"Ringling Bros. circus to close after 146 years": https://yhoo.it/2jcAPJI
I went at the old Madison Square Garden. Twice, maybe three times, the last time when I finally put my foot down and told my mother I didn't actually like ballet and wasn't going to go anymore.
Then my father took me to Madison Square Garden.
They used to have a sideshow. Well, not really, as in freaks and geeks, but in the low-ceilinged basement you could walk by the chained elephants and gawk at the giant and I'd never been so scared in my life. Because this was 60 years ago, when safety laws were not as strict, when the only thing separating me from the animals was a couple of feet of air.
And I took a ring off the finger of the giant, I think the fee was fifty cents, I kept that gold plastic circle forever, at least until my mother turned my bedroom into her office and threw out not only that ring, but my World's Fair hat and my baseball glove and...
I just heard it was the fiftieth anniversary of the first Super Bowl. That it happened today. I remember it vividly, it was a curio not a must-see, I was at my friend Marc's house, with him and his father and a buddy, that father and the buddy are gone, but it seems like it was yesterday, no one expected the AFL to win, but then only a couple of years later Broadway Joe showed us who's boss and football eclipsed baseball and the Yankees sucked and it seemed like everything I knew was changing.
Then free agency came and Steinbrenner with his deep pockets and suddenly everybody was a Yankees fan, because America loves a winner. But most of us are losers. Then again, my contemporaries solved that by giving everybody a trophy. And their kids played soccer, football was for the underclass. Unless you lived in the south, but northeasterners could never get over the accent, never mind the beliefs. Friday Night Lights? Who'd pay for them? Money was for academics, back when public schools ruled and you felt you could stay in the middle or move up a notch, before we found out the joke was on us, when an even younger generation got rich and then those people we decried elected Trump and now even the circus has bitten the dust.
Many will say good riddance. That the animals were mistreated.
They probably were. But these same proprietors you're putting out of business, the circus, the Sea Worlds, they're just a harbinger for the rest of America, whose future was stolen when the elites decided they were in control of what's right and wrong and...
I didn't mean for this to become a political screed. It's just that Bridgeport, Connecticut, the metropolis next to where I grew up, was the home of P.T. Barnum, there was a museum, I remember going there and seeing the mummy, I don't think they let you see mummies anymore.
And they don't let you do so much stuff, because you might get hurt, whether it be physically or emotionally. And I'd be lying if I told you I had any desire to go to the circus today, not having been in eons, but it used to be a rite of passage for young 'uns, to not only be wowed, but to be ripped-off, to learn the ways of the world. I remember bugging my dad to buy me one of those flashlights everybody was twirling during the show and finally he did and it burned out before we got home.
That's a lesson in America. Everything's a con. It's a giant magic show. And those in control are laughing all the while.
But we're pushing back a bit, we're refusing to pay for billionaires' stadiums.
But, I have to admit I'm no longer in control. I could be like the rest of my brethren, embracing vinyl records and physical books and trying to keep my head in the past, but the truth is the future is inevitable, as is change, and the circus outlived not only its utility, but its audience, because you know for sure, if they were still making money they'd find a way to continue.
But they aren't. People have stopped going.
They stopped watching football. They've stopped doing so much we used to.
But man, when the circus goes, I know it's just a matter of time before I do too, that I'm in the rearview mirror, that my memories are only that, it won't be long before people will marvel that we had circuses at all.
Of course, the young disruptors will find a substitute. Kinda like Cirque du Soleil, which is now hurting too, which I never liked, because the truth is some things just can't go upscale. The circus was blue collar entertainment in a world where working with your hands earned you not only an honest living, but respect.
But now you're a chump.
Like I said, I have no desire to go the show, but I wish it was still there. I remember reading about the Flying Wallendas in "Reader's Digest," then again, that's gone too, at least I think it is, the magazine went in and out of bankruptcy and the pastime of sitting at home reading in silence, that's passe too.
The Big Top, with three rings, as American as apple pie.
Before everybody went gluten-free, sugar became anathema and people were proud to be vegan.
I no longer recognize the country I grew up in. And maybe that's the way it's always been. You grow older and...
I didn't expect it to happen to me.
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Saturday 14 January 2017
The Upstarts
Brian Chesky went to RISD.
Maybe you don't live in the northeast, maybe you think the state school is good enough, but if you grew up in New England, where where you went to college is a badge of honor, you know about all the elite institutions. And the one for the artists, the left of center people you know but don't associate with, like David Byrne, is RISD, the Rhode Island School of Design.
Hmm... We live in a fucked up country. A land of disinformation. Forget fake news, even forget the facts, we can't even agree on the STORY! We've got leaders denigrating arts majors, telling everyone to go into the sciences, engineering, and then the guy who started Airbnb went to RISD?
I'm reading this new book, "The Upstarts," you can't buy it. It's not coming out until the end of the month. But it was written by Brad Stone and he wrote my favorite business book of the past few years, "The Everything Store," about Amazon, and when I saw his tweet that he had a new book, I told him to send it to me. And he did.
Funny thing about Twitter, it's a parallel universe. All we hear is about haters, but there's real communication going on there, a real exchange of ideas, in plain sight. That's right, while you're on Facebook, glorifying your lifestyle, exchanging messages with people you'd rather not spend any time with in real life, there's a marketplace of ideas on Twitter. This is no different from the Homebrew Computer Club, where the Steves, Jobs and Wozniak, got their start. You too could join in, but you're too cool or oblivious. Kinda like Hollywood. Did you see that Michael Lynton exited Sony to go to Snap? Maybe he was pushed, but the studios are moribund, promoting their pictures no one wants to see in the "New York Times" so they can win Oscars at a show the youth have tuned out. There's a generation gap, make no mistake, but now the baby boomers have the short end of the stick.
So, "The Upstarts" is the story of Airbnb and Uber. And to tell you the truth, I think we've hit a wall in the tech world, despite what Marc Andreessen may say as his fund sinks, today's is about politics and income inequality and the loss of jobs but did you see this week's story about Elon Musk and his "dark factory"? Yup, his goal is to soon make Teslas purely by robots, they won't even have to turn on the lights, the robots can work in the dark! And McKinsey is saying that robotization is coming later than sooner, but if you think those consultants have a clue about the future you probably believe the music business was prepared for Napster. Disruption comes from the outside. And grinds who got good grades so they could get overpaid gigs at McKinsey are not disruptors, they played it safe.
But these entrepreneurs did not, the creators of Airbnb and Uber.
Now not everybody can be an entrepreneur, not everybody can make it. Some just like to enjoy the fruits of the creators' labor. But for those looking to put a dent in the universe...
Used to be they went into music. They certainly don't now. That's the land of the uneducated doofus looking to sell out to the corporation. These new entrepreneurs want to TOPPLE the organization! How high are you setting your sights? Maybe not high enough.
So the guy with the idea for Uber... He makes millions selling a company and moves to San Francisco and...
"A few months after eBay's acquisition of StumbleUpon, he sent a message over Facebook to a smart, beautiful television producer named Melody McCloskey, and - after noting that they had a vague connection because they shared the blogger Om Malik as a friend on the social network - asked her out on a date."
I'm friends with Om Malik!
Shak introduced me, the investor/consigliere at Spotify. You should read Om's ten year anniversary analysis of the iPhone in "The New Yorker," it's brilliant:
"The iPhone Turns Ten": http://bit.ly/2jkBydT
And that message was sent nearly ten years ago, before you were probably on Facebook, unless you were a college student.
And because we live in the modern world I pulled out my iPhone and looked up Ms. McCloskey, AND SHE WAS BEAUTIFUL!
I'm used to lies, subterfuge, inaccuracies, but now with the internet and our mobiles we can check everything.
"Like many high-tech entrepreneurs, Camp was peculiar. McCloskey noticed that he did not particularly care about superficialities that absorbed other people. for example, he got his hair cut only sporadically, letting it grow down to his shoulders before having it cut short. He also like to design his own T-shirts featuring symbols such as a Necker cube, a line drawing that can be perceived in different ways. Then he would wear them out to dinner at nice restaurants. 'I have no idea where he got those things,' McCloskey says. 'I was not thrilled by them.'"
But she became his girlfriend. Sure, Garrett Camp was rich, but he was also smart and a fountain of ideas and what truly attracts women to men...
As for his car, it was a Mercedes-Benz, but he kept it in the garage, he worried about parking and scratches and...
The point I'm making is my eyes are bugging out. Because this is me. Why do I need to get my hair cut? I am who I am irrelevant of the clothes I wear, why blow thousands on outfits that will soon be out of style?
I hate those people. Like the wanker pissing in the urinal on Friday. I had to wee, I had an appointment to make, but he was checking his iPhone as he was doing his business.
Then I had to wait for him to check his look in the mirror, adjust his designer jeans, a brand I had never heard of, while I waited to wash my hands. And then he walked into the finance office. God, if I hate these people no wonder the heartland does too, and voted for Trump.
But despite all the fealty paid to Trump by Silicon Valley, he and his cabinet, the complete Congress, are clueless as to what is happening in California, the techies run rings around them, because the politicians, the straight people, have no vision, just like two young men completely disrupted the music business with Napster, and...
Garrett Camp and Travis Kalanick have dinner with McCloskey in Paris and spend the whole time hashing out the business plan for Uber. I'm too uptight to do this, happens to me all the time, I'm at a meal and everyone is looking around saying...WHO IS THIS GUY WHO IS POSSESSED?
So I shut the fuck up. Because if you don't fit in, you've got no future.
But then I start asking myself, am I hanging with the right people?
Hell, the music business is all about lifestyle. Expensive wines, private flights, they don't want to break the world, they just want to live in it!
Didn't used to be that way, but things change.
But I don't think I have the mentality of an entrepreneur, I grew up in the sixties, I'm more of an artist, as in conception is key and you can speak the truth and make people uncomfortable and...
I just get so excited when people speak my language.
Musicians used to do this. Before they all became complaining whiners, wanting to jet back to an evaporated past wherein they were kings of the universe.
Musicians could be kings of the universe once again. But they'd have to speak the truth in a different way, capturing the hearts of the people.
What these entrepreneurs do best is create products that everybody wants.
We used to do this in the music business, but now we're positively niche, and happy about it. Taylor Swift and Beyonce and the Weeknd are stars who are easily ignored.
But you can't ignore your iPhone, the enabler of these breakthroughs.
And you can't ignore Airbnb and Uber.
Furthermore, you love them and can't stop testifying about them!
Interesting world we live in.
"The Upstarts: How Uber, Airbnb, and the Killer Companies of the New Silicon Valley Are Changing the World": http://amzn.to/2ioJADj
P.S. Read "The Everything Store" first, then you'll be ready for "The Upstarts" on January 31st. Learn how Bezos conquered all... http://amzn.to/2jkuM84
P.P.S. Now McCloskey too is an entrepreneur, she's CEO of StyleSeat, disruption is gender neutral.
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Maybe you don't live in the northeast, maybe you think the state school is good enough, but if you grew up in New England, where where you went to college is a badge of honor, you know about all the elite institutions. And the one for the artists, the left of center people you know but don't associate with, like David Byrne, is RISD, the Rhode Island School of Design.
Hmm... We live in a fucked up country. A land of disinformation. Forget fake news, even forget the facts, we can't even agree on the STORY! We've got leaders denigrating arts majors, telling everyone to go into the sciences, engineering, and then the guy who started Airbnb went to RISD?
I'm reading this new book, "The Upstarts," you can't buy it. It's not coming out until the end of the month. But it was written by Brad Stone and he wrote my favorite business book of the past few years, "The Everything Store," about Amazon, and when I saw his tweet that he had a new book, I told him to send it to me. And he did.
Funny thing about Twitter, it's a parallel universe. All we hear is about haters, but there's real communication going on there, a real exchange of ideas, in plain sight. That's right, while you're on Facebook, glorifying your lifestyle, exchanging messages with people you'd rather not spend any time with in real life, there's a marketplace of ideas on Twitter. This is no different from the Homebrew Computer Club, where the Steves, Jobs and Wozniak, got their start. You too could join in, but you're too cool or oblivious. Kinda like Hollywood. Did you see that Michael Lynton exited Sony to go to Snap? Maybe he was pushed, but the studios are moribund, promoting their pictures no one wants to see in the "New York Times" so they can win Oscars at a show the youth have tuned out. There's a generation gap, make no mistake, but now the baby boomers have the short end of the stick.
So, "The Upstarts" is the story of Airbnb and Uber. And to tell you the truth, I think we've hit a wall in the tech world, despite what Marc Andreessen may say as his fund sinks, today's is about politics and income inequality and the loss of jobs but did you see this week's story about Elon Musk and his "dark factory"? Yup, his goal is to soon make Teslas purely by robots, they won't even have to turn on the lights, the robots can work in the dark! And McKinsey is saying that robotization is coming later than sooner, but if you think those consultants have a clue about the future you probably believe the music business was prepared for Napster. Disruption comes from the outside. And grinds who got good grades so they could get overpaid gigs at McKinsey are not disruptors, they played it safe.
But these entrepreneurs did not, the creators of Airbnb and Uber.
Now not everybody can be an entrepreneur, not everybody can make it. Some just like to enjoy the fruits of the creators' labor. But for those looking to put a dent in the universe...
Used to be they went into music. They certainly don't now. That's the land of the uneducated doofus looking to sell out to the corporation. These new entrepreneurs want to TOPPLE the organization! How high are you setting your sights? Maybe not high enough.
So the guy with the idea for Uber... He makes millions selling a company and moves to San Francisco and...
"A few months after eBay's acquisition of StumbleUpon, he sent a message over Facebook to a smart, beautiful television producer named Melody McCloskey, and - after noting that they had a vague connection because they shared the blogger Om Malik as a friend on the social network - asked her out on a date."
I'm friends with Om Malik!
Shak introduced me, the investor/consigliere at Spotify. You should read Om's ten year anniversary analysis of the iPhone in "The New Yorker," it's brilliant:
"The iPhone Turns Ten": http://bit.ly/2jkBydT
And that message was sent nearly ten years ago, before you were probably on Facebook, unless you were a college student.
And because we live in the modern world I pulled out my iPhone and looked up Ms. McCloskey, AND SHE WAS BEAUTIFUL!
I'm used to lies, subterfuge, inaccuracies, but now with the internet and our mobiles we can check everything.
"Like many high-tech entrepreneurs, Camp was peculiar. McCloskey noticed that he did not particularly care about superficialities that absorbed other people. for example, he got his hair cut only sporadically, letting it grow down to his shoulders before having it cut short. He also like to design his own T-shirts featuring symbols such as a Necker cube, a line drawing that can be perceived in different ways. Then he would wear them out to dinner at nice restaurants. 'I have no idea where he got those things,' McCloskey says. 'I was not thrilled by them.'"
But she became his girlfriend. Sure, Garrett Camp was rich, but he was also smart and a fountain of ideas and what truly attracts women to men...
As for his car, it was a Mercedes-Benz, but he kept it in the garage, he worried about parking and scratches and...
The point I'm making is my eyes are bugging out. Because this is me. Why do I need to get my hair cut? I am who I am irrelevant of the clothes I wear, why blow thousands on outfits that will soon be out of style?
I hate those people. Like the wanker pissing in the urinal on Friday. I had to wee, I had an appointment to make, but he was checking his iPhone as he was doing his business.
Then I had to wait for him to check his look in the mirror, adjust his designer jeans, a brand I had never heard of, while I waited to wash my hands. And then he walked into the finance office. God, if I hate these people no wonder the heartland does too, and voted for Trump.
But despite all the fealty paid to Trump by Silicon Valley, he and his cabinet, the complete Congress, are clueless as to what is happening in California, the techies run rings around them, because the politicians, the straight people, have no vision, just like two young men completely disrupted the music business with Napster, and...
Garrett Camp and Travis Kalanick have dinner with McCloskey in Paris and spend the whole time hashing out the business plan for Uber. I'm too uptight to do this, happens to me all the time, I'm at a meal and everyone is looking around saying...WHO IS THIS GUY WHO IS POSSESSED?
So I shut the fuck up. Because if you don't fit in, you've got no future.
But then I start asking myself, am I hanging with the right people?
Hell, the music business is all about lifestyle. Expensive wines, private flights, they don't want to break the world, they just want to live in it!
Didn't used to be that way, but things change.
But I don't think I have the mentality of an entrepreneur, I grew up in the sixties, I'm more of an artist, as in conception is key and you can speak the truth and make people uncomfortable and...
I just get so excited when people speak my language.
Musicians used to do this. Before they all became complaining whiners, wanting to jet back to an evaporated past wherein they were kings of the universe.
Musicians could be kings of the universe once again. But they'd have to speak the truth in a different way, capturing the hearts of the people.
What these entrepreneurs do best is create products that everybody wants.
We used to do this in the music business, but now we're positively niche, and happy about it. Taylor Swift and Beyonce and the Weeknd are stars who are easily ignored.
But you can't ignore your iPhone, the enabler of these breakthroughs.
And you can't ignore Airbnb and Uber.
Furthermore, you love them and can't stop testifying about them!
Interesting world we live in.
"The Upstarts: How Uber, Airbnb, and the Killer Companies of the New Silicon Valley Are Changing the World": http://amzn.to/2ioJADj
P.S. Read "The Everything Store" first, then you'll be ready for "The Upstarts" on January 31st. Learn how Bezos conquered all... http://amzn.to/2jkuM84
P.P.S. Now McCloskey too is an entrepreneur, she's CEO of StyleSeat, disruption is gender neutral.
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Thursday 12 January 2017
The Kenny Aronoff Book
He's the drummer you always see on TV, with the bald head and the sunglasses, hitting 'em hard and having the time of his life, smiling all the while.
Why did I read his book?
Because he reached out and was so personable. That's the essence of making it. Making the effort and continuing to make the effort and being nice about it in the process. And the fact that he studied at Tanglewood, that was the story that sealed our bond.
And he was the Jewish drummer in John Mellencamp's band.
Usually Jews change their name, figuring they'll pull one over on the heartland. Hell, George Costanza was supposed to be Jewish but they gave him that last name to combat the rest of the Members of the Tribe on the show. You think of Jews as loudmouthed and pushy, but the truth is most are scared of the attention, they don't want to be singled out, because they've experienced anti-Semitism from a very young age and their parents keep telling them they're lucky to survive, truly.
So to have a guy in a heartland band with the name of "Aronoff"?
Oh, that's another thing about Jews, we're proud of every member of our religion who makes it. And if a Member of the Tribe does something heinous, we feel the shame, worried about the stain upon our heritage. And never forget, it's not about believing, you're born this way and you can't deny it, whether you go to shul or not.
So Kenny grows up in Western Mass. and sees the Beatles on TV.
Without the Beatles on Ed Sullivan there's no American music business, nada, all those bands you loved listening to in the seventies and eighties, never mind the late sixties, they don't exist. It was kind of like the iPhone. A cool gateway into a new land. That same mania that had people lining up at Apple Stores to buy the product? That was us back in '64, with the Beatles. Talk about a revolution, it's like the curtain was pulled back and overnight the generations cleaved, right there, in February, when 72 million Americans saw the power of a band which did not look like everybody else and did not sound like everybody else but got everybody to pay attention.
So he starts banging... Hell, the start of any career is convincing your parents, which Kenny did, you need their support, and taking lessons, that's something else we did back then, we didn't figure it out on our own, this was back before teachers got a bad name, and then Kenny decided to go to music school at UMass.
And this is where his history separated from mine. When I was in college classes were just the reason I was there, they were time-wasters I had to experience before I could get down to my real business, listening to records and getting high, truly. And I don't regret it. Because they didn't teach anything I was interested in. Academics, schmacademics. But when you're truly interested in something, you'll devote umpteen hours. Kenny spent even Friday nights rehearsing at UMass. Believe me, I don't remember once studying on a Friday night in college.
And then, enamored of a girl going to Aspen for the music school there, he applies, gets in, and falls on his face, makes a mistake... Everybody gives the illusion they emerged fully-formed. But if you don't blow it, if you don't wince, if you aren't the object of derision, you haven't played. The key is to accept your faults and the abuse and soldier on.
Which Kenny did, with four years at Indiana University, which has a renowned music program, how do I know this, from talking to the players in Steely Dan!
Anyway, he gets an offer upon graduation to play with the symphony, but he has a dream, and if you're not pursuing your dream your life is gonna be empty.
So he's playing in a prog rock band, his hero is Billy Cobham, it's the era of the Mahavishnu Orchestra, but it's not working, so he auditions to play in John Cougar Mellencamp's band, shows up with a car full of drums and the midwest rocker winces, but Kenny gets the gig.
And there starts an adventure.
John Mellencamp has got the reputation of being a prick. And if you read this book, you'll see it's true. But you'll also see you've got to be a prick to make it. Nice guys do finish last. Unless they've got a bastard behind the scenes working on their behalf, but it was only John in charge of his career, he battled managers and label people, his success was gonna be on his back, so he had better get it right!
All the time in rehearsal, in studios, writing, rewriting, trying to get it right. Opening for other bands and trying to close an audience that didn't care. This was long before one hit album put you on an arena tour. You could have multiple hits and be lucky to sell out theatres at best, you had to prove yourself. And Mellencamp did, but then he burned out, said he was taking three years off, and...
Kenny scarfed up studio gigs. Make no mistake, he pursued them. The drummer is always the businessman, you learn this. And Kenny's schedule is nuts. On a day off he'll fly across international borders just for a session, and this ultimately becomes a problem, because he's got to leave the Polygram convention in Hong Kong, backing up Mellencamp, and end up in Detroit drumming for Seger with only a couple of hours to spare. Polygram won't let the band go on early, because the suits don't care. But the customs people recognize him in the Motor City airport and he's whisked through and makes it in time for soundcheck, but not before paying $3400 to Lloyds of London for insurance in case he didn't. It's taken out of his pay. But Kenny ponders the fact...he never saw the bill!
That's rock and roll for you, a rip-off world.
But it comes to an end with Mellencamp. Who has the band on salary, he said he was gonna take three years off but really it was a matter of weeks, artists get inspired and have to create, but the band members didn't share in the recording royalties or the songwriting royalties, they did not get rich.
But Kenny did. As Mellencamp says in the book, he's the only one whoever worked for him who went on his own and survived.
A lot of it is personality, Billy Corgan marvels that D'arcy felt comfortable around Kenny, but not him. You've got to get along.
And a lot of it is education. Formally trained, Kenny writes charts for every song for every gig, he can read music, never pooh-pooh the building blocks.
But most of it is drive. The drive to succeed.
And the fear. That's what made Mellencamp break through, the fear of the factory, like the British musicians before him, the fear of a stiff, you think it's hard to make it, it's even harder to stay on top!
So Kenny backs up Melissa Etheridge and John Fogerty, plays with Celine Dion and seemingly every famous act you've ever heard of and then...
It all dries up.
That's the story of our rock and roll music business. How it evaporated into thin air. Was it the internet, with Napster, or hip-hop...but suddenly Kenny is detailing sessions with people you've never heard of. And he's dong victory lap gigs, sure, it's with the remaining Beatles and the Kennedy Center Honors, but getting paid all that money to make hit records that dominate the chart...those days are THROUGH!
That's what we all can't get over. How it was here, and now it's gone. And sure, you can go see the has-beens, and I enjoy it sometimes, but it's creepy. Because they were riding the crest of the zeitgeist once and now it's pure nostalgia.
Not that I wouldn't pinch myself if I was playing with them, or even talking to them, but things have changed.
But Kenny was there when it was all still working. When there was money and cocaine and women and...
That's not the heart of the book, it's not a tell-all about backstage shenanigans, although there are some of those, but this was a guy who was there, and we all wanted to be there, once. But some of us buckle down and get the work done, and some of us do not.
And the highlight of the book for me is when Kenny gets scammed, ripped-off for so much money. He spends nearly an equal amount of cash trying to get it back, ultimately a complete waste. Because, as someone told him at the outset of his legal adventure, it's not worth it, you've got to swallow your losses and move on.
That's right. You can't be vindictive. There's only a limited amount of time. There's an opportunity cost in trying to fix the past, forget about it.
And you can probably forget about this book, unless...
You know who Kenny Aronoff is and you want to know his story.
Or you want some insider tales of famous musicians.
Or you want to know what it was like to be a working musician, not the star, not someone surviving on royalties, but someone who had to fight for every gig, perform, and then fight for more gigs. Because despite all the emphasis on stardom, it's all built upon the backs of talented people who do the grunt work, usually faceless, but skilled and experienced nonetheless.
Like Kenny Aronoff. He played the rock and roll sweepstakes and won.
But that game doesn't exist anymore. Musicianship is not treasured. There are better ways to make big money. And with cellphone cameras and social media your backstage antics, your hotel room trysts, might as well be broadcast on television, privacy has been eroded and so much of what you used to live for, to desire in this game, has evaporated, pfftt!
It was a golden era. Floated upon inspiration and musicianship. Never underestimate Mellencamp's ability to come up with this stuff, never mind Aronoff and the band's ability to play it.
And there's not too much about drumming in this book.
And occasionally you roll your eyes with the repetition of famous names who Kenny has played with.
But he did. And he's thrilled.
And you can credit him.
But he credits Mellencamp for giving him a chance and Don Was for giving him work. Because if you've got nobody to rely on, you've got nothing happening.
You can make the record in your living room, but...
Not only do you need a team to promote it...
You need a team to play it live.
And that's what gets Kenny off most. Playing to the throngs.
After all, he's a musician.
"Sex, Drums, Rock 'n' Roll!: The Hardest Hitting Man in Show Business": http://amzn.to/2iNIugH
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Why did I read his book?
Because he reached out and was so personable. That's the essence of making it. Making the effort and continuing to make the effort and being nice about it in the process. And the fact that he studied at Tanglewood, that was the story that sealed our bond.
And he was the Jewish drummer in John Mellencamp's band.
Usually Jews change their name, figuring they'll pull one over on the heartland. Hell, George Costanza was supposed to be Jewish but they gave him that last name to combat the rest of the Members of the Tribe on the show. You think of Jews as loudmouthed and pushy, but the truth is most are scared of the attention, they don't want to be singled out, because they've experienced anti-Semitism from a very young age and their parents keep telling them they're lucky to survive, truly.
So to have a guy in a heartland band with the name of "Aronoff"?
Oh, that's another thing about Jews, we're proud of every member of our religion who makes it. And if a Member of the Tribe does something heinous, we feel the shame, worried about the stain upon our heritage. And never forget, it's not about believing, you're born this way and you can't deny it, whether you go to shul or not.
So Kenny grows up in Western Mass. and sees the Beatles on TV.
Without the Beatles on Ed Sullivan there's no American music business, nada, all those bands you loved listening to in the seventies and eighties, never mind the late sixties, they don't exist. It was kind of like the iPhone. A cool gateway into a new land. That same mania that had people lining up at Apple Stores to buy the product? That was us back in '64, with the Beatles. Talk about a revolution, it's like the curtain was pulled back and overnight the generations cleaved, right there, in February, when 72 million Americans saw the power of a band which did not look like everybody else and did not sound like everybody else but got everybody to pay attention.
So he starts banging... Hell, the start of any career is convincing your parents, which Kenny did, you need their support, and taking lessons, that's something else we did back then, we didn't figure it out on our own, this was back before teachers got a bad name, and then Kenny decided to go to music school at UMass.
And this is where his history separated from mine. When I was in college classes were just the reason I was there, they were time-wasters I had to experience before I could get down to my real business, listening to records and getting high, truly. And I don't regret it. Because they didn't teach anything I was interested in. Academics, schmacademics. But when you're truly interested in something, you'll devote umpteen hours. Kenny spent even Friday nights rehearsing at UMass. Believe me, I don't remember once studying on a Friday night in college.
And then, enamored of a girl going to Aspen for the music school there, he applies, gets in, and falls on his face, makes a mistake... Everybody gives the illusion they emerged fully-formed. But if you don't blow it, if you don't wince, if you aren't the object of derision, you haven't played. The key is to accept your faults and the abuse and soldier on.
Which Kenny did, with four years at Indiana University, which has a renowned music program, how do I know this, from talking to the players in Steely Dan!
Anyway, he gets an offer upon graduation to play with the symphony, but he has a dream, and if you're not pursuing your dream your life is gonna be empty.
So he's playing in a prog rock band, his hero is Billy Cobham, it's the era of the Mahavishnu Orchestra, but it's not working, so he auditions to play in John Cougar Mellencamp's band, shows up with a car full of drums and the midwest rocker winces, but Kenny gets the gig.
And there starts an adventure.
John Mellencamp has got the reputation of being a prick. And if you read this book, you'll see it's true. But you'll also see you've got to be a prick to make it. Nice guys do finish last. Unless they've got a bastard behind the scenes working on their behalf, but it was only John in charge of his career, he battled managers and label people, his success was gonna be on his back, so he had better get it right!
All the time in rehearsal, in studios, writing, rewriting, trying to get it right. Opening for other bands and trying to close an audience that didn't care. This was long before one hit album put you on an arena tour. You could have multiple hits and be lucky to sell out theatres at best, you had to prove yourself. And Mellencamp did, but then he burned out, said he was taking three years off, and...
Kenny scarfed up studio gigs. Make no mistake, he pursued them. The drummer is always the businessman, you learn this. And Kenny's schedule is nuts. On a day off he'll fly across international borders just for a session, and this ultimately becomes a problem, because he's got to leave the Polygram convention in Hong Kong, backing up Mellencamp, and end up in Detroit drumming for Seger with only a couple of hours to spare. Polygram won't let the band go on early, because the suits don't care. But the customs people recognize him in the Motor City airport and he's whisked through and makes it in time for soundcheck, but not before paying $3400 to Lloyds of London for insurance in case he didn't. It's taken out of his pay. But Kenny ponders the fact...he never saw the bill!
That's rock and roll for you, a rip-off world.
But it comes to an end with Mellencamp. Who has the band on salary, he said he was gonna take three years off but really it was a matter of weeks, artists get inspired and have to create, but the band members didn't share in the recording royalties or the songwriting royalties, they did not get rich.
But Kenny did. As Mellencamp says in the book, he's the only one whoever worked for him who went on his own and survived.
A lot of it is personality, Billy Corgan marvels that D'arcy felt comfortable around Kenny, but not him. You've got to get along.
And a lot of it is education. Formally trained, Kenny writes charts for every song for every gig, he can read music, never pooh-pooh the building blocks.
But most of it is drive. The drive to succeed.
And the fear. That's what made Mellencamp break through, the fear of the factory, like the British musicians before him, the fear of a stiff, you think it's hard to make it, it's even harder to stay on top!
So Kenny backs up Melissa Etheridge and John Fogerty, plays with Celine Dion and seemingly every famous act you've ever heard of and then...
It all dries up.
That's the story of our rock and roll music business. How it evaporated into thin air. Was it the internet, with Napster, or hip-hop...but suddenly Kenny is detailing sessions with people you've never heard of. And he's dong victory lap gigs, sure, it's with the remaining Beatles and the Kennedy Center Honors, but getting paid all that money to make hit records that dominate the chart...those days are THROUGH!
That's what we all can't get over. How it was here, and now it's gone. And sure, you can go see the has-beens, and I enjoy it sometimes, but it's creepy. Because they were riding the crest of the zeitgeist once and now it's pure nostalgia.
Not that I wouldn't pinch myself if I was playing with them, or even talking to them, but things have changed.
But Kenny was there when it was all still working. When there was money and cocaine and women and...
That's not the heart of the book, it's not a tell-all about backstage shenanigans, although there are some of those, but this was a guy who was there, and we all wanted to be there, once. But some of us buckle down and get the work done, and some of us do not.
And the highlight of the book for me is when Kenny gets scammed, ripped-off for so much money. He spends nearly an equal amount of cash trying to get it back, ultimately a complete waste. Because, as someone told him at the outset of his legal adventure, it's not worth it, you've got to swallow your losses and move on.
That's right. You can't be vindictive. There's only a limited amount of time. There's an opportunity cost in trying to fix the past, forget about it.
And you can probably forget about this book, unless...
You know who Kenny Aronoff is and you want to know his story.
Or you want some insider tales of famous musicians.
Or you want to know what it was like to be a working musician, not the star, not someone surviving on royalties, but someone who had to fight for every gig, perform, and then fight for more gigs. Because despite all the emphasis on stardom, it's all built upon the backs of talented people who do the grunt work, usually faceless, but skilled and experienced nonetheless.
Like Kenny Aronoff. He played the rock and roll sweepstakes and won.
But that game doesn't exist anymore. Musicianship is not treasured. There are better ways to make big money. And with cellphone cameras and social media your backstage antics, your hotel room trysts, might as well be broadcast on television, privacy has been eroded and so much of what you used to live for, to desire in this game, has evaporated, pfftt!
It was a golden era. Floated upon inspiration and musicianship. Never underestimate Mellencamp's ability to come up with this stuff, never mind Aronoff and the band's ability to play it.
And there's not too much about drumming in this book.
And occasionally you roll your eyes with the repetition of famous names who Kenny has played with.
But he did. And he's thrilled.
And you can credit him.
But he credits Mellencamp for giving him a chance and Don Was for giving him work. Because if you've got nobody to rely on, you've got nothing happening.
You can make the record in your living room, but...
Not only do you need a team to promote it...
You need a team to play it live.
And that's what gets Kenny off most. Playing to the throngs.
After all, he's a musician.
"Sex, Drums, Rock 'n' Roll!: The Hardest Hitting Man in Show Business": http://amzn.to/2iNIugH
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The Robbie Williams Kerfuffle
"Robbie Williams tickets put directly on resale sites": http://www.bbc.com/news/entertainment-arts-38131028?utm_source=phplist5704&utm_medium=email&utm_content=text&utm_campaign=The+Robbie+Williams+Kerfuffle
He put choice seats directly on Get Me In and Seatwave.
I say GOOD!
Now there is one caveat, he came out against touts previously, his management signing a petition against it, but the truth is...
The tickets have to be sold at the value they're worth or the tickets must be sold at a fair price and tied to the purchaser.
And the public prefers the former.
Yes, the truth is the public loves StubHub. Because they don't have to buy a ticket months in advance, giving the promoter its float. Ticket buying is a science. In a world riddled with fake news no one knows how to buy a ticket anyway. Do they need to get a credit card? Which one? Many? Do they need to become a member of the fan club? Do they have to make friends with those who have senate seats (i.e. season tickets to all shows at a venue) so they can buy their unwanted ducats? If you think about the cost involved figuring out how to buy a ticket at sticker price, oftentimes a bad seat, your time is better spent elsewhere, making the extra money so you can afford to overpay on StubHub.
Believe me people bitch they can't get a good seat at the listed price. But the truth is, it's a small minority that is complaining. Interface with the public and you find this out. Professional cranks. The true fans? They overpay in order to sit close and they're happy to do it.
That's right, platinum has been institutionalized in America. Used to come with perks, now the perks are a joke, because the acts don't want to provide them and the fans don't care about them. They don't want a faux laminate, they don't want a catered meal, they don't want to take home the seat they're sitting in, just being up close and personal at the show is enough.
The only difference here was Robbie Williams decided to sell platinum tickets on Get Me In and Seatwave instead of a more traditional outlet like Ticketmaster, which now includes the secondary market along with the primary in its listings!
The music business created this monster. I can forgive the punters and the legislators bitching, they don't understand the shenanigans, but in the U.K. it's the promoters and managers themselves who are complaining. What is the fair system they're looking for? One in which everybody pays face value and sits in the front row? That's impossible!
And it works nowhere else. The person who flies once a year does not get upgraded to the front of the plane. The hot new automobile is not sold at sticker, but far above.
What is the principle we're trying to save?
The truth is acts just hate that they're not getting all that uplift, the difference between sticker and sale price on secondary sites. Ergo Robbie Williams's behavior here. And the truth is acts have been scalping their own tickets from time immemorial, for the extra cash. And promoters have made deals with brokers and resale sites too, because they not only want to make that extra money, they want to hedge their bets, get guaranteed income in their coffers.
But the little guy has to be protected.
Who is this little guy?
We live in a world of income inequality. It's not only at concerts that the disadvantaged are closed out. If you want to help those with less, raise taxes, at least in America, have acts stand up to corporations, but in the U.S. "tax" is a dirty word and the acts all have corporate deals to profit from. Talk about hypocrisy.
And people know the score. They know if they want to get something very desirable, they need to pay for it.
So the only problem we have in the concert business is ticket prices ARE TOO LOW! Assuming people want to go at all, some shows you can't give away. But for the stars?? It's income inequality in music too, the winners are rolling in dough, the rest are eking out a living.
Or, you can settle for the listed gross, the price of the tickets as originally scaled. But you've got to sell them closer to the date the show plays, so people know what their schedule is, and you've got to give people the option to transfer the tickets at the price they bought them for if they can't go to the show...
But people don't like this. Everybody's playing the market. If they managed to get their hands on good seats they believe it's their God-given right to sell them at what the traffic will bear. Think about that, the same people bitching they can't get a good seat at face value are the same ones who want to take the uplift, they too are hypocritical!
But money is the great equalizer. Charge what the tickets are truly worth and there's no subterfuge.
But there will be blowback, at first.
The acts will be called greedy, these same acts parading their island vacations on Instagram, these same acts evidencing their highfalutin' lifestyle all over the web.
And you'll get the same complainers wanking they can't get in, the same people who believe you should come to their house and play for free.
So, it's about time we faced reality and like any other business grew up and sold our wares at their full value. Like Robbie Williams.
But everybody in the business thinks he's a pariah.
But I want you to find one person who buys one of these tickets on Get Me In or Seatwave who complains.
No, they love getting a good seat at the show. It's a bargain at that price. Hell, think of the ancillary costs, the transportation, the parking, the food, the ticket price is a deal!
Hmm...
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He put choice seats directly on Get Me In and Seatwave.
I say GOOD!
Now there is one caveat, he came out against touts previously, his management signing a petition against it, but the truth is...
The tickets have to be sold at the value they're worth or the tickets must be sold at a fair price and tied to the purchaser.
And the public prefers the former.
Yes, the truth is the public loves StubHub. Because they don't have to buy a ticket months in advance, giving the promoter its float. Ticket buying is a science. In a world riddled with fake news no one knows how to buy a ticket anyway. Do they need to get a credit card? Which one? Many? Do they need to become a member of the fan club? Do they have to make friends with those who have senate seats (i.e. season tickets to all shows at a venue) so they can buy their unwanted ducats? If you think about the cost involved figuring out how to buy a ticket at sticker price, oftentimes a bad seat, your time is better spent elsewhere, making the extra money so you can afford to overpay on StubHub.
Believe me people bitch they can't get a good seat at the listed price. But the truth is, it's a small minority that is complaining. Interface with the public and you find this out. Professional cranks. The true fans? They overpay in order to sit close and they're happy to do it.
That's right, platinum has been institutionalized in America. Used to come with perks, now the perks are a joke, because the acts don't want to provide them and the fans don't care about them. They don't want a faux laminate, they don't want a catered meal, they don't want to take home the seat they're sitting in, just being up close and personal at the show is enough.
The only difference here was Robbie Williams decided to sell platinum tickets on Get Me In and Seatwave instead of a more traditional outlet like Ticketmaster, which now includes the secondary market along with the primary in its listings!
The music business created this monster. I can forgive the punters and the legislators bitching, they don't understand the shenanigans, but in the U.K. it's the promoters and managers themselves who are complaining. What is the fair system they're looking for? One in which everybody pays face value and sits in the front row? That's impossible!
And it works nowhere else. The person who flies once a year does not get upgraded to the front of the plane. The hot new automobile is not sold at sticker, but far above.
What is the principle we're trying to save?
The truth is acts just hate that they're not getting all that uplift, the difference between sticker and sale price on secondary sites. Ergo Robbie Williams's behavior here. And the truth is acts have been scalping their own tickets from time immemorial, for the extra cash. And promoters have made deals with brokers and resale sites too, because they not only want to make that extra money, they want to hedge their bets, get guaranteed income in their coffers.
But the little guy has to be protected.
Who is this little guy?
We live in a world of income inequality. It's not only at concerts that the disadvantaged are closed out. If you want to help those with less, raise taxes, at least in America, have acts stand up to corporations, but in the U.S. "tax" is a dirty word and the acts all have corporate deals to profit from. Talk about hypocrisy.
And people know the score. They know if they want to get something very desirable, they need to pay for it.
So the only problem we have in the concert business is ticket prices ARE TOO LOW! Assuming people want to go at all, some shows you can't give away. But for the stars?? It's income inequality in music too, the winners are rolling in dough, the rest are eking out a living.
Or, you can settle for the listed gross, the price of the tickets as originally scaled. But you've got to sell them closer to the date the show plays, so people know what their schedule is, and you've got to give people the option to transfer the tickets at the price they bought them for if they can't go to the show...
But people don't like this. Everybody's playing the market. If they managed to get their hands on good seats they believe it's their God-given right to sell them at what the traffic will bear. Think about that, the same people bitching they can't get a good seat at face value are the same ones who want to take the uplift, they too are hypocritical!
But money is the great equalizer. Charge what the tickets are truly worth and there's no subterfuge.
But there will be blowback, at first.
The acts will be called greedy, these same acts parading their island vacations on Instagram, these same acts evidencing their highfalutin' lifestyle all over the web.
And you'll get the same complainers wanking they can't get in, the same people who believe you should come to their house and play for free.
So, it's about time we faced reality and like any other business grew up and sold our wares at their full value. Like Robbie Williams.
But everybody in the business thinks he's a pariah.
But I want you to find one person who buys one of these tickets on Get Me In or Seatwave who complains.
No, they love getting a good seat at the show. It's a bargain at that price. Hell, think of the ancillary costs, the transportation, the parking, the food, the ticket price is a deal!
Hmm...
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Wednesday 11 January 2017
Re-Spotify Payments
From: Peter Noone/Herman
On behalf of a few young boys who loved music and turned their mutual love into a career in music, I want to add my 4.25%!
If Herman's Hermits had ever suggested that some 50 years after they made a record in 3 hours, that our music would be available to everyone in the world for 000000.0000025 cents we would have thrown a party for you at our local pub!
____________________________________
Yep…Our band owns it all, distributes through Tunecore and based on the numbers: a million streams of a song generate a little more than $4,000 into our bank account. Net.
The BMI/ASCAP royalties are totally separate, which most artists don't understand.
So whenever I'm clicking around Spotify I know full well that at a bare minimum Spotify is paying out $4k per million streams. When you have that number in your head and start tallying up the hundreds of millions of plays the big acts are getting...um, yeah, people are making money.
Most artists who are in deals now signed their deals before streaming got popular. So when they and their lawyer were looking at the contract, they probably didn't push hard for streaming royalties...because the rate was "so low" anyway.
Should it be more than $4k per million plays? Sure. I don't know. Probably.
But for all the whining and complaining artists do, I've never heard A SINGLE ONE come up with a legit idea and plan for what it SHOULD be. All anyone says is it should be more! Of course! We all want more!
Gabe Anderson
____________________________________
hey bob,
you are totally right, most low pay-outs are caused by shitty label deals.
i work with niche electronic artists, catering mostly to dj's who usually buy vinyl or .wav downloads.
some have their own label and the see 100% of the spotify pay-outs (minus distribution fee).
turns out that in some cases the streaming pay-outs are higher than profits on vinyl sales and downloads combined.
this also shows that streaming is making their music less niche; its making the music easily available to a wider audience.
every situation/artist is different, but the concept of streaming should work for most artists when properly handled.
to me streaming is the new black gold.
Christiaan A. Macdonald
Director of Fools
Society Fools
____________________________________
Hey Bob - been meaning to write you on this for a bit as I go over this with bands on my label and musician friends all the time. Even using the same Ticketmaster scapegoat analogy. I think what keeps the confusion going is publishing royalties. Artists will see pennies from Spotify listed on their statement from their PRO and think that is all Spotify is paying out, when in reality their label is getting paid the bigger check from Spotify.....but the label is usually fine with the artist believing Spotify is problem.
As a label, the majority of our revenue (60-70%) comes in from Spotify. Getting playlisted on Spotify is huge. Sure streaming has extended the payout from music - no upfront money for a download or full album - and you need to make music that people want to listen to repeatedly over time, but it's also extended the life of music as well. Songs that are years old can still pop up on playlists, and older obscure music has a new life.
It is amazing though as many artists truly believe Spotify is screwing them and don't want to get involved with the company.
Keep it up,
Bill Toce
www.axismundirecords.com
____________________________________
I bought my first CD player and disk in 1982. A Lionel Hampton album that still plays just fine today after 35 years. If only I could find a place to play it besides my car.
Yesterday a friend sent me his newly released CD. I am not trying to plug it with you. I had no player on my MBP computer or even in my 'stereo' system. I am a few years older than you and still use my Hafler Amp, NAD preamp, B&W speakers and Thorens turntable. Still sounds great. CDs are now an archaic technology, right there with records, now popularly called "Vinyl". I remember seeing my folk's old 78s, then LPs, reel to reel, 8-tracks, cassettes, other hybrid concepts, MP3 and now streaming. What comes next? Nothing is forever.
Steve Greene
____________________________________
Thank you, Bob. I represent a number of independent artists that have amassed millions of plays on Spotify and they're not complaining.
Sebastian Zar
____________________________________
Bob,
I manage an independent record label and we LOVE Spotify. It surpassed our iTunes sales in total revenue almost 2 years ago and continues to dominate as our #1 revenue source now. It's by and far the best consumer music experience I've ever had. Our label generates a solid 5-figures of gross revenue per month from Spotify. Plus we move 5-figures a month in merchandise (T-Shirts/Apparel & other collectables) and we move another 5-figures a month in music SALES (CD/Vinyl and Digital Sales). We're a small indie label that probably most of the world hasn't heard of (we're called FiXT and are marquee artists are Celldweller, Blue Stahli, Scandroid and Circle of Dust btw). We cater to a niche genre of hybrid electronic-rock and have fans in over 100 countries because of the modern connected online world. We are forward thinking and survive by early-adopting new trends and embracing them. We let fans use our music for Free on YouTube while they game and generate another 6-figures annually in advertising/Content ID revenue from YouTube. We have a small team (about 10 of us) and cater to our die-hard audience. We also get our music licensed heavily in Film/TV/Video Games and have deep ties in the publishing world. It takes maximizing every possible revenue channel to make it as an indie, but we've been aggressive in making it work. All that to say, SPOTIFY is our #1 revenue source and we are sick and tired of labels and artist complaining about it not paying out. It pays great in our experience, as long as your music is worth sharing and repeat listening (focus on hits, right?) - which is what we've done. Many of our songs have been streamed 1-2 million times in Spotify.
Recently someone told me they didn't think Spotify was fair b/c they made $.60 per song sale from iTunes (after iTunes cut and their distro cut) and only made a fraction of a penny from Spotify. First off, that's not an apples to apples comparison so I told him to think of it like this… how many times will that person listen to your song over the course of their life? 10? 100? more? if you pro-rate that $.60 by the # of times they listen over the rest of their life the per-listen rate actually gets pretty comparable to what Spotify pays, and if they are a mega-fan who listens hundreds of times over the years, you might actually make MORE from Spotify than if they bought it outright. Secondly though, most people don't try out new songs by paying $.60 on their first listen, so with Spotify it's WAY more likely that someone will TRY your music to see if their into it, when they come across it in a playlist or suggested by a friend or in their Discover Weekly. And Discover Weekly alone is a GOLD MINE for indie artists/labels to be discovered by people who wouldn't have otherwise listened - which would be a service with paying advertising money for to get to those new listeners, but is provided for FREE as part of Spotify's service. So for all discover, value-add and pretty decent pro-rated per-listen revenue, I find it harder and hard for people to complain about Spotify.
Final though is Spotify as an artist platform. No other service comes close!!! Having the ability to create Artist Curate playlists right on the artist profile page, see # of listeners & plays publicly on the profile is HUGE. It also equalizes the field when you can see the # of plays on a track to see it's TRUE relevance/popularity vs looking at a track in Apple Music and it 'appearing' to be popular but no public data to support it.
If you want to check out some possibly new musical discoveries from a niche indie label (Electronic-Rock hybrid, from alt-rock to metal mixed with Electronic/EDM elements) - here's a custom playlist I made just for YOU Bob spanning the best tracks in our catalog on Spotify! (It is a private playlist, hosted on our top artists profile, but feel free to share should you feel so inspired).
https://open.spotify.com/user/klaytoncelldweller/playlist/1CzxvFTyEtVpGbJSevX0jH?utm_source=phplist5703&utm_medium=email&utm_content=text&utm_campaign=Re-Spotify+Payments
Always inspired by your emails Bob!
Best,
James Rhodes | FiXT
Co-Founder & General Manager
www.fixtonline.com | www.fixtstore.com
On behalf of a few young boys who loved music and turned their mutual love into a career in music, I want to add my 4.25%!
If Herman's Hermits had ever suggested that some 50 years after they made a record in 3 hours, that our music would be available to everyone in the world for 000000.0000025 cents we would have thrown a party for you at our local pub!
____________________________________
Yep…Our band owns it all, distributes through Tunecore and based on the numbers: a million streams of a song generate a little more than $4,000 into our bank account. Net.
The BMI/ASCAP royalties are totally separate, which most artists don't understand.
So whenever I'm clicking around Spotify I know full well that at a bare minimum Spotify is paying out $4k per million streams. When you have that number in your head and start tallying up the hundreds of millions of plays the big acts are getting...um, yeah, people are making money.
Most artists who are in deals now signed their deals before streaming got popular. So when they and their lawyer were looking at the contract, they probably didn't push hard for streaming royalties...because the rate was "so low" anyway.
Should it be more than $4k per million plays? Sure. I don't know. Probably.
But for all the whining and complaining artists do, I've never heard A SINGLE ONE come up with a legit idea and plan for what it SHOULD be. All anyone says is it should be more! Of course! We all want more!
Gabe Anderson
____________________________________
hey bob,
you are totally right, most low pay-outs are caused by shitty label deals.
i work with niche electronic artists, catering mostly to dj's who usually buy vinyl or .wav downloads.
some have their own label and the see 100% of the spotify pay-outs (minus distribution fee).
turns out that in some cases the streaming pay-outs are higher than profits on vinyl sales and downloads combined.
this also shows that streaming is making their music less niche; its making the music easily available to a wider audience.
every situation/artist is different, but the concept of streaming should work for most artists when properly handled.
to me streaming is the new black gold.
Christiaan A. Macdonald
Director of Fools
Society Fools
____________________________________
Hey Bob - been meaning to write you on this for a bit as I go over this with bands on my label and musician friends all the time. Even using the same Ticketmaster scapegoat analogy. I think what keeps the confusion going is publishing royalties. Artists will see pennies from Spotify listed on their statement from their PRO and think that is all Spotify is paying out, when in reality their label is getting paid the bigger check from Spotify.....but the label is usually fine with the artist believing Spotify is problem.
As a label, the majority of our revenue (60-70%) comes in from Spotify. Getting playlisted on Spotify is huge. Sure streaming has extended the payout from music - no upfront money for a download or full album - and you need to make music that people want to listen to repeatedly over time, but it's also extended the life of music as well. Songs that are years old can still pop up on playlists, and older obscure music has a new life.
It is amazing though as many artists truly believe Spotify is screwing them and don't want to get involved with the company.
Keep it up,
Bill Toce
www.axismundirecords.com
____________________________________
I bought my first CD player and disk in 1982. A Lionel Hampton album that still plays just fine today after 35 years. If only I could find a place to play it besides my car.
Yesterday a friend sent me his newly released CD. I am not trying to plug it with you. I had no player on my MBP computer or even in my 'stereo' system. I am a few years older than you and still use my Hafler Amp, NAD preamp, B&W speakers and Thorens turntable. Still sounds great. CDs are now an archaic technology, right there with records, now popularly called "Vinyl". I remember seeing my folk's old 78s, then LPs, reel to reel, 8-tracks, cassettes, other hybrid concepts, MP3 and now streaming. What comes next? Nothing is forever.
Steve Greene
____________________________________
Thank you, Bob. I represent a number of independent artists that have amassed millions of plays on Spotify and they're not complaining.
Sebastian Zar
____________________________________
Bob,
I manage an independent record label and we LOVE Spotify. It surpassed our iTunes sales in total revenue almost 2 years ago and continues to dominate as our #1 revenue source now. It's by and far the best consumer music experience I've ever had. Our label generates a solid 5-figures of gross revenue per month from Spotify. Plus we move 5-figures a month in merchandise (T-Shirts/Apparel & other collectables) and we move another 5-figures a month in music SALES (CD/Vinyl and Digital Sales). We're a small indie label that probably most of the world hasn't heard of (we're called FiXT and are marquee artists are Celldweller, Blue Stahli, Scandroid and Circle of Dust btw). We cater to a niche genre of hybrid electronic-rock and have fans in over 100 countries because of the modern connected online world. We are forward thinking and survive by early-adopting new trends and embracing them. We let fans use our music for Free on YouTube while they game and generate another 6-figures annually in advertising/Content ID revenue from YouTube. We have a small team (about 10 of us) and cater to our die-hard audience. We also get our music licensed heavily in Film/TV/Video Games and have deep ties in the publishing world. It takes maximizing every possible revenue channel to make it as an indie, but we've been aggressive in making it work. All that to say, SPOTIFY is our #1 revenue source and we are sick and tired of labels and artist complaining about it not paying out. It pays great in our experience, as long as your music is worth sharing and repeat listening (focus on hits, right?) - which is what we've done. Many of our songs have been streamed 1-2 million times in Spotify.
Recently someone told me they didn't think Spotify was fair b/c they made $.60 per song sale from iTunes (after iTunes cut and their distro cut) and only made a fraction of a penny from Spotify. First off, that's not an apples to apples comparison so I told him to think of it like this… how many times will that person listen to your song over the course of their life? 10? 100? more? if you pro-rate that $.60 by the # of times they listen over the rest of their life the per-listen rate actually gets pretty comparable to what Spotify pays, and if they are a mega-fan who listens hundreds of times over the years, you might actually make MORE from Spotify than if they bought it outright. Secondly though, most people don't try out new songs by paying $.60 on their first listen, so with Spotify it's WAY more likely that someone will TRY your music to see if their into it, when they come across it in a playlist or suggested by a friend or in their Discover Weekly. And Discover Weekly alone is a GOLD MINE for indie artists/labels to be discovered by people who wouldn't have otherwise listened - which would be a service with paying advertising money for to get to those new listeners, but is provided for FREE as part of Spotify's service. So for all discover, value-add and pretty decent pro-rated per-listen revenue, I find it harder and hard for people to complain about Spotify.
Final though is Spotify as an artist platform. No other service comes close!!! Having the ability to create Artist Curate playlists right on the artist profile page, see # of listeners & plays publicly on the profile is HUGE. It also equalizes the field when you can see the # of plays on a track to see it's TRUE relevance/popularity vs looking at a track in Apple Music and it 'appearing' to be popular but no public data to support it.
If you want to check out some possibly new musical discoveries from a niche indie label (Electronic-Rock hybrid, from alt-rock to metal mixed with Electronic/EDM elements) - here's a custom playlist I made just for YOU Bob spanning the best tracks in our catalog on Spotify! (It is a private playlist, hosted on our top artists profile, but feel free to share should you feel so inspired).
https://open.spotify.com/user/klaytoncelldweller/playlist/1CzxvFTyEtVpGbJSevX0jH?utm_source=phplist5703&utm_medium=email&utm_content=text&utm_campaign=Re-Spotify+Payments
Always inspired by your emails Bob!
Best,
James Rhodes | FiXT
Co-Founder & General Manager
www.fixtonline.com | www.fixtstore.com
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Spotify Payments
My inbox fills up with both the famous and infamous, the known and the irrelevant, bitching about Spotify payments, they think the Swedish company is the devil. They believe Daniel Ek got rich off the backs of musicians and this wrong must be righted, that there will be no harmony until he is dethroned and the service pays them a higher rate.
But Spotify is already paying out 69%+ of its revenues.
What's the truth?
You're being screwed by the label. And Spotify can't say this, because the labels are their partners.
Of course there's more to the story. Songwriters are getting the shaft, they are getting a lesser percentage than they deserve. And marginal artists are getting a tiny share of the pie. But assuming you're playing for real, that people are actually listening to your music, that it's not just posted on Spotify and hanging out in darkness, if you want to get paid cut out the middleman.
It's kind of like what Amazon did. Getting rid of bricks and mortar (although they do have a couple of bookstores now, but really those are showrooms for Amazon products, flagship stores to display their wares, like the Sony store in New York, or the high-end outlets in Aspen). If you want to survive in the new world you've got to look at business differently. So, if you record and release your music independently, paying a one time distribution fee to Tunecore or the like, you'll get all that revenue, assuming someone is listening.
Oh, Tunecore! What about Jeff Price, its old fired founder, bitching that Spotify is not paying on so many tracks? That's a registry problem, that's not Spotify seeking to rip-off rights holders, that's the result of an archaic system wherein we don't know who wrote what and who owns what. Does it need to be cleared up? Yes. Is it good Jeff is on the case? Yes, but this is not wholesale exposure of Mafia-like activity, but it's a better news story than old, cranky musician who used to survive quite well under the old system is starving now, although that story gets a lot of ink too. Kinda like the endless physical book articles in the "New York Times." You can't separate the bias from the author, oftentimes writers are out of touch, they believe they can will the result they desire, but one thing we've learned in the past twenty years is the customer is ultimately in control, and the customer chose streaming.
But you've got an historical deal with a label that pays an incredibly low percentage, you've got a very low royalty rate, is this a problem? Absolutely. BUT IT IS NOT SPOTIFY'S FAULT!
Acts have been railing that they've gotten screwed by labels since their invention. A bit of progress has been made, but not enough. Having said that, if you're a new act it's your prerogative whether to sign with a label or not.
You don't need the label for physical distribution, that's a dying business, forget manufacturing and shipping.
You need a label for publicity and radio promotion. You can hire third parties for publicity. As for radio promotion? For all intents and purposes indies are closed out of Top Forty radio. So if you're playing to win, you need a label, you've got to sign a deal. But, the terms vary depending upon the heat you come in with. Used to be heat meant the music, today it means the data. How many fans have you got, what are your social numbers, how much money are you making on the road? The less you need the label the more they need you, and this is reflected in the terms of the deal.
As for the money... The days of big advances are through. If it's just money you need, you're better off looking elsewhere. Making it yourself on the road or raising it via friends and family. Then again, the dirty little secret of the new world is that it's so much cheaper than it was in the days of yore. Everybody can own Pro Tools, you can make the record at home, many famous acts do, and promote it for free online. And don't be one of those wankers who e-mails me you've got to spend a lot of money and work with pros to have a great sound. Generally speaking that is true. But then you're probably gonna sign a major deal and e-mail me you're getting screwed by your label. Which way do you want it? Do you want to roll the dice for all the money or hoard it all at a small level? Because believe me, if you sign with a major and you actually hit, there will be plenty of coin. However, the label could end up with the lion's share, certainly of the recording income.
And I think it's abhorrent that royalty deals are such that artists pay for their records and labels own them. It's not this way in the book business.
There are so many problems with label deals. And they need to be changed. But they've got nothing to do with Spotify's payout.
This is akin to Ticketmaster, people bitching about fees, not understanding that the acts themselves are responsible, this is the only way to get income out of the commission stream. And if you saw how little a concert promoter makes after putting up so much dough for a show, risking so much, you'd probably have sympathy for them. But concert promoters woke up and started festivals, where they can make so much more since they own the event. Concert promoters evolved.
And you should too.
But chances are you want to be a star. And right now, in today's cluttered internet world, the odds of doing that without a label are de minimis.
Then again, today everyone can play, and everyone can bitch. And that includes the never-will-bes and the old artists, akin to the screwed bluesmen, who've got deals so heinous they can never make bank.
But, once again, this has nothing to do with Spotify.
P.S. For the umpteenth time, I have no investment in Spotify, I make no money from the company. But Spotify put a huge dent in piracy, the problem everyone talked about last decade, and as a result of streaming services recording revenues are finally going up, our long nightmare is ending. You've got to live in the present, with an eye to the future, you can't keep dreaming about an old love in a world without cameras, the audience loves the present and the audience pays your bills. Think of ways to satiate those who pay.
P.P.S The penny rate. There is no penny rate, it's a percentage rate Spotify pays. But they came up with an approximate penny rate so oldsters could understand what they were making on streams. As more people subscribe and listen, the payment per stream will actually go down. Meaning you're gonna have to have more listens to make the same amount of money. But listens are growing exponentially to the point where those artists at the top of the heap are quite well compensated. But if your listens are not in the millions, you'd better think of alternative ways to get paid. Used to be you could sell a few thousand albums and make money. That paradigm, unfortunately, is dying, although you can still sell CDs as souvenirs along with other merch at the show. Then again, is it Spotify's responsibility to promote new music, especially the new and different, playlist it and bring it to the forefront? That's a whole 'nother issue.
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But Spotify is already paying out 69%+ of its revenues.
What's the truth?
You're being screwed by the label. And Spotify can't say this, because the labels are their partners.
Of course there's more to the story. Songwriters are getting the shaft, they are getting a lesser percentage than they deserve. And marginal artists are getting a tiny share of the pie. But assuming you're playing for real, that people are actually listening to your music, that it's not just posted on Spotify and hanging out in darkness, if you want to get paid cut out the middleman.
It's kind of like what Amazon did. Getting rid of bricks and mortar (although they do have a couple of bookstores now, but really those are showrooms for Amazon products, flagship stores to display their wares, like the Sony store in New York, or the high-end outlets in Aspen). If you want to survive in the new world you've got to look at business differently. So, if you record and release your music independently, paying a one time distribution fee to Tunecore or the like, you'll get all that revenue, assuming someone is listening.
Oh, Tunecore! What about Jeff Price, its old fired founder, bitching that Spotify is not paying on so many tracks? That's a registry problem, that's not Spotify seeking to rip-off rights holders, that's the result of an archaic system wherein we don't know who wrote what and who owns what. Does it need to be cleared up? Yes. Is it good Jeff is on the case? Yes, but this is not wholesale exposure of Mafia-like activity, but it's a better news story than old, cranky musician who used to survive quite well under the old system is starving now, although that story gets a lot of ink too. Kinda like the endless physical book articles in the "New York Times." You can't separate the bias from the author, oftentimes writers are out of touch, they believe they can will the result they desire, but one thing we've learned in the past twenty years is the customer is ultimately in control, and the customer chose streaming.
But you've got an historical deal with a label that pays an incredibly low percentage, you've got a very low royalty rate, is this a problem? Absolutely. BUT IT IS NOT SPOTIFY'S FAULT!
Acts have been railing that they've gotten screwed by labels since their invention. A bit of progress has been made, but not enough. Having said that, if you're a new act it's your prerogative whether to sign with a label or not.
You don't need the label for physical distribution, that's a dying business, forget manufacturing and shipping.
You need a label for publicity and radio promotion. You can hire third parties for publicity. As for radio promotion? For all intents and purposes indies are closed out of Top Forty radio. So if you're playing to win, you need a label, you've got to sign a deal. But, the terms vary depending upon the heat you come in with. Used to be heat meant the music, today it means the data. How many fans have you got, what are your social numbers, how much money are you making on the road? The less you need the label the more they need you, and this is reflected in the terms of the deal.
As for the money... The days of big advances are through. If it's just money you need, you're better off looking elsewhere. Making it yourself on the road or raising it via friends and family. Then again, the dirty little secret of the new world is that it's so much cheaper than it was in the days of yore. Everybody can own Pro Tools, you can make the record at home, many famous acts do, and promote it for free online. And don't be one of those wankers who e-mails me you've got to spend a lot of money and work with pros to have a great sound. Generally speaking that is true. But then you're probably gonna sign a major deal and e-mail me you're getting screwed by your label. Which way do you want it? Do you want to roll the dice for all the money or hoard it all at a small level? Because believe me, if you sign with a major and you actually hit, there will be plenty of coin. However, the label could end up with the lion's share, certainly of the recording income.
And I think it's abhorrent that royalty deals are such that artists pay for their records and labels own them. It's not this way in the book business.
There are so many problems with label deals. And they need to be changed. But they've got nothing to do with Spotify's payout.
This is akin to Ticketmaster, people bitching about fees, not understanding that the acts themselves are responsible, this is the only way to get income out of the commission stream. And if you saw how little a concert promoter makes after putting up so much dough for a show, risking so much, you'd probably have sympathy for them. But concert promoters woke up and started festivals, where they can make so much more since they own the event. Concert promoters evolved.
And you should too.
But chances are you want to be a star. And right now, in today's cluttered internet world, the odds of doing that without a label are de minimis.
Then again, today everyone can play, and everyone can bitch. And that includes the never-will-bes and the old artists, akin to the screwed bluesmen, who've got deals so heinous they can never make bank.
But, once again, this has nothing to do with Spotify.
P.S. For the umpteenth time, I have no investment in Spotify, I make no money from the company. But Spotify put a huge dent in piracy, the problem everyone talked about last decade, and as a result of streaming services recording revenues are finally going up, our long nightmare is ending. You've got to live in the present, with an eye to the future, you can't keep dreaming about an old love in a world without cameras, the audience loves the present and the audience pays your bills. Think of ways to satiate those who pay.
P.P.S The penny rate. There is no penny rate, it's a percentage rate Spotify pays. But they came up with an approximate penny rate so oldsters could understand what they were making on streams. As more people subscribe and listen, the payment per stream will actually go down. Meaning you're gonna have to have more listens to make the same amount of money. But listens are growing exponentially to the point where those artists at the top of the heap are quite well compensated. But if your listens are not in the millions, you'd better think of alternative ways to get paid. Used to be you could sell a few thousand albums and make money. That paradigm, unfortunately, is dying, although you can still sell CDs as souvenirs along with other merch at the show. Then again, is it Spotify's responsibility to promote new music, especially the new and different, playlist it and bring it to the forefront? That's a whole 'nother issue.
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Tuesday 10 January 2017
Woman Of Heart And Mind
http://spoti.fi/2j5PDw2
1
Sometime, hopefully not soon, Joni Mitchell will die, what will reaction be?
2
I think I first heard of Joni Mitchell when Judy Collins had her monster hit with "Both Sides Now." The irony was the hook was the instrumentation and the changes, the lyrics were secondary, then again it's said that women get words first, and men, sometimes not at all. It was years before I heard Joni's take, which is radically different, slowed down, meaningful, but that was because no one I knew owned the LP. At this point I'm enamored of "Clouds," maybe because I got deeply into it in the eighties, long after its debut, long after Joni Mitchell peaked, when I found a cut-out copy at a store in Los Angeles, record buying was an adventure, I miss that aspect of it, the hunt, the surprise, but I wouldn't want to go back to those times, when you were a victim of inventory and you only had a limited number of dollars in your pocket. "Chelsea Morning" was also a Judy Collins staple, but the winners on "Clouds" are the darker tracks, like the opener "Tin Angel" and the number covered in the movie "Alice's Restaurant," "Songs To Aging Children Come." And if you've ever questioned your status in a relationship, a late night listening of "I Don't Know Where I Stand" will blow your mind and if you're familiar with Bonnie Raitt's more famous version you'll enjoy "That Song About The Midway," it sounds like a waif being blown by the wind on the prairie remembering what once was, it's so intimate, Joni Mitchell was always so intimate.
But I got on the Joni Mitchell bandwagon with "Ladies Of The Canyon." I went to see James Taylor at Harvard in the spring of 1970, just after "Sweet Baby James" came out, and he sang "For Free," they were in a relationship then, it was so rare that someone covered the song of another, artists were too busy selling what they'd recorded, but it resonated, it was not something I forgot. But then my sister, the one I'd visited in Boston, came home from college early, after all it was right after Kent State, revolution was in the air, finals were cancelled, and she bought "Ladies Of The Canyon."
"Ladies Of The Canyon" contains "The Circle Game," a well-known song at this point in time, something sung in youth group, as well as the trifle "Big Yellow Taxi" which has become famous for its couplet "They paved paradise, and put up a parking lot," but the heart of the album is much deeper, and once again, darker. Be sure to listen to "Rainy Night House," especially on a rainy night, it's like Joni is speaking just to you, that was part of her magic, she wasn't playing to everybody, just somebody, and "The Priest" is equally haunting but the killer is "The Arrangement."
"You could have been more
Than a name on the door
On the thirty-third floor in the air
More than a credit card
Swimming pool in the backyard"
This was back before everybody was playing it safe, society being so rough, having killed themselves to get into a good school, they didn't go for the brass ring, but in the sixties and seventies people were in search of themselves, of enlightenment, today everybody's in search of middle management, otherwise known as the bank. But back then our heroes were not boasting that their lives were better than ours, rather they were looking inside and revealing their personal truth, which you turned over in your brain before you made your own decisions, before corporate rock, before disco, before Reagan legitimized greed and MTV made it about image.
Then came the apotheosis, "Blue," which was chiaroscuro, alternately dark and light, depressed and exhilarated, and at this point "A Case Of You" is well-known but none of the tracks made the radio, but every time I return to the Golden State "California" plays in my head, I want to kiss a Sunset pig, I'm glad I'm back in the land of the enlightened and free. The same people who elected our new President denigrate my adopted homeland, but at this late date it's where it still happens, Governor Moonbeam is back in office and most of the gadgets you're enamored of were invented here, and there's no better place to be in these days of turmoil, after all Joni sang "They won't give peace a chance, That was just a dream some of us had," I don't know how we got here but I'm gonna do my best to soldier on, life went on after Nixon, it will continue after Trump.
Then came "For The Roses."
3
It was eighteen months after "Blue," the end of the year, and for the first time Joni Mitchell had a hit, "You Turn Me On, I'm A Radio," but its sunniness was not in evidence on the rest of the LP, then again, despite coursing along with a certain relentless drive the lyrics were a bit more complicated, with a turn of the phrase beyond anything you'll hear on the radio today.
"I know you don't like weak women
You get bored so quick
And you don't like strong women
'Cause they're hip to your tricks"
Must be complicated if you're a woman. Men are all about looks. But if you're subservient to them they treat you like crap, and too often if you're yourself they reject you. Meanwhile, the guys you know keep protesting they're looking for someone real, someone who's not a Barbie doll. And everybody's judging each other all the time and even back then we were all worried about image, what will satisfy us...frequently nothing, makes me believe we were better off in the days of arranged marriage, truly.
And the song that follows "You Turn Me On, I'm A Radio" on the LP goes even deeper on this topic, "Blonde In The Bleachers" talks about the perks of fame, the "Lovin' 'em and leavin' 'em" that ultimately leaves you empty. But the heart and soul of "For The Roses" comes next, "Woman Of Heart And Mind."
4
"I am a woman of heart and mind
With time on her hands
No child to raise
You come to me like a little boy
And I give you my scorn and my praise"
No one can have it all, neither women nor men. Some of us choose not to have children. While you're sleep-deprived, changing nappies as you ponder where your progeny will go to school, the rest of us are less selfless, we want to make it all about us, and when you encounter a person like this not only have they thought about where they're coming from, they're ready to engage, ready to go mano a mano, and it's everything you're looking for and yet sometimes too much. (Now at this late date we know that Joni Mitchell had a child, whom she was not raising, but this was before the internet, this was before everybody knew everything about everybody.)
"You think I'm like your mother"
Nothing turns off a woman more. They say they want to take care of you, but not in this way. They don't want you to cry on their shoulder, despite protesting that they want you to reveal your feelings, the truth is they don't want you to reveal weakness, but they will give you a chance, but don't disappoint them.
"Drive your bargains
Push your papers
Win your medals
Fuck your strangers
Don't it leave you on the empty side"
You're out being a Neanderthal, competing in the business world like you did in sports, claiming your trophies, but the women you desire most are unimpressed, these are not the games they play, especially those not looking for a sperm donor, but a companion. But when they call you on it you run away, you hate to be revealed, but you're drawn to their truth, ah, the conundrum.
So what works?
5
"You know the times you impress me most
Are the times when you don't try
When you don't even try"
Oh, how times have changed. Used to be boasting was unseemly. Now we've got a whole paradigm based on that, known as social media. A President-to-be who employs Twitter to tell us how great he is, no wonder he marries mindless foreigners, who else would put up with this? Why are we putting up with the pretenders of today's music scene? Who believe dues are for pussies and are willing to sell their souls to the highest bidder all the while purveying their fake stories of how great their lives are. Didn't used to be that way.
Maybe it's still not that way.
That's the story of this year, the disconnect between what we're sold and reality. And maybe the reality is most of us don't care about models frolicking on the beach, and have no desire to listen to most of the music on the hit parade. Maybe you should lead with your reputation, your good deeds, your efforts, maybe that's enough, but society keeps telling us it's not. You're supposed to be selling 24/7, not only your product, but yourself. Self-improvement is the name of the game, read books by nincompoops giving advice for those who are not you while you get plastic surgery trying to impress somebody who doesn't exist. The truth is we're all flawed, perfect doesn't exist, but with all these people yelling how great they are we end up feeling inferior, which is just how they want it, it's a kind of mind control and we used to depend on artists to combat it, to speak the truth, but that paradigm is gone, as soon as anyone gets traction they play by the rules, hell, they're obeying the rules from the get-go, whereas true artists question authority and convention, but with elected officials putting down arts majors no one wants to be the other, we all want to fit in, whereas the truth is none of us do, all of us are square pegs, you've got to stop looking for round holes.
6
The breakthrough came a year later, in January '74, with the release of "Court and Spark." The sound was slicker, radio embraced the sunny songs and suddenly Joni Mitchell was the beacon for women all over the world, even though she'd begun a decade before. Not that men didn't cotton to her too, it's just that she was the guiding light for women who were looking for someone who could speak to their experience, who they thought got them, who could lead the way.
And then Joni Mitchell took a left turn. She refused to be what she was, what people expected of her. She embraced jazz influences, she released her 1976 masterpiece "Hejira" with no singles but more truth than any mixtape. She continued, playing her own game. To the point where a few decades on she stopped, she decided to paint instead.
And Joni Mitchell recently experienced a health scare, but she's still here. As is her music. But no one ever talks about it. This is not Leonard Cohen, an outsider who came back late in his career and went on tour because he needed the money, no, Joni Mitchell is taking no victory lap, except for Herbie Hancock's covers album that won that Grammy that probably worked against her as opposed to for her, after all, the victory was undeserved, there was much better product in the marketplace.
But none of it as good as Joni's best work.
She had a streak.
They talk about the Beatles, they talk about Stevie Wonder, but Joni Mitchell released five killers in a row, and hit peaks thereafter. But everything she represents seems to be done.
Paying your dues, doing it your way, not sacrificing, not playing anyone's game... There are people who say they do this today, the only problem is none of them are half the songwriter Joni Mitchell is.
So now what?
Our heroes have been passing with scary regularity. To the point we honor them for a week and then move on, we just can't handle the pain. But a lot of the records they made are period pieces, whereas Joni's output sounds as fresh today as it was yesterday, there's wisdom in these tracks, stuff people need to hear. Because sometimes it's the human condition that confounds us most, that confuses us and we need guidance with regard to, that's what Joni Mitchell did, she illuminated her life which made clear our life, she posited all the questions, it was up to us to come up with the answers.
David Geffen is still in the news, giving away his money, but one thing I know is every time I go out a Joni Mitchell song plays in my head.
That's right, when I go to people's parties I'm on guard, everybody seems so comfortable and part of me wants to run while I contemplate navigating the scene.
But the truth is the photo beauty, the banker, the elected official, they're no different from me or you, Joni Mitchell told us this, not to put everybody else in their place but to level the playing field, and the key is to play, if you stay home nothing unexpected happens, and it's the unforeseen, the unanticipated that makes life worth living.
Maybe laughing and crying are the same release. Maybe that's why we crack jokes after someone dies. Maybe we need music to help us get through. Maybe we don't hear about Joni Mitchell on a regular basis because she's baked into our consciousness.
She's baked into mine.
1
Sometime, hopefully not soon, Joni Mitchell will die, what will reaction be?
2
I think I first heard of Joni Mitchell when Judy Collins had her monster hit with "Both Sides Now." The irony was the hook was the instrumentation and the changes, the lyrics were secondary, then again it's said that women get words first, and men, sometimes not at all. It was years before I heard Joni's take, which is radically different, slowed down, meaningful, but that was because no one I knew owned the LP. At this point I'm enamored of "Clouds," maybe because I got deeply into it in the eighties, long after its debut, long after Joni Mitchell peaked, when I found a cut-out copy at a store in Los Angeles, record buying was an adventure, I miss that aspect of it, the hunt, the surprise, but I wouldn't want to go back to those times, when you were a victim of inventory and you only had a limited number of dollars in your pocket. "Chelsea Morning" was also a Judy Collins staple, but the winners on "Clouds" are the darker tracks, like the opener "Tin Angel" and the number covered in the movie "Alice's Restaurant," "Songs To Aging Children Come." And if you've ever questioned your status in a relationship, a late night listening of "I Don't Know Where I Stand" will blow your mind and if you're familiar with Bonnie Raitt's more famous version you'll enjoy "That Song About The Midway," it sounds like a waif being blown by the wind on the prairie remembering what once was, it's so intimate, Joni Mitchell was always so intimate.
But I got on the Joni Mitchell bandwagon with "Ladies Of The Canyon." I went to see James Taylor at Harvard in the spring of 1970, just after "Sweet Baby James" came out, and he sang "For Free," they were in a relationship then, it was so rare that someone covered the song of another, artists were too busy selling what they'd recorded, but it resonated, it was not something I forgot. But then my sister, the one I'd visited in Boston, came home from college early, after all it was right after Kent State, revolution was in the air, finals were cancelled, and she bought "Ladies Of The Canyon."
"Ladies Of The Canyon" contains "The Circle Game," a well-known song at this point in time, something sung in youth group, as well as the trifle "Big Yellow Taxi" which has become famous for its couplet "They paved paradise, and put up a parking lot," but the heart of the album is much deeper, and once again, darker. Be sure to listen to "Rainy Night House," especially on a rainy night, it's like Joni is speaking just to you, that was part of her magic, she wasn't playing to everybody, just somebody, and "The Priest" is equally haunting but the killer is "The Arrangement."
"You could have been more
Than a name on the door
On the thirty-third floor in the air
More than a credit card
Swimming pool in the backyard"
This was back before everybody was playing it safe, society being so rough, having killed themselves to get into a good school, they didn't go for the brass ring, but in the sixties and seventies people were in search of themselves, of enlightenment, today everybody's in search of middle management, otherwise known as the bank. But back then our heroes were not boasting that their lives were better than ours, rather they were looking inside and revealing their personal truth, which you turned over in your brain before you made your own decisions, before corporate rock, before disco, before Reagan legitimized greed and MTV made it about image.
Then came the apotheosis, "Blue," which was chiaroscuro, alternately dark and light, depressed and exhilarated, and at this point "A Case Of You" is well-known but none of the tracks made the radio, but every time I return to the Golden State "California" plays in my head, I want to kiss a Sunset pig, I'm glad I'm back in the land of the enlightened and free. The same people who elected our new President denigrate my adopted homeland, but at this late date it's where it still happens, Governor Moonbeam is back in office and most of the gadgets you're enamored of were invented here, and there's no better place to be in these days of turmoil, after all Joni sang "They won't give peace a chance, That was just a dream some of us had," I don't know how we got here but I'm gonna do my best to soldier on, life went on after Nixon, it will continue after Trump.
Then came "For The Roses."
3
It was eighteen months after "Blue," the end of the year, and for the first time Joni Mitchell had a hit, "You Turn Me On, I'm A Radio," but its sunniness was not in evidence on the rest of the LP, then again, despite coursing along with a certain relentless drive the lyrics were a bit more complicated, with a turn of the phrase beyond anything you'll hear on the radio today.
"I know you don't like weak women
You get bored so quick
And you don't like strong women
'Cause they're hip to your tricks"
Must be complicated if you're a woman. Men are all about looks. But if you're subservient to them they treat you like crap, and too often if you're yourself they reject you. Meanwhile, the guys you know keep protesting they're looking for someone real, someone who's not a Barbie doll. And everybody's judging each other all the time and even back then we were all worried about image, what will satisfy us...frequently nothing, makes me believe we were better off in the days of arranged marriage, truly.
And the song that follows "You Turn Me On, I'm A Radio" on the LP goes even deeper on this topic, "Blonde In The Bleachers" talks about the perks of fame, the "Lovin' 'em and leavin' 'em" that ultimately leaves you empty. But the heart and soul of "For The Roses" comes next, "Woman Of Heart And Mind."
4
"I am a woman of heart and mind
With time on her hands
No child to raise
You come to me like a little boy
And I give you my scorn and my praise"
No one can have it all, neither women nor men. Some of us choose not to have children. While you're sleep-deprived, changing nappies as you ponder where your progeny will go to school, the rest of us are less selfless, we want to make it all about us, and when you encounter a person like this not only have they thought about where they're coming from, they're ready to engage, ready to go mano a mano, and it's everything you're looking for and yet sometimes too much. (Now at this late date we know that Joni Mitchell had a child, whom she was not raising, but this was before the internet, this was before everybody knew everything about everybody.)
"You think I'm like your mother"
Nothing turns off a woman more. They say they want to take care of you, but not in this way. They don't want you to cry on their shoulder, despite protesting that they want you to reveal your feelings, the truth is they don't want you to reveal weakness, but they will give you a chance, but don't disappoint them.
"Drive your bargains
Push your papers
Win your medals
Fuck your strangers
Don't it leave you on the empty side"
You're out being a Neanderthal, competing in the business world like you did in sports, claiming your trophies, but the women you desire most are unimpressed, these are not the games they play, especially those not looking for a sperm donor, but a companion. But when they call you on it you run away, you hate to be revealed, but you're drawn to their truth, ah, the conundrum.
So what works?
5
"You know the times you impress me most
Are the times when you don't try
When you don't even try"
Oh, how times have changed. Used to be boasting was unseemly. Now we've got a whole paradigm based on that, known as social media. A President-to-be who employs Twitter to tell us how great he is, no wonder he marries mindless foreigners, who else would put up with this? Why are we putting up with the pretenders of today's music scene? Who believe dues are for pussies and are willing to sell their souls to the highest bidder all the while purveying their fake stories of how great their lives are. Didn't used to be that way.
Maybe it's still not that way.
That's the story of this year, the disconnect between what we're sold and reality. And maybe the reality is most of us don't care about models frolicking on the beach, and have no desire to listen to most of the music on the hit parade. Maybe you should lead with your reputation, your good deeds, your efforts, maybe that's enough, but society keeps telling us it's not. You're supposed to be selling 24/7, not only your product, but yourself. Self-improvement is the name of the game, read books by nincompoops giving advice for those who are not you while you get plastic surgery trying to impress somebody who doesn't exist. The truth is we're all flawed, perfect doesn't exist, but with all these people yelling how great they are we end up feeling inferior, which is just how they want it, it's a kind of mind control and we used to depend on artists to combat it, to speak the truth, but that paradigm is gone, as soon as anyone gets traction they play by the rules, hell, they're obeying the rules from the get-go, whereas true artists question authority and convention, but with elected officials putting down arts majors no one wants to be the other, we all want to fit in, whereas the truth is none of us do, all of us are square pegs, you've got to stop looking for round holes.
6
The breakthrough came a year later, in January '74, with the release of "Court and Spark." The sound was slicker, radio embraced the sunny songs and suddenly Joni Mitchell was the beacon for women all over the world, even though she'd begun a decade before. Not that men didn't cotton to her too, it's just that she was the guiding light for women who were looking for someone who could speak to their experience, who they thought got them, who could lead the way.
And then Joni Mitchell took a left turn. She refused to be what she was, what people expected of her. She embraced jazz influences, she released her 1976 masterpiece "Hejira" with no singles but more truth than any mixtape. She continued, playing her own game. To the point where a few decades on she stopped, she decided to paint instead.
And Joni Mitchell recently experienced a health scare, but she's still here. As is her music. But no one ever talks about it. This is not Leonard Cohen, an outsider who came back late in his career and went on tour because he needed the money, no, Joni Mitchell is taking no victory lap, except for Herbie Hancock's covers album that won that Grammy that probably worked against her as opposed to for her, after all, the victory was undeserved, there was much better product in the marketplace.
But none of it as good as Joni's best work.
She had a streak.
They talk about the Beatles, they talk about Stevie Wonder, but Joni Mitchell released five killers in a row, and hit peaks thereafter. But everything she represents seems to be done.
Paying your dues, doing it your way, not sacrificing, not playing anyone's game... There are people who say they do this today, the only problem is none of them are half the songwriter Joni Mitchell is.
So now what?
Our heroes have been passing with scary regularity. To the point we honor them for a week and then move on, we just can't handle the pain. But a lot of the records they made are period pieces, whereas Joni's output sounds as fresh today as it was yesterday, there's wisdom in these tracks, stuff people need to hear. Because sometimes it's the human condition that confounds us most, that confuses us and we need guidance with regard to, that's what Joni Mitchell did, she illuminated her life which made clear our life, she posited all the questions, it was up to us to come up with the answers.
David Geffen is still in the news, giving away his money, but one thing I know is every time I go out a Joni Mitchell song plays in my head.
That's right, when I go to people's parties I'm on guard, everybody seems so comfortable and part of me wants to run while I contemplate navigating the scene.
But the truth is the photo beauty, the banker, the elected official, they're no different from me or you, Joni Mitchell told us this, not to put everybody else in their place but to level the playing field, and the key is to play, if you stay home nothing unexpected happens, and it's the unforeseen, the unanticipated that makes life worth living.
Maybe laughing and crying are the same release. Maybe that's why we crack jokes after someone dies. Maybe we need music to help us get through. Maybe we don't hear about Joni Mitchell on a regular basis because she's baked into our consciousness.
She's baked into mine.
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Whipping Post
http://spoti.fi/2iaDG8Y
There's a canard that we're living in the dark ages of audio quality, that files are lo-res and we're just not hearing what we used to. But that's forgetting the fact that for most of the previous era people experienced bad playback systems, the all-in-ones of the sixties, the homebrew speakers of the seventies, the cassettes of the eighties and the boomboxes of the nineties, kinda like all the blowback about Spotify ripping off musicians, which is patently untrue, all streaming services pay out 70% or so of their revenues to rightsholders, yet we keep hearing from Neil Young and recording professionals that today's sound sucks.
But this is wrong.
Yes, chances are if you're an earbud kinda person you're not hearing the best quality, but never forget that Beats sold to Apple for billions, and despite those cans being a far cry from Sennheisers, never mind Sonys, they're probably the best reproductive system their users have ever owned, and that's a good thing.
Now the scapegoat for all this sound backlash is streaming services, but these services have unearthed previously unheard cuts that are extremely rewarding. The only problem is you oftentimes don't even know they've been released. I got e-mail about new Beach Boys live recordings from the sixties, who knew?
And who knew that Eric Clapton had recut "Anyday" in San Diego? I'd say to check it out, but even better is the remastered take, from "Layla," it sounds just a bit different, but satisfying in its own way. Even more interesting is Bobby Whitlock's live rendition with CoCo Carmel, from the album "Carnival," the vocal is imperfect, but the guitars have power, the song is driving down the track, you'll want to listen, once, at least.
But the key to the original "Anyday" is Duane Allman. So I decided to pull up "Idlewild South" on Spotify, who knew there was a deluxe remastered package?
First and foremost, there's a plethora of live takes, from the Ludlow Garage show back in 1970. Actually, those were released previously, back in 1990, but I don't ever remember hearing the "Midnight Rider" alternate mix, and I'd like to tell you it's a revelation, but it's not.
But "Don't Keep Me Wonderin'" was.
Actually, many a time I just started at "Midnight Rider," dropped the needle right there and let the LP play through "In Memory Of Elizabeth Reed," but when I heard it Sunday, after starting with "Revival," I suddenly got it, that's one amazing thing about music, not only that these songs are land mines, waiting to be discovered at some time in the future, but that with age, wisdom and a new perspective you gain insight, can understand them in ways you were previously unable to.
Actually, it's the screaming guitar riff, that sustains, that sounds like a train coming down the track, that makes the cut. But suddenly the words spoke out to me too.
"Oh, tell me 'bout the car I saw
Parked outside your door
Tell me what you left me waiting
Two or three hours for"
Oh, this is a song about infidelity.
Right! But not the kind you think.
I love it when rock stars show vulnerability, she's been keeping him waiting for all that time, I certainly wouldn't hang around for that long. But what's truly happening...
"Tell me why when the phone rings baby
You're up and across the floor
Please don't keep me wonderin' no longer"
Yup, a guy on the other end of the line, he should be worried about losing her.
And he should, but not to a guy, but to...
"I think about the bad times
Lord I think about yours and mine
You were lost in the silver spoon
Thought I pulled you out in time"
He didn't. Pull her out in time. The silver spoon? Who in 1970 had even seen cocaine? Musicians. On the road, slugging it out. There's experience in this lyric that I did not have, that I still may not have.
And I'm listening to "Idlewild South" and the numbers that never resonated that much do and I'm wondering if my original opinion that the record was uneven was wrong and then I decide to put on my favorite, the debut, made with Adrian Barber, that most people don't know, it's the blueprint, for what came later, it's closer to "Fillmore East" than "Idlewild South," it contains "Trouble No More."
That's right, the initial LP, stiff upon release, one that's never been fully embraced, is my number one. But when I pulled it up last night, I was positively stunned, it sounded undeniable, from the initial instrumental "Don't Want You No More" all the way to its finish at the original five minute take of "Whipping Post."
I wondered what made them decide to begin with an instrumental, then I remembered this was the era of "Abraxas," but that came later! It's almost like they weren't worried about commercialism, but if you listen to this now you'll want to tell all your friends, it's mellifluous and overpowering and then...
The whole thing slows down and Gregg starts singing that it's not his cross to bear and I feel like I'm in an alternative universe, like my head is back in the seventies, '69 in this case, I GET IT!
And, of course, I have to listen to my favorite cut on the LP, the cover of the McKinley Morganfield, aka Muddy Waters, classic "Trouble No More." It's like you're in a bar, not a club with a deejay, no one's dressed up, everybody's just getting loosened up, via the alcohol, but the real elixir is the music, it's stirring you up, got your head nodding, got you in the groove.
And then I decided to play...
"Whipping Post."
The side-long take is the famous one. It's almost a cliche, with people requesting it at other acts' concerts, I like it but I never really need to hear it again, and even the Allmans themselves seemed to be going through the motions the last time I heard them perform it at the Beacon, but the five minute take is my secret weapon, I decide I'll listen for a few seconds, but I can't turn it off, WHAT IS GOING ON?
Now you've got to understand, this was not today, when you spread the word first and practice second, if at all. Listening to this old stuff you realize why Bill Graham had the Allmans close the Fillmore, why he considered them the best live band out there, despite all the legends who'd already broken through, they were so well-rehearsed, they were totally locked-in.
But this is the studio iteration, it's supposed to be restricted, it's not supposed to have the feel, the explosion, the sound of the live take, but this cut is playing in my headphones and I'm positively stunned, there's so much energy, so much drive, I could listen to this all night!
And you should too!
I did some research. I was worried these deluxe versions of the first two albums were remixes, something I pooh-pooh, don't mess with the original, but the credits say they're just remastered, how can that be? I pulled up the originals, the instruments were all stuck together, the sound was distant, whereas when I went back to the remasters I could hear all the elements, the detritus had been stripped away, the music shined.
You've got to check this stuff out. The better the speakers, the better the sound, but a cursory pair of headphones will do the trick, you'll be positively stunned.
And you won't know what to do, the radio station doesn't care, the press either, all you can do is tell people, the way it used to be, when the English cats listened to the Delta bluesmen and were inspired, this will make you want to go to the show, practice if you're a musician, raise your expectations and your standards. Listening to Gregg on this remastered take I can truly understand why he felt like he was tied to the whipping post, and that's what we're looking for, genuine sensation, feeling, we want our music to express humanity while it levitates us away from this pedestrian universe, we're living in a golden era, all the hits of yore have resurfaced, they're right there, PARTAKE!
P.S. I've included the original "Whipping Post" at the end of the above playlist so you can compare the sound...
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There's a canard that we're living in the dark ages of audio quality, that files are lo-res and we're just not hearing what we used to. But that's forgetting the fact that for most of the previous era people experienced bad playback systems, the all-in-ones of the sixties, the homebrew speakers of the seventies, the cassettes of the eighties and the boomboxes of the nineties, kinda like all the blowback about Spotify ripping off musicians, which is patently untrue, all streaming services pay out 70% or so of their revenues to rightsholders, yet we keep hearing from Neil Young and recording professionals that today's sound sucks.
But this is wrong.
Yes, chances are if you're an earbud kinda person you're not hearing the best quality, but never forget that Beats sold to Apple for billions, and despite those cans being a far cry from Sennheisers, never mind Sonys, they're probably the best reproductive system their users have ever owned, and that's a good thing.
Now the scapegoat for all this sound backlash is streaming services, but these services have unearthed previously unheard cuts that are extremely rewarding. The only problem is you oftentimes don't even know they've been released. I got e-mail about new Beach Boys live recordings from the sixties, who knew?
And who knew that Eric Clapton had recut "Anyday" in San Diego? I'd say to check it out, but even better is the remastered take, from "Layla," it sounds just a bit different, but satisfying in its own way. Even more interesting is Bobby Whitlock's live rendition with CoCo Carmel, from the album "Carnival," the vocal is imperfect, but the guitars have power, the song is driving down the track, you'll want to listen, once, at least.
But the key to the original "Anyday" is Duane Allman. So I decided to pull up "Idlewild South" on Spotify, who knew there was a deluxe remastered package?
First and foremost, there's a plethora of live takes, from the Ludlow Garage show back in 1970. Actually, those were released previously, back in 1990, but I don't ever remember hearing the "Midnight Rider" alternate mix, and I'd like to tell you it's a revelation, but it's not.
But "Don't Keep Me Wonderin'" was.
Actually, many a time I just started at "Midnight Rider," dropped the needle right there and let the LP play through "In Memory Of Elizabeth Reed," but when I heard it Sunday, after starting with "Revival," I suddenly got it, that's one amazing thing about music, not only that these songs are land mines, waiting to be discovered at some time in the future, but that with age, wisdom and a new perspective you gain insight, can understand them in ways you were previously unable to.
Actually, it's the screaming guitar riff, that sustains, that sounds like a train coming down the track, that makes the cut. But suddenly the words spoke out to me too.
"Oh, tell me 'bout the car I saw
Parked outside your door
Tell me what you left me waiting
Two or three hours for"
Oh, this is a song about infidelity.
Right! But not the kind you think.
I love it when rock stars show vulnerability, she's been keeping him waiting for all that time, I certainly wouldn't hang around for that long. But what's truly happening...
"Tell me why when the phone rings baby
You're up and across the floor
Please don't keep me wonderin' no longer"
Yup, a guy on the other end of the line, he should be worried about losing her.
And he should, but not to a guy, but to...
"I think about the bad times
Lord I think about yours and mine
You were lost in the silver spoon
Thought I pulled you out in time"
He didn't. Pull her out in time. The silver spoon? Who in 1970 had even seen cocaine? Musicians. On the road, slugging it out. There's experience in this lyric that I did not have, that I still may not have.
And I'm listening to "Idlewild South" and the numbers that never resonated that much do and I'm wondering if my original opinion that the record was uneven was wrong and then I decide to put on my favorite, the debut, made with Adrian Barber, that most people don't know, it's the blueprint, for what came later, it's closer to "Fillmore East" than "Idlewild South," it contains "Trouble No More."
That's right, the initial LP, stiff upon release, one that's never been fully embraced, is my number one. But when I pulled it up last night, I was positively stunned, it sounded undeniable, from the initial instrumental "Don't Want You No More" all the way to its finish at the original five minute take of "Whipping Post."
I wondered what made them decide to begin with an instrumental, then I remembered this was the era of "Abraxas," but that came later! It's almost like they weren't worried about commercialism, but if you listen to this now you'll want to tell all your friends, it's mellifluous and overpowering and then...
The whole thing slows down and Gregg starts singing that it's not his cross to bear and I feel like I'm in an alternative universe, like my head is back in the seventies, '69 in this case, I GET IT!
And, of course, I have to listen to my favorite cut on the LP, the cover of the McKinley Morganfield, aka Muddy Waters, classic "Trouble No More." It's like you're in a bar, not a club with a deejay, no one's dressed up, everybody's just getting loosened up, via the alcohol, but the real elixir is the music, it's stirring you up, got your head nodding, got you in the groove.
And then I decided to play...
"Whipping Post."
The side-long take is the famous one. It's almost a cliche, with people requesting it at other acts' concerts, I like it but I never really need to hear it again, and even the Allmans themselves seemed to be going through the motions the last time I heard them perform it at the Beacon, but the five minute take is my secret weapon, I decide I'll listen for a few seconds, but I can't turn it off, WHAT IS GOING ON?
Now you've got to understand, this was not today, when you spread the word first and practice second, if at all. Listening to this old stuff you realize why Bill Graham had the Allmans close the Fillmore, why he considered them the best live band out there, despite all the legends who'd already broken through, they were so well-rehearsed, they were totally locked-in.
But this is the studio iteration, it's supposed to be restricted, it's not supposed to have the feel, the explosion, the sound of the live take, but this cut is playing in my headphones and I'm positively stunned, there's so much energy, so much drive, I could listen to this all night!
And you should too!
I did some research. I was worried these deluxe versions of the first two albums were remixes, something I pooh-pooh, don't mess with the original, but the credits say they're just remastered, how can that be? I pulled up the originals, the instruments were all stuck together, the sound was distant, whereas when I went back to the remasters I could hear all the elements, the detritus had been stripped away, the music shined.
You've got to check this stuff out. The better the speakers, the better the sound, but a cursory pair of headphones will do the trick, you'll be positively stunned.
And you won't know what to do, the radio station doesn't care, the press either, all you can do is tell people, the way it used to be, when the English cats listened to the Delta bluesmen and were inspired, this will make you want to go to the show, practice if you're a musician, raise your expectations and your standards. Listening to Gregg on this remastered take I can truly understand why he felt like he was tied to the whipping post, and that's what we're looking for, genuine sensation, feeling, we want our music to express humanity while it levitates us away from this pedestrian universe, we're living in a golden era, all the hits of yore have resurfaced, they're right there, PARTAKE!
P.S. I've included the original "Whipping Post" at the end of the above playlist so you can compare the sound...
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Monday 9 January 2017
Making It In Music
1. Melody
I know, I know, we live in an era of beats. But the public wants something they can sing along with. The biggest act in the business is Adele, and although she faltered with "25," her previous album, "21," outsold its competition by a factor of ten. You could sing along with the tracks, and there's rarely something more satisfying. Hell, you can sing along with most Max Martin productions, think about that. So write songs. He or she who writes the songs rules. Sure, we've returned to a pre-Beatle era, where songs are written by guns-for-hire, but the truth is you're not really in control of your career unless you write, even though there are exceptions. Your first songs will suck, I guarantee it. But if you work at it you will get better. And if you can't sing and play your songs on an acoustic guitar or piano, you're barking up the wrong tree. Never follow trends. Once they break, they're time-stamped. It's your job to do something new. And that new thing is a return to the garden. Study the hits of yore, with not only their melodies, but their changes. Maybe put the chorus first. Never underestimate the power of a bridge. and if you can't say it in three minutes or less, chances are you can't say it at all. We're ripe for a new sound, and one thing's for sure, we know it's going to be pop, Active Rock and Triple A are backwaters and hip-hop will survive but it's looking to be superseded. You can sing along with the country tunes, which in too many cases are retreads of seventies rock, a paradigm Christian music originated, but we're looking for something a bit more modern. And your goal is to appeal to everybody. The music business is mostly run by old men worried about money, they don't want to take a chance. They abhor risk. They're happy with today's niche product because it makes them money. And they have their publicity teams get stories in the press to make it look like people care about what they're selling but few do. We are looking for a great new hope, whether black, white, brown or red. It's a big tent, you're not gonna be excluded based on your ethnicity, hits are undeniable and everybody wants a piece of them.
2. Reaction
If no one cares, you're on the wrong track. You want people to demand the song from you, so they can play it and spread the word. If you're forcing it upon people chances are it won't succeed. We live in a pull economy, despite the usual suspects pushing. If push worked, the tracks off Bruno Mars's new album would be topping the Spotify chart, but they're not. Sure, Mars made it because of previous great work and endless exposure but the truth is today's cycles are faster than ever before, we're hungry for new blood, it's hard for the old to sustain. It's nearly impossible to break through but some people do, we want you.
3. Playlists
Radio comes last. You want to be on Spotify playlists. Apple Music is a walled garden, there's little virality and Spotify dominates. If you can get on a Spotify playlist and your music reacts, the company will work with you, they'll spread the word by putting you on more playlists, helping to break your record. It's a data-driven game, fakery is a thing of the past and radio is the icing on the cake. You live and die by the numbers.
4. Team
You have to be aligned with someone who has relationships, who knows people, you cannot do it by yourself, no way. Oh, you can play in Poughkeepsie and try to spread it from there, town to town, your live rep preceding you, but the truth is that takes too much time and you're probably gonna burn out and give up before you make it to the middle. Then again, if you've got anything going on the labels and agents will find you. They're combing the data constantly. If you're an unknown with big grosses or big streams they'll find you, even if you don't have an address, they're just that interested. But they're not interested in much. Your goal is to get aligned with the person with the most relationships who cares about you. Not the biggest person who's cutting you a break nor the amateur who is passionate. And careers are brief with few shots so the truth is you're gonna get in some nasty disputes, you're gonna fire your original manager, you're gonna have to pay him off, sounds ugly but this is what it takes to make it, you've got to be monomaniacal in service to your career. Nice guys don't finish at all in the music business, they barely get started.
5. No bitching.
Unless it's over an artistic issue. Fight to protect your vision, your music. But don't complain about streaming payouts and getting ripped-off and missing out on opportunities, no one cares. And be ready to work 'round the clock, that's how you know you're tied up with the right team, you no longer have free time, they've got you promoting and interfacing all the damn time. But the truth is you say yes before you say no. You have to take all opportunities until you become a star, then you can say no.
6. Don't second-guess yourself.
Do it your way, you're the only person on your team. The manager and label can get new acts, if you don't make it you're done. So, if it doesn't feel right, don't do it. And don't be influenced by the naysayers, there are professional sour-grapers who don't want anybody to succeed unless it's them and or someone they approve of. Ignore the hatred, no one's got time to hear it but you.
7. Try to save the world.
One person can do it. With one song. That's the power of art, that's the power of the individual. Shoot high! And know that if success comes, it'll be long after you've almost given up two, three or more times. Show business is not fair and despite the internet you need middlemen to make it, and to convince them, to move them, is a very slow process at best, and never forget they're risk averse. But someone will break through, why not you?
I know, I know, we live in an era of beats. But the public wants something they can sing along with. The biggest act in the business is Adele, and although she faltered with "25," her previous album, "21," outsold its competition by a factor of ten. You could sing along with the tracks, and there's rarely something more satisfying. Hell, you can sing along with most Max Martin productions, think about that. So write songs. He or she who writes the songs rules. Sure, we've returned to a pre-Beatle era, where songs are written by guns-for-hire, but the truth is you're not really in control of your career unless you write, even though there are exceptions. Your first songs will suck, I guarantee it. But if you work at it you will get better. And if you can't sing and play your songs on an acoustic guitar or piano, you're barking up the wrong tree. Never follow trends. Once they break, they're time-stamped. It's your job to do something new. And that new thing is a return to the garden. Study the hits of yore, with not only their melodies, but their changes. Maybe put the chorus first. Never underestimate the power of a bridge. and if you can't say it in three minutes or less, chances are you can't say it at all. We're ripe for a new sound, and one thing's for sure, we know it's going to be pop, Active Rock and Triple A are backwaters and hip-hop will survive but it's looking to be superseded. You can sing along with the country tunes, which in too many cases are retreads of seventies rock, a paradigm Christian music originated, but we're looking for something a bit more modern. And your goal is to appeal to everybody. The music business is mostly run by old men worried about money, they don't want to take a chance. They abhor risk. They're happy with today's niche product because it makes them money. And they have their publicity teams get stories in the press to make it look like people care about what they're selling but few do. We are looking for a great new hope, whether black, white, brown or red. It's a big tent, you're not gonna be excluded based on your ethnicity, hits are undeniable and everybody wants a piece of them.
2. Reaction
If no one cares, you're on the wrong track. You want people to demand the song from you, so they can play it and spread the word. If you're forcing it upon people chances are it won't succeed. We live in a pull economy, despite the usual suspects pushing. If push worked, the tracks off Bruno Mars's new album would be topping the Spotify chart, but they're not. Sure, Mars made it because of previous great work and endless exposure but the truth is today's cycles are faster than ever before, we're hungry for new blood, it's hard for the old to sustain. It's nearly impossible to break through but some people do, we want you.
3. Playlists
Radio comes last. You want to be on Spotify playlists. Apple Music is a walled garden, there's little virality and Spotify dominates. If you can get on a Spotify playlist and your music reacts, the company will work with you, they'll spread the word by putting you on more playlists, helping to break your record. It's a data-driven game, fakery is a thing of the past and radio is the icing on the cake. You live and die by the numbers.
4. Team
You have to be aligned with someone who has relationships, who knows people, you cannot do it by yourself, no way. Oh, you can play in Poughkeepsie and try to spread it from there, town to town, your live rep preceding you, but the truth is that takes too much time and you're probably gonna burn out and give up before you make it to the middle. Then again, if you've got anything going on the labels and agents will find you. They're combing the data constantly. If you're an unknown with big grosses or big streams they'll find you, even if you don't have an address, they're just that interested. But they're not interested in much. Your goal is to get aligned with the person with the most relationships who cares about you. Not the biggest person who's cutting you a break nor the amateur who is passionate. And careers are brief with few shots so the truth is you're gonna get in some nasty disputes, you're gonna fire your original manager, you're gonna have to pay him off, sounds ugly but this is what it takes to make it, you've got to be monomaniacal in service to your career. Nice guys don't finish at all in the music business, they barely get started.
5. No bitching.
Unless it's over an artistic issue. Fight to protect your vision, your music. But don't complain about streaming payouts and getting ripped-off and missing out on opportunities, no one cares. And be ready to work 'round the clock, that's how you know you're tied up with the right team, you no longer have free time, they've got you promoting and interfacing all the damn time. But the truth is you say yes before you say no. You have to take all opportunities until you become a star, then you can say no.
6. Don't second-guess yourself.
Do it your way, you're the only person on your team. The manager and label can get new acts, if you don't make it you're done. So, if it doesn't feel right, don't do it. And don't be influenced by the naysayers, there are professional sour-grapers who don't want anybody to succeed unless it's them and or someone they approve of. Ignore the hatred, no one's got time to hear it but you.
7. Try to save the world.
One person can do it. With one song. That's the power of art, that's the power of the individual. Shoot high! And know that if success comes, it'll be long after you've almost given up two, three or more times. Show business is not fair and despite the internet you need middlemen to make it, and to convince them, to move them, is a very slow process at best, and never forget they're risk averse. But someone will break through, why not you?
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U2 Does The Joshua Tree
They're afraid.
The dirty little secret of the last tour is it didn't go clean, there were tickets available here and there. With all that production, with all those breakthroughs, with all that press...
People didn't want to hear the new songs.
Ed Sheeran put out a couple of numbers last week and broke records. The tracks were streamed millions of times. Double digit millions, in fact.
But no one wants to listen to new U2 music. Not in quantity.
What happened? They got old, they can no longer capture the zeitgeist, and rather than be embarrassed, rather than play to less than full halls, they've decided to become an oldies act, give the audience what it wants, and once you do that, you're artistically bankrupt.
I don't know why they're making an album at all. Actually, they've got a set in the can, but the Edge says they're afraid to release it because it's no longer timely, not in the age of Trump. But what age are they living in? When you polish a collection over years to dribble out singles and go on the road for twelve months. That era's done. You make it today and you release it today, and it's all about singles.
U2 needs a hit single.
They don't need an album, which will be instantly forgotten, they need a track, everybody needs a track.
Just ask the streaming services, they'll give you the data. A track can climb the chart, a track can be playlisted, an album just sits there waiting to be discovered, which it usually isn't. Furthermore, an album drops all on the same day, which means you get a smidge of attention and then there's a new new thing. That's the world we live in, if you're in the popular culture game you must be creating all the time, be in the marketplace all the time.
And you can fail. No one cares about your stiffs, as long as you make hits. Stiffs are forgotten, chalked up as experiments. Little Big Town did a project with Pharrell, as hot as a personage as there is in music. Hell, Justin Timberlake was involved too. The eight track compilation was released on May 24, 2016 and it went straight to the dumper, their previous album, 2014's "Pain Killer," went to number 3 on the country chart and number 7 on the overall chart but "Wanderlust," the name of the spring collection, only made it to number 103 on the overall chart and it didn't even make the country chart, not at all! And now, mere months later, Little Big Town has a single, "Better Man," and it's climbed the chart all the way to number 4 when not a single track off "Wanderlust" made a dent. What is U2 so afraid of? Experiment, isn't that what artists do? Test the waters. Don't be so precious. They poked fun at their image in the "Pop" era, what happened to their sense of humor?
Then again, "Pop" failed, the public didn't get the joke. But that was back in 1997, the pre-internet era, at least in music, when everybody was paying attention, and most people aren't paying attention to U2 today.
Hell, work with one of the Nashville titans. Start with Dave Cobb. Then move on to Dann Huff. And let's not forget Max Martin! And the truth is, a couple of years back, in search of a hit, U2 did work with everybody hot, but it was in an effort to ring the bell, and that's a hard game to win at. Whereas if you see yourself as an artist and you take a risk you never know what will result. Assuming you're playing the game.
But U2 has to do it the same old way. Building tracks slowly. Why?
Then again, they had a good long run. Everybody's career peters out, at least when it comes to new music. But they should give it a shot. And last time they played too big, with the Apple tie-in/delivery. The truth is in today's world no one's a star, everybody's dirty laundry is exposed, if anything, people laugh at/resent Bono trying to save the world. For him and his band to poke fun at themselves, take a risk...there's a better chance of that being embraced.
And no one listens to albums anymore.
Save me the e-mail, I know you do, but if you U2 fans ruled the world then "Songs Of Innocence" would have been a hit, but it was a stiff.
But you'll go to see 1987's opus live, to relive your college days, not wanting to admit that you too are over the hill.
But that's the modern music paradigm. Everybody wants to believe they're hip. When the truth is we're all overloaded with input and many are oblivious to new music and what they're looking for is direction and leadership, playlists only go so far, we need some hit singles by our legends, but they're too busy making albums, playing by the old rules.
So there's image.
And there's money.
No matter how big a star you might be there are running costs. The receipts from a stadium tour will be much greater. And they'll get some looky-loos, casual fans, young people, who want to see what once was.
But make no mistake, U2 blinked. It's not terminal, but it's a step in the wrong direction. Their producer Eno puts out a new album trying to harness the new reality (http://bit.ly/2iDQwsP) but his charges are too big to take a risk, not wanting to fall on their face.
But we love you when you fail, almost as much as we do when you succeed. It humanizes you, it means you're taking chances.
So for the next year we'll be subjected to stories about the "Joshua Tree" tour. How amazing it is, reflections on 1987, the huge grosses. Ignore them, they're irrelevant, a somnambulant press feeding the desires of the purveyors, an endless circle jerk that the public does not care about.
Not that the show won't be satisfying.
But an artist takes chances. An artist surprises us. An artists hangs it all out.
Once you second-guess the audience, once you give the people what they're looking for, you're done. You're not an artist, you're a businessman. Artists lead the way and change the culture. That's what U2 used to do. "The Zoo TV" tour was one of the most innovative of all time, featuring music that was a hundred and eighty degrees from what had come before, a reaction to the overblown "Rattle and Hum" and the resultant backlash. It was even better than the real thing, it was a mysterious endeavor wherein they tried to throw their arms around the world. And they succeeded. I'll remember it until the end of the world, because I was wowed by the Trabants and swayed by the music. "The Joshua Tree" is already a memory, seeing it performed live is akin to going to a school reunion.
And I haven't been to a reunion yet.
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The dirty little secret of the last tour is it didn't go clean, there were tickets available here and there. With all that production, with all those breakthroughs, with all that press...
People didn't want to hear the new songs.
Ed Sheeran put out a couple of numbers last week and broke records. The tracks were streamed millions of times. Double digit millions, in fact.
But no one wants to listen to new U2 music. Not in quantity.
What happened? They got old, they can no longer capture the zeitgeist, and rather than be embarrassed, rather than play to less than full halls, they've decided to become an oldies act, give the audience what it wants, and once you do that, you're artistically bankrupt.
I don't know why they're making an album at all. Actually, they've got a set in the can, but the Edge says they're afraid to release it because it's no longer timely, not in the age of Trump. But what age are they living in? When you polish a collection over years to dribble out singles and go on the road for twelve months. That era's done. You make it today and you release it today, and it's all about singles.
U2 needs a hit single.
They don't need an album, which will be instantly forgotten, they need a track, everybody needs a track.
Just ask the streaming services, they'll give you the data. A track can climb the chart, a track can be playlisted, an album just sits there waiting to be discovered, which it usually isn't. Furthermore, an album drops all on the same day, which means you get a smidge of attention and then there's a new new thing. That's the world we live in, if you're in the popular culture game you must be creating all the time, be in the marketplace all the time.
And you can fail. No one cares about your stiffs, as long as you make hits. Stiffs are forgotten, chalked up as experiments. Little Big Town did a project with Pharrell, as hot as a personage as there is in music. Hell, Justin Timberlake was involved too. The eight track compilation was released on May 24, 2016 and it went straight to the dumper, their previous album, 2014's "Pain Killer," went to number 3 on the country chart and number 7 on the overall chart but "Wanderlust," the name of the spring collection, only made it to number 103 on the overall chart and it didn't even make the country chart, not at all! And now, mere months later, Little Big Town has a single, "Better Man," and it's climbed the chart all the way to number 4 when not a single track off "Wanderlust" made a dent. What is U2 so afraid of? Experiment, isn't that what artists do? Test the waters. Don't be so precious. They poked fun at their image in the "Pop" era, what happened to their sense of humor?
Then again, "Pop" failed, the public didn't get the joke. But that was back in 1997, the pre-internet era, at least in music, when everybody was paying attention, and most people aren't paying attention to U2 today.
Hell, work with one of the Nashville titans. Start with Dave Cobb. Then move on to Dann Huff. And let's not forget Max Martin! And the truth is, a couple of years back, in search of a hit, U2 did work with everybody hot, but it was in an effort to ring the bell, and that's a hard game to win at. Whereas if you see yourself as an artist and you take a risk you never know what will result. Assuming you're playing the game.
But U2 has to do it the same old way. Building tracks slowly. Why?
Then again, they had a good long run. Everybody's career peters out, at least when it comes to new music. But they should give it a shot. And last time they played too big, with the Apple tie-in/delivery. The truth is in today's world no one's a star, everybody's dirty laundry is exposed, if anything, people laugh at/resent Bono trying to save the world. For him and his band to poke fun at themselves, take a risk...there's a better chance of that being embraced.
And no one listens to albums anymore.
Save me the e-mail, I know you do, but if you U2 fans ruled the world then "Songs Of Innocence" would have been a hit, but it was a stiff.
But you'll go to see 1987's opus live, to relive your college days, not wanting to admit that you too are over the hill.
But that's the modern music paradigm. Everybody wants to believe they're hip. When the truth is we're all overloaded with input and many are oblivious to new music and what they're looking for is direction and leadership, playlists only go so far, we need some hit singles by our legends, but they're too busy making albums, playing by the old rules.
So there's image.
And there's money.
No matter how big a star you might be there are running costs. The receipts from a stadium tour will be much greater. And they'll get some looky-loos, casual fans, young people, who want to see what once was.
But make no mistake, U2 blinked. It's not terminal, but it's a step in the wrong direction. Their producer Eno puts out a new album trying to harness the new reality (http://bit.ly/2iDQwsP) but his charges are too big to take a risk, not wanting to fall on their face.
But we love you when you fail, almost as much as we do when you succeed. It humanizes you, it means you're taking chances.
So for the next year we'll be subjected to stories about the "Joshua Tree" tour. How amazing it is, reflections on 1987, the huge grosses. Ignore them, they're irrelevant, a somnambulant press feeding the desires of the purveyors, an endless circle jerk that the public does not care about.
Not that the show won't be satisfying.
But an artist takes chances. An artist surprises us. An artists hangs it all out.
Once you second-guess the audience, once you give the people what they're looking for, you're done. You're not an artist, you're a businessman. Artists lead the way and change the culture. That's what U2 used to do. "The Zoo TV" tour was one of the most innovative of all time, featuring music that was a hundred and eighty degrees from what had come before, a reaction to the overblown "Rattle and Hum" and the resultant backlash. It was even better than the real thing, it was a mysterious endeavor wherein they tried to throw their arms around the world. And they succeeded. I'll remember it until the end of the world, because I was wowed by the Trabants and swayed by the music. "The Joshua Tree" is already a memory, seeing it performed live is akin to going to a school reunion.
And I haven't been to a reunion yet.
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Sunday 8 January 2017
The New York Times
If you didn't go to Yale or Harvard, if you weren't born with a silver spoon in your mouth, if you're not boasting about getting no sleep because you work all day and go to charity events all night...
You don't count in America.
Donald Trump's election was a wakeup call.
And the mainstream media is still asleep.
I'm not talking politics, I'm talking culture. The "Times" is an echo chamber of self-promoters who believe their interests are relatable to others. I used to be a believer in the paper, but after it got the election so wrong, I'm reconsidering.
Because of the blowback, the writers for the "Times" don't get any. They're all faceless and clueless. I weighed in on the election and my inbox went nuclear. The Trump supporters came out of the woodwork with their hatred for Hillary and it was unrelenting. But if you're in the ivory tower, you don't hear these messages.
Used to be we blamed the media for shaming women.
Now it shames all of us.
Let's forget Fox, with its agenda. What makes the "Times" a special case is it keeps telling us it has no agenda. That it publishes "All The News That's Fit To Print." But that's not true, not at all, it prints all the news it deems worthy of those stories pitched to it by publicists. Other than wars and political shenanigans, the rest of the paper is fluff for those who are part of the club.
But most people are not.
This is different from television and online.
Television is about the money. Whores who will go wherever the cash is. They anoint stars who believe their press and the rest of us sit at home and scratch our heads.
Online is oftentimes lowest common denominator, it's trolling for doofuses and the easily swayed, but America is all about the con-man, selling that which we do not need at inflated prices to the uninformed and uninitiated. And every once in a while the "Times" prints a how-to, but it's a bone to those who don't care anyway, because they know better, because they're educated and have their own advisors.
So what's a paper to do?
Either admit it caters to its audience or open the window to what's really happening.
This is the conundrum of film. Wherein they make flicks appealing to base emotions yet trumpet highbrow product at awards time. And then self-congratulate when the live-tweeting paradigm makes their ratings go up.
But then the ratings sank. These shows have entertainment value at best, if they've got that. Who wants to watch a program about that which you do not know and do not care about?
Kinda like reading the "Times."
The other day an athlete slid along a chairlift cable to save a suffocating skier, one who was being strangled. ("Arapahoe Basin: Daring Rescue from Chairlift, Unconscious Man Dangles By His Neck": http://bit.ly/2iSzKbV) I'm not saying this is the kind of news the "Times" should cover, I'm saying it should dig down deep and ask what kind of person puts his own life at risk for another. That's one thing the readers of the "Times" rarely do. They play it safe. They've been taught that from Day One. Let someone else do the dirty work. But how about those doing the dirty work?
How about saying no to those selling books and records and TV shows, who cares about the endless hype, and how about more investigative journalism on those who truly make this country work? Engineers keep crashing trains, how about a story on that.
Don't tell me no one cares. How did we get to this point in our nation where everybody's worried about the buck and efficiencies are key. That's for techies, not newspeople.
I have no idea what's going on in America anymore. Because there's not one news outlet I can trust, that's trying to get it right, everybody's playing to their audience.
I don't want to hear about a rich writer microdosing LSD to deal with her depression, a tireless self-promoter who's selling a book...
I want to hear about a woman with no money and no high profile career who deals with depression every day. I want to see America in the news, not just the elite.
The elite have lost the plot. They're busy arguing amongst themselves over identity politics, they're no different from the bankers pissed they weren't getting their bonuses in 2008. The elite feel entitled. They feel they earned it. What makes them so special?
If I have to read about one more party with famous names without portfolio I'm gonna puke. You built up these nobodies and now they're stars in your firmament and what did they ever do, appear in a couple of movies?
But supposedly fame sells.
And Donald Trump is famous, I'll give you that.
But those who elected him are not.
And the elite could dig down deep and invest in toppling the right wing juggernaut, but that's just too much hard work. They'd rather point their fingers and feel superior.
Which road did you take? Did you sell out? Are you doing it all for the money?
Then the "Times" probably appeals to you. It gives you lifestyle tips, it makes you feel included.
But for the rest of us, even those who had advantages but questioned not only authority but our path going forward, the "Times" resonates less. It's just another business trying to make bank by appealing to its core audience. Only in this case, it's telling us it's the source all the while, bedrock, the pulse of the nation, and that's not true.
And for all you "Times" defenders...
What kind of country do we live in where we can't criticize our institutions, try to make them better? That's like saying you can't criticize the President, you have to respect the office.
Utter hogwash.
And this is neither a right nor a left issue. This is an American issue. How the rich pulled away from the poor and believed they earned their status. Left behind the rest of us, laughing all the while, saying they know better.
And there's nothing that pisses a person off more than telling them they're not worthy.
And the problems of this nation are deeper than the "New York Times." The self-reinforcing power of the elite is a danger. Most people have no idea how the rich truly live, the advantages they have, never mind being uninformed that college is free if you're poor and smart and you want to go to the best schools.
Then again, we live in a nation where banks, which we trust the most, because they hold our money, stab us in the back. But Wells Fargo's CEO had to deliver to Wall Street so he could get rich.
There's this left wing canard that Trump will have his time and then we will return to normalcy. But that's not gonna happen. Our problems are endemic, and we are not addressing them. From income inequality to opiate addiction it's just getting worse. Because everybody's retreating to their corner and saying they know better. You don't want to help anybody else because you're too busy helping yourself.
But the truth is these are not the values of the underclass, which lends a hand expecting nothing in return.
Come on, if you can't pay your rent how much sympathy are you gonna have for a challenged news business that can't stop bitching that someone stole their cheese? The same people laughing at you for being stuck in an old wave job and not waking up are asleep themselves!
We've got a lot of work to do on ourselves. We used to rely on artists to point the way. But now the artists are all tied in with corporations while they're not bitching too, they gave up the ghost decades ago.
So it's every person for him or herself in the USA, the supposed greatest country in the world. And we need leaders, but we also need honest commentators, who just don't want to hang with their rich subjects but also get it right.
Who do you trust?
I'm just not sure anymore.
The right rankles the institutions and the left circles the wagons and I'm outside dumbfounded in a world where you tread water to fall behind and they keep selling you mediocre stuff that's not soul-fulfilling all the while portraying the winners as kings and queens of the universe that we should pay fealty to and emulate even though there's no path for most of us to the throne.
But the truth is the throne is empty. It's a parade of pretenders. Cheaters employing subterfuge shouting us down, telling us about their glory.
And the "Times" soaks it all up and plays it back to us.
Flying private is nice. Vacationing in a third world country is enlightening. Access to the rich and powerful can be stimulating. But they're no match for food on the table and rational discussion about where we are and where we are going.
We need more of that.
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You don't count in America.
Donald Trump's election was a wakeup call.
And the mainstream media is still asleep.
I'm not talking politics, I'm talking culture. The "Times" is an echo chamber of self-promoters who believe their interests are relatable to others. I used to be a believer in the paper, but after it got the election so wrong, I'm reconsidering.
Because of the blowback, the writers for the "Times" don't get any. They're all faceless and clueless. I weighed in on the election and my inbox went nuclear. The Trump supporters came out of the woodwork with their hatred for Hillary and it was unrelenting. But if you're in the ivory tower, you don't hear these messages.
Used to be we blamed the media for shaming women.
Now it shames all of us.
Let's forget Fox, with its agenda. What makes the "Times" a special case is it keeps telling us it has no agenda. That it publishes "All The News That's Fit To Print." But that's not true, not at all, it prints all the news it deems worthy of those stories pitched to it by publicists. Other than wars and political shenanigans, the rest of the paper is fluff for those who are part of the club.
But most people are not.
This is different from television and online.
Television is about the money. Whores who will go wherever the cash is. They anoint stars who believe their press and the rest of us sit at home and scratch our heads.
Online is oftentimes lowest common denominator, it's trolling for doofuses and the easily swayed, but America is all about the con-man, selling that which we do not need at inflated prices to the uninformed and uninitiated. And every once in a while the "Times" prints a how-to, but it's a bone to those who don't care anyway, because they know better, because they're educated and have their own advisors.
So what's a paper to do?
Either admit it caters to its audience or open the window to what's really happening.
This is the conundrum of film. Wherein they make flicks appealing to base emotions yet trumpet highbrow product at awards time. And then self-congratulate when the live-tweeting paradigm makes their ratings go up.
But then the ratings sank. These shows have entertainment value at best, if they've got that. Who wants to watch a program about that which you do not know and do not care about?
Kinda like reading the "Times."
The other day an athlete slid along a chairlift cable to save a suffocating skier, one who was being strangled. ("Arapahoe Basin: Daring Rescue from Chairlift, Unconscious Man Dangles By His Neck": http://bit.ly/2iSzKbV) I'm not saying this is the kind of news the "Times" should cover, I'm saying it should dig down deep and ask what kind of person puts his own life at risk for another. That's one thing the readers of the "Times" rarely do. They play it safe. They've been taught that from Day One. Let someone else do the dirty work. But how about those doing the dirty work?
How about saying no to those selling books and records and TV shows, who cares about the endless hype, and how about more investigative journalism on those who truly make this country work? Engineers keep crashing trains, how about a story on that.
Don't tell me no one cares. How did we get to this point in our nation where everybody's worried about the buck and efficiencies are key. That's for techies, not newspeople.
I have no idea what's going on in America anymore. Because there's not one news outlet I can trust, that's trying to get it right, everybody's playing to their audience.
I don't want to hear about a rich writer microdosing LSD to deal with her depression, a tireless self-promoter who's selling a book...
I want to hear about a woman with no money and no high profile career who deals with depression every day. I want to see America in the news, not just the elite.
The elite have lost the plot. They're busy arguing amongst themselves over identity politics, they're no different from the bankers pissed they weren't getting their bonuses in 2008. The elite feel entitled. They feel they earned it. What makes them so special?
If I have to read about one more party with famous names without portfolio I'm gonna puke. You built up these nobodies and now they're stars in your firmament and what did they ever do, appear in a couple of movies?
But supposedly fame sells.
And Donald Trump is famous, I'll give you that.
But those who elected him are not.
And the elite could dig down deep and invest in toppling the right wing juggernaut, but that's just too much hard work. They'd rather point their fingers and feel superior.
Which road did you take? Did you sell out? Are you doing it all for the money?
Then the "Times" probably appeals to you. It gives you lifestyle tips, it makes you feel included.
But for the rest of us, even those who had advantages but questioned not only authority but our path going forward, the "Times" resonates less. It's just another business trying to make bank by appealing to its core audience. Only in this case, it's telling us it's the source all the while, bedrock, the pulse of the nation, and that's not true.
And for all you "Times" defenders...
What kind of country do we live in where we can't criticize our institutions, try to make them better? That's like saying you can't criticize the President, you have to respect the office.
Utter hogwash.
And this is neither a right nor a left issue. This is an American issue. How the rich pulled away from the poor and believed they earned their status. Left behind the rest of us, laughing all the while, saying they know better.
And there's nothing that pisses a person off more than telling them they're not worthy.
And the problems of this nation are deeper than the "New York Times." The self-reinforcing power of the elite is a danger. Most people have no idea how the rich truly live, the advantages they have, never mind being uninformed that college is free if you're poor and smart and you want to go to the best schools.
Then again, we live in a nation where banks, which we trust the most, because they hold our money, stab us in the back. But Wells Fargo's CEO had to deliver to Wall Street so he could get rich.
There's this left wing canard that Trump will have his time and then we will return to normalcy. But that's not gonna happen. Our problems are endemic, and we are not addressing them. From income inequality to opiate addiction it's just getting worse. Because everybody's retreating to their corner and saying they know better. You don't want to help anybody else because you're too busy helping yourself.
But the truth is these are not the values of the underclass, which lends a hand expecting nothing in return.
Come on, if you can't pay your rent how much sympathy are you gonna have for a challenged news business that can't stop bitching that someone stole their cheese? The same people laughing at you for being stuck in an old wave job and not waking up are asleep themselves!
We've got a lot of work to do on ourselves. We used to rely on artists to point the way. But now the artists are all tied in with corporations while they're not bitching too, they gave up the ghost decades ago.
So it's every person for him or herself in the USA, the supposed greatest country in the world. And we need leaders, but we also need honest commentators, who just don't want to hang with their rich subjects but also get it right.
Who do you trust?
I'm just not sure anymore.
The right rankles the institutions and the left circles the wagons and I'm outside dumbfounded in a world where you tread water to fall behind and they keep selling you mediocre stuff that's not soul-fulfilling all the while portraying the winners as kings and queens of the universe that we should pay fealty to and emulate even though there's no path for most of us to the throne.
But the truth is the throne is empty. It's a parade of pretenders. Cheaters employing subterfuge shouting us down, telling us about their glory.
And the "Times" soaks it all up and plays it back to us.
Flying private is nice. Vacationing in a third world country is enlightening. Access to the rich and powerful can be stimulating. But they're no match for food on the table and rational discussion about where we are and where we are going.
We need more of that.
--
Visit the archive: http://lefsetz.com/wordpress/
--
http://www.twitter.com/lefsetz
--
If you would like to subscribe to the LefsetzLetter,
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