Mailbag

From: #1 Act
Subject: Re: Comparing Mediabase Charts

Hey, Bob.

I remember a few weeks ago our radio rep telling us that our single wasn't testing well in Chicago and the very next day we got a report from management saying that Chicago was our NUMBER ONE streaming market on Spotify. That's quite telling.

(please keep this anonymous if reposting).

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Subject: RE: Comparing Mediabase Charts

Still my favorite:

Joel Adams 315,000,000 streams, 0 plays on Mediabase.

Peter Paterno, Esq.
King, Holmes, Paterno & Soriano, LLP

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From: chris stein
Subject: Re: Google's Hip-Hop Video

Back in the old days when we did one of our few appearances on SNL, we got to choose a second musical act that'd play on the show. We asked the Funky Four Plus One More. Long story short this is generally considered to be the first national appearance of a Hip Hop act on live US TV. But the thing is this: I was desperate for the group to perform along with their DJ scratching. But try and explain scratching to the uninitiated, it's tough. After negotiations with the SNL tech crew it all came down to one small missing patch cord that the group needed to supply. A couple of the very amused kids were sent in a limo to their respective apartments but came up empty. The Funky Four wound up playing to a tape.
It was close. (Fab 5's inbox has been exploding all day btw!)

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From: Jeff Bhasker
Subject: Re: Why We've Got No Protest Music

Dear Bob,

Regarding this topic and article you missed the big one: no draft.

I had a long think about this question while I was working on my protest album Born On the Forth of July
https://m.soundcloud.com/kravenworks/sets/billykravenbornonthefourthofjuly

and that's what I came up with.

At the time, that was the culture. Now it is not. Which is also why hip hop is streaming.
It's an expression of culture in a racially charged time. Streaming has desegregated music and made it free.

Too bad the message is get high and rich and celebrate the self. But hey, times haven't really changed that much.

JB

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From: Quincy Jones
Subject: Re: Re-Citizen Cope

My Brother Roberto....By the way...in 1963, Paul Anka wrote the "B-Side for Leslie Gores's 1st single:.."It's My Party"...it was titled:.."Danny"..we met to discuss this at a cafe on 57th st..with his manager...Irving Feld..whose dream back then, was to Own Ringling Bros. Circus...keep reflecting on all of this kinda stuff....Sorry 2 bother U, but I had to get it out...\(^o^)/...Big huggies 2 U & Felice...XoXo...Love Y'awl...Quincy

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Subject: Re: Bieber Stops

Hi Bob,

It's Beth Winer, Urge Overkill's manager.
This post really hit home.

Urge has chosen to stay off the road and tour minimally to prevent the very things you are talking about.

Maybe they'll hit the road again. We'll see. If everyone feels good about it. The thought of it seems scary. We take baby steps.

When Urge released "Exit the Dragon," in 1995, the plug was pulled on the tour primarily because of the health of the band.

There are no regrets.

The stuggles you talk about are real, and each musician and manager knows that it is a very personal and difficult decision to know how much touring is effective and rewarding financially and personally, and how much is tipping the scales towards risking lives.

Every day one of my artists is alive is another day I am hopeful the conservative decisions I make are the correct ones.

Love your blog.

Take care,

Beth Winer

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Subject: Re: The Defiant Ones-Episode Two

Hey Bob-I'm finally getting around to watching this series and it's been great. Just finished episode two five minutes ago and I've been saving your e-mails to read once I watched the show. And yes, you are correct sir, that was Jimmy & Stevie at Richard Perry's Studio 55. I cut my teeth working for Richard from 1980-1987 and remember those days of Jimmy cutting Stevie and Bob Seger at 55 very well. I actually met Seger for the first time as we stood next to each other in the 55 head, relieving ourselves...he could not have been nicer. But more than anything I just wanted to give a shoutout to Richard Perry. Perhaps he's not as famous as Jimmy now but he truly is one of the great record producers of all time. And while his reputation certainly proceeds him there is no question he made some of the greatest records of all time. As the opening line of his bio once read, "he has produced more hits by more artists over a longer period of time than any producer in the history of recorded music". I think that still holds true. Richard was one of a kind, the last of the great "song" producers and a man who had his own label and owned his own studio long before it was the in vogue thing to do. THE DEFIANT ONES has made me think of those days at Studio 55 when I got to work with and run into the greatest artists and producers on a daily basis...how lucky I am!

Brad Rosenberger

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Subject: Re: Noel Monk's Van Halen Book

Hi Bob,

A very interesting write re Noel Monk. Your mentioning Blackie Lawless brings back memories.
I signed Blackie and WASP when I was at Capitol Records. I saw them live at The Troubadour, was blown away with the live show. It was a hard sell at the company, successful here but bigger in Europe. That had a great manager Rob Smallwood. He made the difference, as you succinctly noted with regards to Mr. Monk.

Don
Don Grierson
Music Industry Consultant / Executive Producer / A&R
www.dongrierson.com

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Subject: RE: Is All Publicity Good Publicity?

Bob,

I have worked for several founders, some successful some wildly so. The key is vision, a 'screw the rules' attitude, relentlessness, and speed. Corporate 'adults' are about process, professionalism, and other CYA and kumbayah hogwash necessary to live together on a ship going nowhere fast. We brought in a big company exec who was going to help us "grow to the next level," and all we got were processes, meetings to plan meetings, and a falling stock price. All the creative and fun people left, and the drones stayed. Ever try to innovate in a big company? Their systems and processes are designed to minimize risk, not exploit an opportunity. Uber did just that and not having Kalanick at the helm will make them as boring and irrelevant as Apple is with Tim Cook.

Rich

richard eichen
managing principal
return on efficiency, llc

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From: Les Garland
Subject: RE: The First Day In August

hi bob...it was on the first day of august (back in '81) when mtv: music television launched...it's true that people have never looked at music the same way again :-)

best to you,
garland

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Subject: Hype and HAIM

Hi Bob

Overtime I hear you talk about hype, the band HAIM pops into my head. Undoubtedly talented, the band gets a ton of press, and yet... have they ever put out anything that sparks the popular imagination? What is up with them? Am I missing something or do they just have a really good publicist?

Dave Richards
Yafrekinmonke

http://www.npr.org/2017/07/30/540097793/haim-has-something-to-tell-you-about-sisterhood-and-songwriting

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From: WAM
Subject: Re: Dude, I'm Still Alive!

Too bad music isn't.... still alive that is...

Take a look at this photo of a metal club in NJ - Dingbatz:

https://www.google.com/maps/@40.8577455,-74.147588,3a,75y,360h,90t/data=!3m6!1e1!3m4!1s3IXlwu4Co9nejA-g7w1erw!2e0!7i13312!8i6656

Note the street sign

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From: James Spencer
Subject: Re: Ozark

Yep, VERY addictive show...Next season, Byrd should mosey over to Branson, and bankroll a production show..As one who's worked in Vegas shows, believe me, you can squander a HUGE ton of dough, very quickly, financing these extravaganzas..Great money laundering scam!

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From: Coleman Sisson
Subject: Re: Tesla Model 3

I am a 60-year-old techie and my dad (mechanic) wanted a reliable truck to haul stuff in. My mother wanted a pink Cadillac (she got one). I drive a Z06 corvette. My 27-year-old son wants a Tesla and my 15-year-old son doesn't want to drive at all. He says he won't need to. Shit is changing, Bob, and it's always for the better.

Keep up the great work. I love reading your stuff and I read every book you recommend…usually to the end. ;-)

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Subject: Re: Garth Brooks At The Forum

Bob,

Back on January 31, 1993, the Rose Bowl in Pasadena hosted the Super Bowl. Garth was the Halftime Show. He was HUUUGE at the time, playing The Forum on Friday, two nights prior.

Anyway, for a few days prior to game day, the NFL builds a mini city outside of the hosting Super Bowl venue called "The Super Bowl Experience". On Saturday, the day before the game, I drive over to check it out. It was a chilly day, even lightly drizzling. Walking among the food stands and such, I saw a tiny little stage (empty), with not much more than a small group of people obviously waiting for something to happen. Maybe like 50-100 people. I asked one of them what they were waiting for and was told that Garth Brooks was going to come out to play. I knew that Garth was in town to play the Halftime Show (and The Forum), but um, I was pretty certain that these people had it wrong; Garth wasn't coming…maybe if we're lucky, one of his band members might pop out to entertain for a few minutes.

But ok, I'll stand here with the rest of these fools and see if there's even a tiny possibility that anyone associated with Garth's crew might come out.

A few minutes later, HOLY FUCK, Garth himself strolls out onto this tiny stage with his acoustic guitar, greets the crowd and asks if it was ok that he played a few songs for us. ARE U FRICKING KIDDING? He played for a good 30-45 minutes and all the hits people wanted to hear. I was SHOCKED. No fanfare, no billboards, no advance info that I had seen anywhere. But he did come out. He did play. And he was GREAT. And humble. And gracious. And not worried a bit about the rather small size of the crowd (nothing like the 20k at The Forum the night before). Nor was he worried about the cold and the drizzle.

I became a fan and a believer right there. I'll never forget it!

John Van Nest

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Subject: Re: Garth Brooks At The Forum

I met Garth back in 1993 at Jeff Hanna/Matraca Bergs wedding in Nashville. He was exactly as Joe Walsh described him. I talked to him for about an hour and it was special.
Such a regular guy and so engaging.

Val Garay

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Subject: RE: Protest Music

Bob,

Barry McGuire??? You've got to be kidding. "Eve of Destruction" was an incredible song, but give credit where is credit is due; to the writers, P.F. Sloan, Steve Barri, and Lou Adler.

The real pioneering artists of that period were, of course, The Weavers, and in particular, Pete Seeger, but also Lee Hays, Ronnie Gilbert, and Fred Hellerman; and of course Joan Baez, an early supporter and believer in Bob Dylan, who helped nurture his career early on.

Tim Hardin was another great writer; "Reason To Believe," "The Lady Came from Baltimore," "If I Were A Carpenter," "Misty Roses," and others. One can only imagine how many more important songs he would've penned had he not died so young.

All the best,

Seymour Stein

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Subject: RE: Protest Playlist

Hey Bob,

Very good choices all around! I would add one Bob Dylan song: "The Lonesome Death of Hattie Carroll." This one needs the listener's full attention, but it's well worth it. Dylan weaves the story carefully event by event, one outrage after another. At each step, he warns us that we shouldn't be upset yet, but wait for more. And when the final punchline comes, it hits like a hammer, and we can finally let our outrage explode. The event that it chronicles really happened and should be a much more prominent part of our country's racial history.

Best,
John Boylan

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From: Gary Dell'Abate
Subject: Re: The Vice Video

I watch Vice News every night. It's the best news on TV.
But that report was on a different level. They literally took you inside the entire weekend.
And the reporter was never confrontational or contentious.
No need. The alt right people's words and thoughts are so powerful you can judge for yourself.
I hope this gets folks watching because the quality of the show is amazing.

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Subject: Re: The Room Where It Happens

All true Bob. I was an Italian kid from the south shore of Long Island who was lucky enough to get into Hamilton, a great Little Ivy school like Middlebury, in 1979. It was a world of blue blazers, khaki pants and penny loafers and private school kids who spoke Connecticut english through partially clenched teeth whose parents were white shoe law firm partners and Bank presidents. Leave It To Beaver on steroids. Needless to say, I had very little in common with my classmates but hey, I was there for the education, or so I told myself. And an education was what I got but not in the way that I thought I would and certainly not an education that had anything to do with music. But being with the sons and daughters of the high and mighty for those four years, I learned how they lived, how they talked, how they thought, who and what they valued. I learned how to watch. I learned most importantly how to hang. Not just to be 'in the room' but to how to stay there. I have found it is both an art and a skill and a useful one. It gave me the confidence to sit down with some of the most famous and talented people in the history of music and feel like I belonged.

Michael Pagnotta

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From: Jonathan Bock
Subject: Re: The Room Where It Happens

Bob, love your stuff.

I grew up in Appleton WI and then went to Yale. We share a lot in common. Learning how to manage as a middle class kid in a rich kid culture. I applied to middlebury and actually got in, but then I got into Yale. I was a classical pianist and guitarist and a good singer and poor kid, and got into acapella there at Yale in the Spizzwinks and then the Whiffenpoof's and it changed my world. I eventually went to medical school and became a vocal cord surgeon - Laryngologist/ENT.

What struck me is that these are all real people who are just 5 steps ahead. They were mostly awesome people. They actually loved me and I loved them. They didn't wish me ill- just didn't know or understand my world. I went home in the summers to throw logs in a paper mill while they did unpaid internships or travelled. I was doing 12 hour overnight shifts at a wood pulp mill in Kimberly Wisconsin. I'd come back to Yale in the fall and hear what these kids were doing and I was like, "I threw logs, and drank Busch Light at campfires".

I'm now one of the only trained vocal cord surgeons in Wisconsin, and an associate professor at the med school in Milwaukee.

http://doctors.froedtert.com/PhysicianDirectory/BockJonathanM.htm

And I still perform with a pretty successful cover band here as lead singer and guitarist. Playing at the Wisconsin State Fair in 2 weeks!

http://www.bockenplautz.com/

Let me know if you're here ever in Milwaukee and dinner is on me.

JB

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From: Peter Burnside
Subject: Re: The Room Where It Happens

This reminds me of a story from when I was in university. I was offered an opportunity to do the census to make some extra money Figured it would be my middle class hood but instead I got the primo old money neighbourhood in Toronto. Learned some major life lessons over the few weeks I had to go door to door and hand out the short or dreaded long form census.

First lesson. People in the mansions were universally polite. This is class. I'm some just out of high school kid (OK I did go to private school with their kids so was not totally out of place) but they were all really nice to me, some kid making a few bucks an hour knocking on their door and handing out government forms. Even those who got stuck with the mega form were just "Oh well, bad luck for us!" The jerks in the same hood in the small houses were totally different. With the exception of the seniors who were happy to chat with anybody, they were just nasty. I was taking time of their busy lives and heaven help me if I had to drop off the long form, they went ballistic. Assholes who thought they mattered.

So I keep seeing some kid on a skateboard delivering newspapers while I'm dropping forms. After several days we acknowledge each other. On one of my last days I enter the gates of some massive property, skateboarder follows me in. Asks what I'm doing here and I say "delivering the census" and ask what he's up to. "I live here" is the reply and sure enough he kicks up his board and disappears in the front door. I knock on the door, aware it's the long form version that is to be delivered. As per usual, I get invited inside (never saw what a small house looked like on the inside!) and chat with the family only to quickly figure out that they own not only one of the local papers, but dozens of them.around the world.

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Subject: Re: Amazon Echo Show

Bob --

Amazon story for you. I paid my way through college playing the hits on an Indiana radio station. A pal who worked there with me left for a career in the technology side of broadcasting -- helped get Sirius and XM on, same with WWE Network and more, then took early retirement.

He's an auto racing nut, so -- being from Indiana -- one of the places he bought was a small, middle-class house within walking distance of the Indianapolis Motor Speedway. Most don't realize the largest annual single-day event in the world is the Indy 500 -- and the NASCAR event there, the Brickyard 400, draws tens of thousands of fans, as well.

On Friday night, my pal needed something from Menard's (a midwestern version of Home Depot), and something from a health food store. Neither retailer had what he wanted -- so, he goes home and orders it on Amazon. Being a Prime member, he gets two-day free delivery.

Problem was that two-day meant Sunday -- the day of the Brickyard 400 -- and the streets are closed and traffic in the area is nothing short of total gridlock.

Midday Sunday, there is a knock on my friend's door -- there is a guy on his front porch on a bike...with a box from Amazon.

He explained that Amazon drove a semi to a supermarket parking lot a couple of miles away -- and hired couriers on bicycles to deliver in that area where no cars or trucks could move.

"Sir," he told my astonished friend, "we can't let a little thing like 100,000 people temporarily in the area prevent Amazon from keeping its promise."

Every retailer wants to bitch that Amazon and e-retailing is what's killing them. That's only part of the story.

It's because no other company is so committed to customers that they would take a semi to a supermarket parking lot and hire bicycle couriers at their own expense to keep their promise.

They'd rather keep grinding harder on the old plan that doesn't work anymore.

Scott McKain

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Subject: Re: Reviews Are Everything

I was looking the the other day at a newer film company call Broad Green and one of their films called Wish Upon:
http://www.boxofficemojo.com/movies/?id=wishupon.htm To your point I went back to look at the daily grosses:
http://www.boxofficemojo.com/movies/?page=daily&id=wishupon.htm As you can see, the film opened sort of ok on Friday but fell on Sat and Sun-the game was over on Friday night about 10 pm.

In the old days (80"s) we could get three days-no more. These folks spent about 20 million plus on a product that the audience did not care for. That fact was knowable before release but marketers somehow think that they can spin the product.

It is true that product that delivers to an audience can also be mis marketed but if the product doesn't work with a definable audience-as we used to say- gornisht helfen.

Michael Harpster

http://www.orangegrovefilms.com/
http://www.wetransmedia.com/

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From: Jason Kronick
Subject: Re: Reviews Are Everything

100% I get 4-5 calls every week due 25 5star reviews from yelp. .I don't pay dime.... (piano technician)

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Subject: Re: Warner Music Revenue Soars

Bob... vinyl hasn't peaked. That WSJ article is using an incredible click-bait-y title. We've already shown that there's growth in our mid-year sales report. Much more detailed than anything in the WSJ article.

Jeffrey Smith
Public Relations | Strategic Partnerships
Discogs | Discogs.com | @thejeffreysmith

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From: Billy Fields
Subject: RE: Warner Music Revenue Soars

Bob,
That WSJ article is NOT correct and I'm the cat that was quoted.
There is no correlation between quality issues and slowing vinyl sales. Truth is, the vast majority of labels are doing fine work when it comes to making LPs. Some suck at it, but there's nothing new here-it's how it's always been. You got good players and bad players.

Vinyl sales through mid-year:

Discogs: +13.92%
Nielsen: +3.2%
BuzzAngle: +20.4%

What business (any business) has 11 straight years of growth and is still going up? You say it yourself every time you wax rhapsodic about your favorite music-your best memories revolve around the record! …and there's nothing wrong with that.

Stop telling your readers that vinyl sales are over. They are here to stay, albeit, a niche segment of revenue inside the larger streaming business.
I think it was the same outlet, WSJ, that said sales of new vinyl would eclipse $1B this year…
B

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Subject: Neil Shah's vinyl piece is a total fabrication.

Don't get snookered by Shah's bullshit or Nielsen's numbers Bob.

1) Nielsen/Soundscan claims about single digit (millions) annual vinyl sales?

Well URP alone pressed well over 11 MILLION records last year.
Rainbo close to 10 MILLION
RTI close to 4 MILLION
QRP closer to 2 MILLION

And there are many more presses in America working at full capacity.

VINYL IS NOT "OVER" NOR HAS IT PEAKED.

And then there are European giants like Record Industry, GZ Media and Pallas and Optimal and many others.

At least 60 million records were pressed worldwide last year and not to sit on wholesaler or retail shelves (nor do they).

The records are selling. Nielsen/Soundscan is a leaky sieve of defective information collecting.

https://www.analogplanet.com/content/why-wsj-writer-neil-shahs-career-over

https://www.digitalmusicnews.com/2017/08/09/wall-street-journal-neil-shah-fabrication/

"Last week, contradicting Nielsen/Soundscan's reports, Sony Music revealed that revenue from physical formats, namely CDs and vinyl, jumped to $304 million for Q1 2017. It also reported increasing sales in prior financial quarters."

Michael Fremer
editor, analogplanet.com
senior contributing editor, Stereophile

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From: Barbara Barna Abel
Subject: Re: Charlottesville

LOVE your newsletter and often tweet about it. This finally got me to write to the mailbag:

"P.P.S. The left is so deep into identity politics they've lost touch with the greater good. Until Democrats unite to win, the party is hopeless."

Damn right. We're at a get-over-ourselves tipping point. Alas, it's nothing new. It's a running gag in Life of Brian when the would-be radicals can't get anything done because they can't stop arguing about their name: The Judean People's Front vs. The People's Front of Judea.

I saw this first hand when I was member of the Women's Action Coalition in the early 90s. The group did powerful and impactful actions but I was gobsmacked when planning for the March for Women's Lives in 1992 was derailed by:

- a petite woman loudly complaining that she was not accommodated (nay, not heard) by the cost-effective decision to order one-size-fits-all L/XL T-shirts for the group.

- vigorous debate on what age a boy becomes a man in deference to a small group of lesbian separatists who were concerned about having men on the bus from Washington DC that put out many women with children (both cis-gender and LGBTQ.) In the end there were multiple buses.

Just thinking about it triggers me.

Barbara Barna Abel
Brooklyn, NY

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From: Peter Benedek
Subject: Re: Bill de Blasio Will Push for Tax on Wealthy to Fix Subway

And ya know what, the people who pay the tax should get free metro cards good for the year.

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From: Marlon Young
To: Bob Lefsetz
Re: Greta Van Fleet

Thank you for the kind words,
Glad you are digging the ep!!
More coming soon, and it's just as great, or better.
_____

From: Bob Lefsetz
To: Marlon Young
Re: Greta Van Fleet

Tell me more about yourself and how you became involved with Greta Van Fleet!
_____

From: Marlon Young
To: Bob Lefsetz
Re: Greta Van Fleet

I feel like I'm typing my life story to you
And pretty sure that's not what you asked!! Ha
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From: Bob Lefsetz
To: Marlon Young
Re: Greta Van Fleet

It is!!! Type away!
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From: Marlon Young
To: Bob Lefsetz
Re: Greta Van Fleet

I was born in Pontiac Michigan,
I started playing guitar at 3 or 4 years old.
My father was a great guitar player and singer, but like his father who came here
From Alabama he went to work for General Motors,
He played on the weekends and packed
The same 300-400 seat club for years,
By the age of 10 I was sitting in with his band, playing anything from Merle haggard to CCR to Elvis
I had some bands as a teen
Then at some point around 12 grade
Just didn't care about it.
I met a girl in bama while visiting my grandparents and moved the min I graduated.
That lasted 1 1/2 to 2 years.
I came home and you guessed it got a job at a factory!!
Started playing in pick up bands again
A lot of country bars
But blues rock hell whatever we needed to do to get paid our 75 bucks plus drinks!!
11 years in the plant and on and off music
Then they closed the plant.
I was lost , dating a girl who was connected at the u a w I asked her to get me in skilled trades at a plant,
She said but you can't let music get in the way, and it's still odd to me to this day, she was late for work on the morning we were having this long talk about me giving up
And getting a solid job,
Well she left, about 4 hours later
The phone rings, it's someone I never met from Minneapolis who says he manages a girl named Shannon curfman, who Clive had signed.
Would I like to audition ,the recommendation was from jack holder ( black oak Arkansas) who I had met once in a studio in Nashville,
So I call my girl tell her hold off on the job, ha
Go audition the next week and 2 days later I'm on stage in Orlando opening
For mellencamp.
That ends, I decide to come to la
Where Shannon had moved to try and write, Clive hates everything we did
Shannon gets dropped and I'm back to square one.
Then I'm in a studio in Burbank and I bump into kid rock, I had played with him briefly before the Atlantic deal.
I reconnect and play on a track for him.
I meet his long time engineer al Sutton.
We become buds
He asked me to come to Detroit to play on some records for him,
So I do,
He says hey kid rock is kinda talking about doing a new record maybe with Rick Rubin and may need some songs,
So I start writing, I give al a song called
"Blue jeans and a rosary "
He takes it to kid, and kid hits me says I'm cutting it, plays it for Rubin who gave it thumbs up.
Then Bob invites me to his studio and we just start writing,
I end up helping him with like 7 songs on the rock and roll Jesus record.
Which Rubin didn't do, kid and Cavollo did.
Then we wrote the entire born free record together which was done by Rubin.
I had the pleasure to be on those sessions and meet and hear Blake mills, and a bunch of great players.
I have been writing and touring with kid since 2007
Now to Greta
al calls me one day and says this band came in the studio that you should come in and work on with me,
We have done many records together as producers , most of which never got signed cpl did pop evil,
Another called citizen zero
Anyway that band he called about was Gretta, they already had some things cut we cut some moreI sent it to my legal nick Ferrara who sent it to flom.
I was floored by them, I know they sound like Zeppelin but it's real,
They grew up listening to their dads collection, he is a blues man so it's howling wolf, Dixon, jimmy reed
And I guess that's the same shit page and plant listened to!!
So that's kinda my story ,
I aspire to produce, and help find young great talent. So maybe after your post I won't be so unknown!! Haha
Thank you for asking about me,
I would also like to know more about you,
I've picked up a lot from your writings but still don't know a lot.
Again thank you so much for the kind words.

P.s
Check out Billy Raffoul another
Young kid I found in Detroit area,
Levitan has him now.

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From: Songpickr
Subject: Re: Spotify Suggestions

Hi Bob,

Sitting at LAX, killing some time and waiting for my flight back to Berlin.

It's been about 2,5 years ago (March 2015) that you wrote about my little Songpickr playlist and named it the "Playlist of the Year".

https://open.spotify.com/user/holgerchristoph/playlist/6YwIqXS0auLevGXID24D7C?si=0yOok3nr

I still keep doing the list but a lot has changed in the ecosystem. Not my curation but the way Spotify treat independent user playlists for example. They have taken back full editorial control. Has anybody noticed they have deleted all user playlists from Browse end of August 2015? It's a wonder the press did not pick this up. Official word is because of "Playola" but nobody ever offered me money, I have never asked for money, I have never accepted money. Of course I cannot speak for other curators. Truth is they realized the value of curation and engagement with their audience. Why leave it to anybody else?

Has anybody noticed they removed in-client user to user communication / messaging? That they have removed "discovered in playlist xyz" in the "About" tab on artist pages which was an important traffic driver for user playlists? Sure, everybody knows and most love "Discover Weekly", "Release Radar" and other data driven personalization efforts. All this is eating into traffic for user curated playlist. And it's hard if you do anything beyond Urban, Dance, Pop, Top50.

It would be easy to growth-hack, feature what's trending and hot. SEO optimize by using the biggest stars and hits. Target to teens and twens. But this would be so boring. Why do what everybody else is doing? I am still looking for timeless, organic, authentic, real artists with great songs. I am catering to 40+ users to be honest. Not many playlists target these users and if they do it is around legacy acts. I don't live in the past. I am influenced by the past but I want to surface new talent. Most people stop discover new music when they turn 35-40. Why is that? Because they feel they are out of touch with culture and trends. They think new music sucks. Look at the charts. There's nothing in for me. But that perception is wrong. There is more talent and great music than ever. There is fantastic new music! The War on Drugs, Sturgill Simpson, The Alabama Shakes, Dan Auerbach made it. Do you know David Ramirez, Tyler Childers, The Teskey Brothers, Benjamin Booker or The Texas Gentlemen? You will hear from them, believe me! Their talent is undeniable. And these are just a handful random examples.

Many of the artists who have been featured in my Songpickr playlist very early - often with under 1.000 plays - now have Mio of streams or are signed to bigger Indie and even Major labels, some got synch deals, got festival gigs, radio airplay, even Grammy's and at least increased their fan base.

I am not taking credit for breaking any of the above mentioned artists and my playlist is far from driving Mio of streams. All I am hoping for that real music still has a chance and that music fans find something exciting beyond the mainstream. That has been my motivation and will forever be my motivation.

Hope you still enjoy my curation and find new music you love.

Kind regard,
Songpickr

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