meant so much to so many...mean so little to everybody else?
I wandered down into the pit. Everybody was dancing. The lead singer had the assembled multitude lift their arms in the air. And blathered on about how the band relied on the audience, they made it together, all the cliches you've heard for decades, but to these people...it was all BRAND NEW!
Which, once again, begs the question, was our music not that special, is it all just cyclical?
But unlike the bands of the MTV era, no one in Walk The Moon was a babe. They were sartorially challenged. It was about the music. Well, along with the energy. On one level you had to give them credit, on the other it got kind of repetitious.
Turns out they're from Ohio. And they've been at it for the better part of a decade. And the lead singer went to Kenyon. Same as it used to be, when you lived in the hinterlands and practiced until you got your chance. And Max Martin is not involved, but there are some secret weapons, but the band has an undeniable hit in "Shut Up And Dance."
"She took my arm
I don't know how it happened
We took the floor and she said..."
This is every boy's dream, we're pressured to be macho, to lead, but what we're looking for is a signal, a green light,...
"Oh don't you dare look back
Just keep your eyes on me
I said you're holding back
She said shut up and dance with me
This woman is my destiny
She said ooo ooo ooo
Shut up and dance with me"
And the band is pogoing, and so is the assembled multitude, whose knees are injury-free, they're running on sheer adrenaline and optimism. Just like...we did in the eighties.
You remember that era, or maybe you don't. Reagan was President, we didn't know the middle class was on its way out, we just believed happiness was our destiny. And our soundtrack was...all those bands on MTV.
I'll argue Culture Club was unique. Maybe Duran Duran too. But were the rest really that different from Walk The Moon?
Not that much.
So when I got home I played the album, "Talking Is Hard," over and over again. Hell, I didn't realize it was repeating, that's how much the songs run together. You know how you listen with one ear until a track jumps out? Well, other than the hit only one other track did. Which is kind of like the eighties too, all those English new wave acts only had one good cut on their albums.
But this other cut, "Aquaman," it's a winner.
"See the thing you've been chasing, honey
You'll never find it wearing a life vest
You gotta risk your neck
Know in your heart it will be worth it"
I believe that, that's good advice, not quite poetry, but nor were the words of Kajagoogoo. And if you've never heard Kajagoogoo...it's new(s) to you!
So what we've learned, first and foremost, is that those who say the music business is dead are completely wrong. Today's generation is just as passionate as we were. And sure, the music may not on the level of the Beatles or U2, but so much of the rest...was it dreck? Is my life insignificant? Is everything I believe wrong? Is what I thought was special not?
I'm still contemplating all this.
But I also know it's hard to hate Walk The Moon. Unlike so many of the highly-hyped, they did it their way, the old-fashioned way. It wasn't about rich moms and dads, it was about banging it out in the basement, running on practice and desire until you come up with something special, we're only interested in what's special.
And "Shut Up And Dance" is. Along with "Aquaman."
Does the audience grow up and out?
Don't underestimate the bond today's fan has with the act. When the songs disappear from the radio, they still live online. Along with live YouTube clips and other info on social services. The mainstream media may have moved on, but you don't have to. And if the band develops, if it writes another hit...
You're gonna know about it, you're paying attention.
But what about the rest of us?
What is driving the acceptance of these acts? To say it's radio is too simplistic. Usually radio is just the icing on the cake, the thing that blows it up bigger. The kids don't need no stinking radio. But somehow they know.
How do they know?
Spotify: http://spoti.fi/1XKRLoh
--
Visit the archive: http://lefsetz.com/wordpress/
--
http://www.twitter.com/lefsetz
--
If you would like to subscribe to the LefsetzLetter,
http://www.lefsetz.com/lists/?p=subscribe&id=1
If you do not want to receive any more LefsetzLetters, http://lefsetz.com/lists/?p=unsubscribe&uid=0eecea7b60b461717065cbde887c8e25
To change your email address http://lefsetz.com/lists/?p=preferences&uid=0eecea7b60b461717065cbde887c8e25
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