Doesn't follow trends.
Sets trends.
Doesn't give the audience what it wants.
Gives the audience what it needs.
Has a sense of history. If there's no context, there's no art. Art is a reaction, a transmogrification...unless you know where you've been, you don't know where you're going.
Knows that money is secondary to art.
Knows that money, if it comes, usually does so last...it takes that long for people to catch up with you, and once they do you don't rest on your laurels but keep innovating, which challenges the audience to stay bonded.
Knows that execution is secondary to conception. All art is based on conception. The light bulb going off. The idea. Then it's a race to get it down in a comprehensible form as soon as possible. The more you think about it, the greater the chance of compromise, and art is never about compromise.
Knows that some of their best ideas come when they're not working.
Realizes they'll never fit in, otherwise they wouldn't be an artist.
Must change and grow. Which is why Picasso is a legendary superstar and Braque is a moment in time.
Listens to advice, listens to feedback, but is not bound by it. If you don't read the reviews, if you don't listen to what people say, then you've got no context. This does not mean you have to take blowback to heart, it just means you can't create art that has impact unless you understand the populace that reacts. Today everybody reacts. How do you deal with that? Do you create art that makes people post, that offends them, that makes them jump for joy? You are in control of the journey but not the destination. But that does not mean you should not have a map.
Speaks truth to power.
Is not a member of the group, is not a member of the club.
Knows that awards are meaningless. Or at best meaningful for a day. Talk to any true star who's won, the glow blows off very quickly.
Doesn't have to tell people they're great, their work speaks for itself. Unless telling people you're great, braggadocio, is part of your art.
Doesn't complain. The game is rigged, the odds are stacked against you, deal with it. Sure, you can be frustrated, but complaining about it just aligns you with the whiners who are not artists, and you don't want to be dragged down into the hole they're in.
Affects society, but is separate from it.
Knows that the power of their art supersedes the power of their pocketbook.
Doesn't bitch about the value of their work. The value is established by the audience. Or, you have your own metric, but then you can't bitch about the reaction or lack of acceptance.
Frequently creates alone, but oftentimes is inspired by interaction with others. And the closer they are to these others, the more contempt they have for them. You want to do it your way, they want to do it their way, and oftentimes this tension results in work that is better than either of you could do individually. Don't confuse this with tracks built by twenty "songwriters." There's too much thinking involved in that, and art runs on instinct.
Let me repeat that, an artist runs on instinct, on their gut, on what feels right, and as soon as they go against that, they're toast...their art is compromised.
An artist knows when they do great work. Which comes only occasionally. No one can ring the bell every time out. But when you're channeling the gods, you know it. Actually, once you become aware that you're walking on the tightrope, that you're in the league of greatness, once you become self-conscious, you often fall. The key is to stay in the mood, the groove, for the duration of creation.
An artist is willing to fail. Not that they're willing to share all their failures. But if you don't play, you cannot win, you must be willing to fail in the eyes of the public.
Believes they're God on Monday, Wednesday and Friday and a piece of crap the rest of the week.
Art is a Sisyphean task. Once you make it to the top, you roll right down to the bottom and have to start all over again.
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Saturday, 8 August 2020
WAP
Video: https://bit.ly/33HuXl4
Lyrics: https://bit.ly/3kuMtz8
Maybe you should read the lyrics first.
"Wet Ass Pussy." There, I said it, do you need to stop reading now? Does it offend your sense of propriety? Should little girls be seen but not heard? Has culture gone to hell in a handbasket? Can you handle the shenanigans of our president but not the words of some female rappers?'
Welcome to America, which has never forgotten its Puritan roots. Where sex is taboo. Even though the last time I checked that's how you got here.
Do you think that Cardi B and Megan Thee Stallion didn't know they were pushing buttons, that they didn't know they were going to get a rise (pun intended) out of staid society? Can you say Alice Cooper? Can you say Frank Zappa? Can you say PMRC?
Yes, every generation has its offenders and those up in arms. No one is complaining about the sex in Prince's lyrics now that he's dead. And what Lenny Bruce said seems tame today. Then again, how many people are truly offended by "WAP"? How many are offended who are not old boomers or religious zealots? Is it anti-feminism to embrace your sexuality?
So on one hand, same as it ever was. On the other, a great leap forward.
The goal wasn't to have to continue to complain about differences between the sexes, but to be able to behave the same as men without consequences.
In other words, Cardi B and Megan Thee Stallion are not doing anything the men haven't done before. Rock was built on sex (and sexism). We even had a band called "Whitesnake," which released an album whose title track was "Slide It In" (which was quite good, in fact).
And then there are those who are complaining about the inclusion of Kylie Jenner, that she is appropriating black culture. But how can this be when the producers decided to include her, and not vice versa. Furthermore, Jenner had a baby at the ripe young age of 20, with Travis Scott, do those qualify as bona fides? But, African-Americans should not be complaining about Jenner's inclusion, it demonstrates that they've won, that despite politics, culture is run by black people, certainly music. Actually, scrap that. The music business is not run by black people, but it's African-Americans who dominate the end product, the music, who influence not only Americans but people around the world. That's right, they don't only rap in English these days.
We live in a bizarre world where all the kids want to be rappers. Just look at how the whites in backward burgs adopt the clothing and swagger of rappers. African-Americans should be laughing, that the oldsters may be up in arms, but they own the youngsters. And the last time I checked, people age and are ultimately thrown off the conveyor belt. And, as a result, we have gay marriage and legal marijuana and...how come the president can get away with his heinous activities and comments, certainly re women, but black entertainers cannot?
Oh, I'm not saying that African-Americans still don't have a way to go in America. Economically, no doubt. And too many citizens of the United States are racists, and act accordingly. But the only way Trump can win the presidency is by rigging the game. But you can't rig art. Rap has won. It has certainly replaced rock.
Why did rock die?
Let me count the ways. A refusal to embrace the internet, rockers still believe streaming is the devil, while rappers saw the future and posted on Soundcloud and gave away mixtapes and ultimately dominated streaming services. You embrace the future, you don't complain about it. And rock became a caricature of itself. It's no longer even "rock." There's Active Rock, where a harder edge is employed to demonstrate that it's just not the same old thing, even though many old rock listeners don't cotton to this aggressive, often atonal sound, never mind youngsters not even bothering to listen. Rock has become a backwater. You've got the Americanas and the Triple-A's, but they don't understand that the world is built on stars, and shoegazing is not that attractive. You need something undeniable. And one way to achieve that is through a train-wreck. And that's what "WAP" is, you cannot help but pay attention.
And then it garners discussion. It's a big story online. Isn't this the same playbook Trump employs every damn day? To say the unsayable? Meanwhile, it worked for him, he got elected and the afraid Democrats, who cringed in horror, lost. Or, as Leonard Cohen sang, "Everybody Knows." And everybody swears and those who do not have sex desire it and sexuality is built into the workplace. Sure, sexual bullying, sexual aggression, sexual power should have no place in the office. As for relationships? THAT'S WHERE YOU MEET PEOPLE! If you haven't had a relationship with someone at work, you haven't had a job. You will soon. Unless you're already married.
So, "WAP" is better conceptually than it is as music. A swamp Zappa got stuck in once he decided he had to be the lead singer. It's made to offend, it's made for controversy more than it is for listening. But that's okay. And, if you want to come back from a layoff you've got to make a splash, you've got to make news, in a world filled with a zillion messages that rarely last. Come on, "WAP" has been up front and center, part of the discussion for two days now. And do you expect people will be streaming and talking about it a month from now? Probably not. Which is why you need a steady stream of these events, i.e. singles, to keep the public's attention.
So, the girls have stolen the mantle from the boys. They took their game, twisted it, improved it, and owned it. Despite all their swagger, men never owned sex, women did. They had to say yes. As for saying no...we call that rape, and anybody who boasts about that is a pariah.
And for years we've had feminists pooh-poohing the embrace of sexuality by younger women. How they dress, how they talk, how they dance, how they handle themselves. But by owning your sexual power...don't you gain power? And how come we constantly deny the world runs on sex, especially when the richest man in the world throws over the mother of his children to run off with his best friend's spouse? Yes, Jeff Bezos is beholden to the little head. Like all men. Money without sex means you won the game but got no trophy, none of the spoils.
There's a lot to debate in all I've written above. Not all of it is black and white (pardon the pun). What is appropriate clothing, what is the right place to act sexually, do too many women adopt the cloak of sexuality and leave all their other power behind... But that is not what "WAP" is about. In a world where most feel powerless, both men and women, in the face of the government, Cardi B and Megan Thee Stallion have embraced their inner strength, which is what art is all about, and spoken truth to power. Yes, Trump may put on a tie, but he's a certified horndog (as is Clinton), the women can't be the same way either, they can't embrace the power of the pussy, they can't be active, not passive, they cannot rally their troops and make those on the fence question their beliefs?
This is Dada. "WAP" is in a long tradition of art. From the Impressionists on, it was about pushing the envelope. Yes, the Impressionists offended by painting everyday life, a taboo! Picasso and Braque threw representation right off the canvas, the result was abstract, something Jackson Pollock took to the limits. Duchamp declared a urinal an art piece, and Warhol did the same with soup cans. Not that fine art is driving the culture today, it's akin to rock music, a self-referential backwater. But hip-hop dominates the culture, trends. For now, anyway. And rather than ask for permission, Cardi B and Megan Thee Stallion barged right in. That's how you take power. If you ask, they never say yes.
But the audience, the culture, America, the world, has said yes to "WAP." Google shows 79,400,000 results on the rapper and the song. And the official video already has 38 million views as I write this. But somehow, you believe with a fraction of this impact you should be paid the same. You call yourself an artist when nothing could be further from the truth. Artists take life, twist it and make us look at ourselves, make us think. Art raises questions. Art challenges taboos. Art hits you in both the head and the heart.
"WAP" is art.
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Lyrics: https://bit.ly/3kuMtz8
Maybe you should read the lyrics first.
"Wet Ass Pussy." There, I said it, do you need to stop reading now? Does it offend your sense of propriety? Should little girls be seen but not heard? Has culture gone to hell in a handbasket? Can you handle the shenanigans of our president but not the words of some female rappers?'
Welcome to America, which has never forgotten its Puritan roots. Where sex is taboo. Even though the last time I checked that's how you got here.
Do you think that Cardi B and Megan Thee Stallion didn't know they were pushing buttons, that they didn't know they were going to get a rise (pun intended) out of staid society? Can you say Alice Cooper? Can you say Frank Zappa? Can you say PMRC?
Yes, every generation has its offenders and those up in arms. No one is complaining about the sex in Prince's lyrics now that he's dead. And what Lenny Bruce said seems tame today. Then again, how many people are truly offended by "WAP"? How many are offended who are not old boomers or religious zealots? Is it anti-feminism to embrace your sexuality?
So on one hand, same as it ever was. On the other, a great leap forward.
The goal wasn't to have to continue to complain about differences between the sexes, but to be able to behave the same as men without consequences.
In other words, Cardi B and Megan Thee Stallion are not doing anything the men haven't done before. Rock was built on sex (and sexism). We even had a band called "Whitesnake," which released an album whose title track was "Slide It In" (which was quite good, in fact).
And then there are those who are complaining about the inclusion of Kylie Jenner, that she is appropriating black culture. But how can this be when the producers decided to include her, and not vice versa. Furthermore, Jenner had a baby at the ripe young age of 20, with Travis Scott, do those qualify as bona fides? But, African-Americans should not be complaining about Jenner's inclusion, it demonstrates that they've won, that despite politics, culture is run by black people, certainly music. Actually, scrap that. The music business is not run by black people, but it's African-Americans who dominate the end product, the music, who influence not only Americans but people around the world. That's right, they don't only rap in English these days.
We live in a bizarre world where all the kids want to be rappers. Just look at how the whites in backward burgs adopt the clothing and swagger of rappers. African-Americans should be laughing, that the oldsters may be up in arms, but they own the youngsters. And the last time I checked, people age and are ultimately thrown off the conveyor belt. And, as a result, we have gay marriage and legal marijuana and...how come the president can get away with his heinous activities and comments, certainly re women, but black entertainers cannot?
Oh, I'm not saying that African-Americans still don't have a way to go in America. Economically, no doubt. And too many citizens of the United States are racists, and act accordingly. But the only way Trump can win the presidency is by rigging the game. But you can't rig art. Rap has won. It has certainly replaced rock.
Why did rock die?
Let me count the ways. A refusal to embrace the internet, rockers still believe streaming is the devil, while rappers saw the future and posted on Soundcloud and gave away mixtapes and ultimately dominated streaming services. You embrace the future, you don't complain about it. And rock became a caricature of itself. It's no longer even "rock." There's Active Rock, where a harder edge is employed to demonstrate that it's just not the same old thing, even though many old rock listeners don't cotton to this aggressive, often atonal sound, never mind youngsters not even bothering to listen. Rock has become a backwater. You've got the Americanas and the Triple-A's, but they don't understand that the world is built on stars, and shoegazing is not that attractive. You need something undeniable. And one way to achieve that is through a train-wreck. And that's what "WAP" is, you cannot help but pay attention.
And then it garners discussion. It's a big story online. Isn't this the same playbook Trump employs every damn day? To say the unsayable? Meanwhile, it worked for him, he got elected and the afraid Democrats, who cringed in horror, lost. Or, as Leonard Cohen sang, "Everybody Knows." And everybody swears and those who do not have sex desire it and sexuality is built into the workplace. Sure, sexual bullying, sexual aggression, sexual power should have no place in the office. As for relationships? THAT'S WHERE YOU MEET PEOPLE! If you haven't had a relationship with someone at work, you haven't had a job. You will soon. Unless you're already married.
So, "WAP" is better conceptually than it is as music. A swamp Zappa got stuck in once he decided he had to be the lead singer. It's made to offend, it's made for controversy more than it is for listening. But that's okay. And, if you want to come back from a layoff you've got to make a splash, you've got to make news, in a world filled with a zillion messages that rarely last. Come on, "WAP" has been up front and center, part of the discussion for two days now. And do you expect people will be streaming and talking about it a month from now? Probably not. Which is why you need a steady stream of these events, i.e. singles, to keep the public's attention.
So, the girls have stolen the mantle from the boys. They took their game, twisted it, improved it, and owned it. Despite all their swagger, men never owned sex, women did. They had to say yes. As for saying no...we call that rape, and anybody who boasts about that is a pariah.
And for years we've had feminists pooh-poohing the embrace of sexuality by younger women. How they dress, how they talk, how they dance, how they handle themselves. But by owning your sexual power...don't you gain power? And how come we constantly deny the world runs on sex, especially when the richest man in the world throws over the mother of his children to run off with his best friend's spouse? Yes, Jeff Bezos is beholden to the little head. Like all men. Money without sex means you won the game but got no trophy, none of the spoils.
There's a lot to debate in all I've written above. Not all of it is black and white (pardon the pun). What is appropriate clothing, what is the right place to act sexually, do too many women adopt the cloak of sexuality and leave all their other power behind... But that is not what "WAP" is about. In a world where most feel powerless, both men and women, in the face of the government, Cardi B and Megan Thee Stallion have embraced their inner strength, which is what art is all about, and spoken truth to power. Yes, Trump may put on a tie, but he's a certified horndog (as is Clinton), the women can't be the same way either, they can't embrace the power of the pussy, they can't be active, not passive, they cannot rally their troops and make those on the fence question their beliefs?
This is Dada. "WAP" is in a long tradition of art. From the Impressionists on, it was about pushing the envelope. Yes, the Impressionists offended by painting everyday life, a taboo! Picasso and Braque threw representation right off the canvas, the result was abstract, something Jackson Pollock took to the limits. Duchamp declared a urinal an art piece, and Warhol did the same with soup cans. Not that fine art is driving the culture today, it's akin to rock music, a self-referential backwater. But hip-hop dominates the culture, trends. For now, anyway. And rather than ask for permission, Cardi B and Megan Thee Stallion barged right in. That's how you take power. If you ask, they never say yes.
But the audience, the culture, America, the world, has said yes to "WAP." Google shows 79,400,000 results on the rapper and the song. And the official video already has 38 million views as I write this. But somehow, you believe with a fraction of this impact you should be paid the same. You call yourself an artist when nothing could be further from the truth. Artists take life, twist it and make us look at ourselves, make us think. Art raises questions. Art challenges taboos. Art hits you in both the head and the heart.
"WAP" is art.
--
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Thursday, 6 August 2020
Jaan Uhelszki-This Week's Podcast
Jaan Uhelszki was senior editor at "Creem" and is the co-writer of the new documentary on the legendary music magazine. Listen to hear tales of Lester Bangs, her appearance on stage with KISS, how Ronnie Van Zant predicted his death and how Cameron Crowe inspired the arc of the film. Jaan's got stories, and she tells them!
https://www.iheart.com/podcast/1119-the-bob-lefsetz-podcast-30806836/
https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/jaan-uhelszki/id1316200737?i=1000487288819
https://open.spotify.com/episode/3NLq2cxJpKjQxxPjpCSU1E
https://www.stitcher.com/s?eid=76759196
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-Apple: https://apple.co/2ndmpvp
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https://www.iheart.com/podcast/1119-the-bob-lefsetz-podcast-30806836/
https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/jaan-uhelszki/id1316200737?i=1000487288819
https://open.spotify.com/episode/3NLq2cxJpKjQxxPjpCSU1E
https://www.stitcher.com/s?eid=76759196
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Wednesday, 5 August 2020
Priscilla Block
https://spoti.fi/39YQKG1
I'd never heard of this woman before today. But right now she's got the #1 track on iTunes... WHO?
So I started Googling, so far it's just the country outlets with the story, not even "Billboard" has run one, HitsDailyDouble is silent...but Priscilla Block's song "Just About Over You" is charting ahead of Harry Styles's "Watermelon Sugar," Billie Eilish's "my future"...EVERYTHING!
So, the story is she broke on TikTok. With this song called "Thick Thighs."
It's not on the lyric sites. You see if you're not part of the big ecosystem it's like you don't even exist. Hell, a friend of mine e-mailed me that he had dinner (outdoors) with friends and their 13 year old daughter and she had no clue who Rihanna and Cardi B were, her musical favorites were all TIKTOK ARTISTS!
In other words, when you're chasing the mainstream, when you're looking to become a diversified brand, are you missing the target? It all comes down to music, if you're not releasing it regularly, you're forgotten, not part of the discussion, replaced by something else. This is what the oldsters don't understand, ALMOST NOTHING LASTS! No book, no movie, no music...it either sticks or it doesn't, and in a world where what happens in the morning is old hat by the afternoon, not even part of the news, if you're not coming up to bat frequently, you've already lost the game. This is reality, don't shoot the messenger...shoot all those web-surfers not beholden to systems, going where the action is...isn't this how Napster happened in the first place?
So, the song "Thick Thighs," Priscilla's breakthrough, the one that made inroads on TikTok, contains these lyrics:
"I can't be the only one who likes extra fries over exercise
I never eat the produce that I buy, so why even try
You can't spell diet without 'die'
I've been eating carbs since '95
And I've heard thick thighs save lives"
Now wait a minute here... Aren't the venerated models ten feet tall and skinny as a rail? Don't the women who design and market these clothes fast, seeming to eat on alternate days at best? Doesn't the media fat-shame on a regular basis? SO WHY IS PRISCILLA BLOCK RESONATING? Because she's speaking to the people. And come on, a song entitled "Thick Thighs," that's a natural if you're on TikTok (and if you're worried about privacy, sign in with Sign in With Apple: https://apple.co/3fyW58f and lie about your age, you're covered, at least to a greater degree than if you signed up directly).
Now this "Country Now" article: https://bit.ly/31q1lpw says Priscilla has no label, but I got e-mail from a guy who says he's aligned on the label side, who knows. But if you go to Priscilla's homepage and click on "Representation" all you get is a Gmail address.
Now to be honest, I can't say I heard "Thick Thighs" as an instant smash. Maybe it's the mix. The lyrics don't stick out as much as I believe they should. Who knows, but it's resonating with the TikTok audience. If you click through, you will find that there are 108 videos using the song, never mind how many times each has been viewed:
https://bit.ly/2C2117T
But how did everyone know about the new song, "Just About Over You"?
Well, Priscilla has been teasing it on Instagram, revealing her honest life, not posturing like the so-called "influencers."
But really, it's her videos on TikTok that are rallying her fan base.
So, on 7/14, Priscilla uploads a video of her singing a song she wrote yesterday, i.e. "Just About Over You."
https://bit.ly/2DrRrf0
Unlike those competing on TV singing shows, SHE WROTE IT!
And then Priscilla posted the following day that the song has gotten 230,000 views in less than 24 hours, and she's singing the song again and she writes...
"What? Y'all think I should record this?"
https://bit.ly/2DzPRHZ
Engaging with the audience directly, not via the intermediaries, not only not the press, but not the playlists either. Then, on 7/17 Priscilla says "The fact that I wrote this song 4 days ago...y'all are insane! Should I record it???" https://bit.ly/33s6gZP
Do you see the difference between this and the Spotify complainers? Block is singing the hook of the song, which is catchy, over and over again in all these clips and now... She's got the number one song on iTunes!
Oh yeah, what does that mean? Is she atop the Spotify Top 50, what does Mediabase say?
Yes, sales don't mean what they used to, but they do show an active fan base...Block is a queen where it counts, online, on TikTok...
I recommend listening to "Just About Over You" via this lyric video, made not by an official company, a member of Priscilla's team, but a fan, ergo the usage errors:
https://bit.ly/3a1ExjH
The best line is:
"I don't scroll through the past anymore 'cause I don't care"
SCROLL! That's what we do these days, that's what we ALL do these days, scroll on our phones. But the Spotify-haters living in the old world are so busy writing platitudes detached from real people that they don't resonate.
"Just About Over You" is the classic story. It's over, you put on your best look, try and feel good in your skin and clothes, go out to start over and...you run into them. If this hasn't happened to you, you've never had a significant other, or have never left the house.
And if you listen to "Just About Over You" it competes with the rest of what's on the country hit parade, a ton of it dreck with execrable lyrics, and the mention of Block's ex's truck does make me wince, but that's the only offense, and as I say, most of what's on the hit parade is even further compromised.
And how come Priscilla Block understands a hit chorus when all those complaining they can't make it in music don't?
What happens now?
Maybe it'll be over soon. After all, there's not a concomitant explosion of listens on Spotify or YouTube...but maybe that's not where the audience is anyway. They live on TikTok. And Priscilla Block proves if you just think it's mindless videos, that is untrue, TikTok is a community, where the active music audience resides.
The success of Priscilla Block is exciting. And that's something that has been rare in the music business for so long, we get a marketing buildup, stories everywhere, whereas by connecting directly with the audience with authentic songs Priscilla Block has resonated. WOW!
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I'd never heard of this woman before today. But right now she's got the #1 track on iTunes... WHO?
So I started Googling, so far it's just the country outlets with the story, not even "Billboard" has run one, HitsDailyDouble is silent...but Priscilla Block's song "Just About Over You" is charting ahead of Harry Styles's "Watermelon Sugar," Billie Eilish's "my future"...EVERYTHING!
So, the story is she broke on TikTok. With this song called "Thick Thighs."
It's not on the lyric sites. You see if you're not part of the big ecosystem it's like you don't even exist. Hell, a friend of mine e-mailed me that he had dinner (outdoors) with friends and their 13 year old daughter and she had no clue who Rihanna and Cardi B were, her musical favorites were all TIKTOK ARTISTS!
In other words, when you're chasing the mainstream, when you're looking to become a diversified brand, are you missing the target? It all comes down to music, if you're not releasing it regularly, you're forgotten, not part of the discussion, replaced by something else. This is what the oldsters don't understand, ALMOST NOTHING LASTS! No book, no movie, no music...it either sticks or it doesn't, and in a world where what happens in the morning is old hat by the afternoon, not even part of the news, if you're not coming up to bat frequently, you've already lost the game. This is reality, don't shoot the messenger...shoot all those web-surfers not beholden to systems, going where the action is...isn't this how Napster happened in the first place?
So, the song "Thick Thighs," Priscilla's breakthrough, the one that made inroads on TikTok, contains these lyrics:
"I can't be the only one who likes extra fries over exercise
I never eat the produce that I buy, so why even try
You can't spell diet without 'die'
I've been eating carbs since '95
And I've heard thick thighs save lives"
Now wait a minute here... Aren't the venerated models ten feet tall and skinny as a rail? Don't the women who design and market these clothes fast, seeming to eat on alternate days at best? Doesn't the media fat-shame on a regular basis? SO WHY IS PRISCILLA BLOCK RESONATING? Because she's speaking to the people. And come on, a song entitled "Thick Thighs," that's a natural if you're on TikTok (and if you're worried about privacy, sign in with Sign in With Apple: https://apple.co/3fyW58f and lie about your age, you're covered, at least to a greater degree than if you signed up directly).
Now this "Country Now" article: https://bit.ly/31q1lpw says Priscilla has no label, but I got e-mail from a guy who says he's aligned on the label side, who knows. But if you go to Priscilla's homepage and click on "Representation" all you get is a Gmail address.
Now to be honest, I can't say I heard "Thick Thighs" as an instant smash. Maybe it's the mix. The lyrics don't stick out as much as I believe they should. Who knows, but it's resonating with the TikTok audience. If you click through, you will find that there are 108 videos using the song, never mind how many times each has been viewed:
https://bit.ly/2C2117T
But how did everyone know about the new song, "Just About Over You"?
Well, Priscilla has been teasing it on Instagram, revealing her honest life, not posturing like the so-called "influencers."
But really, it's her videos on TikTok that are rallying her fan base.
So, on 7/14, Priscilla uploads a video of her singing a song she wrote yesterday, i.e. "Just About Over You."
https://bit.ly/2DrRrf0
Unlike those competing on TV singing shows, SHE WROTE IT!
And then Priscilla posted the following day that the song has gotten 230,000 views in less than 24 hours, and she's singing the song again and she writes...
"What? Y'all think I should record this?"
https://bit.ly/2DzPRHZ
Engaging with the audience directly, not via the intermediaries, not only not the press, but not the playlists either. Then, on 7/17 Priscilla says "The fact that I wrote this song 4 days ago...y'all are insane! Should I record it???" https://bit.ly/33s6gZP
Do you see the difference between this and the Spotify complainers? Block is singing the hook of the song, which is catchy, over and over again in all these clips and now... She's got the number one song on iTunes!
Oh yeah, what does that mean? Is she atop the Spotify Top 50, what does Mediabase say?
Yes, sales don't mean what they used to, but they do show an active fan base...Block is a queen where it counts, online, on TikTok...
I recommend listening to "Just About Over You" via this lyric video, made not by an official company, a member of Priscilla's team, but a fan, ergo the usage errors:
https://bit.ly/3a1ExjH
The best line is:
"I don't scroll through the past anymore 'cause I don't care"
SCROLL! That's what we do these days, that's what we ALL do these days, scroll on our phones. But the Spotify-haters living in the old world are so busy writing platitudes detached from real people that they don't resonate.
"Just About Over You" is the classic story. It's over, you put on your best look, try and feel good in your skin and clothes, go out to start over and...you run into them. If this hasn't happened to you, you've never had a significant other, or have never left the house.
And if you listen to "Just About Over You" it competes with the rest of what's on the country hit parade, a ton of it dreck with execrable lyrics, and the mention of Block's ex's truck does make me wince, but that's the only offense, and as I say, most of what's on the hit parade is even further compromised.
And how come Priscilla Block understands a hit chorus when all those complaining they can't make it in music don't?
What happens now?
Maybe it'll be over soon. After all, there's not a concomitant explosion of listens on Spotify or YouTube...but maybe that's not where the audience is anyway. They live on TikTok. And Priscilla Block proves if you just think it's mindless videos, that is untrue, TikTok is a community, where the active music audience resides.
The success of Priscilla Block is exciting. And that's something that has been rare in the music business for so long, we get a marketing buildup, stories everywhere, whereas by connecting directly with the audience with authentic songs Priscilla Block has resonated. WOW!
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Why Does It Take So Long To Say Goodbye
Spotify: https://spoti.fi/3fxAQ6s
YouTube: https://bit.ly/2BZkqpQ
Sometimes there's no room for you in the conventional business.
If you look at the Spotify Top 50, if you check out the execs at the big three major labels, you may scratch your head and ask yourself WHAT IS THIS AND WHO ARE THESE PEOPLE? It's like the mainstream recording business is heading straight for a cliff, at a hundred miles an hour, as if the rest of the world does not exist, as if in a world where we're overloaded with choice we only want a limited number of offerings in music. You can listen to all the hit playlists, even country, click through, and if you're lucky you'll find a track or two that resonates, and then you'll pull up Joe Bonamassa's "Why Does It Take So Long To Say Goodbye" and find it lands directly in the pocket.
Gary Moore was a journeyman. But his LP "Still Got The Blues" was released in America on the new Virgin label Charisma and Phil Quartararo, its majordomo, got the title track airplay. Forget the charts, they rarely reflect reality, if you listened to rock radio in 1990, you know "Still Got The Blues," it wasn't that it sounded new, just that it sounded so right. Moore had been kicking around for years, most notably as a member of Thin Lizzy, but that act's hit days were far behind it, and Phil Lynott died in 1986. In other words, it was Phil Q who made the track a hit.
No one is making Joe Bonamassa's track "Why Does It Take So Long To Say Goodbye" a hit. Joe's a self-contained business. With a push would this track break? It's not quite as good as "Still The Blues," but it's close, and I haven't heard anything just like it in a while. Yes, blues rock, the sound that emanated from the U.K. when the music of the Mississippi Delta mixed with electric guitars and experimentation, envelope-pushing, is essentially dead. Clapton is lionized, oldsters still debate the best guitarist of all time, but it's an echo chamber at best, no one outside of those involved seems to care. Rock is dead on the radio. But it lives on the road. Which is where Bonamassa makes his bread, he averages 2,759 tickets per gig, for an average gross of $319,754, which is a tidy sum, especially when you do it all yourself.
Joe Bonamassa has been building his audience for decades. While those on the Spotify Top 50 come and go, he remains, under the radar, with little press, but those who know and care support him, he's a star to them. But so far outsiders have scratched their heads, because Joe was quite definitely a great guitar player, but the songs and the vocals didn't quite measure up. But now comes "Why Does It Take So Long To Say Goodbye."
I'm not sure this resonates with the younger generation, after all it hasn't even been exposed to this music. Then again, a lot of them have, out of the speakers of their parents' cars, their stereos. Especially the children of baby boomers. And Led Zeppelin is forever. And sure, Great Van Fleet sounds like Led Zeppelin, its lead singer emulates Robert Plant, but that's not the sound of Joe Bonamassa, Bonamassa sounds closer to the first Zeppelin album, to what came before, closer to Jeff Beck than Jimmy Page. And "Why Does It Take So Long To Say Goodbye" swings.
But it is generic. You're not going to listen to it and see it as a breakthrough, but it will wake up your ears, because it's the lost sound that used to resonate with you so. And the guitar-playing is what is absent from all records today and even the lyrics resonate, especially when you learn they're based on the end of Bonamassa's five year relationship.
"Why Does It Take So Long To Say Goodbye" doesn't fit on Active Rock. That format is for harder-edged bands a few generations removed from Black Sabbath, as in if you haven't been following the scene, don't know the history, chances are you'll find the cacophonous sound anathema.
And Triple-A leans meaningful. It's not about playing so much as songwriting, although its playlist is broader than Active Rock, but it champions acts like Phoebe Bridgers, who appeals more to your intellect than your heart, never mind your genitalia.
So, there's nowhere for "Why Does It Take So Long To Say Goodbye" in today's recorded music business. It's a square peg in a round hole. But in this case, the peg is quite large and the hole is not as big as gatekeepers think it is.
Begging the question if Bonamassa got a push, would he break through. There's a good case he would! It would be more of a press story than a radio one, because the fans of this kind of music still pay attention to the press. And it could be cool to go see Joe Bonamassa, but then at some point he'd be yesterday's news, he'd lose his label, thrown on the scrapheap as a has-been. But by doing it himself, by hiding in plain sight, Joe Bonamassa continues to build a career that will last as long as he wants it to. And never forget, people love to own something, and it's only the youngsters who love to own number one, and they abandon it when the next thing comes along or they get older.
"Why Does It Take So Long To Say Goodbye" is timeless, just like the blues. A sound that here's forever. Trends come and go. But people will still be playing blues rock. Just check out the School of Rock, this sound dominates. And rock is not like jazz, it is a bigger tent, and is earthy without snootiness and requires no studying, no knowledge to understand and get.
Is this a trend? Is Joe Bonamassa leading a charge back to blues rock? I don't think so. But the trend of doing it all by yourself, building for the ages as opposed to today, that's something that is gonna grow, because despite the barriers to entry having been torn down the road to stardom goes through channels narrower than ever before, leaving too many genres of music out, in an age where you are not dependent on the system to build a career. Bonamassa is a harbinger. In a world where the road is more important than the studio, where feeling is more important than the penumbra, where the world still hungers for music that is not background, for the dance floor, for a video game, for a commercial, but is positively primary, up close and personal.
P.S. Check out the YouTube video above, although canned, when you see Bonamassa bend the notes your body tightens, your eyes narrow, you're caught up in the feeling you know so well, the feeling of music pushing you to that place where it's the only thing that exists and you feel alive and well.
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YouTube: https://bit.ly/2BZkqpQ
Sometimes there's no room for you in the conventional business.
If you look at the Spotify Top 50, if you check out the execs at the big three major labels, you may scratch your head and ask yourself WHAT IS THIS AND WHO ARE THESE PEOPLE? It's like the mainstream recording business is heading straight for a cliff, at a hundred miles an hour, as if the rest of the world does not exist, as if in a world where we're overloaded with choice we only want a limited number of offerings in music. You can listen to all the hit playlists, even country, click through, and if you're lucky you'll find a track or two that resonates, and then you'll pull up Joe Bonamassa's "Why Does It Take So Long To Say Goodbye" and find it lands directly in the pocket.
Gary Moore was a journeyman. But his LP "Still Got The Blues" was released in America on the new Virgin label Charisma and Phil Quartararo, its majordomo, got the title track airplay. Forget the charts, they rarely reflect reality, if you listened to rock radio in 1990, you know "Still Got The Blues," it wasn't that it sounded new, just that it sounded so right. Moore had been kicking around for years, most notably as a member of Thin Lizzy, but that act's hit days were far behind it, and Phil Lynott died in 1986. In other words, it was Phil Q who made the track a hit.
No one is making Joe Bonamassa's track "Why Does It Take So Long To Say Goodbye" a hit. Joe's a self-contained business. With a push would this track break? It's not quite as good as "Still The Blues," but it's close, and I haven't heard anything just like it in a while. Yes, blues rock, the sound that emanated from the U.K. when the music of the Mississippi Delta mixed with electric guitars and experimentation, envelope-pushing, is essentially dead. Clapton is lionized, oldsters still debate the best guitarist of all time, but it's an echo chamber at best, no one outside of those involved seems to care. Rock is dead on the radio. But it lives on the road. Which is where Bonamassa makes his bread, he averages 2,759 tickets per gig, for an average gross of $319,754, which is a tidy sum, especially when you do it all yourself.
Joe Bonamassa has been building his audience for decades. While those on the Spotify Top 50 come and go, he remains, under the radar, with little press, but those who know and care support him, he's a star to them. But so far outsiders have scratched their heads, because Joe was quite definitely a great guitar player, but the songs and the vocals didn't quite measure up. But now comes "Why Does It Take So Long To Say Goodbye."
I'm not sure this resonates with the younger generation, after all it hasn't even been exposed to this music. Then again, a lot of them have, out of the speakers of their parents' cars, their stereos. Especially the children of baby boomers. And Led Zeppelin is forever. And sure, Great Van Fleet sounds like Led Zeppelin, its lead singer emulates Robert Plant, but that's not the sound of Joe Bonamassa, Bonamassa sounds closer to the first Zeppelin album, to what came before, closer to Jeff Beck than Jimmy Page. And "Why Does It Take So Long To Say Goodbye" swings.
But it is generic. You're not going to listen to it and see it as a breakthrough, but it will wake up your ears, because it's the lost sound that used to resonate with you so. And the guitar-playing is what is absent from all records today and even the lyrics resonate, especially when you learn they're based on the end of Bonamassa's five year relationship.
"Why Does It Take So Long To Say Goodbye" doesn't fit on Active Rock. That format is for harder-edged bands a few generations removed from Black Sabbath, as in if you haven't been following the scene, don't know the history, chances are you'll find the cacophonous sound anathema.
And Triple-A leans meaningful. It's not about playing so much as songwriting, although its playlist is broader than Active Rock, but it champions acts like Phoebe Bridgers, who appeals more to your intellect than your heart, never mind your genitalia.
So, there's nowhere for "Why Does It Take So Long To Say Goodbye" in today's recorded music business. It's a square peg in a round hole. But in this case, the peg is quite large and the hole is not as big as gatekeepers think it is.
Begging the question if Bonamassa got a push, would he break through. There's a good case he would! It would be more of a press story than a radio one, because the fans of this kind of music still pay attention to the press. And it could be cool to go see Joe Bonamassa, but then at some point he'd be yesterday's news, he'd lose his label, thrown on the scrapheap as a has-been. But by doing it himself, by hiding in plain sight, Joe Bonamassa continues to build a career that will last as long as he wants it to. And never forget, people love to own something, and it's only the youngsters who love to own number one, and they abandon it when the next thing comes along or they get older.
"Why Does It Take So Long To Say Goodbye" is timeless, just like the blues. A sound that here's forever. Trends come and go. But people will still be playing blues rock. Just check out the School of Rock, this sound dominates. And rock is not like jazz, it is a bigger tent, and is earthy without snootiness and requires no studying, no knowledge to understand and get.
Is this a trend? Is Joe Bonamassa leading a charge back to blues rock? I don't think so. But the trend of doing it all by yourself, building for the ages as opposed to today, that's something that is gonna grow, because despite the barriers to entry having been torn down the road to stardom goes through channels narrower than ever before, leaving too many genres of music out, in an age where you are not dependent on the system to build a career. Bonamassa is a harbinger. In a world where the road is more important than the studio, where feeling is more important than the penumbra, where the world still hungers for music that is not background, for the dance floor, for a video game, for a commercial, but is positively primary, up close and personal.
P.S. Check out the YouTube video above, although canned, when you see Bonamassa bend the notes your body tightens, your eyes narrow, you're caught up in the feeling you know so well, the feeling of music pushing you to that place where it's the only thing that exists and you feel alive and well.
--
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Tuesday, 4 August 2020
From Kathy & Jimmy
Re: The Go-Go's Movie
Bob,
You make some good observations, as usual. But also as usual, there's a lot more to the story. Richard Gottehrer was the perfect producer, and had the foresight to make a classic album in terms of production. When a Go-Go's song is heard in 2020 there's no telltale gated snare drum or cheesy synths to date it right back to 1981. More than anything, he agreed to make the album for $40k, which was the entirety of the budget. When we went over, he kicked in his own money to finish. And Mike Chapman did want to produce the Go-Go's when we had access to the sort of budget he'd require, and signed on for a 4th album. But we were already on fire—and not in the good way.
And Our Lips are Sealed, I agree, what a perfect song. Never tire of playing it. Released June 12, 1981—but it took 6 months, until the week of Dec 12 to get to #20, where it stayed for a little over a week before heading down. Kudos to IRS and Michael Plen in particular who didn't give up and worked that single without all the clout and money other labels could throw behind a record.
Starting in August, MTV added the video. So while MTV certainly played a big part in breaking the band, beaming a bunch of cool, fun gals into peoples living rooms—there were so many other working pieces.
Namely the 5 of us. We never stopped. Day in, day out, press, phoners, radio, sound check, show. Every single town we played, we visited the radio stations, smiled and took pics, did their station IDs and answered the questions and yukked it up at the morning jock jokes.
And when playlist adds from big radio program directors were announced in that Quarterback Flash or whatever it was called each Friday, nada. No Go-Go's.
College DJs played the single, DJs at big stations with some power to slip in a few singles of their own choosing, like Oedipus in Boston for one example—they played a role in us being heard. A November Saturday Night Live appearance catapulted us, even though we were half blotto in the performance. Opening for the Police in arenas helped us, just like Miles Copeland knew it would.
But there was also the timing. The timing always plays a part! The magic part. It's just a synchronicity. In1981 the recession was just getting started, AIDS too, as well as Iran-Contra. There was an unease and uncertainty for a lot of people in this country, that things might be getting bad, and the Go-Go's were uplifting. The right band at the right time.
Lucky for us, we had another strong single to follow up "Our Lips Are Sealed." And after that, "Vacation" pushed the band down the road a little further.
And just as all those elements were relevant and important to the success, there was no big single reason it fell apart. I think you can put all the "usual suspect" reasons of substance & alcohol abuse, rampant egos, and income inequality, under one big umbrella of just being immature, undeveloped humans without much capacity for communicating or compassion. Oh well.
I've gotten close to a hundred of messages, emails, texts and phone calls since the Go-Go's film aired on Showtime. It's amazing to me what a wide swath of reactions I'm hearing. People wistful, people who didn't know the back story. People inspired, people proud to have been there, people who want to tell me what the band meant to them. People who gripe about what was left out. People from similar heyday bands that got triggered being reminded of a band in-fighting. People who noticed things that shouldn't have gotten past QC. It's been mind-blowing.
I really like that you point out that the fact we were women wasn't a cause for the difficulties. I get sick of that tired old catfighting bitchy trope, and always point out all the guys in bands who have similar issues. From Creedence to Guns n Roses, it's hard to be in a band. But what makes the Go-Go's endurance special is that we always, no matter what, overcome grudges, resentments, betrayals, hurts and disagreements.
And it's not to cash in on the "oldies circuit."
It's because there is a bond that was forged by growing up together all while experiencing something extraordinary.
We (the present day Go-Go's) don't expect to have hits. And anyone in their 60's realizes that chasing relevance might be time better spent nurturing contentment. But everyone wants to be recognized for their contributions, and we did contribute. We always knew we did. We've heard it all along, from adults who found inspiration, solace and hope when they were kids and adolescents seeing the Go-Go's. We've heard it from a litany of musicians and artists that surprised even us.
I hope the film brings some of the respect and recognition that has eluded this band!
Kathy Valentine
_________________________________________
Subject: Buffett here-not Warren
Hey Bob
How are you? Just read your piece on Mac, and I too know that Mississippi shy boy thing is not fake. Also as a fellow Mississippian, but from the bayous of Pascagoula, not the "nawth" part of the stage, I just wanted you to take comfort in the fact, that those of us from Mississippi, still can't figure it out. As you might know, I have been a shameless promoter of Mac for a long time, and really wanted to thank you for the portrait you paint of one of the most talented writers and solo performers that I have ever met, who also happens to be one of my closest friends. That is why I chased him down and made him join the Coral Reefer Band. If I am Captain Kirk, then Mac is Spock, and Mike Utley is Dr McCoy, as we travel the musical universe together. I have to confess, I have not heard a single song on the album yet, because Mac hasn't sent me one ha ha. I guess I better order one on Mailboat and sit back and dig it like you did, as the hurricane passes over Sag Harbor this afternoon. I will be in the studio to listen to the vinyl ref of "Life on the Flip Side" and will dove tail right into Mac's. Then I can talk about it after listening to it, if you need me too. Stay safe and I will be back in LA for a week at the end of September, and will check in with you then, and maybe we can grab a covid cocktail.
Fins Up
Jimmy
Bob,
You make some good observations, as usual. But also as usual, there's a lot more to the story. Richard Gottehrer was the perfect producer, and had the foresight to make a classic album in terms of production. When a Go-Go's song is heard in 2020 there's no telltale gated snare drum or cheesy synths to date it right back to 1981. More than anything, he agreed to make the album for $40k, which was the entirety of the budget. When we went over, he kicked in his own money to finish. And Mike Chapman did want to produce the Go-Go's when we had access to the sort of budget he'd require, and signed on for a 4th album. But we were already on fire—and not in the good way.
And Our Lips are Sealed, I agree, what a perfect song. Never tire of playing it. Released June 12, 1981—but it took 6 months, until the week of Dec 12 to get to #20, where it stayed for a little over a week before heading down. Kudos to IRS and Michael Plen in particular who didn't give up and worked that single without all the clout and money other labels could throw behind a record.
Starting in August, MTV added the video. So while MTV certainly played a big part in breaking the band, beaming a bunch of cool, fun gals into peoples living rooms—there were so many other working pieces.
Namely the 5 of us. We never stopped. Day in, day out, press, phoners, radio, sound check, show. Every single town we played, we visited the radio stations, smiled and took pics, did their station IDs and answered the questions and yukked it up at the morning jock jokes.
And when playlist adds from big radio program directors were announced in that Quarterback Flash or whatever it was called each Friday, nada. No Go-Go's.
College DJs played the single, DJs at big stations with some power to slip in a few singles of their own choosing, like Oedipus in Boston for one example—they played a role in us being heard. A November Saturday Night Live appearance catapulted us, even though we were half blotto in the performance. Opening for the Police in arenas helped us, just like Miles Copeland knew it would.
But there was also the timing. The timing always plays a part! The magic part. It's just a synchronicity. In1981 the recession was just getting started, AIDS too, as well as Iran-Contra. There was an unease and uncertainty for a lot of people in this country, that things might be getting bad, and the Go-Go's were uplifting. The right band at the right time.
Lucky for us, we had another strong single to follow up "Our Lips Are Sealed." And after that, "Vacation" pushed the band down the road a little further.
And just as all those elements were relevant and important to the success, there was no big single reason it fell apart. I think you can put all the "usual suspect" reasons of substance & alcohol abuse, rampant egos, and income inequality, under one big umbrella of just being immature, undeveloped humans without much capacity for communicating or compassion. Oh well.
I've gotten close to a hundred of messages, emails, texts and phone calls since the Go-Go's film aired on Showtime. It's amazing to me what a wide swath of reactions I'm hearing. People wistful, people who didn't know the back story. People inspired, people proud to have been there, people who want to tell me what the band meant to them. People who gripe about what was left out. People from similar heyday bands that got triggered being reminded of a band in-fighting. People who noticed things that shouldn't have gotten past QC. It's been mind-blowing.
I really like that you point out that the fact we were women wasn't a cause for the difficulties. I get sick of that tired old catfighting bitchy trope, and always point out all the guys in bands who have similar issues. From Creedence to Guns n Roses, it's hard to be in a band. But what makes the Go-Go's endurance special is that we always, no matter what, overcome grudges, resentments, betrayals, hurts and disagreements.
And it's not to cash in on the "oldies circuit."
It's because there is a bond that was forged by growing up together all while experiencing something extraordinary.
We (the present day Go-Go's) don't expect to have hits. And anyone in their 60's realizes that chasing relevance might be time better spent nurturing contentment. But everyone wants to be recognized for their contributions, and we did contribute. We always knew we did. We've heard it all along, from adults who found inspiration, solace and hope when they were kids and adolescents seeing the Go-Go's. We've heard it from a litany of musicians and artists that surprised even us.
I hope the film brings some of the respect and recognition that has eluded this band!
Kathy Valentine
_________________________________________
Subject: Buffett here-not Warren
Hey Bob
How are you? Just read your piece on Mac, and I too know that Mississippi shy boy thing is not fake. Also as a fellow Mississippian, but from the bayous of Pascagoula, not the "nawth" part of the stage, I just wanted you to take comfort in the fact, that those of us from Mississippi, still can't figure it out. As you might know, I have been a shameless promoter of Mac for a long time, and really wanted to thank you for the portrait you paint of one of the most talented writers and solo performers that I have ever met, who also happens to be one of my closest friends. That is why I chased him down and made him join the Coral Reefer Band. If I am Captain Kirk, then Mac is Spock, and Mike Utley is Dr McCoy, as we travel the musical universe together. I have to confess, I have not heard a single song on the album yet, because Mac hasn't sent me one ha ha. I guess I better order one on Mailboat and sit back and dig it like you did, as the hurricane passes over Sag Harbor this afternoon. I will be in the studio to listen to the vinyl ref of "Life on the Flip Side" and will dove tail right into Mac's. Then I can talk about it after listening to it, if you need me too. Stay safe and I will be back in LA for a week at the end of September, and will check in with you then, and maybe we can grab a covid cocktail.
Fins Up
Jimmy
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Yellow Songs-Songs With "Yellow" In The Title-This Week On SiriusXM
Spotify: https://spoti.fi/39UB3Q8
Pandora: https://bit.ly/2XuO3Hj
Playlist:
"Follow The Yellow Brick Road" - The Munchkins - 1939 - "The Wizard of Oz"
"Itsy-Bitsy-Teeny-Weeny-Yellow-Polka-Dot Bikini" - Bryan Hyland - summer 1960
"The Yellow Rose Of Texas" - Mitch Miller - 1955- in "Giant" in '56
"She Wore A Yellow Ribbon" - traditional
("Sing Along With Mitch" album from 1958 - "You Are My Sunshine," "Down By The Old Mill Stream," "I've Been Working On The Railroad," "Don't Fence Me In")
Movie -theme song - 1949 with John Wayne
"Yellow Submarine" - '66
"Mellow Yellow" - Donovan - October '66 in U.S.
"Yellow Balloon" - Jan & Dean - 1967
"Yellow Balloon" - "Yellow Balloon" (included Don Grady - Mouseketeer, "My Three Sons")
"Yellow Man" - Randy Newman - 2nd album, "12 Songs," one with "Mama Told Me Not To Come"
"Big Yellow Taxi" - 1970 - "Ladies of the Canyon"
"Tie A Yellow Ribbon 'Round the Old Oak Tree" - '73-Tony Orlando & Dawn '81 - Iran Hostage Crisis
"Goodbye Yellow Brick Road" - October '73
"Don't Eat The Yellow Snow" - Frank Zappa - '74 album "Apostrophe" (Album after "Over-Nite Sensation" with "Montana" and "Camarillo Brillo" -Now on DiscReet records
"Yellow" - Coldplay - 2000
_______________________________________
Note - This is an hour long show, so I can not include EVERY yellow song.
For example, I could not include the following in the broadcast:
"Green, Yellow and Red" - John Kilzer - 88
"Yellow Ledbetter" - Pearl Jam - 92 flip side of "Jeremy"
"Black And Yellow" - Wiz Khalifa- (2011 - "Rolling Papers" album)
"Yellow Flicker Beat" - 2014 - Lorde - "Hunger Games"
"Yellow Bird" - Pretty Lights
"Purple, Yellow, Red And Blue" - Portugal. The Man -2013
"Bodak Yellow" - Cardi B - 2017
"Yellow Is The Color of Her Eyes" - Soccer Mommy-2019 (about mother with a terminal illness)
The above are from my notes I assembled while constructing the show.
Just so you know.
Tune in today, August 4th, to Volume 106, 7 PM East, 4 PM West.
Hear the episode live on SiriusXM VOLUME: siriusxm.us/HearLefsetzLive
If you miss the episode, you can hear it on demand on the SiriusXM app: siriusxm.us/LefsetzLive
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Pandora: https://bit.ly/2XuO3Hj
Playlist:
"Follow The Yellow Brick Road" - The Munchkins - 1939 - "The Wizard of Oz"
"Itsy-Bitsy-Teeny-Weeny-Yellow-Polka-Dot Bikini" - Bryan Hyland - summer 1960
"The Yellow Rose Of Texas" - Mitch Miller - 1955- in "Giant" in '56
"She Wore A Yellow Ribbon" - traditional
("Sing Along With Mitch" album from 1958 - "You Are My Sunshine," "Down By The Old Mill Stream," "I've Been Working On The Railroad," "Don't Fence Me In")
Movie -theme song - 1949 with John Wayne
"Yellow Submarine" - '66
"Mellow Yellow" - Donovan - October '66 in U.S.
"Yellow Balloon" - Jan & Dean - 1967
"Yellow Balloon" - "Yellow Balloon" (included Don Grady - Mouseketeer, "My Three Sons")
"Yellow Man" - Randy Newman - 2nd album, "12 Songs," one with "Mama Told Me Not To Come"
"Big Yellow Taxi" - 1970 - "Ladies of the Canyon"
"Tie A Yellow Ribbon 'Round the Old Oak Tree" - '73-Tony Orlando & Dawn '81 - Iran Hostage Crisis
"Goodbye Yellow Brick Road" - October '73
"Don't Eat The Yellow Snow" - Frank Zappa - '74 album "Apostrophe" (Album after "Over-Nite Sensation" with "Montana" and "Camarillo Brillo" -Now on DiscReet records
"Yellow" - Coldplay - 2000
_______________________________________
Note - This is an hour long show, so I can not include EVERY yellow song.
For example, I could not include the following in the broadcast:
"Green, Yellow and Red" - John Kilzer - 88
"Yellow Ledbetter" - Pearl Jam - 92 flip side of "Jeremy"
"Black And Yellow" - Wiz Khalifa- (2011 - "Rolling Papers" album)
"Yellow Flicker Beat" - 2014 - Lorde - "Hunger Games"
"Yellow Bird" - Pretty Lights
"Purple, Yellow, Red And Blue" - Portugal. The Man -2013
"Bodak Yellow" - Cardi B - 2017
"Yellow Is The Color of Her Eyes" - Soccer Mommy-2019 (about mother with a terminal illness)
The above are from my notes I assembled while constructing the show.
Just so you know.
Tune in today, August 4th, to Volume 106, 7 PM East, 4 PM West.
Hear the episode live on SiriusXM VOLUME: siriusxm.us/HearLefsetzLive
If you miss the episode, you can hear it on demand on the SiriusXM app: siriusxm.us/LefsetzLive
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Monday, 3 August 2020
Once In A Lifetime
Spotify: https://spoti.fi/2BUecri
YouTube: https://bit.ly/39T2GJd
It's really hard to write a hit song. I'm not talking about one that tops the chart, but one that grabs the listener and won't let go, that makes you feel good every time you hear it.
I'm a fan of this guy. Primarily because of his 1983 LP on Geffen, "Nothing But The Truth." At that point Geffen put out very few records, after the label's initial splash it was relatively cold, carried by Quarterflash and other acts lost to the sands of time. But then they signed a country act?
Well, that was the pitch, but the truth is "Nothing But The Truth" is closer to a singer-songwriter LP from the seventies than country, but Mac is definitely country, he hails from Mississippi, a state northerners still don't understand, still don't know is just a stone's throw from Graceland.
The radio track on "Nothing But The Truth" was "Minimum Love," and it actually got some traction, but it was generic whereas the rest of the cuts on the LP were more specific, kinda like "Doctor My Eyes" from the first Jackson Browne LP. But the killer cut is the title track.
"We were skippin' the pages in the bookstore baby when I realized we hit the skids
I got a book about contraceptives and you got a book about kids"
These are not the lyrics you hear over the air, but they're the ones experienced by people all over the world every day. Are your interests aligned? Are you working towards marriage and kids or should you break it up, is someone gonna jump ship.
"I was knockin' around in the grocery store baby on the night of the last election"
"Nothin' But The Truth" is wistful. Reserved. Someone who's had a lot of experience and is testifying as to their truth. And every four years the above line goes through my brain, whenever there's an election, funny how music rides shotgun, how it's our own personal milepost even if no one else knows it, music may be heard in groups, but it's utterly personal.
But there was never another Mac McAnally album on Geffen.
Next thing I knew Mac was playing with Jimmy Buffett. A sideman instead of the main man. He'd gotten his chance, but he hadn't connected.
But there was one song, from 1990, about the time Garth Brooks was initially triumphing, but I never heard it, this was still when there was a distinct line between country and rock, despite so many rock acts including country elements in their records, it wasn't until the twenty first century that old rock fans realized if you wanted to hear guitars, if you wanted more of what used to be, you had to go to Nashville, in your mind anyway.
And I became aware of that song when it was covered by Kenny Chesney, it's one of his staples, it's entitled "Back Where I Come From."
"Well in the town where I was raised
The clock ticks and the cattle graze
Time passed with amazing grace
Back where I come from"
It sounds like Mayberry. A slower pace. Where people live life as opposed to race it.
And as good as Kenny's studio version is, the definitive performance is the one included in his 2006 LP "Kenny Chesney Live." It's slower, it's pregnant with meaning. And when Kenny steps away from the mic and lets the audience sing...your heart pitter-patters, this is the unity too often lacking in the U.S. today. Kenny's #1 venue is outside of Boston, where the Patriots play, but this southern music resonates just as much there. You see we all come from somewhere. Most probably a place where there was no spotlight, where we became who we are today.
But the most poignant lines are:
"Some say it's a backward place
Narrow minds on a narrow wage
But I make it a point to say
That's where I come from"
Not only do most Americans not go overseas, most haven't been far from where they grew up. In the seventies, prior to cheap air travel, never mind the internet, it was a rite of passage, with your family, while you were in college, to get behind the wheel and explore, to see America, Paul Simon even wrote a whole song about it.
"Back Where I Come From" is a hit, the kind I mentioned above, indelible, above the rest, a statement, that penetrates your soul, that you can hear over and over again and never burn out on.
Now the original Mac McAnally version is more upbeat, your mind drifts less, you're caught up in the groove, smiling, like you do when you hear his new track "Once In A Lifetime."
Every day is truly once in a lifetime. It's not coming back. Which is what bugs me about this Covid-19 era, being in suspended animation, watching my life go by, the grains of sand flowing through the hourglass, with only so many left.
"Every day is once in lifetime
And right now just me be the right time"
I must admit, I'm a glass half-empty kind of guy, but my glass is full when I listen to music, the right music, it not only makes me happy, it emboldens me.
I didn't get "Once In A Lifetime" at first. Close, but no cigar. But then I listened a second time, now I pull it up and let it play over and over again, I don't want the mood to end.
I only met McAnally once. Back in the earlier part of this century. At a Jimmy Buffett show in Chula Vista. It was still sunny, he was wandering around backstage with no airs, he could have been a roadie to those out of the loop, or a lumberjack, with his red hair and beard. But I had to talk to him, I had to tell him how much I liked "Nothing But The Truth," I figured it would mean something to him, that the unheralded work reached a listener and still meant something to him.
But what stunned me in the reaction was the accent. This guy was truly from Mississippi. And he kept his head down, he was humble, he didn't want to talk about it, he just wanted to move on, he seemed to be embarrassed by the attention. Funny how you think you know who someone is based on their records. That someone sensitive in their music, plumbing their emotions, would be eager to have that conversation in real life, but not Mac, at least not that day, he wasn't dismissive, he just wanted to elude the spotlight.
Now "Once In A Lifetime" sounds like it's being sung by the riverbank, with only a few in attendance, made for the joy of music as opposed to the audience, as opposed to the money.
And I don't think there's gonna be a lot of money in "Once In A Lifetime," unless it's covered by one of Nashville's stars. The recording is a blueprint, they'd just find someone with a rich voice with little character and gussy up the production, make it slick, but what makes "Once In A Lifetime" so good is its roughness.
It used to be different. If you were the kind of person who could get a record deal, get a song on the radio, you were established, you could turn it into a career. But today if these same people make music very few hear it. You can't be doing it for the money, you've got to be doing it because you love it.
And I love "Once In A Lifetime."
The story of "Once In A Lifetime" and a live acoustic performance thereof: https://bit.ly/31d5XPW
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YouTube: https://bit.ly/39T2GJd
It's really hard to write a hit song. I'm not talking about one that tops the chart, but one that grabs the listener and won't let go, that makes you feel good every time you hear it.
I'm a fan of this guy. Primarily because of his 1983 LP on Geffen, "Nothing But The Truth." At that point Geffen put out very few records, after the label's initial splash it was relatively cold, carried by Quarterflash and other acts lost to the sands of time. But then they signed a country act?
Well, that was the pitch, but the truth is "Nothing But The Truth" is closer to a singer-songwriter LP from the seventies than country, but Mac is definitely country, he hails from Mississippi, a state northerners still don't understand, still don't know is just a stone's throw from Graceland.
The radio track on "Nothing But The Truth" was "Minimum Love," and it actually got some traction, but it was generic whereas the rest of the cuts on the LP were more specific, kinda like "Doctor My Eyes" from the first Jackson Browne LP. But the killer cut is the title track.
"We were skippin' the pages in the bookstore baby when I realized we hit the skids
I got a book about contraceptives and you got a book about kids"
These are not the lyrics you hear over the air, but they're the ones experienced by people all over the world every day. Are your interests aligned? Are you working towards marriage and kids or should you break it up, is someone gonna jump ship.
"I was knockin' around in the grocery store baby on the night of the last election"
"Nothin' But The Truth" is wistful. Reserved. Someone who's had a lot of experience and is testifying as to their truth. And every four years the above line goes through my brain, whenever there's an election, funny how music rides shotgun, how it's our own personal milepost even if no one else knows it, music may be heard in groups, but it's utterly personal.
But there was never another Mac McAnally album on Geffen.
Next thing I knew Mac was playing with Jimmy Buffett. A sideman instead of the main man. He'd gotten his chance, but he hadn't connected.
But there was one song, from 1990, about the time Garth Brooks was initially triumphing, but I never heard it, this was still when there was a distinct line between country and rock, despite so many rock acts including country elements in their records, it wasn't until the twenty first century that old rock fans realized if you wanted to hear guitars, if you wanted more of what used to be, you had to go to Nashville, in your mind anyway.
And I became aware of that song when it was covered by Kenny Chesney, it's one of his staples, it's entitled "Back Where I Come From."
"Well in the town where I was raised
The clock ticks and the cattle graze
Time passed with amazing grace
Back where I come from"
It sounds like Mayberry. A slower pace. Where people live life as opposed to race it.
And as good as Kenny's studio version is, the definitive performance is the one included in his 2006 LP "Kenny Chesney Live." It's slower, it's pregnant with meaning. And when Kenny steps away from the mic and lets the audience sing...your heart pitter-patters, this is the unity too often lacking in the U.S. today. Kenny's #1 venue is outside of Boston, where the Patriots play, but this southern music resonates just as much there. You see we all come from somewhere. Most probably a place where there was no spotlight, where we became who we are today.
But the most poignant lines are:
"Some say it's a backward place
Narrow minds on a narrow wage
But I make it a point to say
That's where I come from"
Not only do most Americans not go overseas, most haven't been far from where they grew up. In the seventies, prior to cheap air travel, never mind the internet, it was a rite of passage, with your family, while you were in college, to get behind the wheel and explore, to see America, Paul Simon even wrote a whole song about it.
"Back Where I Come From" is a hit, the kind I mentioned above, indelible, above the rest, a statement, that penetrates your soul, that you can hear over and over again and never burn out on.
Now the original Mac McAnally version is more upbeat, your mind drifts less, you're caught up in the groove, smiling, like you do when you hear his new track "Once In A Lifetime."
Every day is truly once in a lifetime. It's not coming back. Which is what bugs me about this Covid-19 era, being in suspended animation, watching my life go by, the grains of sand flowing through the hourglass, with only so many left.
"Every day is once in lifetime
And right now just me be the right time"
I must admit, I'm a glass half-empty kind of guy, but my glass is full when I listen to music, the right music, it not only makes me happy, it emboldens me.
I didn't get "Once In A Lifetime" at first. Close, but no cigar. But then I listened a second time, now I pull it up and let it play over and over again, I don't want the mood to end.
I only met McAnally once. Back in the earlier part of this century. At a Jimmy Buffett show in Chula Vista. It was still sunny, he was wandering around backstage with no airs, he could have been a roadie to those out of the loop, or a lumberjack, with his red hair and beard. But I had to talk to him, I had to tell him how much I liked "Nothing But The Truth," I figured it would mean something to him, that the unheralded work reached a listener and still meant something to him.
But what stunned me in the reaction was the accent. This guy was truly from Mississippi. And he kept his head down, he was humble, he didn't want to talk about it, he just wanted to move on, he seemed to be embarrassed by the attention. Funny how you think you know who someone is based on their records. That someone sensitive in their music, plumbing their emotions, would be eager to have that conversation in real life, but not Mac, at least not that day, he wasn't dismissive, he just wanted to elude the spotlight.
Now "Once In A Lifetime" sounds like it's being sung by the riverbank, with only a few in attendance, made for the joy of music as opposed to the audience, as opposed to the money.
And I don't think there's gonna be a lot of money in "Once In A Lifetime," unless it's covered by one of Nashville's stars. The recording is a blueprint, they'd just find someone with a rich voice with little character and gussy up the production, make it slick, but what makes "Once In A Lifetime" so good is its roughness.
It used to be different. If you were the kind of person who could get a record deal, get a song on the radio, you were established, you could turn it into a career. But today if these same people make music very few hear it. You can't be doing it for the money, you've got to be doing it because you love it.
And I love "Once In A Lifetime."
The story of "Once In A Lifetime" and a live acoustic performance thereof: https://bit.ly/31d5XPW
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--
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TikTok Shut Down/Sale
This is a music business issue.
Despite the corroded infrastructure of the twentieth first century music business, based on terrestrial radio and a small number of top of the chart records, the best way to reach the target demo, the youth of today, with music, both old and new, is TikTok.
We heard about gaming. Music is secondary at best, background noise.
Guitar Hero and Rock Band? A limited number of tracks, you couldn't play EVERYTHING!
But on TikTok, the uploaders use a cornucopia of songs and many see traction elsewhere, on Spotify, YouTube, et al. Some even become gigantic hits.
Not that this is an unknown paradigm. There are big acts like Drake feeding songs to the service, trying to jump-start or enhance their trajectory in traditional music media.
But on TikTok, the public, the users, pick the songs. And successful clips can be viewed triple digit millions of times, and more than one person can employ the same tune, this is oftentimes the case. TikTok is a hotbed of track development, it can not only make careers, it can bring the ancient back to life.
But the conversation in the music business is always about the past. Those with power want to preserve old systems and keep bitching about their cheese being moved, they abhor change.
First and foremost TikTok illustrates that breaking records will move more and more into the hands of the public. And the public decides what is a winner and what is not. And the gap between what is employed and what is not will be even greater than it is on streaming services. In other words, gatekeepers lose power, and the music business loves gatekeepers, that's what streaming service playlists are all about! Get the company to insert your track and...most people using playlists are listening in the background, it's hard to convert them into active listeners, to pick out a track, it's not vastly different from Muzak in the office. But when a song is used on TikTok, it's frequently integral to the action, without the song there is no clip. And the hook is key, demonstrating the axiom that hooks are nearly always necessary for great success in the music business. It's a free-for-all, and the music business HATES free-for-alls, it wants to control and constrict the narrative, isn't this the history of music online, starting with Napster?
And then the old artists and the ones working in the old manner, a few years to make an album which drops all at once, can't stop complaining about social media, they keep telling us they're artists, and you're impinging on their creativity if you make them do anything other than sit in a studio and record twelve tunes. But the history of music on the internet is it blows up via word of mouth, which is hard to control, if people like something they pass it on, and if they don't... This is very different from radio, where you're trying to convince the programmer, online it's straight to the customer/listener.
And Donald Trump wants to shut TikTok down.
Here's where music and politics merge. Here's where you're out of the loop if you're not reading the headlines. Because you have no framework, no sense of reference.
Donald Trump wants to shut TikTok down because it's a haven of anti-Trump activity. It is hard to gauge TikTok's effectiveness in this area, but one thing is for sure, the arena wasn't full in Tulsa, could that be as a result of all the TikTokkers asking for tickets they were never going to use, the president to promise an overflow crowd that did not appear? Did you see the second stage outside the BOK Center, they started tearing it down during the event inside, there was no one there.
But if TikTok shuts down, the music business is collateral damage.
But the music business is silent. Used to be the music business was cutting edge, where you went to get the news, now it's caught flat-footed. Don't you defend your turf? Everybody else in America does.
So sure, Trump doesn't like China having control of TikTok, hoovering up all that data, but why does TikTok have to shut down NOW?!
TikTok is a community. Of youngsters. And anti-Trump fervor is rampant on the service. Which assembles its army to fight Trump in the real world.
Meanwhile, Microsoft says it'll buy TikTok.
But this is not good enough for Trump. Because this won't solve his problem! Which is less about China and more about him and his election prospects.
The TikTokkers were all in a rage, downloading their content, crying in their fruit juice. That's the difference in the Trump era, in the sixties users would fight back! But today's youth are used to having their freedoms taken away.
Then again, one of the great things about social media, including TikTok, is its effect is essentially unmeasurable. All the data won't tell you the ultimate reach and adoption. The service can't be controlled and...
TikTok is not Facebook. All the conversation has been about disinformation on Facebook, not realizing that its users skew older.
As for Snap... Snapchat made its bones on an evanescent service. But its hook was Stories. But before Stories had mindshare outside a small coterie, Instagram copied it, stealing the momentum. That's the narrative of the internet, there's a first mover advantage, but you can never rest on your laurels, you must not sleep, you must keep on pushing. Which brings us to the strange case of Travis Kalanick. Travis employed this strategy to turn Uber into a behemoth. So, he was lauded by the same people who ended up criticizing him, and the end result was that Lyft gained traction and now Uber is not the leader it once was. It's a jungle out there I tell you.
So, Facebook and Google can't buy TikTok, no way. The only thing accomplished in last week's hearings was to spread the word that these entities are duplicitous monopolists. Don't expect any change to the existing services, but don't expect it to be business as usual going forward. The government would never allow these two entities to buy TikTok. But Microsoft?
Zuckerberg can't compete with TikTok, even though he's trying. You see TikTok has critical mass. It was small once, when kids used Musical.ly in the U.S., but then that service was merged into TikTok and became a behemoth. TikTok was not secret, but somehow Zuck missed it. It grew too big right under his nose. And now there's nothing he can do about it.
Is TikTok forever? History tells us social media sites are fads. Even Facebook itself, now the company's main driver is Instagram. But TikTok's growth proves that despite the footprint of the tech majors, there are still holes, they can still be beaten.
TikTok won't be shut down. The public won't stand for it. Microsoft will purchase the service.
Then again, Trump has done so much with little consequence. And as stated above, the youth have acquiesced in many cases. But the youth are activated, that's what the anti-Trump TikTok rebellion is all about. And Trump should remember, every action has an equal reaction.
But the music business is looking at this from afar, hands-off.
People were file-trading and the music business was up-in-arms.
They came for the record stores and the music business was up-in-arms.
But somehow, when it comes down to what might be the best way to expose music today, the business is silent. Talk about being ripe for disruption...
Despite the corroded infrastructure of the twentieth first century music business, based on terrestrial radio and a small number of top of the chart records, the best way to reach the target demo, the youth of today, with music, both old and new, is TikTok.
We heard about gaming. Music is secondary at best, background noise.
Guitar Hero and Rock Band? A limited number of tracks, you couldn't play EVERYTHING!
But on TikTok, the uploaders use a cornucopia of songs and many see traction elsewhere, on Spotify, YouTube, et al. Some even become gigantic hits.
Not that this is an unknown paradigm. There are big acts like Drake feeding songs to the service, trying to jump-start or enhance their trajectory in traditional music media.
But on TikTok, the public, the users, pick the songs. And successful clips can be viewed triple digit millions of times, and more than one person can employ the same tune, this is oftentimes the case. TikTok is a hotbed of track development, it can not only make careers, it can bring the ancient back to life.
But the conversation in the music business is always about the past. Those with power want to preserve old systems and keep bitching about their cheese being moved, they abhor change.
First and foremost TikTok illustrates that breaking records will move more and more into the hands of the public. And the public decides what is a winner and what is not. And the gap between what is employed and what is not will be even greater than it is on streaming services. In other words, gatekeepers lose power, and the music business loves gatekeepers, that's what streaming service playlists are all about! Get the company to insert your track and...most people using playlists are listening in the background, it's hard to convert them into active listeners, to pick out a track, it's not vastly different from Muzak in the office. But when a song is used on TikTok, it's frequently integral to the action, without the song there is no clip. And the hook is key, demonstrating the axiom that hooks are nearly always necessary for great success in the music business. It's a free-for-all, and the music business HATES free-for-alls, it wants to control and constrict the narrative, isn't this the history of music online, starting with Napster?
And then the old artists and the ones working in the old manner, a few years to make an album which drops all at once, can't stop complaining about social media, they keep telling us they're artists, and you're impinging on their creativity if you make them do anything other than sit in a studio and record twelve tunes. But the history of music on the internet is it blows up via word of mouth, which is hard to control, if people like something they pass it on, and if they don't... This is very different from radio, where you're trying to convince the programmer, online it's straight to the customer/listener.
And Donald Trump wants to shut TikTok down.
Here's where music and politics merge. Here's where you're out of the loop if you're not reading the headlines. Because you have no framework, no sense of reference.
Donald Trump wants to shut TikTok down because it's a haven of anti-Trump activity. It is hard to gauge TikTok's effectiveness in this area, but one thing is for sure, the arena wasn't full in Tulsa, could that be as a result of all the TikTokkers asking for tickets they were never going to use, the president to promise an overflow crowd that did not appear? Did you see the second stage outside the BOK Center, they started tearing it down during the event inside, there was no one there.
But if TikTok shuts down, the music business is collateral damage.
But the music business is silent. Used to be the music business was cutting edge, where you went to get the news, now it's caught flat-footed. Don't you defend your turf? Everybody else in America does.
So sure, Trump doesn't like China having control of TikTok, hoovering up all that data, but why does TikTok have to shut down NOW?!
TikTok is a community. Of youngsters. And anti-Trump fervor is rampant on the service. Which assembles its army to fight Trump in the real world.
Meanwhile, Microsoft says it'll buy TikTok.
But this is not good enough for Trump. Because this won't solve his problem! Which is less about China and more about him and his election prospects.
The TikTokkers were all in a rage, downloading their content, crying in their fruit juice. That's the difference in the Trump era, in the sixties users would fight back! But today's youth are used to having their freedoms taken away.
Then again, one of the great things about social media, including TikTok, is its effect is essentially unmeasurable. All the data won't tell you the ultimate reach and adoption. The service can't be controlled and...
TikTok is not Facebook. All the conversation has been about disinformation on Facebook, not realizing that its users skew older.
As for Snap... Snapchat made its bones on an evanescent service. But its hook was Stories. But before Stories had mindshare outside a small coterie, Instagram copied it, stealing the momentum. That's the narrative of the internet, there's a first mover advantage, but you can never rest on your laurels, you must not sleep, you must keep on pushing. Which brings us to the strange case of Travis Kalanick. Travis employed this strategy to turn Uber into a behemoth. So, he was lauded by the same people who ended up criticizing him, and the end result was that Lyft gained traction and now Uber is not the leader it once was. It's a jungle out there I tell you.
So, Facebook and Google can't buy TikTok, no way. The only thing accomplished in last week's hearings was to spread the word that these entities are duplicitous monopolists. Don't expect any change to the existing services, but don't expect it to be business as usual going forward. The government would never allow these two entities to buy TikTok. But Microsoft?
Zuckerberg can't compete with TikTok, even though he's trying. You see TikTok has critical mass. It was small once, when kids used Musical.ly in the U.S., but then that service was merged into TikTok and became a behemoth. TikTok was not secret, but somehow Zuck missed it. It grew too big right under his nose. And now there's nothing he can do about it.
Is TikTok forever? History tells us social media sites are fads. Even Facebook itself, now the company's main driver is Instagram. But TikTok's growth proves that despite the footprint of the tech majors, there are still holes, they can still be beaten.
TikTok won't be shut down. The public won't stand for it. Microsoft will purchase the service.
Then again, Trump has done so much with little consequence. And as stated above, the youth have acquiesced in many cases. But the youth are activated, that's what the anti-Trump TikTok rebellion is all about. And Trump should remember, every action has an equal reaction.
But the music business is looking at this from afar, hands-off.
People were file-trading and the music business was up-in-arms.
They came for the record stores and the music business was up-in-arms.
But somehow, when it comes down to what might be the best way to expose music today, the business is silent. Talk about being ripe for disruption...
--
Visit the archive: http://lefsetz.com/wordpress/
--
Listen to the podcast:
-iHeart: https://ihr.fm/2Gi5PFj
-Apple: https://apple.co/2ndmpvp
--
http://www.twitter.com/lefsetz
--
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Sunday, 2 August 2020
The Go-Go's Movie
MTV broke the Go-Go's.
As late as the seventies, there were two Americas, the cities and the rest of the country, the hip and the non-hip, the clued-in and those out of the loop. But MTV started the long march towards unification, cable TV and the internet completed the journey, and now nobody is big, nobody reaches everybody, despite having the infrastructure to achieve this.
If you lived through the Go-Go's ascension in Los Angeles this movie is not news. This was post Elvis Costello. Post Sex Pistols. Even post Blondie. The highest calling in America was to be in a band, a successful band. And they were bands, if you didn't play an instrument, if you didn't write your own songs, you were a pop singer, on the AM, and were considered culturally irrelevant, even if you had some financial success. But all the action was on FM, supported by print media. If you cared, you knew, and a lot of people cared.
You had to go out as opposed to stay in. You could read about it, but the only way of participating was to go to the clubs and see for yourself. Whether it be the Whisky or the Masque. The scene was not hidden. All you had to do was pick up the "L.A. Weekly" and you were plugged-in.
And the "Los Angeles Times"... This was before you could get the "New York Times" delivered daily in Los Angeles, that didn't happen until the mid-eighties. The L.A. "Times" ruled. And not only did it have its tabloid Sunday "Calendar" section, providing more music news than any other newspaper in America, far surpassing that in the "New York Times," there were multiple writers, if you had any traction, you got ink. And my point here is the Go-Go's were not an unknown quantity in Los Angeles. They'd been kicking around for years. First as amateurs...and then it took a long time for them to shed that image. I could cite band after band from the late seventies who never made it nationally who everybody knew in Los Angeles. Many even got record deals, even though their albums stiffed. But the Go-Go's didn't get signed.
But then they did. On IRS. Which was seen as a tertiary label distributed by A&M. For English acts that couldn't get releases in the U.S., for nothing that broke big.
Until the Go-Go's.
So, the band got signed and their initial record was produced by Richard Gottehrer. He's the unsung hero of the band's success. He gets some footage in this documentary, but when he was announced as the producer of the band we all scratched our heads. The guy responsible for the Strangeloves "I Want Candy," and a cowriter on "My Boyfriend's Back" and "Hang on Sloopy"? Talk about looking in the rearview mirror... Sure, Gottehrer produced the first two Blondie LPs on Private Stock, but the band didn't break through until it switched to Chrysalis and engaged the Commander, Mike Chapman, to produce it. Mike Chapman was not interested in the Go-Go's, not Roy Thomas Baker, not Nick Lowe...this was not an album destined for success.
And then it came out.
We were aware of "We Got the Beat." We heard it on KROQ. Interesting, but not a home run.
And in L.A. "Beauty and the Beat" did not slip out unannounced, there was as much promo, as much hype on the album as there was on anything released, it was a hometown band, of girls, this was not 20/20 or Great Buildings, this was the Little Engine That Could...could it?
And then we heard "Our Lips are Sealed."
Yes, the story was about the album cover, the making of the record, but what broke the band was an indelible single you only had to hear once, that melded the best of AM and FM, catchy yet without a mindless sensibility, you had to own it.
And I did. And seemingly everybody else in Los Angeles did too.
Never underestimate the power of a hit single.
And there was nothing quite as good on the rest of the LP. There was a cleaned-up version of "We Got the Beat," and "This Town" and a bunch of songs that could play in the background, that could amp you up, but nothing as catchy as...
Richard Gottehrer had worked his magic. It was a sixties girl group, but it sounded positively fresh, definitely eighties as opposed to what came before.
And in the movie, they talk about opening for the Police. But that was how you broke a band in the seventies, in the eighties...
The record business had collapsed. Corporate rock was overbaked and disco failed and CBS Records had to fire a zillion people and then came...
MTV.
MTV. You've got to know, at the beginning, prior to Michael Jackson, MTV was like an FM rock station, Bob Pittman said as much, but suddenly everybody in the WORLD was exposed to this music. And the funny thing is technology worked in reverse. Cable had made inroads in the hinterlands, initially to combat bad over-the-air signals, but subscribers signed up for HBO and then when systems were offered MTV...they picked it right up, the battle was in the metropolis, where cable systems made real money, and with limited bandwidth operators were not about to sacrifice a channel to music videos.
Ergo, the "I Want My MTV!" campaign! One of the most brilliant of all time. Sure, it ended up overused and hackneyed, but at first to be able to see household name musicians on TV, albeit in promos, had a huge impact, usually you had to go to the gig to see them, or they were on canned shows like "In Concert" and "Don Kirshner's Rock Concert." Kirshner was never hip, he thought it was about him, not the acts, as if he were Ed Sullivan in a different era, but suddenly there was a whole channel controlled by the youth, it was SNL on steroids.
And "Our Lips are Sealed" was one of the first videos MTV played.
Few were making clips when the channel launched. What it aired were oldies, mostly performance videos made by English acts to penetrate the continent, where it was hard to get on the radio. So, the Go-Go's video stood out.
And most people did not have MTV. So, if you went to the house of someone who did...you watched it endlessly. It wasn't until the turn of the century that A&R people stopped having MTV on a 24 hour loop in their offices, if you wanted to know which way the wind blew, you watched MTV.
And since Miles Copeland and IRS always did things on the cheap, the video for "Our Lips are Sealed" was made for bupkes, but somehow it contained the essence of the band, their camaraderie, their sense of fun, their willingness to break the rules. Sure, in the movie they talk about wanting to get busted for romping in the fountain, but everyone at home knew this was taboo...did they get permission, did they just do it? YOU WANTED TO HANG WITH THESE GIRLS! With the utterly amazing song.
This was not a studio concoction. This was not Cher. We had not seen regular girls/women on TV like this, certainly not playing music, they were UNFILTERED, there was MAGIC!
And as MTV grew, so did the Go-Go's, they became a household name.
Now if you were really into "Our Lips are Sealed," you also had to own the version by Fun Boy Three, I certainly did. It was a funny era, singles were taboo, but now you'd buy a 12", you had to have the sound at your fingertips.
The rest of the Go-Go's story?
Had little to do with the fact they were women.
It's hard to keep a band together.
First, it's nearly impossible to get a seat on the roller coaster. But you can't get off once you're on. The ride is zipping along, and your handlers, those who built you, say the only way off is to die, and if for some reason you choose to jump off, you will never make it again, it's all over, you're toast.
Kinda like the ousted bassist in the Go-Go's and their original manager. This was their one and only shot, it was now or never.
So, riding high, the band continued to...
Stay high, go on the road, act outrageous and go into the studio with...little material, almost none of it of hit quality. You see the machine doesn't care about you, it just needs fuel. And if you can't provide it, someone else will.
Then there's the money. You've been in a whirl for years, you must be getting rich, right?
But that's not the story of rock and roll. Someone else is always getting the money. Usually the label, sometimes the manager, but if it's other band members...
Believe me, few understood publishing at this time, everybody was just eager to get a deal. Sure, the big time artists now self-published, but if you were punk or new wave you just wanted a seat at the table, you'd sacrifice just about everything. But Ginger was smart enough not to cough up the rights and when the bills were paid...the songwriters got rich, everybody else did not. It's kinda like finding out your parents left most of their estate to another sibling, you can never get over it. And then there are power struggles and one band member leaves and then...it's over.
It has nothing to do with the Go-Go's being girls. That's just the way it is. The difference with the Go-Go's was they had a HIT, which was written by the band, a few, in fact. They did not comb the catalogs for covers, they were originals. They were all in it together until...
The money. As they say in the music business, it's not about the money...it's about the money.
So, Belinda Carlisle has single hits, just like Alice Cooper, the front person always has a leg up when the band breaks up.
But then that success runs out. Rock and roll is a young person's game. At least through the eyes of those who control it. And those who age don't own it, they lie about their birth date and act like they're twenty, even though everyone knows the truth, that they're acting like children.
So, the Go-Go's reunite, and are successful on the reunion/oldies circuit...you've got to pay those bills. And on stage is the only place you can get that hit, that attention, that adulation and then...
There's one big promo play. In this case, literally a Broadway play and a movie and a single...
Which cannot succeed. Doesn't matter how good the track is, today's business will not allow the oldsters to play.
It's not the seventies anymore. Only one format matters, Top Forty, and instead of being rock, like it was at the advent of MTV, it's mostly hip-hop with a little pop. So you can put it out, but few will hear it.
So let's get back to MTV.
MTV minted worldwide stars. And record companies, despite bitching about the cost of the clips, which they charged to the acts anyway, made more dough than they ever had in their existence. Because of the worldwide reach of superstars and the profits in the newfangled CD.
But then MTV went pop. And then it went hip-hop. Videos were expensive and if you weren't great-looking... Those were the complaints in the nineties, all the rock acts getting closed out. Actually, at first there was the Seattle Sound, Nirvana and Pearl Jam, but as the decade wore on, there was no room for them on MTV either.
And then came the internet. And soon MTV aired fewer music videos, and then none at all! And the bitching!! God, it was like artists complaining about Spotify today. Everybody said MTV was the enemy. When the truth is music video had become an on demand item online and MTV's only way to survive economically was to go to shows, whether they be reality or scripted or game...it became just another TV outlet, it even removed "Music" from its name, and I've got to ask you, when was the last time you even watched MTV, when was the last time you even COMPLAINED ABOUT IT??
Then the enemy became the public, those file-trading on Napster and its clones.
Then, supposedly Steve Jobs was the savior, when he got people to buy files, even though they were no longer required to buy complete albums.
And then Spotify and streaming came along and revenues went back up and...
Once again, many artists were left out, behind. When the truth is almost every act's career atop the chart is brief, and thereafter they're an oldies act, releasing music for the hard core only. Hell, have you even listened to the past few Bruce Springsteen albums? Maybe you did, but most people did not. Only two tracks on "Western Stars" exceed ten million plays on Spotify, when number 50 on the Spotify Global Top 50 chart had 1,507,297 streams JUST YESTERDAY! Yup, Springsteen owns boomer mindshare, gets all the ink, but in reality it's all about the old stuff, not the new, no matter how good or bad it might be. Meaning, maybe Spotify is not the devil, maybe your time has passed.
Oh, maybe you're young and make music and are still complaining.
Well, chances are you'd have been completely closed out in the MTV era. You had to be good-looking, are you? And there were very few slots, probably you could not get one at all.
Big wheel keeps on turnin', Proud Mary keeps on turnin', as the business floats down the river while what's left behind struggles to stay afloat, or drowns.
Meaning...
Maybe you saw that story this week, about the life of old songs, whether kids remember them:
"How We'll Forget John Lennon": https://bit.ly/30nttud
Everything has its window. Elvis memorabilia is tanking in the marketplace, because his fans HAVE DIED!
So, if you want to know the way it was, watch this Go-Go's documentary. At the end, I was worried it was devolving into a "Behind the Music" episode, focusing on the Broadway play and the new single, but that footage turned out to be very brief.
This is a story about a band that was willing to sacrifice everything to make it. And funnily enough, the only member who had graduated from college, the straightest of the group, guitarist and songwriter Charlotte Caffey, was the one who got hooked on heroin. Yes, truth is stranger than fiction.
But there was an era where even to be an amateur you had to dedicate all your time. Promote yourself online? Maybe you could tack some posters to telephone poles, and would people even come if they'd never heard of you or your music? Usually no.
It was a big risk. And most didn't make it. And you had to live at home. And you were broke. As your friends started to make money and... Not get that rich, nobody was that rich in that era, that didn't come until Reagan legitimized greed, the boomers sold out and the techies arrived. Tech is MTV on steroids. You create a product that can reach EVERYBODY! It's like shoes. Only there's no physical and reaching Prague costs the same as reaching Peoria.
So, right now, we've got a very narrow pipe. Only a few things are successful, and they're far less successful than they were in the MTV era. Everybody knew the Go-Go's, does everybody know Drake? Parents knew the Go-Go's, the world was smaller and we were all paying attention to MTV. There was a slew of gatekeepers. And if the one, and it was frequently just one, at MTV, didn't cotton to your sound AND IMAGE, good luck!
But those who passed through, those who made it, were bigger than bankers, politicians and CEOs. Musicians were our gods. And the funny thing is the usual dues didn't matter. Who your parents were, where you went to school? IRRELEVANT! It was a flat world where everybody started in the same place.
Well, assuming you were in Los Angeles. Assuming you had the hunger. Assuming you had the beat.
--
Visit the archive: http://lefsetz.com/wordpress/
--
Listen to the podcast:
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-Apple: https://apple.co/2ndmpvp
--
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As late as the seventies, there were two Americas, the cities and the rest of the country, the hip and the non-hip, the clued-in and those out of the loop. But MTV started the long march towards unification, cable TV and the internet completed the journey, and now nobody is big, nobody reaches everybody, despite having the infrastructure to achieve this.
If you lived through the Go-Go's ascension in Los Angeles this movie is not news. This was post Elvis Costello. Post Sex Pistols. Even post Blondie. The highest calling in America was to be in a band, a successful band. And they were bands, if you didn't play an instrument, if you didn't write your own songs, you were a pop singer, on the AM, and were considered culturally irrelevant, even if you had some financial success. But all the action was on FM, supported by print media. If you cared, you knew, and a lot of people cared.
You had to go out as opposed to stay in. You could read about it, but the only way of participating was to go to the clubs and see for yourself. Whether it be the Whisky or the Masque. The scene was not hidden. All you had to do was pick up the "L.A. Weekly" and you were plugged-in.
And the "Los Angeles Times"... This was before you could get the "New York Times" delivered daily in Los Angeles, that didn't happen until the mid-eighties. The L.A. "Times" ruled. And not only did it have its tabloid Sunday "Calendar" section, providing more music news than any other newspaper in America, far surpassing that in the "New York Times," there were multiple writers, if you had any traction, you got ink. And my point here is the Go-Go's were not an unknown quantity in Los Angeles. They'd been kicking around for years. First as amateurs...and then it took a long time for them to shed that image. I could cite band after band from the late seventies who never made it nationally who everybody knew in Los Angeles. Many even got record deals, even though their albums stiffed. But the Go-Go's didn't get signed.
But then they did. On IRS. Which was seen as a tertiary label distributed by A&M. For English acts that couldn't get releases in the U.S., for nothing that broke big.
Until the Go-Go's.
So, the band got signed and their initial record was produced by Richard Gottehrer. He's the unsung hero of the band's success. He gets some footage in this documentary, but when he was announced as the producer of the band we all scratched our heads. The guy responsible for the Strangeloves "I Want Candy," and a cowriter on "My Boyfriend's Back" and "Hang on Sloopy"? Talk about looking in the rearview mirror... Sure, Gottehrer produced the first two Blondie LPs on Private Stock, but the band didn't break through until it switched to Chrysalis and engaged the Commander, Mike Chapman, to produce it. Mike Chapman was not interested in the Go-Go's, not Roy Thomas Baker, not Nick Lowe...this was not an album destined for success.
And then it came out.
We were aware of "We Got the Beat." We heard it on KROQ. Interesting, but not a home run.
And in L.A. "Beauty and the Beat" did not slip out unannounced, there was as much promo, as much hype on the album as there was on anything released, it was a hometown band, of girls, this was not 20/20 or Great Buildings, this was the Little Engine That Could...could it?
And then we heard "Our Lips are Sealed."
Yes, the story was about the album cover, the making of the record, but what broke the band was an indelible single you only had to hear once, that melded the best of AM and FM, catchy yet without a mindless sensibility, you had to own it.
And I did. And seemingly everybody else in Los Angeles did too.
Never underestimate the power of a hit single.
And there was nothing quite as good on the rest of the LP. There was a cleaned-up version of "We Got the Beat," and "This Town" and a bunch of songs that could play in the background, that could amp you up, but nothing as catchy as...
Richard Gottehrer had worked his magic. It was a sixties girl group, but it sounded positively fresh, definitely eighties as opposed to what came before.
And in the movie, they talk about opening for the Police. But that was how you broke a band in the seventies, in the eighties...
The record business had collapsed. Corporate rock was overbaked and disco failed and CBS Records had to fire a zillion people and then came...
MTV.
MTV. You've got to know, at the beginning, prior to Michael Jackson, MTV was like an FM rock station, Bob Pittman said as much, but suddenly everybody in the WORLD was exposed to this music. And the funny thing is technology worked in reverse. Cable had made inroads in the hinterlands, initially to combat bad over-the-air signals, but subscribers signed up for HBO and then when systems were offered MTV...they picked it right up, the battle was in the metropolis, where cable systems made real money, and with limited bandwidth operators were not about to sacrifice a channel to music videos.
Ergo, the "I Want My MTV!" campaign! One of the most brilliant of all time. Sure, it ended up overused and hackneyed, but at first to be able to see household name musicians on TV, albeit in promos, had a huge impact, usually you had to go to the gig to see them, or they were on canned shows like "In Concert" and "Don Kirshner's Rock Concert." Kirshner was never hip, he thought it was about him, not the acts, as if he were Ed Sullivan in a different era, but suddenly there was a whole channel controlled by the youth, it was SNL on steroids.
And "Our Lips are Sealed" was one of the first videos MTV played.
Few were making clips when the channel launched. What it aired were oldies, mostly performance videos made by English acts to penetrate the continent, where it was hard to get on the radio. So, the Go-Go's video stood out.
And most people did not have MTV. So, if you went to the house of someone who did...you watched it endlessly. It wasn't until the turn of the century that A&R people stopped having MTV on a 24 hour loop in their offices, if you wanted to know which way the wind blew, you watched MTV.
And since Miles Copeland and IRS always did things on the cheap, the video for "Our Lips are Sealed" was made for bupkes, but somehow it contained the essence of the band, their camaraderie, their sense of fun, their willingness to break the rules. Sure, in the movie they talk about wanting to get busted for romping in the fountain, but everyone at home knew this was taboo...did they get permission, did they just do it? YOU WANTED TO HANG WITH THESE GIRLS! With the utterly amazing song.
This was not a studio concoction. This was not Cher. We had not seen regular girls/women on TV like this, certainly not playing music, they were UNFILTERED, there was MAGIC!
And as MTV grew, so did the Go-Go's, they became a household name.
Now if you were really into "Our Lips are Sealed," you also had to own the version by Fun Boy Three, I certainly did. It was a funny era, singles were taboo, but now you'd buy a 12", you had to have the sound at your fingertips.
The rest of the Go-Go's story?
Had little to do with the fact they were women.
It's hard to keep a band together.
First, it's nearly impossible to get a seat on the roller coaster. But you can't get off once you're on. The ride is zipping along, and your handlers, those who built you, say the only way off is to die, and if for some reason you choose to jump off, you will never make it again, it's all over, you're toast.
Kinda like the ousted bassist in the Go-Go's and their original manager. This was their one and only shot, it was now or never.
So, riding high, the band continued to...
Stay high, go on the road, act outrageous and go into the studio with...little material, almost none of it of hit quality. You see the machine doesn't care about you, it just needs fuel. And if you can't provide it, someone else will.
Then there's the money. You've been in a whirl for years, you must be getting rich, right?
But that's not the story of rock and roll. Someone else is always getting the money. Usually the label, sometimes the manager, but if it's other band members...
Believe me, few understood publishing at this time, everybody was just eager to get a deal. Sure, the big time artists now self-published, but if you were punk or new wave you just wanted a seat at the table, you'd sacrifice just about everything. But Ginger was smart enough not to cough up the rights and when the bills were paid...the songwriters got rich, everybody else did not. It's kinda like finding out your parents left most of their estate to another sibling, you can never get over it. And then there are power struggles and one band member leaves and then...it's over.
It has nothing to do with the Go-Go's being girls. That's just the way it is. The difference with the Go-Go's was they had a HIT, which was written by the band, a few, in fact. They did not comb the catalogs for covers, they were originals. They were all in it together until...
The money. As they say in the music business, it's not about the money...it's about the money.
So, Belinda Carlisle has single hits, just like Alice Cooper, the front person always has a leg up when the band breaks up.
But then that success runs out. Rock and roll is a young person's game. At least through the eyes of those who control it. And those who age don't own it, they lie about their birth date and act like they're twenty, even though everyone knows the truth, that they're acting like children.
So, the Go-Go's reunite, and are successful on the reunion/oldies circuit...you've got to pay those bills. And on stage is the only place you can get that hit, that attention, that adulation and then...
There's one big promo play. In this case, literally a Broadway play and a movie and a single...
Which cannot succeed. Doesn't matter how good the track is, today's business will not allow the oldsters to play.
It's not the seventies anymore. Only one format matters, Top Forty, and instead of being rock, like it was at the advent of MTV, it's mostly hip-hop with a little pop. So you can put it out, but few will hear it.
So let's get back to MTV.
MTV minted worldwide stars. And record companies, despite bitching about the cost of the clips, which they charged to the acts anyway, made more dough than they ever had in their existence. Because of the worldwide reach of superstars and the profits in the newfangled CD.
But then MTV went pop. And then it went hip-hop. Videos were expensive and if you weren't great-looking... Those were the complaints in the nineties, all the rock acts getting closed out. Actually, at first there was the Seattle Sound, Nirvana and Pearl Jam, but as the decade wore on, there was no room for them on MTV either.
And then came the internet. And soon MTV aired fewer music videos, and then none at all! And the bitching!! God, it was like artists complaining about Spotify today. Everybody said MTV was the enemy. When the truth is music video had become an on demand item online and MTV's only way to survive economically was to go to shows, whether they be reality or scripted or game...it became just another TV outlet, it even removed "Music" from its name, and I've got to ask you, when was the last time you even watched MTV, when was the last time you even COMPLAINED ABOUT IT??
Then the enemy became the public, those file-trading on Napster and its clones.
Then, supposedly Steve Jobs was the savior, when he got people to buy files, even though they were no longer required to buy complete albums.
And then Spotify and streaming came along and revenues went back up and...
Once again, many artists were left out, behind. When the truth is almost every act's career atop the chart is brief, and thereafter they're an oldies act, releasing music for the hard core only. Hell, have you even listened to the past few Bruce Springsteen albums? Maybe you did, but most people did not. Only two tracks on "Western Stars" exceed ten million plays on Spotify, when number 50 on the Spotify Global Top 50 chart had 1,507,297 streams JUST YESTERDAY! Yup, Springsteen owns boomer mindshare, gets all the ink, but in reality it's all about the old stuff, not the new, no matter how good or bad it might be. Meaning, maybe Spotify is not the devil, maybe your time has passed.
Oh, maybe you're young and make music and are still complaining.
Well, chances are you'd have been completely closed out in the MTV era. You had to be good-looking, are you? And there were very few slots, probably you could not get one at all.
Big wheel keeps on turnin', Proud Mary keeps on turnin', as the business floats down the river while what's left behind struggles to stay afloat, or drowns.
Meaning...
Maybe you saw that story this week, about the life of old songs, whether kids remember them:
"How We'll Forget John Lennon": https://bit.ly/30nttud
Everything has its window. Elvis memorabilia is tanking in the marketplace, because his fans HAVE DIED!
So, if you want to know the way it was, watch this Go-Go's documentary. At the end, I was worried it was devolving into a "Behind the Music" episode, focusing on the Broadway play and the new single, but that footage turned out to be very brief.
This is a story about a band that was willing to sacrifice everything to make it. And funnily enough, the only member who had graduated from college, the straightest of the group, guitarist and songwriter Charlotte Caffey, was the one who got hooked on heroin. Yes, truth is stranger than fiction.
But there was an era where even to be an amateur you had to dedicate all your time. Promote yourself online? Maybe you could tack some posters to telephone poles, and would people even come if they'd never heard of you or your music? Usually no.
It was a big risk. And most didn't make it. And you had to live at home. And you were broke. As your friends started to make money and... Not get that rich, nobody was that rich in that era, that didn't come until Reagan legitimized greed, the boomers sold out and the techies arrived. Tech is MTV on steroids. You create a product that can reach EVERYBODY! It's like shoes. Only there's no physical and reaching Prague costs the same as reaching Peoria.
So, right now, we've got a very narrow pipe. Only a few things are successful, and they're far less successful than they were in the MTV era. Everybody knew the Go-Go's, does everybody know Drake? Parents knew the Go-Go's, the world was smaller and we were all paying attention to MTV. There was a slew of gatekeepers. And if the one, and it was frequently just one, at MTV, didn't cotton to your sound AND IMAGE, good luck!
But those who passed through, those who made it, were bigger than bankers, politicians and CEOs. Musicians were our gods. And the funny thing is the usual dues didn't matter. Who your parents were, where you went to school? IRRELEVANT! It was a flat world where everybody started in the same place.
Well, assuming you were in Los Angeles. Assuming you had the hunger. Assuming you had the beat.
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