"Downfall: The Case Against Boeing": https://bit.ly/3gZx6hC
You want to watch this. On Netflix.
I've had a fascination with aircraft ever since my first jet flight on a Boeing 720B. We all knew the 707, it substituted for "jet" the same way "Kleenex" substitutes for "tissue." Hell, ultimately Steve Miller sang a song about it. So what was a 720B?
I started to pay attention to the jets at the airport. The 727 was the one with the three engines at the back, with the high tailfeather. The DC-9 was similar, but smaller, with only two engines. The DC-10 was like a giant 727, and it had a spotty safety record. You started to worry about flying on a DC-10 towards the end of its service.
And then came Airbus. AirBUS? It's not a bus, but a plane! And there's no way the Europeans could compete with Boeing, NO WAY!
Only that proved to be untrue. Just like our ability to win in Vietnam. Boomers were brought up in an age where the United States was the undisputed king, we thought there was nothing our country couldn't achieve, in truth all the boomers were active patriots, waving the flag, until the mid-sixties and Vietnam, when they might be sent to Southeast Asia and get their ass shot off in an unwinnable war.
That was the human element.
And that's what "Downfall" adds to the picture. I knew almost everything in the flick, having followed the story closely, but to see the relatives of the dead? You never recover from that. And I can't think of a worse way to die than in an airplane. Come on, to this day when something odd happens on the jet you start to contemplate it, especially when the captain comes on and says there's a problem. I've been there, I don't think my anxiety has ever been higher than the return flight to the airport we'd taken off from.
But in truth, your odds of dying in the crash of a major airline jet are infinitesimal, your odds of dying in a car are higher. But when it happens, essentially no one survives. I mean dying in an avalanche is bad, but in a matter of minutes you pass out. The plane heading straight down to the land or sea...I don't even want to contemplate it.
So there are two stories involved here. The one of the two crashes, the Lion and Ethiopian 737 Maxes, and the corporate greed that ultimately caused the problem.
You see Boeing was beaten to the punch by Airbus. Boeing was disrupted. By technology. Airbus provided a much more fuel efficient airplane and Boeing had nothing to compete with it, to create a brand new competitor would take nearly a decade. So Boeing gussied up the decades old 737 and sold it as a solution.
But you can't continually fix the past, oftentimes you have to start with a blank sheet of paper. Techies are normally good with this. Write off the past for a better future. Which is why I'm against the EU standardizing USB-C as the world's connector. You want to impede technological innovation? Hell, the Lightning connector in today's iPhones is far superior to the 30 pin one offered on the original devices, and smaller too.
But it's the emphasis on corporate greed that ultimately resonates here.
Boeing moved its headquarters to Chicago. That would be like Universal Music doing the same, it made no sense, the planes were built in Seattle and the South Carolina.
But what this documentary does so well is delineate the schism that ultimately led to the crashes. Boeing merged with the fading McDonnell Douglas, which itself was the result of a merger, and ultimately the McDonnell Douglas brass ended up in control. And they had no understanding of the Boeing corporate culture, and only cared about profits. They wanted to make their bonuses!
And that's America in a nutshell. Why is it that a corporation's only duty is to deliver shareholder wealth? I don't see that in the Bible.
And forget the 737 Max, if you follow the sphere, you know there are problems with the 787 Dreamliner. I'll make it simple, they're built shoddily, and therefore they keep on getting recalled and grounded. Build it once, right, the foundation is key. But the foundation went out the window when CEOs could suddenly end up billionaires solely from their compensation at the company.
I mean how do you remove metal filings from the wiring?
In truth all new planes need modifications. Which is why savvy customers never bought a car in the year of its introduction, nor a new tech product. But then Toyota always got it right and so did the tech companies, the products worked, right out of the box, and you expected that. So you expected the 737 Max to not be rotten at its core. But it was.
And it all came down to efficiency. If they told the airlines and the FAA the plane was significantly different from the original 737, pilots would need simulator training, and that's very costly.
But it turned out the pilots ended up needing to be trained anyway. Never mind the planes sitting on the tarmac for all those months, waiting for a software update.
Yes, welcome to the modern world, where software is king. For those of us conscious before the twenty first century this is hard to fathom. The hardware was king. And if you were savvy, you might be able to fix it yourself. Now you can't fix your own car. Then again, they break down a lot less. And when there's a problem, Tesla just sends an update over the air, via the internet, and it's solved. Meanwhile, Detroit is trying to meld the old with the new and so far it hasn't worked well. It's kind of like Apple, building the computer is the easiest part, it can be done in factories by low-paid employees in China. But there's no way in hell those workers can write the software that makes them work.
So this story is continuing, not only at Boeing, but Airbus too, Qatar Airways is complaining that its A350s are defective, with the paint peeling. Then again, Airbus admits the flaws, no one other than the Qatar government believes there's a safety problem, and in truth it's just about money.
So, you see the thousands of people building Boeing planes. And you can't help but see the discrepancy in pay between them and those in the C-Suite. Now we see income inequality everywhere we go. And like in the Amazon warehouses, Boeing workers had goals they had to hit no matter what, and what was sacrificed was safety.
But you'll learn all that in "Downfall." Which is not a big commitment, only an hour and a half. And it holds your interest throughout.
And in truth the buzz is building, this one film is going to dent Boeing in a way years of news stories has not. But the reason I watched the film was the personal recommendations from my readers. The rest of the hype just flew right by me.
It shouldn't fly right by you.
Watch this.
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Saturday 19 February 2022
Mrs. Maisel Release Strategy
You give the audience what it wants. You don't put the shareholders first, you don't create your business plan in a vacuum, winners take direction from what is in the heads of consumers, and if they're really savvy, they get ahead of the public and give them what they don't even know they want, i.e. Spotify.
That's right, the record business was the canary in the coal mine for digital disruption, yet every business believes the rules established in the twenty year transition don't apply to them. Then again, the movie business always thought it was superior to the music business, even though it was Warner Brothers' record companies that threw off all the cash that built the company's cable system.
So the record business was flying high. It figured out how to charge double, even more, for the same music, getting customers to buy it all over again. People were told the CD was superior, and then companies stopped manufacturing vinyl and cassettes, forcing you to buy the CD. If a single was a hit, they cut it out, i.e. stopped selling it, and made consumers buy the album.
And then came Napster, the poster child for digital disruption.
The record business was making so much money in the nineties it was insane. The executives became household names, whereas prior to the end of the twentieth century the hoi polloi had no idea who ran record companies, after all, weren't the stars the acts? No! And even to this day, the acts are fungible, the companies remain, that's the perspective of the major labels. Furthermore, they've got insurance, i.e. their catalogs, so they'll be sitting at the table until copyrights run out, which they never seem to do, the corporations using their political muscle to extend them. And these same people were pissed when the public appropriated their content to make new works on YouTube, and then TikTok, now they're begging for their content to be used. But you follow, you don't restrict. You don't institute a RootKit scheme. If you customers are not perceived as friends, you're screwed. Unless you're the only game in town, and therefore the two most hated enterprises extant survive, i.e. Ticketmaster and cable companies. Forget that Ticketmaster is just a front for the acts, and the fees don't go straight to the company's bottom line, people hate Ticketmaster.
The same way artists hate Spotify.
Ticketmaster will talk about the advantages it provides, the ability to buy a ticket 24/7 from anywhere on your handheld device. But people forget the past. Artists bitch that they're not making the bucks of the pre-internet era, not knowing that without the technical advantages they wouldn't even be able to participate, forget the remuneration.
And then you hear the refrain that music's value has been reduced. Well, I've got to ask you, what's the value of the device you're reading this on, all the technology, your smartphone and computer are bargains. And in truth, the value of a product is what people will pay for it, not how much money or blood, sweat and tears you invested in creating/manufacturing it.
So it took Spotify with its free tier to kill piracy. And the truth is the free tier is monetized with ads and statistics tell us it's the main driver of subscriptions. That people who listen for free want unfettered access, the ability to listen to exactly what they want when they want, sans commercials. Just like someone PAYING a TV streaming service wants content on their terms.
And it wasn't that way for a very long time.
But then came on demand, and then came streaming, and then came "House of Cards," where Netflix released the entire season at once. And that was the paradigm until...
Streaming became the norm.
HBO refuses to change its game. Which is why I no longer watch their product. I can't wait week to week. I forget too much, I can't be as emotionally involved, it's a story, back in the days of Dickens they serialized books, but no longer, imagine having to wait a week for the next chapter, the book business would be eviscerated.
Same deal with Apple TV+. Their biggest success, "Ted Lasso"...I still haven't watched the second season, but if they released it all at once I would have. But the buzz is already gone, there's a tsunami of new stuff, if you can gain someone's attention, keep it. Do you know how hard it is to have people come back week after week, especially if the series starts off crappy?
Like Apple's "The Morning Show." The first few episodes had horrible buzz, so almost everybody tuned out. But those who stuck with it said it got better, but it was too late.
As for "Mrs. Maisel'...
We just started a series on Netflix entitled "Unauthorized Living," still haven't figured out what's going on, but I'm intrigued, yet then I remembered "Mrs. Maisel" was coming out on Friday, and I tuned in and there were only TWO EPISODES! On a holiday weekend! Furthermore, the first eighty percent of the first episode was nearly unwatchable, so cheesy, so two-dimensional with the actors chewing the scenery. I almost had to turn it off, and I'm a fan. But I stuck with it and watched the second episode and it was somewhat better and if the rest of the series had been available I would have continued. Now I'm not sure I'll even go back. I mean you had me and you let me go? Doesn't anybody at Amazon know about the attention economy?
And dripping out episodes makes no sense at Amazon, since all of its subscribers are locked in via Prime, they want the fast free shipping, the video is just a bonus. Apple is in a bind, it's got very little product and everybody is on a free subscription but those are ending and the Cupertino company thinks week by week is the only way to keep people subscribing. But there was a new show reviewed in the papers today, starring Adam Scott, who I'm a fan of, but one paper said it sucked, that only one episode was necessary, not a complete series, and the other said it was better but was I really going to waste my time checking it out? I mean dribbling out episodes is akin to having intercourse for months without orgasm. Who wants that?
Nobody. And you listen to your customers, because they have options.
Yes, I watch Netflix because if I'm into something I can consume it straight, I can have a deep, intense experience.
That's right, to me streaming television isn't entertainment, it's ART! Which is how you should treat it. I love being taken away, caught up in a story, returning to it night after night until it's finished. I can't have that experience if I have to wait week by week to see episodes.
And therefore I won't write about it. And I don't think I've got that much influence, but I've got some, and what these companies are looking for is buzz. And right now my buzz on the new season of "Mrs. Maisel" is it's for diehards only, and really you don't have to watch it. Wait until the series plays out, wait to hear what people have to say about it before you dive in, because our time is precious. That's the number one crime in my book, WASTING MY TIME!
Which is one of the reasons I rarely talk on the telephone. You tell your story, you don't want to hear mine. And I can't jump in and stop you, it's too impolite. Whereas in an e-mail or text I can get to the heart of the matter, and no one is interrupting me when I speak. And in truth, the younger generation rarely talks on the phone. Parents complain, voicemails go unanswered. Why won't they pick up? Because they don't want their time wasted. They want to answer messages on their own schedule, maybe instantly, maybe an hour or two later. Maybe they're busy. There's nothing worse than having the phone ring when you're deep into something else. And if you don't pick up they leave a message and if you don't get back to them you're an a-hole, and that's quite a burden.
If I'm bothering to give you my attention, which is the absolute hardest thing for you to get from me, you've got to treat me right, you've got to make it easy, you've got to deliver on my terms, otherwise you're out of step in the twenty first century. Spotify was started by a twentysomething. Amazon Prime Video and HBO Max are run by lifers who think they are doing god's work, delivering the programming which too often sucks. These people don't have their ear to the ground. It's young people who made bingeing popular. Do you really think they're going to wait week to week for episodes? Are you dreaming? They want all of it on demand, so they can consume it whenever they want. And if they like something, they tell everybody! As for building water cooler moments...there are no water coolers anymore. That's one of the main criteria of young job seekers, the ability to work at home, and flexible hours. And every study says that those who work from home work harder and longer than those in the office! Yes, there are some enterprises that benefit from people being in the office, but many fewer than oldsters think.
And what do the oldsters do?
Crap all over Millennials and Gen-Z'ers. Saying they're entitled babies. No, they have a sense of self-worth. And enough with the b.s. about their short attention spans, if you can binge a TV show for ten or twelve hours straight, which they do, you do not have an attention span issue. But they only do this when the product is superior and it's made available in a palatable way. What blew up TV was the quality. The shows of yore wouldn't be able to compete today. That's one of the reasons the networks keep losing market share. Turns out if there's an abundance of choice, everybody doesn't want to watch the same thing, and certainly don't want to watch something bland made to appeal to everybody, it's the edges that got people hooked on the new TV series.
Not that I think anything I say above will have any effect. Because these people know better. Just like the Democrats, saying they've got to put the progressives in their place. Don't they get it? Just like streaming TV, it's the edges that motivate people, the same old bland b.s. of the past is how Trump got elected to begin with. And speaking of Trump, the Democrats fight him and the Republicans by adhering to processes from the past, whereas the Republicans are not constrained. One thing you've got to say about the right, it thinks outside the box, the Texas abortion law, the new voting laws. What do the Democrats do? Sit back and cry and then are surprised when they lose, kind of like the record companies and Napster. The record companies tried suing their customers...that didn't work out. But do you know what did? Daniel Ek and streaming, he brought the revenues back. But if you listen to the scuttlebutt, you'd believe Spotify and Ek are the devil. It's really no different from consuming anti-vax information. You go with what feels right, you align with the gang, the truth is lost in the shuffle. All truth seems to be lost in the shuffle.
And the great thing about streaming TV is when done right it is truth, a truth you cannot find in Hollywood tentpole movies, nor in most of the hit records. The public knows, which is why they're addicted to the plethora of shows produced under the new model. And if you don't like something, you don't have to sit through it. Which is exactly why MTV stopped airing videos. When they became an on demand item online, why did people need videos on MTV? But everybody had nostalgia for the old way and complained. Okay, all these years later, do you really miss MTV? Waiting to watch one of the handful of videos they actually unspooled?
Being married to the past is a death trap, especially in a technology driven world. I don't have to watch your TV show at all, I can be entertained on TikTok, which is more authentic than many of the shows offered. The public has options and you want to reduce them? You want the public to comport with your desires? This old game has lost again and again and again in the internet era, and you're employing it? And the same customers who say they like episodes dropped week by week, and there are some, are the aged nostalgic for the old days, like those out of touch at the VMAs at the beginning of this century chiding MTV to air more videos. MTV didn't listen, because these vocal complainers were out of touch! As a matter of fact, if MTV had listened it would have had a very short run. It canned the original veejays, knowing that aging with the audience is death, you've got to appeal to young people. "Rolling Stone" failed this mission and therefore became marginalized. Quick, have you ever heard a Millennial or Gen-Z'er talk about "Rolling Stone," ever?
Don't satisfy those at the end of the tail, but those at the head.
As for all those people bitching about smartphone use... Do you ever hear a young person complaining? They're in touch with everybody 24/7, they have the world at their fingertips, do you really think they want to log off to listen to your boring conversation? We've established they have all the time in the world if it's interesting, but the old model delivers boredom, I remember the old days, no one need be bored today.
Because there are so many options.
So if you hook someone, don't let them go! Which is what social media is about for musicians. You're satiating your core customers, feeding them so they'll continue to be fans, so they'll bring new fans aboard. it's not advertising and it's got to be honest and genuine, otherwise it's worthless. In the past it didn't work this way. But in the past there were so many years between albums that by time your next one came out the teenager was married with children and was no longer a rabid fan, so you had to try and convince them over and over again, via an endless stream of hit singles, imploring them to buy the album. Whereas for years you had them in the palm of your hand, you just let them go, it's you who broke off the relationship, the same way Amazon Prime is breaking the relationship with me re "Mrs. Maisel." AND THIS IS A TECH COMPANY?
That's right, the record business was the canary in the coal mine for digital disruption, yet every business believes the rules established in the twenty year transition don't apply to them. Then again, the movie business always thought it was superior to the music business, even though it was Warner Brothers' record companies that threw off all the cash that built the company's cable system.
So the record business was flying high. It figured out how to charge double, even more, for the same music, getting customers to buy it all over again. People were told the CD was superior, and then companies stopped manufacturing vinyl and cassettes, forcing you to buy the CD. If a single was a hit, they cut it out, i.e. stopped selling it, and made consumers buy the album.
And then came Napster, the poster child for digital disruption.
The record business was making so much money in the nineties it was insane. The executives became household names, whereas prior to the end of the twentieth century the hoi polloi had no idea who ran record companies, after all, weren't the stars the acts? No! And even to this day, the acts are fungible, the companies remain, that's the perspective of the major labels. Furthermore, they've got insurance, i.e. their catalogs, so they'll be sitting at the table until copyrights run out, which they never seem to do, the corporations using their political muscle to extend them. And these same people were pissed when the public appropriated their content to make new works on YouTube, and then TikTok, now they're begging for their content to be used. But you follow, you don't restrict. You don't institute a RootKit scheme. If you customers are not perceived as friends, you're screwed. Unless you're the only game in town, and therefore the two most hated enterprises extant survive, i.e. Ticketmaster and cable companies. Forget that Ticketmaster is just a front for the acts, and the fees don't go straight to the company's bottom line, people hate Ticketmaster.
The same way artists hate Spotify.
Ticketmaster will talk about the advantages it provides, the ability to buy a ticket 24/7 from anywhere on your handheld device. But people forget the past. Artists bitch that they're not making the bucks of the pre-internet era, not knowing that without the technical advantages they wouldn't even be able to participate, forget the remuneration.
And then you hear the refrain that music's value has been reduced. Well, I've got to ask you, what's the value of the device you're reading this on, all the technology, your smartphone and computer are bargains. And in truth, the value of a product is what people will pay for it, not how much money or blood, sweat and tears you invested in creating/manufacturing it.
So it took Spotify with its free tier to kill piracy. And the truth is the free tier is monetized with ads and statistics tell us it's the main driver of subscriptions. That people who listen for free want unfettered access, the ability to listen to exactly what they want when they want, sans commercials. Just like someone PAYING a TV streaming service wants content on their terms.
And it wasn't that way for a very long time.
But then came on demand, and then came streaming, and then came "House of Cards," where Netflix released the entire season at once. And that was the paradigm until...
Streaming became the norm.
HBO refuses to change its game. Which is why I no longer watch their product. I can't wait week to week. I forget too much, I can't be as emotionally involved, it's a story, back in the days of Dickens they serialized books, but no longer, imagine having to wait a week for the next chapter, the book business would be eviscerated.
Same deal with Apple TV+. Their biggest success, "Ted Lasso"...I still haven't watched the second season, but if they released it all at once I would have. But the buzz is already gone, there's a tsunami of new stuff, if you can gain someone's attention, keep it. Do you know how hard it is to have people come back week after week, especially if the series starts off crappy?
Like Apple's "The Morning Show." The first few episodes had horrible buzz, so almost everybody tuned out. But those who stuck with it said it got better, but it was too late.
As for "Mrs. Maisel'...
We just started a series on Netflix entitled "Unauthorized Living," still haven't figured out what's going on, but I'm intrigued, yet then I remembered "Mrs. Maisel" was coming out on Friday, and I tuned in and there were only TWO EPISODES! On a holiday weekend! Furthermore, the first eighty percent of the first episode was nearly unwatchable, so cheesy, so two-dimensional with the actors chewing the scenery. I almost had to turn it off, and I'm a fan. But I stuck with it and watched the second episode and it was somewhat better and if the rest of the series had been available I would have continued. Now I'm not sure I'll even go back. I mean you had me and you let me go? Doesn't anybody at Amazon know about the attention economy?
And dripping out episodes makes no sense at Amazon, since all of its subscribers are locked in via Prime, they want the fast free shipping, the video is just a bonus. Apple is in a bind, it's got very little product and everybody is on a free subscription but those are ending and the Cupertino company thinks week by week is the only way to keep people subscribing. But there was a new show reviewed in the papers today, starring Adam Scott, who I'm a fan of, but one paper said it sucked, that only one episode was necessary, not a complete series, and the other said it was better but was I really going to waste my time checking it out? I mean dribbling out episodes is akin to having intercourse for months without orgasm. Who wants that?
Nobody. And you listen to your customers, because they have options.
Yes, I watch Netflix because if I'm into something I can consume it straight, I can have a deep, intense experience.
That's right, to me streaming television isn't entertainment, it's ART! Which is how you should treat it. I love being taken away, caught up in a story, returning to it night after night until it's finished. I can't have that experience if I have to wait week by week to see episodes.
And therefore I won't write about it. And I don't think I've got that much influence, but I've got some, and what these companies are looking for is buzz. And right now my buzz on the new season of "Mrs. Maisel" is it's for diehards only, and really you don't have to watch it. Wait until the series plays out, wait to hear what people have to say about it before you dive in, because our time is precious. That's the number one crime in my book, WASTING MY TIME!
Which is one of the reasons I rarely talk on the telephone. You tell your story, you don't want to hear mine. And I can't jump in and stop you, it's too impolite. Whereas in an e-mail or text I can get to the heart of the matter, and no one is interrupting me when I speak. And in truth, the younger generation rarely talks on the phone. Parents complain, voicemails go unanswered. Why won't they pick up? Because they don't want their time wasted. They want to answer messages on their own schedule, maybe instantly, maybe an hour or two later. Maybe they're busy. There's nothing worse than having the phone ring when you're deep into something else. And if you don't pick up they leave a message and if you don't get back to them you're an a-hole, and that's quite a burden.
If I'm bothering to give you my attention, which is the absolute hardest thing for you to get from me, you've got to treat me right, you've got to make it easy, you've got to deliver on my terms, otherwise you're out of step in the twenty first century. Spotify was started by a twentysomething. Amazon Prime Video and HBO Max are run by lifers who think they are doing god's work, delivering the programming which too often sucks. These people don't have their ear to the ground. It's young people who made bingeing popular. Do you really think they're going to wait week to week for episodes? Are you dreaming? They want all of it on demand, so they can consume it whenever they want. And if they like something, they tell everybody! As for building water cooler moments...there are no water coolers anymore. That's one of the main criteria of young job seekers, the ability to work at home, and flexible hours. And every study says that those who work from home work harder and longer than those in the office! Yes, there are some enterprises that benefit from people being in the office, but many fewer than oldsters think.
And what do the oldsters do?
Crap all over Millennials and Gen-Z'ers. Saying they're entitled babies. No, they have a sense of self-worth. And enough with the b.s. about their short attention spans, if you can binge a TV show for ten or twelve hours straight, which they do, you do not have an attention span issue. But they only do this when the product is superior and it's made available in a palatable way. What blew up TV was the quality. The shows of yore wouldn't be able to compete today. That's one of the reasons the networks keep losing market share. Turns out if there's an abundance of choice, everybody doesn't want to watch the same thing, and certainly don't want to watch something bland made to appeal to everybody, it's the edges that got people hooked on the new TV series.
Not that I think anything I say above will have any effect. Because these people know better. Just like the Democrats, saying they've got to put the progressives in their place. Don't they get it? Just like streaming TV, it's the edges that motivate people, the same old bland b.s. of the past is how Trump got elected to begin with. And speaking of Trump, the Democrats fight him and the Republicans by adhering to processes from the past, whereas the Republicans are not constrained. One thing you've got to say about the right, it thinks outside the box, the Texas abortion law, the new voting laws. What do the Democrats do? Sit back and cry and then are surprised when they lose, kind of like the record companies and Napster. The record companies tried suing their customers...that didn't work out. But do you know what did? Daniel Ek and streaming, he brought the revenues back. But if you listen to the scuttlebutt, you'd believe Spotify and Ek are the devil. It's really no different from consuming anti-vax information. You go with what feels right, you align with the gang, the truth is lost in the shuffle. All truth seems to be lost in the shuffle.
And the great thing about streaming TV is when done right it is truth, a truth you cannot find in Hollywood tentpole movies, nor in most of the hit records. The public knows, which is why they're addicted to the plethora of shows produced under the new model. And if you don't like something, you don't have to sit through it. Which is exactly why MTV stopped airing videos. When they became an on demand item online, why did people need videos on MTV? But everybody had nostalgia for the old way and complained. Okay, all these years later, do you really miss MTV? Waiting to watch one of the handful of videos they actually unspooled?
Being married to the past is a death trap, especially in a technology driven world. I don't have to watch your TV show at all, I can be entertained on TikTok, which is more authentic than many of the shows offered. The public has options and you want to reduce them? You want the public to comport with your desires? This old game has lost again and again and again in the internet era, and you're employing it? And the same customers who say they like episodes dropped week by week, and there are some, are the aged nostalgic for the old days, like those out of touch at the VMAs at the beginning of this century chiding MTV to air more videos. MTV didn't listen, because these vocal complainers were out of touch! As a matter of fact, if MTV had listened it would have had a very short run. It canned the original veejays, knowing that aging with the audience is death, you've got to appeal to young people. "Rolling Stone" failed this mission and therefore became marginalized. Quick, have you ever heard a Millennial or Gen-Z'er talk about "Rolling Stone," ever?
Don't satisfy those at the end of the tail, but those at the head.
As for all those people bitching about smartphone use... Do you ever hear a young person complaining? They're in touch with everybody 24/7, they have the world at their fingertips, do you really think they want to log off to listen to your boring conversation? We've established they have all the time in the world if it's interesting, but the old model delivers boredom, I remember the old days, no one need be bored today.
Because there are so many options.
So if you hook someone, don't let them go! Which is what social media is about for musicians. You're satiating your core customers, feeding them so they'll continue to be fans, so they'll bring new fans aboard. it's not advertising and it's got to be honest and genuine, otherwise it's worthless. In the past it didn't work this way. But in the past there were so many years between albums that by time your next one came out the teenager was married with children and was no longer a rabid fan, so you had to try and convince them over and over again, via an endless stream of hit singles, imploring them to buy the album. Whereas for years you had them in the palm of your hand, you just let them go, it's you who broke off the relationship, the same way Amazon Prime is breaking the relationship with me re "Mrs. Maisel." AND THIS IS A TECH COMPANY?
--
Visit the archive: http://lefsetz.com/wordpress/
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Thursday 17 February 2022
Re-I Won't Hold You Back
Everything you say about this is spot on, Bob. Can't add anything to it. Luke's the best!
Eric Pedersen
Topeka, KS
_________________________________
So crazy you wrote this because I was just listening to this song today and thinking how brilliant every bit of it is - from the beautiful piano intro (written by Luke, played by Paich), Luke's deeply heartfelt vocal performance, the brilliant vocal harmony arrangements featuring Timothy B. Schmit's lovely tenor, to the lush-but-never-over-wrought orchestration, and Lukather's soaring and perfectly-dramatic guitar solo. (Not to mention the exactly-as-it-should-be-done performances of David Hungate and Jeff Porcaro on bass and drums.) It's a great song, performed and produced perfectly by Toto and recorded by Al Schmitt. Timeless.
It should be a legendary track - up there with so many classics - but like most of Toto's genius, it's kind of ignored and set aside because it's Toto. I guess in the end it doesn't matter, because we know it's awesome.
In this world of instant access, perhaps it will get a second life when some influencer uses it on TikTok when he or she goes through a breakup, and then everyone will realize how great it is.
You Know I Won't Hold My Breath Now...
Great one, Bob. Thanks!
Brian Vitellaro
Austin, TX
_________________________________
My favorite songs by Toto were sang by Lukather. I don't know if I'd call them yacht rock necessarily but they're definitely soft rock gold.
Gary Shindler
_________________________________
Toto were the FIRST punk rockers!
To heck with Patti myth!
Kenn Kweder
_________________________________
You nailed it. I've always loved that song. And I've always respected that band. They were never cool… they just made really great records that still sound great four decades later.
Dave Hoeffel
SiriusXM 60s Gold
_________________________________
Also Timothy B Schmit on backing vocals! Arguably Luke's greatest guitar solo. His feel when he follows the melody is unparalleled. He repeats this with the ballad Anna off the Seventh One. His memoir goes into great detail on the production of this song (and album) and is definitely worth a read.
Greg Simon
_________________________________
And while you're throwing out kudos to "I Won't Hold You Back"...
Allow me to add that it is my guilty pleasure as well as my choice for best power ballad ever.
All ultimately tied together with the background vocals of Timothy B Schmit.
And speaking of Poco---
If you're looking for another similar song that is both soft and soaring...
Give "The Last Goodbye" from Legend a listen.
Marty Bender
_________________________________
Great piece on the magic of TOTO's music. My favorite Fahrenheit track is the same as yours, the first side closer "I'll Be Over You."
What makes it even more special is the vocal depth and goosebump moments delivered by Michael McDonald backing up Lukather - check the video and their "beatlesesque" rooftop moment: https://youtu.be/r7XhWUDj-Ts (which also 'screens' the Fahrenheit album cover 1.07 into the video;)).
Cheers,
Morten Dahlgren
Malmo, Sweden
_________________________________
Thank you for giving props to Steve Lukather and Toto! As a touring and session guitarist out of California and Nashville, he will always occupy a place in my guitar pantheon.
Michael Gregory
_________________________________
Hey Bob,
People either get Toto, or they don't.
Glad to see you get it.
Gary Berlak
Fresno
_________________________________
Agreed on Toto, great band, and many of us less-dogmatic prog rockers consider Toto prog.
American prog bands? Kansas, Starcastle, Spock's Beard, Echolyn. There are more, and granted, the genre's best are from
across the pond, but the above mentioned are not too shabby.
Best,
fritzdoddy
_________________________________
When "I Won't Hold You Back" was getting its initial airplay, I thought it sounded like a more grandly arranged sequel to the Eagles "I Can't Tell You Why." When I discovered that the high vocal part on the record was Timothy B. Schmit, that revelation explained why. I think Timmy's vocal on it is as essential as Lukather's to the recording's success.
Scott Paton
_________________________________
Their 35th Anniversary/Live from Poland is brilliant!! That one and Hornsby Live from Town Hall got me through the past two years.
Long live real players playing great songs live!!!
Mitchell Fox
_________________________________
Toto , bigger everywhere but here...opening for Journey next month. Hope Schon brings Luke out to play together. That would be pretty cool and definitely worth seeing.
Tom Hedtke
_________________________________
You wrote a wonderful piece. Paich is my buddy...bestie at my recent wedding. His first solo record is coming...I heard it today....40 years on still writin' an' playin' his ass off....and as you noted...still doin' it for music not fame.
Keep your craftsmanship comin'...Best, Steve Trudell
_________________________________
Great song. I love Toto and it's interesting they sell out shows overseas but cant in the US.
Kyle J. Ferraro
_________________________________
Ref: I won't hold you back.
Kudos for recognizing the talents of Toto Bob, a much underrated band.
In England they were derided as being "corporate rock", as if a bunch of suits in a smoke filled conference room had somehow drawn them up on a dry erase board.
What they were actually (shock, horror) were talented musicians who could play, sing AND write.
I saw them twice in London, the line up with Kimball, and then with Williams, and they were excellent both times.
I do take issue with your comment "there was never a credible American prog rock band" though.
Yes, my homeland certainly provided the template and the heavy hitters of the genre, but don't discount Kansas, Spock's Beard and Happy The Man, to name but three.
Keep on being an oasis of reason in this desert of craziness Bob.
Cheers, Mark Hudson. Schenectady NY.
_________________________________
Thanks for the Toto review! I love these guys, and it's rare to see a positive word for their multitude of accomplishments. Give the whole catalog a try. The later albums mostly led by Steve Lukather are also quite amazing. Crank up Tambu on your favorite speakers. That opening track will blow your mind. Falling in between, Mindfields, all excellent.
Sam Glaser
_________________________________
Bob!!
Can't believe you wrote about this and ever so happy you did.
That guitar solo, against the symphonic backdrop - and all of the dynamics involved harmonically are exactly why the song elevates from the speakers.
Kudos to you on recognizing that ( I Won't Hold You Back ) and also, the genius of the second album in its entirety. White Sister is a rocker that misses nothing and hits between the eyes - along w/ St. George and the Dragon etc.
Both Hydra and IV were staples for me as a young guitarist/pianist and aspiring composer back in the day.
Toto were/are no joke. The joke is on those who missed the genius. Thanks so much for this reminder, and you are spot on when saying its as good (or better) today, than when it was originally released.
Seriously great band.
Side note: Jeff Porcaro might be the most underrated session/rock drummer of his time. RIP.
Tom O'Keefe
Neurodisc Records, Inc
_________________________________
Lukather is one amazingly incredible guitarist. Acknowledged as one of the best in the industry. One of those guys that is under the public's radar, but anyone who knows music, knows Steve Lukather.
Toto will live forever in our musical conscience due to Africa and Rosanna, maybe 2 of the greatest songs AND performances ever recorded.
Leigh Goldstein
_________________________________
JFC I forgot all about 99. Thanks for the memory jog. Haven't heard that in probably 30 years. Not that I particularly need or want to, but it's funny how a song can bring you back to a certain time and place as though no time has elapsed and you're still there.
catmonster
_________________________________
Glad you flagged this song up. It really is a gem. I discovered Toto IV when I was about 25 in 2007, and I played it to death every day for the summer. It literally blew me away. In the UK - and across Europe, I'm guessing - Roger Sanchez had had a huge hit with 'Another Chance' - a house track which sampled 'I Won't Hold Back' beautifully, so this song was already familiar to me. Check out the video which taps into the isolation within the song respectfully: https://youtu.be/rdlvPe959Ck
You mention the BVs - pretty sure it's Timothy B Schmidt who's bringing the honey. One of the greatest BV vocal performances in my opinion.
Despite some of the dated instrumentation on this album, it stands the rest of time. As close to perfection as a musician is likely to get in the studio. I might just put it on again now…
About 10 years ago, I finally got to see Toto at the Hammersmith Apollo in London with some close muso friends - I took my mum too. Joseph Williams killed it, and to see Nathan East on bass in addition to the regular Toto members was one of the greatest treats of our lifetimes.
Take care and keep them coming, Bob.
Dave Thorogood.
_________________________________
Before I ever met him, I had always wanted to ask Steve Lukather, "Where have you been in life that your heart aches so?" These songs rip your heart out. "I Won't Hold You Back" in particular. For years, I heard he hung out at Hugo's in LA, so I would always try to "be around" when I was in town....thing is, I never asked WHICH Hugo's, so I was always at the one near Coldwater Canyon where a friend of mine lives. Was that the right one? Didn't matter, started doing the "old school" (pre-paid meet & greet days) operative and staked out the stage door after shows. He would usually be the last one out lol To that end, that heartache, where he's been in life that these words pour out of him, it's in the book, The Gospel According to Luke. A MUST read.
Roger Sanchez had an EDM oriented hit with this song in 2001....much to the surprise of the band. Another friend of mine said he ran into Luke not long after & he said it was the biggest #1 hit they ever had that they didn't get paid for. Word on the street being, the artist found a copy of IV in a used record bin and thought the hook in "I Won't Hold You Back" would work on his own recording. I'm sure that credit/payment got worked out in the end....
Once in a while, this song shows up on Sirius 80's On 8, usually in their hourly "Treasure Chest" selection or a repeat of an American Top 40 countdown. While other songs get the airplay, this is the one where it all really came together. They even had Timothy B. Schmit doing harmonies. As to the Hydra album? You really got my attention there. Worn out CD copies of that....which is nearly impossible. Several tours back, they were performing both the title track and "St George & The Dragon" back to back. Bliss. Pure bliss. The promotional videos they did for the two are interpretations of the album artwork, which features Steve Porcaro. I have a friend who lives & breathes "99", to this day his favorite Toto track. HIS fave album happens to be Fahrenheit....so this world, crazy as it may be, is a small patch in the universe.
I love Toto and even more love to read your interpretations and observations about them. Have been lucky to see them numerous times over the years, usually always a different incarnation. One particular tour featured original bassist David Hungate. At one time, I had always hoped to see Joseph Williams with them live and now I have seen him more than Bobby Kimball, who often plays his own live gigs now. These guys are the real deal. Completely accessible and down to Earth. Was standing behind Joseph at the in-house merch stand of The Capitol in Port Chester (NY), he was buying just like the rest of us. And Luke....once handed me his cell phone and wanted me to call his wife to come pick him up!! Ha. That was a while back. Anxious to see the NEW Toto live next month.
Thank you for the memories.
Kevin Andrusia
Orlando, FL
_________________________________
Great song but you buried the lead, the secret sauce
no mention of Timothy B Schmidt of Poco and Eagles fame singing basically the lead on the chorus.
It's what drew me to the song almost 40 years ago.
Donald Furrer
Poco, Toto and Eagles fan
_________________________________
Early on in college, I went with my best friend and a few other mixed mates to a house party that started small and intimate, but was quickly overrun with frat-adjacent hyperheterosexual dolts and teased-hair airheads, all intoxicated but not intoxicating, all friends of the host.
Boozing and barfing wasn't our scene — my best friend and I were the only two sober people there, and we were getting sick of being asked what was wrong with us for not drinking — so we decided to get back at the host by each stealing a small something from the house that the other person wanted. After we finished spiking a few beers with as much pepper as we could find, we settled on our contraband: sunglasses for my friend, and a cassette of "Toto IV" for me.
At the time, I was listening to a lot of rap and R&B, but I always had a soft spot for Toto and their lower charting Top 40 hits, from "99" to "Make Believe" and "Stranger in Town." And while I liked "I Won't Hold You Back" well enough, I didn't love it until I drove my gang back home, with "Toto IV" in the car cassette player, the soundtrack to a night drive full of laughter and camaraderie and Midwestern youthful dumbassery.
But "I Won't Hold You Back" didn't become my favorite Toto song ever until later in life, until I loved and lost, crushed down by failed liaisons that spoke languages for which I had no fluency, with only the right tune as a Rosetta Stone to decipher the true heart of the matter. Today, it's a struggle to hold back tears when that call-and-response between orchestra and guitar sweeps in, tears as both a appreciation of musical beauty and as a resigned understanding of romantic realities, and to have that depth of feeling from a pop song is the rarest of gifts.
As the music of my youth is pervasively strip-mined and fracked for the last traces of Meaningful Content to better sell a product or track a trailer, I'm so happy that "I Won't Hold You Back" is still mine, still connected to my thoughts and feelings and experiences, the only ownership that truly matters. I can never thank Luke and the gang enough.
Erick Haight
_________________________________
Something often missed with "I Won't Hold You Back" is how Lukather's really strong guitar chords in the choruses essentially created the 80s power ballad, BEFORE Sister Christian or Home Sweet Home. And then there's a really hip arrangement trick starting at about 3:20 (I had to listen again to find the time) where they have a very nice guitar solo but descending orchestra parts with french horn featured way up in the mix. When do you hear that in pop music? And it actually works really well.
I was also a fan of Fahrenheit. Didn't always like Joseph Williams' tone in those days, but sang and wrote great melodies. Their songs got LESS slick and more "out" on that record. The title track was really hip and maybe should have been a single. Williams has really worked on this aspect of his voice, and on more recent Toto and solo records, he sounds better than ever. Really remarkable how he's been able to hold up. Lukather, too, as his little run of solo albums in and around 2010 were really outstanding. Less slick than Toto, they had a feel that you just rarely get in today's music with so much of it gridded out.
I will say that some modern producers seem to be having success without "over-gridding" things. Daniel Tashian in Nashville is doing fantastic work in the pop and pop-country crossover fields, having actual success but kind of doing it old school. That's been amazing to watch in the last few years. As when Steven Wilson rose up in the 2000s and started having a nice kind of success, sometimes sheer quality and sticking to guns is enough to get over.
Best regards,
Ross Storey
_________________________________
Wow, man. I got chills reading this email. Thank you for shining an incredible positive light on a band that meant and means the world to me.
Toto IV, and yes, Fahrenheit, were supremely influential on me as a young wide-eyed wanna be studio keyboard player (I was 10 when IV was released, and the piano outro to Rosanna was so much schooling for me! Listened over and over on a cassette in our living room by our hideous Kimball piano trying to be David Paich), and I remember distinctly buying Fehrenheit, used, I confess, on vinyl when buying vinyl was "less hip" at the glorious Record Trader on Reseda Blvd.
I agree with you— Fahrenheit was a SLEEPER and a beast. "Without Your Love"— what a laid back but perfect way, somehow having an L.A. funk at such a ballad tempo… and yes, that incredible Amin Bhatia synth intro to the title track- so futuristic (I met Bhatia at the NAMM show once and after spotting his name tag COMPLETELY fan boy-ed out)… and Luke's guitar sound on the "Till the End" solo— what a record.
I had the incredible opportunity to see the Toto "Isolation" tour at the Universal Amphitheatre- we got tickets because somehow my mom worked for Bobby Kimball's insurance (Bobby was out of the band by this point so I still don't get how this worked.).
Anyway, "I Won't Hold You Back." I mean— Luke, the guitar sensation, writes it on PIANO. And those lyrics. It was always, "wait, isn't he the real ROCKER in the band? He FEELS things too??" That song is a pop masterpiece… dripping with sentiment and perfection. And Marty Paich's orchestration and the LSO?? PLEASE.
I was somehow miraculously the first guy Toto tapped to play keys when David Paich couldn't make a couple legs of the "Mindfields" tour in 2000— he showed me all the keyboard parts firsthand (Yeah, Paich— I never did get your "Ramsey Lewis" piano break in White Sister 100% correct!!) and took me under his wing. The slightly grown up kid who worshipped his Toto IV cassette couldn't believe what was happening. I still can't believe it happened. They've been heroes and friends ever since.
I just treasure the fact that you chose to do this deep and REAL dive reflecting a little love and light onto a band, Lukather, and some records that really talented guys took a lot of time, effort and passion to create. They are really special musicians, humans, and deserve a place at music's table of greatness. While so many critics and the press took the easy pot shots saying these "hired gun pros" didn't deserve to be taken seriously— I've never heard recorded evidence that proves their incredible worth, and never come across people who worked harder to achieve musical excellence. I cherish the time I've spent with these guys— both as a listener and in their presence as inspiring and supportive people.
Bob, I really appreciate your love letter to Toto, "I Won't Hold You Back" and their music. I'll read it often.
With much respect,
Jeff Babko
_________________________________
I was hired by the guys in Toto to write the album essays for their 40th Anniversary Box Set "All In". I'm a writer, but I'm a fan first and that's the approach I use when talking about bands I'm passionate about.
I became a fan of Toto back in '83 with so many others thanks to Africa, but quickly delved backwards into their completed catalogue and followed them with the release of every album since.
Not only are they the most gifted musicians I have ever had the honour to hear, watch, hang with and absorb into my listening life over the last 40 years, but they are also the most grounded, humble and self-depreciating people you will find.
They play their talent and accomplishments down, but it should be celebrated at the highest level.
And whilst they have had a few singers come and go and come back again, its always been Toto. Bobby, Fergie and Joseph have all brought their unique personalties to the band, but never have they changed the band.
I can't name my favourite Toto album, because on any given day it changes depending on my mood. Seldom has any band been so diverse across their history, but you know what? It doesn't matter what album or what singer or what song....it always sounds like Toto.
The names of Steve Lukather, David Paich, Jeff Porcaro, Mike Porcaro, David Hungate, Steve Porcaro and the unofficial member Lenny Castro, plus singers Bobby Kimball, Fergie Frederiksen (RIP), Joseph Williams and the cast of musicians that followed in their footsteps should all be celebrated by those appreciate truly great songwriting, precision arrangements and production and unbelievable musicianship.
After all, they were good enough for Michael Jackson, Aretha Franklin, George Benson, Art Garfunkel, Chicago, David Foster, Richard Marx, Leo Sayer, Kenny Rogers, Lionel Richie, Olivia Newton John, Randy Crawford, Neil Diamond etc etc...
Andrew McNeice
MelodicRock.com
_________________________________
A shit day redeemed!
While I knew Lukather shared lead vox on "Rosanna," I am embarrassed to say I thought that was a fluke, I didn't know he sang lead on all those other amazing songs.
If I'm being honest, I've only ever really known IV, which was the last album I had to have my mom buy me at the Murphy Mart before I was old enough to make my own purchases. I never made it to any of the other Toto albums, Kiss and Mötley Crüe made sure of that.
And I only remember playing "Rosanna," and then flipping the record over and getting really good at laying the needle down just perfectly so I could skip right to "Africa." But you inspired me to go back and listen to "I Won't Hold You Back," and oh man, it might be the best song on that album!
Then I dialed up "I'll Be Over You," just out of curiosity, assuming it wouldn't ring a bell—I mean, August 1986? It was all Look What the Cat Dragged In and Dancing Undercover for me at that point—but when that chorus kicked in? OF COURSE I know that song, hallelujah, its splendor had me giggling. (I think I was confusing it with "I Can't Hold Back.")
Am I a little wine-drunk here at 12:34am? Sure. But I'm almost positive these masterpieces would be making me just as giddy if I were sober. And screw it, after the day I've had, I deserve to be doing what I'm doing right now, listening to every Toto single ever in chronological order.
And I'm only through "Hold the Line" and "I'll Supply the Love," so I've got a whole lot of unbridled joy ahead of me tonight before I pass out.
Dean Moore
_________________________________
They had me for life at Hold the Line.
Bill Nelson
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Eric Pedersen
Topeka, KS
_________________________________
So crazy you wrote this because I was just listening to this song today and thinking how brilliant every bit of it is - from the beautiful piano intro (written by Luke, played by Paich), Luke's deeply heartfelt vocal performance, the brilliant vocal harmony arrangements featuring Timothy B. Schmit's lovely tenor, to the lush-but-never-over-wrought orchestration, and Lukather's soaring and perfectly-dramatic guitar solo. (Not to mention the exactly-as-it-should-be-done performances of David Hungate and Jeff Porcaro on bass and drums.) It's a great song, performed and produced perfectly by Toto and recorded by Al Schmitt. Timeless.
It should be a legendary track - up there with so many classics - but like most of Toto's genius, it's kind of ignored and set aside because it's Toto. I guess in the end it doesn't matter, because we know it's awesome.
In this world of instant access, perhaps it will get a second life when some influencer uses it on TikTok when he or she goes through a breakup, and then everyone will realize how great it is.
You Know I Won't Hold My Breath Now...
Great one, Bob. Thanks!
Brian Vitellaro
Austin, TX
_________________________________
My favorite songs by Toto were sang by Lukather. I don't know if I'd call them yacht rock necessarily but they're definitely soft rock gold.
Gary Shindler
_________________________________
Toto were the FIRST punk rockers!
To heck with Patti myth!
Kenn Kweder
_________________________________
You nailed it. I've always loved that song. And I've always respected that band. They were never cool… they just made really great records that still sound great four decades later.
Dave Hoeffel
SiriusXM 60s Gold
_________________________________
Also Timothy B Schmit on backing vocals! Arguably Luke's greatest guitar solo. His feel when he follows the melody is unparalleled. He repeats this with the ballad Anna off the Seventh One. His memoir goes into great detail on the production of this song (and album) and is definitely worth a read.
Greg Simon
_________________________________
And while you're throwing out kudos to "I Won't Hold You Back"...
Allow me to add that it is my guilty pleasure as well as my choice for best power ballad ever.
All ultimately tied together with the background vocals of Timothy B Schmit.
And speaking of Poco---
If you're looking for another similar song that is both soft and soaring...
Give "The Last Goodbye" from Legend a listen.
Marty Bender
_________________________________
Great piece on the magic of TOTO's music. My favorite Fahrenheit track is the same as yours, the first side closer "I'll Be Over You."
What makes it even more special is the vocal depth and goosebump moments delivered by Michael McDonald backing up Lukather - check the video and their "beatlesesque" rooftop moment: https://youtu.be/r7XhWUDj-Ts (which also 'screens' the Fahrenheit album cover 1.07 into the video;)).
Cheers,
Morten Dahlgren
Malmo, Sweden
_________________________________
Thank you for giving props to Steve Lukather and Toto! As a touring and session guitarist out of California and Nashville, he will always occupy a place in my guitar pantheon.
Michael Gregory
_________________________________
Hey Bob,
People either get Toto, or they don't.
Glad to see you get it.
Gary Berlak
Fresno
_________________________________
Agreed on Toto, great band, and many of us less-dogmatic prog rockers consider Toto prog.
American prog bands? Kansas, Starcastle, Spock's Beard, Echolyn. There are more, and granted, the genre's best are from
across the pond, but the above mentioned are not too shabby.
Best,
fritzdoddy
_________________________________
When "I Won't Hold You Back" was getting its initial airplay, I thought it sounded like a more grandly arranged sequel to the Eagles "I Can't Tell You Why." When I discovered that the high vocal part on the record was Timothy B. Schmit, that revelation explained why. I think Timmy's vocal on it is as essential as Lukather's to the recording's success.
Scott Paton
_________________________________
Their 35th Anniversary/Live from Poland is brilliant!! That one and Hornsby Live from Town Hall got me through the past two years.
Long live real players playing great songs live!!!
Mitchell Fox
_________________________________
Toto , bigger everywhere but here...opening for Journey next month. Hope Schon brings Luke out to play together. That would be pretty cool and definitely worth seeing.
Tom Hedtke
_________________________________
You wrote a wonderful piece. Paich is my buddy...bestie at my recent wedding. His first solo record is coming...I heard it today....40 years on still writin' an' playin' his ass off....and as you noted...still doin' it for music not fame.
Keep your craftsmanship comin'...Best, Steve Trudell
_________________________________
Great song. I love Toto and it's interesting they sell out shows overseas but cant in the US.
Kyle J. Ferraro
_________________________________
Ref: I won't hold you back.
Kudos for recognizing the talents of Toto Bob, a much underrated band.
In England they were derided as being "corporate rock", as if a bunch of suits in a smoke filled conference room had somehow drawn them up on a dry erase board.
What they were actually (shock, horror) were talented musicians who could play, sing AND write.
I saw them twice in London, the line up with Kimball, and then with Williams, and they were excellent both times.
I do take issue with your comment "there was never a credible American prog rock band" though.
Yes, my homeland certainly provided the template and the heavy hitters of the genre, but don't discount Kansas, Spock's Beard and Happy The Man, to name but three.
Keep on being an oasis of reason in this desert of craziness Bob.
Cheers, Mark Hudson. Schenectady NY.
_________________________________
Thanks for the Toto review! I love these guys, and it's rare to see a positive word for their multitude of accomplishments. Give the whole catalog a try. The later albums mostly led by Steve Lukather are also quite amazing. Crank up Tambu on your favorite speakers. That opening track will blow your mind. Falling in between, Mindfields, all excellent.
Sam Glaser
_________________________________
Bob!!
Can't believe you wrote about this and ever so happy you did.
That guitar solo, against the symphonic backdrop - and all of the dynamics involved harmonically are exactly why the song elevates from the speakers.
Kudos to you on recognizing that ( I Won't Hold You Back ) and also, the genius of the second album in its entirety. White Sister is a rocker that misses nothing and hits between the eyes - along w/ St. George and the Dragon etc.
Both Hydra and IV were staples for me as a young guitarist/pianist and aspiring composer back in the day.
Toto were/are no joke. The joke is on those who missed the genius. Thanks so much for this reminder, and you are spot on when saying its as good (or better) today, than when it was originally released.
Seriously great band.
Side note: Jeff Porcaro might be the most underrated session/rock drummer of his time. RIP.
Tom O'Keefe
Neurodisc Records, Inc
_________________________________
Lukather is one amazingly incredible guitarist. Acknowledged as one of the best in the industry. One of those guys that is under the public's radar, but anyone who knows music, knows Steve Lukather.
Toto will live forever in our musical conscience due to Africa and Rosanna, maybe 2 of the greatest songs AND performances ever recorded.
Leigh Goldstein
_________________________________
JFC I forgot all about 99. Thanks for the memory jog. Haven't heard that in probably 30 years. Not that I particularly need or want to, but it's funny how a song can bring you back to a certain time and place as though no time has elapsed and you're still there.
catmonster
_________________________________
Glad you flagged this song up. It really is a gem. I discovered Toto IV when I was about 25 in 2007, and I played it to death every day for the summer. It literally blew me away. In the UK - and across Europe, I'm guessing - Roger Sanchez had had a huge hit with 'Another Chance' - a house track which sampled 'I Won't Hold Back' beautifully, so this song was already familiar to me. Check out the video which taps into the isolation within the song respectfully: https://youtu.be/rdlvPe959Ck
You mention the BVs - pretty sure it's Timothy B Schmidt who's bringing the honey. One of the greatest BV vocal performances in my opinion.
Despite some of the dated instrumentation on this album, it stands the rest of time. As close to perfection as a musician is likely to get in the studio. I might just put it on again now…
About 10 years ago, I finally got to see Toto at the Hammersmith Apollo in London with some close muso friends - I took my mum too. Joseph Williams killed it, and to see Nathan East on bass in addition to the regular Toto members was one of the greatest treats of our lifetimes.
Take care and keep them coming, Bob.
Dave Thorogood.
_________________________________
Before I ever met him, I had always wanted to ask Steve Lukather, "Where have you been in life that your heart aches so?" These songs rip your heart out. "I Won't Hold You Back" in particular. For years, I heard he hung out at Hugo's in LA, so I would always try to "be around" when I was in town....thing is, I never asked WHICH Hugo's, so I was always at the one near Coldwater Canyon where a friend of mine lives. Was that the right one? Didn't matter, started doing the "old school" (pre-paid meet & greet days) operative and staked out the stage door after shows. He would usually be the last one out lol To that end, that heartache, where he's been in life that these words pour out of him, it's in the book, The Gospel According to Luke. A MUST read.
Roger Sanchez had an EDM oriented hit with this song in 2001....much to the surprise of the band. Another friend of mine said he ran into Luke not long after & he said it was the biggest #1 hit they ever had that they didn't get paid for. Word on the street being, the artist found a copy of IV in a used record bin and thought the hook in "I Won't Hold You Back" would work on his own recording. I'm sure that credit/payment got worked out in the end....
Once in a while, this song shows up on Sirius 80's On 8, usually in their hourly "Treasure Chest" selection or a repeat of an American Top 40 countdown. While other songs get the airplay, this is the one where it all really came together. They even had Timothy B. Schmit doing harmonies. As to the Hydra album? You really got my attention there. Worn out CD copies of that....which is nearly impossible. Several tours back, they were performing both the title track and "St George & The Dragon" back to back. Bliss. Pure bliss. The promotional videos they did for the two are interpretations of the album artwork, which features Steve Porcaro. I have a friend who lives & breathes "99", to this day his favorite Toto track. HIS fave album happens to be Fahrenheit....so this world, crazy as it may be, is a small patch in the universe.
I love Toto and even more love to read your interpretations and observations about them. Have been lucky to see them numerous times over the years, usually always a different incarnation. One particular tour featured original bassist David Hungate. At one time, I had always hoped to see Joseph Williams with them live and now I have seen him more than Bobby Kimball, who often plays his own live gigs now. These guys are the real deal. Completely accessible and down to Earth. Was standing behind Joseph at the in-house merch stand of The Capitol in Port Chester (NY), he was buying just like the rest of us. And Luke....once handed me his cell phone and wanted me to call his wife to come pick him up!! Ha. That was a while back. Anxious to see the NEW Toto live next month.
Thank you for the memories.
Kevin Andrusia
Orlando, FL
_________________________________
Great song but you buried the lead, the secret sauce
no mention of Timothy B Schmidt of Poco and Eagles fame singing basically the lead on the chorus.
It's what drew me to the song almost 40 years ago.
Donald Furrer
Poco, Toto and Eagles fan
_________________________________
Early on in college, I went with my best friend and a few other mixed mates to a house party that started small and intimate, but was quickly overrun with frat-adjacent hyperheterosexual dolts and teased-hair airheads, all intoxicated but not intoxicating, all friends of the host.
Boozing and barfing wasn't our scene — my best friend and I were the only two sober people there, and we were getting sick of being asked what was wrong with us for not drinking — so we decided to get back at the host by each stealing a small something from the house that the other person wanted. After we finished spiking a few beers with as much pepper as we could find, we settled on our contraband: sunglasses for my friend, and a cassette of "Toto IV" for me.
At the time, I was listening to a lot of rap and R&B, but I always had a soft spot for Toto and their lower charting Top 40 hits, from "99" to "Make Believe" and "Stranger in Town." And while I liked "I Won't Hold You Back" well enough, I didn't love it until I drove my gang back home, with "Toto IV" in the car cassette player, the soundtrack to a night drive full of laughter and camaraderie and Midwestern youthful dumbassery.
But "I Won't Hold You Back" didn't become my favorite Toto song ever until later in life, until I loved and lost, crushed down by failed liaisons that spoke languages for which I had no fluency, with only the right tune as a Rosetta Stone to decipher the true heart of the matter. Today, it's a struggle to hold back tears when that call-and-response between orchestra and guitar sweeps in, tears as both a appreciation of musical beauty and as a resigned understanding of romantic realities, and to have that depth of feeling from a pop song is the rarest of gifts.
As the music of my youth is pervasively strip-mined and fracked for the last traces of Meaningful Content to better sell a product or track a trailer, I'm so happy that "I Won't Hold You Back" is still mine, still connected to my thoughts and feelings and experiences, the only ownership that truly matters. I can never thank Luke and the gang enough.
Erick Haight
_________________________________
Something often missed with "I Won't Hold You Back" is how Lukather's really strong guitar chords in the choruses essentially created the 80s power ballad, BEFORE Sister Christian or Home Sweet Home. And then there's a really hip arrangement trick starting at about 3:20 (I had to listen again to find the time) where they have a very nice guitar solo but descending orchestra parts with french horn featured way up in the mix. When do you hear that in pop music? And it actually works really well.
I was also a fan of Fahrenheit. Didn't always like Joseph Williams' tone in those days, but sang and wrote great melodies. Their songs got LESS slick and more "out" on that record. The title track was really hip and maybe should have been a single. Williams has really worked on this aspect of his voice, and on more recent Toto and solo records, he sounds better than ever. Really remarkable how he's been able to hold up. Lukather, too, as his little run of solo albums in and around 2010 were really outstanding. Less slick than Toto, they had a feel that you just rarely get in today's music with so much of it gridded out.
I will say that some modern producers seem to be having success without "over-gridding" things. Daniel Tashian in Nashville is doing fantastic work in the pop and pop-country crossover fields, having actual success but kind of doing it old school. That's been amazing to watch in the last few years. As when Steven Wilson rose up in the 2000s and started having a nice kind of success, sometimes sheer quality and sticking to guns is enough to get over.
Best regards,
Ross Storey
_________________________________
Wow, man. I got chills reading this email. Thank you for shining an incredible positive light on a band that meant and means the world to me.
Toto IV, and yes, Fahrenheit, were supremely influential on me as a young wide-eyed wanna be studio keyboard player (I was 10 when IV was released, and the piano outro to Rosanna was so much schooling for me! Listened over and over on a cassette in our living room by our hideous Kimball piano trying to be David Paich), and I remember distinctly buying Fehrenheit, used, I confess, on vinyl when buying vinyl was "less hip" at the glorious Record Trader on Reseda Blvd.
I agree with you— Fahrenheit was a SLEEPER and a beast. "Without Your Love"— what a laid back but perfect way, somehow having an L.A. funk at such a ballad tempo… and yes, that incredible Amin Bhatia synth intro to the title track- so futuristic (I met Bhatia at the NAMM show once and after spotting his name tag COMPLETELY fan boy-ed out)… and Luke's guitar sound on the "Till the End" solo— what a record.
I had the incredible opportunity to see the Toto "Isolation" tour at the Universal Amphitheatre- we got tickets because somehow my mom worked for Bobby Kimball's insurance (Bobby was out of the band by this point so I still don't get how this worked.).
Anyway, "I Won't Hold You Back." I mean— Luke, the guitar sensation, writes it on PIANO. And those lyrics. It was always, "wait, isn't he the real ROCKER in the band? He FEELS things too??" That song is a pop masterpiece… dripping with sentiment and perfection. And Marty Paich's orchestration and the LSO?? PLEASE.
I was somehow miraculously the first guy Toto tapped to play keys when David Paich couldn't make a couple legs of the "Mindfields" tour in 2000— he showed me all the keyboard parts firsthand (Yeah, Paich— I never did get your "Ramsey Lewis" piano break in White Sister 100% correct!!) and took me under his wing. The slightly grown up kid who worshipped his Toto IV cassette couldn't believe what was happening. I still can't believe it happened. They've been heroes and friends ever since.
I just treasure the fact that you chose to do this deep and REAL dive reflecting a little love and light onto a band, Lukather, and some records that really talented guys took a lot of time, effort and passion to create. They are really special musicians, humans, and deserve a place at music's table of greatness. While so many critics and the press took the easy pot shots saying these "hired gun pros" didn't deserve to be taken seriously— I've never heard recorded evidence that proves their incredible worth, and never come across people who worked harder to achieve musical excellence. I cherish the time I've spent with these guys— both as a listener and in their presence as inspiring and supportive people.
Bob, I really appreciate your love letter to Toto, "I Won't Hold You Back" and their music. I'll read it often.
With much respect,
Jeff Babko
_________________________________
I was hired by the guys in Toto to write the album essays for their 40th Anniversary Box Set "All In". I'm a writer, but I'm a fan first and that's the approach I use when talking about bands I'm passionate about.
I became a fan of Toto back in '83 with so many others thanks to Africa, but quickly delved backwards into their completed catalogue and followed them with the release of every album since.
Not only are they the most gifted musicians I have ever had the honour to hear, watch, hang with and absorb into my listening life over the last 40 years, but they are also the most grounded, humble and self-depreciating people you will find.
They play their talent and accomplishments down, but it should be celebrated at the highest level.
And whilst they have had a few singers come and go and come back again, its always been Toto. Bobby, Fergie and Joseph have all brought their unique personalties to the band, but never have they changed the band.
I can't name my favourite Toto album, because on any given day it changes depending on my mood. Seldom has any band been so diverse across their history, but you know what? It doesn't matter what album or what singer or what song....it always sounds like Toto.
The names of Steve Lukather, David Paich, Jeff Porcaro, Mike Porcaro, David Hungate, Steve Porcaro and the unofficial member Lenny Castro, plus singers Bobby Kimball, Fergie Frederiksen (RIP), Joseph Williams and the cast of musicians that followed in their footsteps should all be celebrated by those appreciate truly great songwriting, precision arrangements and production and unbelievable musicianship.
After all, they were good enough for Michael Jackson, Aretha Franklin, George Benson, Art Garfunkel, Chicago, David Foster, Richard Marx, Leo Sayer, Kenny Rogers, Lionel Richie, Olivia Newton John, Randy Crawford, Neil Diamond etc etc...
Andrew McNeice
MelodicRock.com
_________________________________
A shit day redeemed!
While I knew Lukather shared lead vox on "Rosanna," I am embarrassed to say I thought that was a fluke, I didn't know he sang lead on all those other amazing songs.
If I'm being honest, I've only ever really known IV, which was the last album I had to have my mom buy me at the Murphy Mart before I was old enough to make my own purchases. I never made it to any of the other Toto albums, Kiss and Mötley Crüe made sure of that.
And I only remember playing "Rosanna," and then flipping the record over and getting really good at laying the needle down just perfectly so I could skip right to "Africa." But you inspired me to go back and listen to "I Won't Hold You Back," and oh man, it might be the best song on that album!
Then I dialed up "I'll Be Over You," just out of curiosity, assuming it wouldn't ring a bell—I mean, August 1986? It was all Look What the Cat Dragged In and Dancing Undercover for me at that point—but when that chorus kicked in? OF COURSE I know that song, hallelujah, its splendor had me giggling. (I think I was confusing it with "I Can't Hold Back.")
Am I a little wine-drunk here at 12:34am? Sure. But I'm almost positive these masterpieces would be making me just as giddy if I were sober. And screw it, after the day I've had, I deserve to be doing what I'm doing right now, listening to every Toto single ever in chronological order.
And I'm only through "Hold the Line" and "I'll Supply the Love," so I've got a whole lot of unbridled joy ahead of me tonight before I pass out.
Dean Moore
_________________________________
They had me for life at Hold the Line.
Bill Nelson
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Jeff Bhasker-This Week's Podcast
Producer, songwriter, musician Jeff Bhasker has worked with Kanye West, Bruno Mars, Lady Gaga, Taylor Swift and the Rolling Stones as well as Mark Ronson, for whose album "Uptown Special" he shared the Producer of the Year Grammy. Jeff recounts his journey from New Mexico to Berklee to the road to a song on the Game's album to working with Kanye to being one of the most sought out producers in the world.
https://www.iheart.com/podcast/1119-the-bob-lefsetz-podcast-30806836/episode/jeff-bhasker-93039235/
https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/jeff-bhasker/id1316200737?i=1000551379522
https://open.spotify.com/episode/0sggXoBlR4cbo8Ih8FjUln?si=TFtyWSfsRs28z4yGmvHM_w
https://music.amazon.com/podcasts/9ff4fb19-54d4-41ae-ae7a-8a6f8d3dafa8/episodes/0418d921-a90b-42a3-810b-3bda78470903/the-bob-lefsetz-podcast-jeff-bhasker
https://listen.stitcher.com/yvap/?af_dp=stitcher://episode/90551611&af_web_dp=https://www.stitcher.com/episode/90551611
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https://www.iheart.com/podcast/1119-the-bob-lefsetz-podcast-30806836/episode/jeff-bhasker-93039235/
https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/jeff-bhasker/id1316200737?i=1000551379522
https://open.spotify.com/episode/0sggXoBlR4cbo8Ih8FjUln?si=TFtyWSfsRs28z4yGmvHM_w
https://music.amazon.com/podcasts/9ff4fb19-54d4-41ae-ae7a-8a6f8d3dafa8/episodes/0418d921-a90b-42a3-810b-3bda78470903/the-bob-lefsetz-podcast-jeff-bhasker
https://listen.stitcher.com/yvap/?af_dp=stitcher://episode/90551611&af_web_dp=https://www.stitcher.com/episode/90551611
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Wednesday 16 February 2022
I Won't Hold You Back
Spotify playlist: https://spoti.fi/3LC0wQN
YouTube: https://bit.ly/3539uFL
I thought it was on "Fahrenheit." That's my favorite Toto album.
The initial one had "Hold the Line," which was all over the radio.
The second one was "Hydra," which was less successful commercially, but was the one that sold me. I was on a flight from L.A. to Aspen and heard "99" on the in-flight program, remember those? With those squishy headphone ends? That was the only musical option you had, there were no smartphones, never mind iPods or even Walkmans. And the choices were always cheesy. Well, at least the ones for rock. There were usually seven channels or so, and the hip one was out of date, with anomalies no self-respecting fan of FM rock would listen to. But you checked it out nonetheless. And did I say the audio was poor? This was before noise-canceling headphones.
I eventually bought "Hydra," on vinyl, cassettes were for amateurs, if you needed a portable version you made your own, in real time, which were far superior to those duplicated at high speed by the manufacturer. And from the very beginning "Hydra" was intriguing. This was back when albums were statements, works of art, and were created that way, where the first tack might not be the single, but an introduction to the act's latest opus. And in truth, the opening track, the title track, started off majestic, orchestral, then fell into a groove, and then became almost prog rock, but that was an English construction, there was never a credible American prog rock band and no one ever considered Toto to be prog. But really it was the second track, "St. George and the Dragon," that sealed the deal, with David Paich's keyboard intro, it was hard not to nod your head. Forget the lyrics, it's the sound that's intriguing, and the dynamics, this was a freight train of a band, akin to those of the late sixties stages, yet with the edges worn off but with the power remaining. And then come "99."
The third LP, "Turn Back," didn't build on what had been established, so no one could have predicted the subsequent opus, "IV," which was all over the radio and won all those Grammys. Toto was not a Top Forty band, but "IV" crossed over. And there was the connection to Rosanna Arquette. You didn't have to own it, you still heard it. In a way nothing is heard today. And isn't it funny that when the band excised outside producers and did it themselves they reached the zenith.
It's nearly impossible to follow up a monolith, just ask Alanis Morissette, and Toto couldn't either, "Isolation" was a commercial disappointment.
But then came "Fahrenheit." Not that anybody was waiting for it with bated breath.
The band had gone through changes. Canning its original singer, Bobby Kimball, for Fergie Frederiksen, and since the act was following up a monster, this news was all over the press, contributing to the disappointment of "IV"'s follow-up "Isolation." And then with "Fahrenheit," the band switched singers once again, to Joseph Williams, son of John, huh?
But I saw "Fahrenheit" in the promo bin and purchased it, remembering how much I enjoyed "Hydra," and I dropped the needle, yes, CDs were available in 1986, but they were still expensive and not fully embraced, and was immediately drawn in.
"Till the End,' which was actually the opening, had the magic of "St. George and the Dragon" but Williams evidenced a bit more emotion than his predecessors Kimball and Fredriksen. He was spitting the lyrics, however sweetly, and they seemed to be authentic.
And then "Fahrenheit" maintained the magic. The second cut, "We Can Make It Tonight," was magical from the beginning and listening one knew this LP was a winner, two in a row isn't easy. And really, the album is great, not for punk rockers, but if you can appreciate sweetness and talent all wrapped up into one, in an era where you didn't have to have an edge to succeed, you'll dig it. But the best track is the first side closer, "I'll Be Over You." Wikipedia tells me it had impact on Top 40 and AC, but I never listened to those formats. But I did make a cassette of "Fahrenheit" and played it in the car. I didn't care what anybody thought, although at this point most rock fans were not thinking of Toto, because of the dud that preceded it, and let my mind drift. The truth is all men have soft spots, they just don't like to show them. But get a few drinks in them in a dark room and you'll be stunned what they have to say, reminiscing about old loves, missed chances. They might be pierced and tattooed, wearing a leather jacket, but they're all looking for a woman to embrace them, to fall into and soothe their wounds (or a man!)
So when I was creating my yacht rock playlist I thought "I Won't Hold You Back" was on "Fahrenheit," because that's the Toto album I know best, by heart, but it's not. I was stunned to find out "I Won't Hold You Back" was on "IV."
And listening I realized it was LUKATHER! The stinging guitar player, who'd made his bones in the studio, he sang "99," "I'll Be Over You" and "I Won't Hold You Back" and was involved in the writing too. Of all the guys in the band, the one with the spiky hair and the swagger is the introspective one with a soft side?
"If I had another chance tonight
I'd try to tell you that the things we had were right
Time can erase the love we shared
But it gives me time to realize just how much you cared"
It's over, he has regrets. He knows he acted badly, he knows he was at fault, he feels bad about it. As for time erasing the love you share...I don't believe that, your beloved remains frozen in your brain, they're still in your heart, you can move on, but you can never get completely over them.
"Now you're gone, I'm really not the same
I guess I held myself to blame
Time can erase the things we said
But it gives me time to realize that you're the one who's sad"
You don't realize what you've got till it's gone, that's true. As for time erasing the things that were said...it's funny, the zings, the dealbreakers, they fade away and you only remember the good times.
But the verses are just a set-up for the chorus. They're the story, but not the hit to the body, the magic that puts "I Won't Hold You Back" over the top. This is something music can do that movies and TV cannot. A repetitive dart to the heart that infects you that you never recover from. The best songs you never really burn out on, they've got a special place inside you.
And the majesty of "I Won't Hold You Back" does not appear in most tracks. There's something similar, especially with the harmonies, in Chicago's "(I've Been) Searchin' So Long," but that ends on an exuberant note whereas "I Won't Hold You Back" does not, everybody still remains where they are, disconnected and apart. As for what his ex beloved feels we have no idea. He's stating that he cares for her. He's accepted it's over, but...
"You know I won't hold you back now
The love we had just can't be found
You know I can't hold you back now"
You stop reaching. You let them go. You still have your feelings, but they're unrequited. Or maybe you were such a bad boyfriend they refuse to return, many times bitten, very shy. He's setting her free, reluctantly. He won't interfere. But he now realizes what he lost. She cared, they shared, it worked until he screwed it up. That's right, the love they had just can't be found, There are billions of people in the world, but finding someone you can connect with and be with is damn hard.
But it's more than the lyrics. More than the changes. More than the background vocals (although those are superior and magical unto themselves, enough to make the track memorable all by themselves). It's the orchestrations of James Newton Howard and Marty Paich, and Luke's stinging guitar on top of it all in the instrumental section.
But it's always back to that chorus. Over and over again. Just like you play the relationship over and over in your head.
Toto were criticized for all the stuff that's now a lost art. Aces with studio experience, who can both write and play who didn't start doing it for the fame. Mixed in with the orchestra made possible by a lot of money and studio time. Seemingly all these elements are gone. Studio musicians... There are few sessions, few opportunities. Maybe because there's not enough money to get it right in the big rooms. But now the search is for something grittier, less sweet, based on rhythm as opposed to melody. And those leaning in that direction are so sappy as to be discarded by anybody who's been around and seen the real thing. Used to be the music was enough to sell the record, few knew who was even in Toto, now personality is dominant, and you burnish it with social media. As for tracks that are forever?
"I Won't Hold You Back" is forty years old, but it sounds as fresh and impactful as the day it was released. It's not dated by period sounds. And first and foremost it's a song. And the message is eternal. And it's a revelation to hear that guitar solo screaming over the orchestra, that's not even a sound in today's canon.
Surprisingly, "Africa" came back, as a result of a cover by Weezer. Do I expect "I Won't Hold You Back" to come back? No, because the hipsters in charge of such things don't want to touch, to embrace something that puts the heart first, it's kryptonite to them, but in truth it's what so much of the audience wants, and needs. Along with a significant other.
YouTube: https://bit.ly/3539uFL
I thought it was on "Fahrenheit." That's my favorite Toto album.
The initial one had "Hold the Line," which was all over the radio.
The second one was "Hydra," which was less successful commercially, but was the one that sold me. I was on a flight from L.A. to Aspen and heard "99" on the in-flight program, remember those? With those squishy headphone ends? That was the only musical option you had, there were no smartphones, never mind iPods or even Walkmans. And the choices were always cheesy. Well, at least the ones for rock. There were usually seven channels or so, and the hip one was out of date, with anomalies no self-respecting fan of FM rock would listen to. But you checked it out nonetheless. And did I say the audio was poor? This was before noise-canceling headphones.
I eventually bought "Hydra," on vinyl, cassettes were for amateurs, if you needed a portable version you made your own, in real time, which were far superior to those duplicated at high speed by the manufacturer. And from the very beginning "Hydra" was intriguing. This was back when albums were statements, works of art, and were created that way, where the first tack might not be the single, but an introduction to the act's latest opus. And in truth, the opening track, the title track, started off majestic, orchestral, then fell into a groove, and then became almost prog rock, but that was an English construction, there was never a credible American prog rock band and no one ever considered Toto to be prog. But really it was the second track, "St. George and the Dragon," that sealed the deal, with David Paich's keyboard intro, it was hard not to nod your head. Forget the lyrics, it's the sound that's intriguing, and the dynamics, this was a freight train of a band, akin to those of the late sixties stages, yet with the edges worn off but with the power remaining. And then come "99."
The third LP, "Turn Back," didn't build on what had been established, so no one could have predicted the subsequent opus, "IV," which was all over the radio and won all those Grammys. Toto was not a Top Forty band, but "IV" crossed over. And there was the connection to Rosanna Arquette. You didn't have to own it, you still heard it. In a way nothing is heard today. And isn't it funny that when the band excised outside producers and did it themselves they reached the zenith.
It's nearly impossible to follow up a monolith, just ask Alanis Morissette, and Toto couldn't either, "Isolation" was a commercial disappointment.
But then came "Fahrenheit." Not that anybody was waiting for it with bated breath.
The band had gone through changes. Canning its original singer, Bobby Kimball, for Fergie Frederiksen, and since the act was following up a monster, this news was all over the press, contributing to the disappointment of "IV"'s follow-up "Isolation." And then with "Fahrenheit," the band switched singers once again, to Joseph Williams, son of John, huh?
But I saw "Fahrenheit" in the promo bin and purchased it, remembering how much I enjoyed "Hydra," and I dropped the needle, yes, CDs were available in 1986, but they were still expensive and not fully embraced, and was immediately drawn in.
"Till the End,' which was actually the opening, had the magic of "St. George and the Dragon" but Williams evidenced a bit more emotion than his predecessors Kimball and Fredriksen. He was spitting the lyrics, however sweetly, and they seemed to be authentic.
And then "Fahrenheit" maintained the magic. The second cut, "We Can Make It Tonight," was magical from the beginning and listening one knew this LP was a winner, two in a row isn't easy. And really, the album is great, not for punk rockers, but if you can appreciate sweetness and talent all wrapped up into one, in an era where you didn't have to have an edge to succeed, you'll dig it. But the best track is the first side closer, "I'll Be Over You." Wikipedia tells me it had impact on Top 40 and AC, but I never listened to those formats. But I did make a cassette of "Fahrenheit" and played it in the car. I didn't care what anybody thought, although at this point most rock fans were not thinking of Toto, because of the dud that preceded it, and let my mind drift. The truth is all men have soft spots, they just don't like to show them. But get a few drinks in them in a dark room and you'll be stunned what they have to say, reminiscing about old loves, missed chances. They might be pierced and tattooed, wearing a leather jacket, but they're all looking for a woman to embrace them, to fall into and soothe their wounds (or a man!)
So when I was creating my yacht rock playlist I thought "I Won't Hold You Back" was on "Fahrenheit," because that's the Toto album I know best, by heart, but it's not. I was stunned to find out "I Won't Hold You Back" was on "IV."
And listening I realized it was LUKATHER! The stinging guitar player, who'd made his bones in the studio, he sang "99," "I'll Be Over You" and "I Won't Hold You Back" and was involved in the writing too. Of all the guys in the band, the one with the spiky hair and the swagger is the introspective one with a soft side?
"If I had another chance tonight
I'd try to tell you that the things we had were right
Time can erase the love we shared
But it gives me time to realize just how much you cared"
It's over, he has regrets. He knows he acted badly, he knows he was at fault, he feels bad about it. As for time erasing the love you share...I don't believe that, your beloved remains frozen in your brain, they're still in your heart, you can move on, but you can never get completely over them.
"Now you're gone, I'm really not the same
I guess I held myself to blame
Time can erase the things we said
But it gives me time to realize that you're the one who's sad"
You don't realize what you've got till it's gone, that's true. As for time erasing the things that were said...it's funny, the zings, the dealbreakers, they fade away and you only remember the good times.
But the verses are just a set-up for the chorus. They're the story, but not the hit to the body, the magic that puts "I Won't Hold You Back" over the top. This is something music can do that movies and TV cannot. A repetitive dart to the heart that infects you that you never recover from. The best songs you never really burn out on, they've got a special place inside you.
And the majesty of "I Won't Hold You Back" does not appear in most tracks. There's something similar, especially with the harmonies, in Chicago's "(I've Been) Searchin' So Long," but that ends on an exuberant note whereas "I Won't Hold You Back" does not, everybody still remains where they are, disconnected and apart. As for what his ex beloved feels we have no idea. He's stating that he cares for her. He's accepted it's over, but...
"You know I won't hold you back now
The love we had just can't be found
You know I can't hold you back now"
You stop reaching. You let them go. You still have your feelings, but they're unrequited. Or maybe you were such a bad boyfriend they refuse to return, many times bitten, very shy. He's setting her free, reluctantly. He won't interfere. But he now realizes what he lost. She cared, they shared, it worked until he screwed it up. That's right, the love they had just can't be found, There are billions of people in the world, but finding someone you can connect with and be with is damn hard.
But it's more than the lyrics. More than the changes. More than the background vocals (although those are superior and magical unto themselves, enough to make the track memorable all by themselves). It's the orchestrations of James Newton Howard and Marty Paich, and Luke's stinging guitar on top of it all in the instrumental section.
But it's always back to that chorus. Over and over again. Just like you play the relationship over and over in your head.
Toto were criticized for all the stuff that's now a lost art. Aces with studio experience, who can both write and play who didn't start doing it for the fame. Mixed in with the orchestra made possible by a lot of money and studio time. Seemingly all these elements are gone. Studio musicians... There are few sessions, few opportunities. Maybe because there's not enough money to get it right in the big rooms. But now the search is for something grittier, less sweet, based on rhythm as opposed to melody. And those leaning in that direction are so sappy as to be discarded by anybody who's been around and seen the real thing. Used to be the music was enough to sell the record, few knew who was even in Toto, now personality is dominant, and you burnish it with social media. As for tracks that are forever?
"I Won't Hold You Back" is forty years old, but it sounds as fresh and impactful as the day it was released. It's not dated by period sounds. And first and foremost it's a song. And the message is eternal. And it's a revelation to hear that guitar solo screaming over the orchestra, that's not even a sound in today's canon.
Surprisingly, "Africa" came back, as a result of a cover by Weezer. Do I expect "I Won't Hold You Back" to come back? No, because the hipsters in charge of such things don't want to touch, to embrace something that puts the heart first, it's kryptonite to them, but in truth it's what so much of the audience wants, and needs. Along with a significant other.
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Yacht Rock Playlist
https://spoti.fi/3GSs8gX
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Tuesday 15 February 2022
Football Dying
Change happens overnight.
The most important story you missed last week was this:
"Why This Could Be a Critical Year for Electric Cars - Booming in a depressed market, battery-powered vehicles are a plus for the climate but pose a big threat to carmakers and parts suppliers that are slow to change.": https://nyti.ms/351DH8s
Last year, electric cars made up NINE PERCENT ((9%) of new car sales worldwide...NINE PERCENT! That's astronomical!
But in the U.S?
Only 4%.
This is what drives me nuts about America. The supposed greatest country in the world whose biggest advocates are uneducated nincompoops who've never been anywhere.
Go to Norway. It's all electric! And Norway is a rich country because of its oil. It's the Scandinavian Saudi Arabia. And just like Saudi Arabia, it's investing in the future. But America? The last time I wrote about electric cars I got an e-mail from some idiot telling me internal combustion engines were forever!
Er, no. Absolutely not.
And even worse, the Detroit companies are way behind.
Even Mercedes-Benz. Its vaunted EQS is being panned by all the critics. Not because it's a bad car, but it's not in the league of Tesla and Lucid and the rest of the electric startups who began with a blank sheet of paper. There's too much legacy in the EQS, because the underlying platform has to work for a gasoline version too. Turns out you can't compromise in the fight for the future, you're either all in or you're out.
GM? Had to take its Bolt off the market. It caught fire. Ford's a bit better. Stellantis is way behind. Turns out the future of automobiles is Chinese. They are the only country that can compete with Tesla. China bought up lithium production around the world, a crucial element in battery cars, while Detroit was still asleep at the wheel.
But I take you back to Kodak. We kept hearing that digital would supersede film. But it never happened. There were digital cameras in the marketplace, but then seemingly overnight, EVERYONE switched to digital and your film camera was worth nothing.
Gonna be the same deal with electric cars. DO NOT BUY A NEW GASOLINE CAR! Unless you plan on getting rid of it within five years. Because the value is gonna crash overnight, your car will be worth nothing. Buy used. Or lease, which is insane for most people, financially stupid, today's cars are so good you can keep them for two decades, after your payments are through you're sailing clear, without payments. Some have tax advantages to leasing, most don't. They just want to drive a new car every few years or don't want to lay down for ownership, or can't afford it. If you're leasing a new car for status, just talk to the younger generation, THEY DON'T EVEN HAVE DRIVER'S LICENSES!!!
So people are e-mailing me that 112 million people watched the Super Bowl.
That's because it's a national event, the only time the country is all on the same page, there are parties, IT'S NOT BECAUSE OF FOOTBALL! Because otherwise the rest of the playoff games would have numbers in the same neighborhood and they're not even close.
People are driven to that which everybody else is, especially in the disconnected world we now live in. They want to feel included, they want to be able to comment. But if you think it's about the game... Look at the Grammys and the Oscars, flying high and then ratings tanked almost overnight, AND WILL NEVER COME BACK! Turns out their universality is gone. Used to be everybody watched them like the Super Bowl, then they all looked at each other and asked why and now don't.
This is how it happens, and it happens fast.
So the negatives of football are huge. First and foremost, the younger generation participation numbers are going down down down. They don't even have youth leagues in Inglewood, where the Super Bowl took place. Come on, every person has a mother, and most want to protect their children. As for the effects of football, read this article:
"For N.F.L. Perfection, a Steep Price - Nick Buoniconti, Jim Kiick and Jake Scott, of the undefeated 1972 Miami Dolphins, were each found to have C.T.E., the brain disease linked to head hits, bringing to six the number of players diagnosed from that team.": https://nyti.ms/3JwB6SG
I remember watching Nick Buoniconti on "Inside the NFL." They were always talking about him raising money for charity. His son was paralyzed playing football. And then Buoniconti disappeared. I wondered what happened. Turns out he had dementia from CTE and now he's DEAD!
You don't want to die, really. You'll be begging for more life at the end, believe me. As for full functionality, people killed themselves because of long Covid, football players are routinely committing suicide because of CTE. And mothers are gonna let their kids play the game? Come on!
And you're right, I used to watch. But now I can't. It offends my sensibilities.
Meanwhile, soccer has made inroads over decades and when the World Cup is played this year...believe me, all those kids who grew up playing soccer will be tuned in. And THE WHOLE WORLD will be tuned in, just like they are for electric cars. Turns out America is too often last.
And don't say that's because I hate the country. I'm saying to wake up, so we can compete! Trump kept all those foreigners out, who worked at Silicon Valley companies, and now they're creating startups in their own countries, we missed out.
So the esports revolution will happen overnight, just like digital cameras and electric cars. It's been in the marketplace for years, but change happens very slowly, then all at once.
Meanwhile, boomers are getting older every day. Young people are being minted as I write this.
It's kind of like baseball. I grew up when it was the number one American sport, absolutely. And then in the mid to late sixties the NFL usurped its title, because it was faster with more action. Meanwhile, I know tons of boomers who are addicted to baseball. Younger people? NONE! Why do you think your perspective is the world's, and nothing will ever change. And then the world changes and you want protection, you want to be made whole, no one can lose in America.
Football's got a ton of negatives. And nothing is forever. Gladiators? Those are history. But no, nothing can die in your lifetime, nothing you're addicted to!
Even skiing, my love. It was hip in the sixties and seventies, everybody talked about it. Then it became saturated, the tree-huggers wouldn't let them build new ski areas and the smaller areas closed when the big ones invested so much money in infrastructure that the middle class was squeezed out. There's still a ski industry, but it's mature, if you're a skier you're in a backwater, with the rest of your minority group. Even snowboarding! Gen-X embraced it, then kids started to ski instead of board, they didn't want to be like their parents, and snowboarding stalled, despite what you see in the Olympics, which reflect what was happening DECADES AGO! Hell, Shaun White is 35.
For the last twenty five years all we've seen is change. The CD is forever! Well, it turns out no.
And then change happened so rapidly. Big floppies to small floppies to hard drives to solid state storage. For years you've been angry at your cable company having a monopoly, and now the wireless companies are providing home broadband, actually that was one of the commercials in the Super Bowl!
So when you stand on ceremony, believe there will be no change, that your love is forever, you're just demonstrating a narrow perspective. Unfortunately, head in the sand ignorance is rampant in America today. But that doesn't mean change doesn't happen. Mark Zuckerberg was caught off guard by Apple's privacy protections and TikTok, and I'm supposed to believe you have your finger on the pulse of the future?
NO WAY!
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The most important story you missed last week was this:
"Why This Could Be a Critical Year for Electric Cars - Booming in a depressed market, battery-powered vehicles are a plus for the climate but pose a big threat to carmakers and parts suppliers that are slow to change.": https://nyti.ms/351DH8s
Last year, electric cars made up NINE PERCENT ((9%) of new car sales worldwide...NINE PERCENT! That's astronomical!
But in the U.S?
Only 4%.
This is what drives me nuts about America. The supposed greatest country in the world whose biggest advocates are uneducated nincompoops who've never been anywhere.
Go to Norway. It's all electric! And Norway is a rich country because of its oil. It's the Scandinavian Saudi Arabia. And just like Saudi Arabia, it's investing in the future. But America? The last time I wrote about electric cars I got an e-mail from some idiot telling me internal combustion engines were forever!
Er, no. Absolutely not.
And even worse, the Detroit companies are way behind.
Even Mercedes-Benz. Its vaunted EQS is being panned by all the critics. Not because it's a bad car, but it's not in the league of Tesla and Lucid and the rest of the electric startups who began with a blank sheet of paper. There's too much legacy in the EQS, because the underlying platform has to work for a gasoline version too. Turns out you can't compromise in the fight for the future, you're either all in or you're out.
GM? Had to take its Bolt off the market. It caught fire. Ford's a bit better. Stellantis is way behind. Turns out the future of automobiles is Chinese. They are the only country that can compete with Tesla. China bought up lithium production around the world, a crucial element in battery cars, while Detroit was still asleep at the wheel.
But I take you back to Kodak. We kept hearing that digital would supersede film. But it never happened. There were digital cameras in the marketplace, but then seemingly overnight, EVERYONE switched to digital and your film camera was worth nothing.
Gonna be the same deal with electric cars. DO NOT BUY A NEW GASOLINE CAR! Unless you plan on getting rid of it within five years. Because the value is gonna crash overnight, your car will be worth nothing. Buy used. Or lease, which is insane for most people, financially stupid, today's cars are so good you can keep them for two decades, after your payments are through you're sailing clear, without payments. Some have tax advantages to leasing, most don't. They just want to drive a new car every few years or don't want to lay down for ownership, or can't afford it. If you're leasing a new car for status, just talk to the younger generation, THEY DON'T EVEN HAVE DRIVER'S LICENSES!!!
So people are e-mailing me that 112 million people watched the Super Bowl.
That's because it's a national event, the only time the country is all on the same page, there are parties, IT'S NOT BECAUSE OF FOOTBALL! Because otherwise the rest of the playoff games would have numbers in the same neighborhood and they're not even close.
People are driven to that which everybody else is, especially in the disconnected world we now live in. They want to feel included, they want to be able to comment. But if you think it's about the game... Look at the Grammys and the Oscars, flying high and then ratings tanked almost overnight, AND WILL NEVER COME BACK! Turns out their universality is gone. Used to be everybody watched them like the Super Bowl, then they all looked at each other and asked why and now don't.
This is how it happens, and it happens fast.
So the negatives of football are huge. First and foremost, the younger generation participation numbers are going down down down. They don't even have youth leagues in Inglewood, where the Super Bowl took place. Come on, every person has a mother, and most want to protect their children. As for the effects of football, read this article:
"For N.F.L. Perfection, a Steep Price - Nick Buoniconti, Jim Kiick and Jake Scott, of the undefeated 1972 Miami Dolphins, were each found to have C.T.E., the brain disease linked to head hits, bringing to six the number of players diagnosed from that team.": https://nyti.ms/3JwB6SG
I remember watching Nick Buoniconti on "Inside the NFL." They were always talking about him raising money for charity. His son was paralyzed playing football. And then Buoniconti disappeared. I wondered what happened. Turns out he had dementia from CTE and now he's DEAD!
You don't want to die, really. You'll be begging for more life at the end, believe me. As for full functionality, people killed themselves because of long Covid, football players are routinely committing suicide because of CTE. And mothers are gonna let their kids play the game? Come on!
And you're right, I used to watch. But now I can't. It offends my sensibilities.
Meanwhile, soccer has made inroads over decades and when the World Cup is played this year...believe me, all those kids who grew up playing soccer will be tuned in. And THE WHOLE WORLD will be tuned in, just like they are for electric cars. Turns out America is too often last.
And don't say that's because I hate the country. I'm saying to wake up, so we can compete! Trump kept all those foreigners out, who worked at Silicon Valley companies, and now they're creating startups in their own countries, we missed out.
So the esports revolution will happen overnight, just like digital cameras and electric cars. It's been in the marketplace for years, but change happens very slowly, then all at once.
Meanwhile, boomers are getting older every day. Young people are being minted as I write this.
It's kind of like baseball. I grew up when it was the number one American sport, absolutely. And then in the mid to late sixties the NFL usurped its title, because it was faster with more action. Meanwhile, I know tons of boomers who are addicted to baseball. Younger people? NONE! Why do you think your perspective is the world's, and nothing will ever change. And then the world changes and you want protection, you want to be made whole, no one can lose in America.
Football's got a ton of negatives. And nothing is forever. Gladiators? Those are history. But no, nothing can die in your lifetime, nothing you're addicted to!
Even skiing, my love. It was hip in the sixties and seventies, everybody talked about it. Then it became saturated, the tree-huggers wouldn't let them build new ski areas and the smaller areas closed when the big ones invested so much money in infrastructure that the middle class was squeezed out. There's still a ski industry, but it's mature, if you're a skier you're in a backwater, with the rest of your minority group. Even snowboarding! Gen-X embraced it, then kids started to ski instead of board, they didn't want to be like their parents, and snowboarding stalled, despite what you see in the Olympics, which reflect what was happening DECADES AGO! Hell, Shaun White is 35.
For the last twenty five years all we've seen is change. The CD is forever! Well, it turns out no.
And then change happened so rapidly. Big floppies to small floppies to hard drives to solid state storage. For years you've been angry at your cable company having a monopoly, and now the wireless companies are providing home broadband, actually that was one of the commercials in the Super Bowl!
So when you stand on ceremony, believe there will be no change, that your love is forever, you're just demonstrating a narrow perspective. Unfortunately, head in the sand ignorance is rampant in America today. But that doesn't mean change doesn't happen. Mark Zuckerberg was caught off guard by Apple's privacy protections and TikTok, and I'm supposed to believe you have your finger on the pulse of the future?
NO WAY!
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The Super Bowl Halftime Show
It reflected the music of the players as opposed to the owners.
If you search online you will find three responses to Sunday's Super Bowl Dre extravaganza:
1. Best Super Bowl halftime show ever!
2. Okay, good to see hip-hop, it's about time, but do all the acts have to be twenty or thirty years past their prime?
3. Horrid. I turned it off.
I found the Super Bowl surprisingly flat.
In truth, football is fading, to be replaced by esports. The only people who don't know this is are those involved in it. And that number continues to decrease. Too many parents don't want their kids' lives shortened.
And football has very little action. Video games are all action.
Football requires physicality, as result of genes and training. ANYBODY can participate in esports.
It's fascinating to watch the boomer generation run its institutions off the rails. The Oscars announced a fan award will be decided on TWITTER! That's so 2012. When people watched the show and live-tweeted. The only people who still do that are those who've got an interest in the movie business, the scribes, everybody else doesn't care. Twitter is for news diehards and oldsters. Youngsters are on TikTok.
And what is the essence of TikTok? PARTICIPATION!
Everybody wants to play. Which is the democratic leveling that contributes to the growth of the aforementioned esports. If you want to draw attention to your enterprise, you've got to let the public participate.
I laud the ability of an outsider to present an Oscar, but if the Academy really desired excitement, they'd offer a role in a movie! That's right, the person with the best TikTok clip referencing an Oscar nominee gets a role in a film next year. In a Spielberg movie. Or Michael Bay. Or Spider-man. A SPEAKING ROLE! Yup, not just an extra. Give them a line. Or two. That anybody can do. Believe me, the TikTok generation will tune in to find out who won.
So watching football is a passive experience, when as stated above, everybody wants to participate. The game hasn't changed in decades, is beholden to advertisers and there's very little actual playing involved. The Super Bowl tradition is loved by oldsters. Youngsters? Eh...
So in this world you either lead or you follow. If you're not innovating, you're dying. If you've seen one Super Bowl, you've seen them all.
Like the commercials.
For decades, the actual Super Bowl game was not competitive. But you tuned in just to see the commercials. A paradigm that was established with Steve Jobs's 1984 commercial for the Macintosh. ONE commercial changed the whole paradigm. Since then? We've seen safe.
I mean my favorite commercial of the game was the "Sopranos" Chevy one. But it would have been better if there were more narrative. It was cognitive dissonance to hear Alabama 3's "Woke Up This Morning," as if someone had changed the channel. But why couldn't there be an arc? Steve Jobs bought two minutes for Apple in 1984, couldn't Chevy buy more time?
Which brings us back to the halftime show.
In truth, it's a visual performance. The audio is secondary. Most people listen on lousy TV systems anyway.
And it started with the set. All white. When you lose color, you add color. And the labels... Tam's Burgers? If you lived in L.A. you smiled.
And Dre was happy and Snoop showed why he was a superstar and the whole show proved why rock is dead. Point out the innovation in rock in the last two decades...smiling everyman meat and potatoes Dave Grohl?
Yes, the stars brought all their drama. Not only Mary J. Blige, but the rest of the performers.
Dr. Dre... The most unknown superstar there is. Who is Dre exactly? Nobody knows! Should we be afraid of him or in reality is he nice... He's inaccessible. But here he was, smiling.
And then Snoop delivered on all fronts. Not only his unique vocal delivery, but the way his body moved akin to a Slinky, as if he had no bones inside.
Fitty was a surprise.
Kendrick brought the whole thing up to date, he deserved his own headlining spot.
And then Marshall evidenced that intensity that had everybody scared twenty years ago.
Snoop... What really happened in that park? All we know is Snoop was acquitted. And we also know that Snoop is a football fanatic. And that he's good friends with Martha Stewart. Talk about an American story, if Snoop Dogg ran for president he'd win. Hands-down.
Fitty. He has his own checkered past.
As for Marshall... Let's see, he remarried Kim and they got divorced once again. Hailie went to college. He starred in his own movie. He gained an insane amount of weight then lost it. He got hooked on heroin, but here he is as if none of that mattered, delivering his lines like they still matter, like he still matters, unlike all the geriatric rock stars still plying the boards.
As for Mary J...
She didn't look like the models, the skinny social x-rays. She looked more human, like someone in your neighborhood. And unlike the models, she had rhythm and evidenced it.
The whole show was about rhythm. Which has supplanted melody in today's music. Rhythm is more basic, the underpinning, when all the rest is b.s. you strip it down to its basics.
Kinda like punk. The Ramones opened the floodgates, enough with prog rock, it was about energy and attitude and anybody could play, and did, just like they ultimately rapped.
Hip-hop won. By being more authentic. More grounded. More experimental. More real.
Is it a bit long in the tooth now? Sometimes a caricature of itself?
Yes. But nothing has come along to replace it. That's the irony of the internet age, there's so much more, across the board, but it takes so long for something new to become dominant. Overnight was over ten years ago. And if it happens real fast, it fades. Like Clubhouse. Heard anybody talk about that recently?
And if you rest on your laurels, you're dead. You can try and buy the competition, play hardball, but you can't keep down innovation, you can't dictate to the public, which is how TikTok usurped the social media throne from Facebook.
As far as Facebook competing with Reels, etc. It's about the PLATFORM more than the content. When you have the dominant platform it is not superseded by a copycat because all the people are already there, in a community, and sans community you've got nothing.
So in truth they should have given Dre control years ago.
And isn't it funny how he had to pay for it. Seven million supposedly. Proving, once again, that cash is king, and without it opportunity and upward mobility are steep slopes most people cannot climb.
But if corporations can buy advertising, Dr. Dre is entitled to buy time too.
And for the first time ever, the halftime show has gone viral. It's memorable. It's being watched and shared in the tens of millions, ultimately the hundreds of millions. Because like Kimmel says, it's not about the show, it's about the internet, the longevity. It blows up on the internet. Years from now, no one will remember who even played in last Sunday's Super Bowl, never mind won. But they'll remember the halftime show!
But the impact will never be the same as something from the pre-internet era. Because we no longer watch the same shows, consume the same art, the center stopped holding in America eons ago. As a matter of fact, there were multiple news stories over the weekend that white people were abandoning the NFL because they thought the owners were kowtowing to the Black players, who they thought already have too much power. Call it the Kaepernick effect. You've got to keep the "boys" down. Otherwise who knows what will happen!
Actually, nobody knows, now more than ever. Will Putin invade Ukraine? Will Trump win the nomination in 2024?
But one thing was for sure, twenty-odd years ago, if you wanted to know what was going on you listened to hip-hop, the sound of the streets, the sound of reality.
Sunday was a well-deserved victory lap.
So where do we go from here?
I don't know, but one thing is for sure, it's forward, not back. If you're protecting your interests, you've already lost. You've got to experiment, put it all on the line, lay down your truth. Which is anathema these days. Wasn't that the argument re Rogan? The truth? Well, it turns out the truth is fungible, irrelevant of its veracity. And without truth, you no longer have a society.
Music used to be the glue that held society together. This was what was wrought in the sixties and seventies, music is an elemental building block of the boomers.
But people today believe it's just music, that music always rules. That's patently wrong. Music rules when it pushes the envelope and is instructional, when it's aspirational as opposed to lowest common denominator pandering.
If you want to win today you've got to tap into the mind-set of the people. Big time sports can never do this. Never ever. But art can. Music, movies, TV. That is art's power. That is why artists are adored more than billionaires. And have more power if they choose to exercise it. But in an era where the acts want to be billionaires, have compromised and sacrificed their art in the pursuit of money, you end up with a hollowed-out sphere.
But the power is still there. Nascent, ready to be reawakened.
But growth is slower than ever, and today's younger generation is impatient, it wants it all and it wants it now, and now, more than ever, that's impossible.
It starts with you. Then you gain the hearts and minds of the public. You allow people to innovate and own your production. If they're messing with your music that's a TRIBUTE not a heinous copyright infringement. Hell, all those wankers who were against Napster and YouTube have finally woken up to the power of TikTok, they're DYING to have a viral moment like Fleetwood Mac, a regular citizen skateboarding with cranberry juice to music that is playing to one as opposed to everyone.
So the halftime show was a delineation of what was. It's also a harbinger, a blueprint of what can be. It's all there, you've just go to look below the surface.
You need to look deep inside, reflect your inner feelings without compromise, and then they might resonate.
The game didn't.
But the halftime show did.
HOORAY!
--
Visit the archive: http://lefsetz.com/wordpress/
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Listen to the podcast:
-iHeart: https://ihr.fm/2Gi5PFj
-Apple: https://apple.co/2ndmpvp
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If you search online you will find three responses to Sunday's Super Bowl Dre extravaganza:
1. Best Super Bowl halftime show ever!
2. Okay, good to see hip-hop, it's about time, but do all the acts have to be twenty or thirty years past their prime?
3. Horrid. I turned it off.
I found the Super Bowl surprisingly flat.
In truth, football is fading, to be replaced by esports. The only people who don't know this is are those involved in it. And that number continues to decrease. Too many parents don't want their kids' lives shortened.
And football has very little action. Video games are all action.
Football requires physicality, as result of genes and training. ANYBODY can participate in esports.
It's fascinating to watch the boomer generation run its institutions off the rails. The Oscars announced a fan award will be decided on TWITTER! That's so 2012. When people watched the show and live-tweeted. The only people who still do that are those who've got an interest in the movie business, the scribes, everybody else doesn't care. Twitter is for news diehards and oldsters. Youngsters are on TikTok.
And what is the essence of TikTok? PARTICIPATION!
Everybody wants to play. Which is the democratic leveling that contributes to the growth of the aforementioned esports. If you want to draw attention to your enterprise, you've got to let the public participate.
I laud the ability of an outsider to present an Oscar, but if the Academy really desired excitement, they'd offer a role in a movie! That's right, the person with the best TikTok clip referencing an Oscar nominee gets a role in a film next year. In a Spielberg movie. Or Michael Bay. Or Spider-man. A SPEAKING ROLE! Yup, not just an extra. Give them a line. Or two. That anybody can do. Believe me, the TikTok generation will tune in to find out who won.
So watching football is a passive experience, when as stated above, everybody wants to participate. The game hasn't changed in decades, is beholden to advertisers and there's very little actual playing involved. The Super Bowl tradition is loved by oldsters. Youngsters? Eh...
So in this world you either lead or you follow. If you're not innovating, you're dying. If you've seen one Super Bowl, you've seen them all.
Like the commercials.
For decades, the actual Super Bowl game was not competitive. But you tuned in just to see the commercials. A paradigm that was established with Steve Jobs's 1984 commercial for the Macintosh. ONE commercial changed the whole paradigm. Since then? We've seen safe.
I mean my favorite commercial of the game was the "Sopranos" Chevy one. But it would have been better if there were more narrative. It was cognitive dissonance to hear Alabama 3's "Woke Up This Morning," as if someone had changed the channel. But why couldn't there be an arc? Steve Jobs bought two minutes for Apple in 1984, couldn't Chevy buy more time?
Which brings us back to the halftime show.
In truth, it's a visual performance. The audio is secondary. Most people listen on lousy TV systems anyway.
And it started with the set. All white. When you lose color, you add color. And the labels... Tam's Burgers? If you lived in L.A. you smiled.
And Dre was happy and Snoop showed why he was a superstar and the whole show proved why rock is dead. Point out the innovation in rock in the last two decades...smiling everyman meat and potatoes Dave Grohl?
Yes, the stars brought all their drama. Not only Mary J. Blige, but the rest of the performers.
Dr. Dre... The most unknown superstar there is. Who is Dre exactly? Nobody knows! Should we be afraid of him or in reality is he nice... He's inaccessible. But here he was, smiling.
And then Snoop delivered on all fronts. Not only his unique vocal delivery, but the way his body moved akin to a Slinky, as if he had no bones inside.
Fitty was a surprise.
Kendrick brought the whole thing up to date, he deserved his own headlining spot.
And then Marshall evidenced that intensity that had everybody scared twenty years ago.
Snoop... What really happened in that park? All we know is Snoop was acquitted. And we also know that Snoop is a football fanatic. And that he's good friends with Martha Stewart. Talk about an American story, if Snoop Dogg ran for president he'd win. Hands-down.
Fitty. He has his own checkered past.
As for Marshall... Let's see, he remarried Kim and they got divorced once again. Hailie went to college. He starred in his own movie. He gained an insane amount of weight then lost it. He got hooked on heroin, but here he is as if none of that mattered, delivering his lines like they still matter, like he still matters, unlike all the geriatric rock stars still plying the boards.
As for Mary J...
She didn't look like the models, the skinny social x-rays. She looked more human, like someone in your neighborhood. And unlike the models, she had rhythm and evidenced it.
The whole show was about rhythm. Which has supplanted melody in today's music. Rhythm is more basic, the underpinning, when all the rest is b.s. you strip it down to its basics.
Kinda like punk. The Ramones opened the floodgates, enough with prog rock, it was about energy and attitude and anybody could play, and did, just like they ultimately rapped.
Hip-hop won. By being more authentic. More grounded. More experimental. More real.
Is it a bit long in the tooth now? Sometimes a caricature of itself?
Yes. But nothing has come along to replace it. That's the irony of the internet age, there's so much more, across the board, but it takes so long for something new to become dominant. Overnight was over ten years ago. And if it happens real fast, it fades. Like Clubhouse. Heard anybody talk about that recently?
And if you rest on your laurels, you're dead. You can try and buy the competition, play hardball, but you can't keep down innovation, you can't dictate to the public, which is how TikTok usurped the social media throne from Facebook.
As far as Facebook competing with Reels, etc. It's about the PLATFORM more than the content. When you have the dominant platform it is not superseded by a copycat because all the people are already there, in a community, and sans community you've got nothing.
So in truth they should have given Dre control years ago.
And isn't it funny how he had to pay for it. Seven million supposedly. Proving, once again, that cash is king, and without it opportunity and upward mobility are steep slopes most people cannot climb.
But if corporations can buy advertising, Dr. Dre is entitled to buy time too.
And for the first time ever, the halftime show has gone viral. It's memorable. It's being watched and shared in the tens of millions, ultimately the hundreds of millions. Because like Kimmel says, it's not about the show, it's about the internet, the longevity. It blows up on the internet. Years from now, no one will remember who even played in last Sunday's Super Bowl, never mind won. But they'll remember the halftime show!
But the impact will never be the same as something from the pre-internet era. Because we no longer watch the same shows, consume the same art, the center stopped holding in America eons ago. As a matter of fact, there were multiple news stories over the weekend that white people were abandoning the NFL because they thought the owners were kowtowing to the Black players, who they thought already have too much power. Call it the Kaepernick effect. You've got to keep the "boys" down. Otherwise who knows what will happen!
Actually, nobody knows, now more than ever. Will Putin invade Ukraine? Will Trump win the nomination in 2024?
But one thing was for sure, twenty-odd years ago, if you wanted to know what was going on you listened to hip-hop, the sound of the streets, the sound of reality.
Sunday was a well-deserved victory lap.
So where do we go from here?
I don't know, but one thing is for sure, it's forward, not back. If you're protecting your interests, you've already lost. You've got to experiment, put it all on the line, lay down your truth. Which is anathema these days. Wasn't that the argument re Rogan? The truth? Well, it turns out the truth is fungible, irrelevant of its veracity. And without truth, you no longer have a society.
Music used to be the glue that held society together. This was what was wrought in the sixties and seventies, music is an elemental building block of the boomers.
But people today believe it's just music, that music always rules. That's patently wrong. Music rules when it pushes the envelope and is instructional, when it's aspirational as opposed to lowest common denominator pandering.
If you want to win today you've got to tap into the mind-set of the people. Big time sports can never do this. Never ever. But art can. Music, movies, TV. That is art's power. That is why artists are adored more than billionaires. And have more power if they choose to exercise it. But in an era where the acts want to be billionaires, have compromised and sacrificed their art in the pursuit of money, you end up with a hollowed-out sphere.
But the power is still there. Nascent, ready to be reawakened.
But growth is slower than ever, and today's younger generation is impatient, it wants it all and it wants it now, and now, more than ever, that's impossible.
It starts with you. Then you gain the hearts and minds of the public. You allow people to innovate and own your production. If they're messing with your music that's a TRIBUTE not a heinous copyright infringement. Hell, all those wankers who were against Napster and YouTube have finally woken up to the power of TikTok, they're DYING to have a viral moment like Fleetwood Mac, a regular citizen skateboarding with cranberry juice to music that is playing to one as opposed to everyone.
So the halftime show was a delineation of what was. It's also a harbinger, a blueprint of what can be. It's all there, you've just go to look below the surface.
You need to look deep inside, reflect your inner feelings without compromise, and then they might resonate.
The game didn't.
But the halftime show did.
HOORAY!
--
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
--
If you would like to subscribe to the LefsetzLetter,
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Yacht Rock-This Week On SiriusXM
Tune in today, February 15th, to Volume 106, 7 PM East, 4 PM West.
Phone #: 844-6-VOLUME, 844-686-5863
Twitter: @lefsetz or @siriusxmvolume/#lefsetzlive
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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Visit the archive: http://lefsetz.com/wordpress/
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Listen to the podcast:
-iHeart: https://ihr.fm/2Gi5PFj
-Apple: https://apple.co/2ndmpvp
--
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Phone #: 844-6-VOLUME, 844-686-5863
Twitter: @lefsetz or @siriusxmvolume/#lefsetzlive
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
--
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
--
If you would like to subscribe to the LefsetzLetter,
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If you do not want to receive any more LefsetzLetters, http://lefsetz.com/lists/?p=unsubscribe&uid=0eecea7b60b461717065cbde887c8e25
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