Evolve or die.
Every time a tech company capitulates to its audience and rolls back the future it's a mistake. The best example being Netflix saying it was going to become a streaming company and the hoi polloi bitching that they still needed to rent DVDs by mail. Who'd want to stream movies? Well, despite Netflix backtracking, saying it was going to split into two companies, the streaming giant was right all along. Rent any DVDs by mail recently? Never mind streaming decimating linear television while ushering in the true golden age of television, now the superior art form. The boob tube? It's not even a tube anymore!
And Disney and HBO ultimately woke up, after getting over their short term profit mania of licensing their shows to others.
Bottom line? Sharing photos is old school.
I could go back to the days of AOL and illustrate all the stuff that ruled then which looks positively quaint today. Like their constant hosting of online discussions with celebrities. Sure, we still have Reddit AMAs, but they're not top of mind at all.
This is the history of tech, moving forward.
A personal example. I'm an early adopter. I was visible online when very few were. Therefore, I heard from all these people I knew during my life that I'd lost touch with, I was reachable. Now EVERYBODY is reachable. That's what Facebook has wrought, and it's positively old school and I no longer hear from ancient buddies. And to tell you the truth, I'm not interested in seeing you brag online. And I'm not even that interested in what you're doing moment by moment. All that sharing... Now I know why I lost touch with you in the first place.
So TikTok is not static, it's entertainment. Talk to any of the big TV streamers, they fear TikTok more than each other. TikTok eats up three hours a day of the young 'uns' lives. Leaving little time to stream TV. As for network... Do these kids even have cable access?
And TikTok is about something different from Instagram, it's about ENTERTAINMENT! Seeing what is cool. Sure, there's a train-wreck factor, but it's hard to tear yourself away from the endless videos. It's the hotspot of the internet in 2022 when the entire digital infrastructure is de rigueur, expected, part of the fabric.
So why are the Kardashian/Jenners so upset about these changes?
THE MONEY!
You see they've got all these followers, and therefore they can charge advertisers 650k to a million dollars for a post. Talk about easy money.
But one of the reasons TikTok is so successful is because it's democratized, the winners don't necessarily take all. The algorithm promotes the new and different. So, it's kind of like the lottery, anybody can win, as long as you buy a ticket.
But the lottery requires no skill. With TikTok the number one criterion for success is creativity, and this is anathema to the brain dead. Which is why all the music sounds the same, why all the movies are based on comic book characters. Because the big companies with money don't want to take any risk, they want sure shots. But individuals? They cook up all kinds of wild things, in an effort to gain views and internet fame and possibly some money too.
This is not the Kardashian/Jenner paradigm, which is built like a traditional business. I.e. you build a base and you keep expanding upon it. You don't want your core skills to be superseded and you don't want a level playing field.
Video is much different from stills. The Kardashian/Jenners have employed makeup, airbrushing and plastic surgery to success. But when you've got to move... And the most successful TikToks are the least professional ones. All the old values of recorded entertainment, the raw, the credible, the incredible, are important on TikTok. How you look? Much less important.
So, everyone making bank from stills on Instagram doesn't want it to shift to the much harder to produce, much more authentic video. They've got to learn a new skill and unless their posts are great, the algorithm won't proffer them and...
As for the nobodies clamoring for the old photo format... Look at Facebook itself, positively a social media also-ran. Oldsters doing the same thing they did ten years ago, trading info. Even Meta itself said this is not how you do it anymore, it's all about direct messages, texts, iMessage, that's how you reach your buds, privately. And chances are most people don't see your posts on social media anyway, unless...
You're a Kardashian/Jenner with millions of followers.
Only a small minority will actually see the posts, but it's just like network television... Ratings are terrible compared to the days of yore, but advertising on network is still the best way to reach the most people.
As for advertisers themselves, they've tightened the purse strings, they're not sure all that money they were throwing around online was paying dividends. Just like sponsorship in music. If you want to get a big company involved in your tour, you'd better be able to demonstrate how they're going to get their money back, the value, because hanging with rock stars is no longer enough.
It all goes back to Steve Jobs. You do no market research, because that will just tell you where you've been. And the public has no concept of the future until you deliver it.
It's no longer about personal sharing, it's about ENTERTAINMENT! You've got to earn those views through quality, otherwise the algorithm won't cough you up.
Flipping the story over... You can never trust the big tech kahunas. Google changes its algorithm, Amazon goes into competition with you as it charges ever more to play... You've got to be nimble to survive in the online world, if you keep doing the same thing you're going to find yourself out of time. Like rock music.
Instagram just blinked, a la Netflix, but don't expect this to last.
And as Clayton Christensen said, if a company is not willing to disrupt itself, it will be disrupted by someone else. In this case, Meta's platforms by TikTok.
As for Meta... It was disrupted by Apple. Meta kept saying tracking was good. For the small company. For business. But in truth, it was good for the company itself. But customers hated the lack of privacy. And therefore Apple allowed you to hide your identity and almost everybody now does.
But Meta sees the end of the road, which is why it's investing so much money in VR, i.e. the metaverse. Will Facebook succeed? That's yet to be seen. But one thing is for sure, Zuckerberg realizes if he rests on his laurels and just keeps doing what he's doing he's screwed, better to throw the long ball.
The people already voted, they want short form video a la TikTok.
The fact that there are celebs complaining about change... When have they ever been right?
The labels said the CD was superior to all other formats, especially traded MP3s.
The acts said you can't cherry-pick tunes.
All these complaints were superseded by streaming music platforms like Spotify. The public didn't even understand Spotify when it was launched. But now streaming music is everything, that's where all the money is, that's what the consumers want, despite all this hype on vinyl and the manipulated charts.
A classic rock band may be able to tour on its ancient hits, but not a tech company. In tech you have to constantly innovate, because he not busy born is busy dying.
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Friday 29 July 2022
Mailbag
From: Tim Palmer
Subject: Sandy Roberton
Bob,
I'm completely devastated to report that my manager of almost 40 years, the legendary Sandy Roberton has died.
I first met him while I was engineering for a German producer/client of Sandy's called Zeus B. Held in London. We were working on the Dead or Alive album. Sandy took me for a Chinese lunch on King's Road, offered to manage me, and the rest is history. I was 22 and we have been friends and worked together ever since.
He was an incredible man, full of energy and determination. To say 'he never stopped' would be totally accurate. He was always available and was always coming up with new ideas.
Even at the very end of his battle against cancer, he made me laugh out loud with one of his texts. I asked him how he was doing and told him that I was thinking about him and he replied 'Would you be interested in mixing the new Andrea Bocelli album?' From his hospital bed, instead of trying to get well, he was still calling labels and looking for projects for his clients!
Sandy has done everything from being an artist and performing in the 60s, to being a manager for many artists and running publishing companies. He produced records for many years, but finally decided he wanted to represent producers and set up World's End Management in 1980 with Paul Brown (in the World's End part of Chelsea, hence the name 'World's End management')
After taking me on, he got things moving fast, he took me to meet all the labels and helped me navigate the waters. The gigs he managed to secure for me were incredible, especially as I was pretty inexperienced at that point.
I was working with Robert Plant and David Bowie before I was 26.
Sandy changed the landscape for producers and especially mixers. In the same way that Jimmy Hill got soccer players the money they deserved, Sandy pushed for better deals and royalties for his producers and succeeded in getting them …even for mixers which was pretty unknown at that time. He basically created the genre of producer management.
I always remember him calling me at Ridge Farm Studios and telling me he had secured a royalty for me on the Pearl Jam Ten album, he said 'One day, one of these albums will blow up and you will thank me'... he was right…I still thank him to this day.
In 1985 Sandy moved to LA to start World's End America and the days of the World's End Management offices on Martel Ave in Hollywood were legendary. I think Sandy was managing about 60 producers by this time. I used to love to just stop by to see Sandy, read all the trade mags, and hang with the gang. It was an exciting time for us all. Sandy was running the biggest and best producer management company of that time..
Another perfect Sandy story…In the 90's things were starting to get a little quieter for me than usual and Sandy called me to ask if I would consider mixing some songs on the upcoming Michael Hutchence (INXS) album. This was soon after Michael had sadly died.
In true SR style…
'Look, Bono is a guest vocalist on one of these songs, do an amazing job mixing these tracks and Bono will hear them and ask you to mix on the next U2 album'
I laughed at his thought process and positive thinking, but that's exactly what happened!
In recent history, as our industry changed so much, Sandy and I both adapted to new ways of working. Sadly this meant we both retreated to our home studios, and home offices, and we didn't see each other so much.
Sandy eventually returned to London.
I was very fortunate to be able to see Sandy a couple of weeks ago. His health deteriorated so fast, the only blessing is that he didn't have to suffer for too long.
I am not a religious man, but if Sandy does get to meet Saint Peter, Sandy Roberton will be on the guest list!
Sandy, thank you for all the friendship, the advice, the conversation, the laughs, and the hard work. I would not have managed to have this career without you.
Godspeed Sandy!
www.timpalmer.com
www.facebook.com/timpalmermixer
Instagram and Twitter timpalmermixer
https://open.spotify.com/user/palmertim/playlist/2zjrEutoEj0fL51uFaWXo1?si=Kescn_j4Sua50F8Q1-YhDA
________________________________
From: Harvey Goldsmith
Subject: RE: Mailbag last note on Springsteen
Dear Bob,
Re Bruce Springsteen
I have read a lot of correspondence regarding this matter.
Maybe I am not making myself clear enough.
The issues over ticket pricing and demand have been raging for years.
In truth the issue is not complicated.
The fault and the final decision on the way tickets are distributed and priced lies fairly and squarely on the management/ Artist.
The promoter is today always bidding on an act and will give it its best shot.
It is ultimately the manager who dictates terms, if the manager is doing a good job for the artist.
Promoters and ticket agents are trying to make a profit out of the terms agreed through the agent on behalf of the artist/manager.
If the manager/artist has no regard for its fans then scalping and price gauging will take place.
If the manager has a duty of care for the artists fans, then in discussion with the promoter steps can be taken to virtually prevent or at least
Severely limit tickets being inflated.
I work with a number of artists and managers who do not want their tickets gauged.
It is in their remit to instruct.
My argument with Landau/Springsteen is clearly they do not.
How does Ed Sheeran mange to tour globally with huge demand and prevent this ???
Easy
His manager tells the promoter that he wants tickets sold at the price issued and does not tolerate inflated prices or scalping.
My issue lies totally with management not the promoter ( unless the promoter is doing it without the knowledge of the artist)
Harvey Goldsmith
________________________________
From: Adam Hartley
Subject: Thank you so much for continuing to sing the praises of the Dragonfly Cobalt
Bob
Thank you so much for continuing to sing the praises of the Dragonfly Cobalt. Next to my iPhone 12 Pro Max, I think it's by far the best piece of technology that I've bought in years. It's easily the most revolutionary piece of music/audio/hi-fi technology I've owned since my very first iPod.
That comment from Gordon Rankin has led me to switch from Apple Music to Qobuz today and OMFG, why have I not done this before? It's just wonderful. I keep going back to my standards and discovering new things (Blue, Harvest, Kind of Blue) and most importantly also discovering TONS of new insanely great-sounding music (new Orbital album "30", Floating Point's "Promises", The Weather Station's "Ignorance" and 100s more).
AMAZING.
Adam
________________________________
________________________________
RE: JEFF BECK
___
I first saw Jeff Beck when he toured on Wired. He played dazzling lines that nobody had ever imagined ever...it was electrifying.
In the 80's at shows he'd pull impossible sounds from his strat with just his fingers...I remember guitar players like myself in the audience yelling WTF!? He was ten years in the future as we listened and watched in awe. "Where Were You"? As Dave Gilmour said in the Beck documentary, it is basically impossible to play...that word again.
I got to interview Beck for MTV when he was on a double bill tour with Stevie Ray Vaughan in 1989. He was humble, and noted that he felt he'd been passed by the newer generation of players..."Adrian Belew and guys like that." An hour later interviewing SRV I asked what it was like to tour with Beck. I mentioned how he'd seemed humble and Stevie laughed, telling me a couple nights earlier Beck had sent it into outer space. A year later I got to replay the Beck conversation with Belew (a master at getting new sounds out of the electric guitar) he was "no no no Jeff Beck is the greatest player alive...introduce me to him and I'll tell him!"
Like you wrote, Beck is STILL
Michael Alex
________________________________
Beck really stretches what a guitar can do! His version of "A Day in the Life" is mesmerizing.
I had the pleasure of providing lighting for some of his tours so I went to as many shows as possible and he always blew me away. I loved watching the audience at his co-headline tours with Stevie Ray, Santana, and other great players. Guitar heaven!
John Lobel
________________________________
By the way, as another sign of Jeff Beck's progressive ways, he recently hired the drummer Anika Niles, who never had a gig of that stature before…..she built her career on YouTube—without living in any of the traditional "music cities" that young musicians are advised to live in—and her being hired by Jeff Beck is another very significant sign of the existence of a very real and very viable "new model" of career success that can be pursued in the digital age….
Regards,
Mark Feldman
________________________________
Thank you so much for this piece on Jeff Beck. I remember seeing Jeff Beck for the first time in Carnegie Hall in 1971 or 72 and he was amazing. As a teenager back then I was a huge fan of Jeff Beck and constantly argued with people that he was one of the best guitar players ever. I definitely had ongoing arguments with the Led Zeppelin crowd contending that Jeff back was a better guitar player than Jimmy Page. Fun times.
I saw him recently which I think was that 2018 tour that you spoke of. The innovation of that guy and his constant exploration into new things is truly amazing. And I loved the way your piece just captured the essence of the amazing greatness of this man. Just constantly pushing that envelope. As a musician it is an attribute to admire.
As always I so appreciate the great work that you do as it always brings joy to my heart.
Charlie Vanture
________________________________
I was at the Garden for the Ronnie Lane benefit years back. Everyone from the British firmament was there paying tribute.
There were 2 moments that stuck with me: Joe Cocker stopping everyone in their tracks with the 'Help From My Friends' scream, and the way Jeff Beck blew Jimmy Page and Eric Clapton back to the cheap seats. Beck's sound is transcendent and all about feel!
Amen Bob, great writing on the man.....
Steve Chrismar
________________________________
You forget that Jeff is also very humble, down to earth and soft spoken. My husband, Dennis, original drummer of Foreigner who retired 30 years ago was recording with The Roy Young Band in Kent, England in 1972. Beck who was a neighbor happened to have come by just in time to lend a hand and help my husband repair our old (banger) car which had broken down. He was the nicest guy.
:-)
Iona S. Elliott
________________________________
I can still remember a moment in the film The Secret Policeman's Other Ball when the whole group is onstage doing a version of "I Shall Be Released" led by Sting. Beck is a few feet behind the singer when he suddenly rips out this monstrous riff which causes about half the performers to turn back in wonder. That's how good he is. And don't forget "Wired," not as lauded as "Blow By Blow" but still a classic of the genre that he sort of invented.
David Vawter
________________________________
Hi Bob, you are spot on here.
I've said for years that JB can make a guitar sound like he soaring with condors at 20000 ft one minute, and wallow with pigs in the mud the next.
To my amusement, my kid repeated that back to me a week ago.
Cherers, good article.
Andrew Parr
________________________________
For me, a closet Jeff Beck fan, the zenith was "Guitar Shop". I saw that tour in 1989 with Stevie Ray Vaughn.
It's an amazing album, and still one I use testing speakers or audio setups.
This album sounds close to Guitar Shop!
Al Jones
________________________________
The guitar solo on Jon Bon Jovi's "Blaze of Glory", not Richie Sambora. It's Beck.
Colin Boyd
________________________________
Agreed Bob, "Cause We've Ended Now As Lovers" is the greatest guitar instrumental ever recorded. Felt that way some 50 years ago, still feel the same…transcendent!
Paul Kalenak
________________________________
As a guitar player, I couldn't agree more. Hendrix was brilliant, Beck is incandescent.
Craig Anderton
________________________________
What a waste of an opportunity bringing in Depp . I shall skip the singing tracks and mix liberally with the latest Frampton instrumental album for summer night playlist...
Steve Lillywhite
________________________________
There's Jeff Beck.. then there is everyone else!
NO ONE plays like he does and I have seen it up close having the honor of working with him in the past.
We just did a Festival with him and Johnny the other night in Europe and he just gets better and better every time. Like the finest wine on Earth.
Just stunning playing and a great band.
He was so good it does bring tears to your eyes.
His new take on Caroline No just kills me. I have not heard the rest of the record yet..
I did meet Johnny and he was probably the nicest most humble cat I have ever met. He knows who he is on stage with and they had a great time.
I have said it before and I mean it. Jeff is God's guitar player!
Luke
--
Visit the archive: http://lefsetz.com/wordpress/
--
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-Apple: https://apple.co/2ndmpvp
--
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--
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Subject: Sandy Roberton
Bob,
I'm completely devastated to report that my manager of almost 40 years, the legendary Sandy Roberton has died.
I first met him while I was engineering for a German producer/client of Sandy's called Zeus B. Held in London. We were working on the Dead or Alive album. Sandy took me for a Chinese lunch on King's Road, offered to manage me, and the rest is history. I was 22 and we have been friends and worked together ever since.
He was an incredible man, full of energy and determination. To say 'he never stopped' would be totally accurate. He was always available and was always coming up with new ideas.
Even at the very end of his battle against cancer, he made me laugh out loud with one of his texts. I asked him how he was doing and told him that I was thinking about him and he replied 'Would you be interested in mixing the new Andrea Bocelli album?' From his hospital bed, instead of trying to get well, he was still calling labels and looking for projects for his clients!
Sandy has done everything from being an artist and performing in the 60s, to being a manager for many artists and running publishing companies. He produced records for many years, but finally decided he wanted to represent producers and set up World's End Management in 1980 with Paul Brown (in the World's End part of Chelsea, hence the name 'World's End management')
After taking me on, he got things moving fast, he took me to meet all the labels and helped me navigate the waters. The gigs he managed to secure for me were incredible, especially as I was pretty inexperienced at that point.
I was working with Robert Plant and David Bowie before I was 26.
Sandy changed the landscape for producers and especially mixers. In the same way that Jimmy Hill got soccer players the money they deserved, Sandy pushed for better deals and royalties for his producers and succeeded in getting them …even for mixers which was pretty unknown at that time. He basically created the genre of producer management.
I always remember him calling me at Ridge Farm Studios and telling me he had secured a royalty for me on the Pearl Jam Ten album, he said 'One day, one of these albums will blow up and you will thank me'... he was right…I still thank him to this day.
In 1985 Sandy moved to LA to start World's End America and the days of the World's End Management offices on Martel Ave in Hollywood were legendary. I think Sandy was managing about 60 producers by this time. I used to love to just stop by to see Sandy, read all the trade mags, and hang with the gang. It was an exciting time for us all. Sandy was running the biggest and best producer management company of that time..
Another perfect Sandy story…In the 90's things were starting to get a little quieter for me than usual and Sandy called me to ask if I would consider mixing some songs on the upcoming Michael Hutchence (INXS) album. This was soon after Michael had sadly died.
In true SR style…
'Look, Bono is a guest vocalist on one of these songs, do an amazing job mixing these tracks and Bono will hear them and ask you to mix on the next U2 album'
I laughed at his thought process and positive thinking, but that's exactly what happened!
In recent history, as our industry changed so much, Sandy and I both adapted to new ways of working. Sadly this meant we both retreated to our home studios, and home offices, and we didn't see each other so much.
Sandy eventually returned to London.
I was very fortunate to be able to see Sandy a couple of weeks ago. His health deteriorated so fast, the only blessing is that he didn't have to suffer for too long.
I am not a religious man, but if Sandy does get to meet Saint Peter, Sandy Roberton will be on the guest list!
Sandy, thank you for all the friendship, the advice, the conversation, the laughs, and the hard work. I would not have managed to have this career without you.
Godspeed Sandy!
www.timpalmer.com
www.facebook.com/timpalmermixer
Instagram and Twitter timpalmermixer
https://open.spotify.com/user/palmertim/playlist/2zjrEutoEj0fL51uFaWXo1?si=Kescn_j4Sua50F8Q1-YhDA
________________________________
From: Harvey Goldsmith
Subject: RE: Mailbag last note on Springsteen
Dear Bob,
Re Bruce Springsteen
I have read a lot of correspondence regarding this matter.
Maybe I am not making myself clear enough.
The issues over ticket pricing and demand have been raging for years.
In truth the issue is not complicated.
The fault and the final decision on the way tickets are distributed and priced lies fairly and squarely on the management/ Artist.
The promoter is today always bidding on an act and will give it its best shot.
It is ultimately the manager who dictates terms, if the manager is doing a good job for the artist.
Promoters and ticket agents are trying to make a profit out of the terms agreed through the agent on behalf of the artist/manager.
If the manager/artist has no regard for its fans then scalping and price gauging will take place.
If the manager has a duty of care for the artists fans, then in discussion with the promoter steps can be taken to virtually prevent or at least
Severely limit tickets being inflated.
I work with a number of artists and managers who do not want their tickets gauged.
It is in their remit to instruct.
My argument with Landau/Springsteen is clearly they do not.
How does Ed Sheeran mange to tour globally with huge demand and prevent this ???
Easy
His manager tells the promoter that he wants tickets sold at the price issued and does not tolerate inflated prices or scalping.
My issue lies totally with management not the promoter ( unless the promoter is doing it without the knowledge of the artist)
Harvey Goldsmith
________________________________
From: Adam Hartley
Subject: Thank you so much for continuing to sing the praises of the Dragonfly Cobalt
Bob
Thank you so much for continuing to sing the praises of the Dragonfly Cobalt. Next to my iPhone 12 Pro Max, I think it's by far the best piece of technology that I've bought in years. It's easily the most revolutionary piece of music/audio/hi-fi technology I've owned since my very first iPod.
That comment from Gordon Rankin has led me to switch from Apple Music to Qobuz today and OMFG, why have I not done this before? It's just wonderful. I keep going back to my standards and discovering new things (Blue, Harvest, Kind of Blue) and most importantly also discovering TONS of new insanely great-sounding music (new Orbital album "30", Floating Point's "Promises", The Weather Station's "Ignorance" and 100s more).
AMAZING.
Adam
________________________________
________________________________
RE: JEFF BECK
___
I first saw Jeff Beck when he toured on Wired. He played dazzling lines that nobody had ever imagined ever...it was electrifying.
In the 80's at shows he'd pull impossible sounds from his strat with just his fingers...I remember guitar players like myself in the audience yelling WTF!? He was ten years in the future as we listened and watched in awe. "Where Were You"? As Dave Gilmour said in the Beck documentary, it is basically impossible to play...that word again.
I got to interview Beck for MTV when he was on a double bill tour with Stevie Ray Vaughan in 1989. He was humble, and noted that he felt he'd been passed by the newer generation of players..."Adrian Belew and guys like that." An hour later interviewing SRV I asked what it was like to tour with Beck. I mentioned how he'd seemed humble and Stevie laughed, telling me a couple nights earlier Beck had sent it into outer space. A year later I got to replay the Beck conversation with Belew (a master at getting new sounds out of the electric guitar) he was "no no no Jeff Beck is the greatest player alive...introduce me to him and I'll tell him!"
Like you wrote, Beck is STILL
Michael Alex
________________________________
Beck really stretches what a guitar can do! His version of "A Day in the Life" is mesmerizing.
I had the pleasure of providing lighting for some of his tours so I went to as many shows as possible and he always blew me away. I loved watching the audience at his co-headline tours with Stevie Ray, Santana, and other great players. Guitar heaven!
John Lobel
________________________________
By the way, as another sign of Jeff Beck's progressive ways, he recently hired the drummer Anika Niles, who never had a gig of that stature before…..she built her career on YouTube—without living in any of the traditional "music cities" that young musicians are advised to live in—and her being hired by Jeff Beck is another very significant sign of the existence of a very real and very viable "new model" of career success that can be pursued in the digital age….
Regards,
Mark Feldman
________________________________
Thank you so much for this piece on Jeff Beck. I remember seeing Jeff Beck for the first time in Carnegie Hall in 1971 or 72 and he was amazing. As a teenager back then I was a huge fan of Jeff Beck and constantly argued with people that he was one of the best guitar players ever. I definitely had ongoing arguments with the Led Zeppelin crowd contending that Jeff back was a better guitar player than Jimmy Page. Fun times.
I saw him recently which I think was that 2018 tour that you spoke of. The innovation of that guy and his constant exploration into new things is truly amazing. And I loved the way your piece just captured the essence of the amazing greatness of this man. Just constantly pushing that envelope. As a musician it is an attribute to admire.
As always I so appreciate the great work that you do as it always brings joy to my heart.
Charlie Vanture
________________________________
I was at the Garden for the Ronnie Lane benefit years back. Everyone from the British firmament was there paying tribute.
There were 2 moments that stuck with me: Joe Cocker stopping everyone in their tracks with the 'Help From My Friends' scream, and the way Jeff Beck blew Jimmy Page and Eric Clapton back to the cheap seats. Beck's sound is transcendent and all about feel!
Amen Bob, great writing on the man.....
Steve Chrismar
________________________________
You forget that Jeff is also very humble, down to earth and soft spoken. My husband, Dennis, original drummer of Foreigner who retired 30 years ago was recording with The Roy Young Band in Kent, England in 1972. Beck who was a neighbor happened to have come by just in time to lend a hand and help my husband repair our old (banger) car which had broken down. He was the nicest guy.
:-)
Iona S. Elliott
________________________________
I can still remember a moment in the film The Secret Policeman's Other Ball when the whole group is onstage doing a version of "I Shall Be Released" led by Sting. Beck is a few feet behind the singer when he suddenly rips out this monstrous riff which causes about half the performers to turn back in wonder. That's how good he is. And don't forget "Wired," not as lauded as "Blow By Blow" but still a classic of the genre that he sort of invented.
David Vawter
________________________________
Hi Bob, you are spot on here.
I've said for years that JB can make a guitar sound like he soaring with condors at 20000 ft one minute, and wallow with pigs in the mud the next.
To my amusement, my kid repeated that back to me a week ago.
Cherers, good article.
Andrew Parr
________________________________
For me, a closet Jeff Beck fan, the zenith was "Guitar Shop". I saw that tour in 1989 with Stevie Ray Vaughn.
It's an amazing album, and still one I use testing speakers or audio setups.
This album sounds close to Guitar Shop!
Al Jones
________________________________
The guitar solo on Jon Bon Jovi's "Blaze of Glory", not Richie Sambora. It's Beck.
Colin Boyd
________________________________
Agreed Bob, "Cause We've Ended Now As Lovers" is the greatest guitar instrumental ever recorded. Felt that way some 50 years ago, still feel the same…transcendent!
Paul Kalenak
________________________________
As a guitar player, I couldn't agree more. Hendrix was brilliant, Beck is incandescent.
Craig Anderton
________________________________
What a waste of an opportunity bringing in Depp . I shall skip the singing tracks and mix liberally with the latest Frampton instrumental album for summer night playlist...
Steve Lillywhite
________________________________
There's Jeff Beck.. then there is everyone else!
NO ONE plays like he does and I have seen it up close having the honor of working with him in the past.
We just did a Festival with him and Johnny the other night in Europe and he just gets better and better every time. Like the finest wine on Earth.
Just stunning playing and a great band.
He was so good it does bring tears to your eyes.
His new take on Caroline No just kills me. I have not heard the rest of the record yet..
I did meet Johnny and he was probably the nicest most humble cat I have ever met. He knows who he is on stage with and they had a great time.
I have said it before and I mean it. Jeff is God's guitar player!
Luke
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Thursday 28 July 2022
18
Spotify playlist: https://spoti.fi/3JbXkdT
This album is a masterpiece.
Except when Johnny Depp sings, that's unlistenable, you can't click off fast enough.
This collaboration between Jeff Beck and Johnny Depp has gotten positively scathing reviews. The kind that say why was this record made and no one should ever hear it. Which meant that I wasn't interested in it.
But then...
I'm still fascinated by my Dragonfly Cobalt. I heard from Gordon Rankin, who designed the product, and he said:
"Quality wise Qobuz is the best, Tidal second if you have MQA capable setup, Apple then Amazon."
Normally I listen to Amazon, because they have more Ultra HD tracks than Apple by far. And I tell you, I can hear the difference, ANYBODY could hear the difference! There's more presence, more immediacy.
But today I started researching what else was in Hi-Res Lossless on Apple Music, and I ultimately came upon a Reddit thread and someone said "Cause We've Ended As Lovers" by Jeff Beck.
Everyone should know this track.
The song is payback for "Superstition," which was written for Jeff and then ultimately taken back by Stevie Wonder, so the no longer Little Stevie wrote "Cause We've Ended As Lovers" for Jeff.
"Blow By Blow" is the apotheosis of Beck's recorded work. Not only does it have the iconic version of "Cause We've Ended As Lovers," it's got a cover of the Beatles' "She's a Woman" and one of Beck's signature tunes, "Freeway Jam," made legendary mostly by the live version with Jan Hammer. That they played all over the radio, whereas "Blow By Blow" not so much. "Blow By Blow" was a secret, well, a well-known one, but the immediacy of the live version was undeniable.
And since that time, Beck has been a journeyman putting out eclectic albums, like "Crazy Legs," his tribute to Gene Vincent and His Blue Caps, but then came 1999's "Who Else!" With "Brush with the Blues," whew!
It's the only live cut on the LP, and if it weren't for the occasional cheering you would swear it was cut in the studio, I mean who else can do this so definitively on the fly? NOBODY!
I went to see Beck at the long lamented Universal Amphitheatre on that tour.
It's hard to describe rock and roll.
It's hard to describe Jeff Beck.
Beck started when it was about the music, and pretty much only about the music. You had to know how to play to sustain. And that Beck knew how to do.
But he couldn't write and sing like Jimi Hendrix or Eric Clapton. And he legendarily didn't get along with people, which even Jimmy Page could do, so Beck was left out in the cold. Well, there was "Truth" with Rod Stewart," but unfortunately it came out about the same time as the first Led Zeppelin album, and not long thereafter Stewart left the band and went solo. Stewart didn't need Beck, but Beck needed Stewart. Until Beck decided to ditch the lead singer, to lead the band himself, make the instrumentals the most important element, ergo "Blow By Blow."
So if you see Jeff...
It's not like the usual rock act. It's not the song so much as the playing. Not the singing, but the guitar work. Also, Jeff always surrounds himself with the best players, even another guitarist, Jennifer Batten, who was a woman to boot. Jeff was pushing the envelope, and he was willing to share the stage, because nobody could blow him off it.
So you go to see Jeff Beck and it's a primal experience. It starts in the chest, not the head. Your whole body resonates with the music, the sound. You can't ignore it, you can't talk, you can't sit on the phone, there's a channel directly between Jeff and you, it's electric, but so solid, so ALIVE!
And then Harvey Goldsmith became his manager a little over a decade back and got Beck the appearances he needed for his well-deserved victory lap. But then there was an argument, the partnership ended, and you don't see Jeff at Musicares or on TV like you used to, and that's a damn shame. If for no other reason than Jeff is getting older every day. He turned 78 just last month. You see Jeff is a progenitor, positively first wave, he came in with the Beatles and the rest of the original British Invasion. But unlike those on the oldies circuit, Jeff is still testing the limits, he's not just repeating what he once did to satiate aged boomers wanting to relive their youth, what he's doing may not be commercially popular but it's positively now, if not FUTURISTIC!
SO WHY'S HE WASTING HIS TIME WITH JOHNNY DEPP?
Depp can play the guitar, he hangs with rockers, some of the most famous, but he is not in their league, he's essentially a wannabe. He looks the part, but he has no track record of success in music, and good guitar players are a dime a dozen and he can't write and he can't sing. Why is he muddying up, why is he messing with, WHY IS HE WASTING THE TIME OF JEFF BECK?
Pisses me off. Beck was the best and he's still got the chops, and he doesn't work that much, we want more of HIM!
So I'm not going to bother listening to the album "18," the collaboration between Beck and Depp, but after listening to "Truth," which suffers sonically from its age, my mind flashed on their album and I decided to play it.
First thing I noticed is it was only in Lossless. I can't understand the rhythm of what's in Hi-Res and what is not. The funny thing is "18" is in Ultra HD on Amazon Music. And I'm comparing the two now. It's like a bit of noise has been scrubbed from the Ultra HD take, it's cleaner, more in focus, and just a bit more immediate. You really think Jeff is playing right in front of you.
But at the time I stay with Apple, because I'm not going to listen for long, it really doesn't matter that it's only in Lossless, it sucks anyway, RIGHT?
Well, I start right at the top, with "Midnight Walker," and Jeff's presence is immediate, that sting that no one else can replicate with the same tone. And I'm waiting for Johnny Depp and...HE NEVER COMES IN! It's an instrumental. And it's not "Cause We've Ended as Lovers," but it's beyond everybody else playing in this sphere. I mean Peter Frampton plays instrumentals extremely well, his last album is phenomenal, but it's kind of the difference between today's MVPs and Babe Ruth. Ruth was one step beyond, AND HE DIDN'T EVEN SEEM TO BE TRYING!
Oh, Beck is concentrating, he's taking the music seriously, but he's not overdoing it, it's like listening to a player with the Philharmonic!
Now I'm excited, maybe I have it all wrong, maybe it's an instrumental album!
But NO! Depp starts to sing near the beginning of the next track, and it's UNLISTENABLE! It's not terrible, it's MEDIOCRE! And nobody has time for mediocre anymore. Beck is still good, but just when you get into his playing Depp starts singing again.
And Depp is singing on the following track, "Time," and it's damn near execrable, and I'm done, I get what the reviews are saying. So I stop the music and look at the track listing before I bolt. And I see "Don't Talk (Put Your Head On My Shoulder)." Really? From "Pet Sounds"?
IT'S INCREDIBLE!
No Depp whatsoever. And somehow Beck channels the same gravitas that's in the Beach Boys original, but it's up to date, it's not nostalgia, it's more than a cover, it's not even an interpretation, it's a LEVITATION! As if God stopped by in the studio to show the mere mortals how it's done.
And then there's a cover of "Caroline No."
All the rest of the tracks, Johnny Depp ruins. But these three instrumentals, I'd say they're world class, but once again, Jeff Beck is OUT OF THIS WORLD!
If only people heard these cuts.
I constantly ask guitar players, famous names, who the best rock guitarist ever is. And almost all of them say Jeff Beck. Occasionally, I hear Jimi Hendrix, but when I press the players they talk about Jimi's innovation, but when it comes to pure playing, everybody ultimately agrees it's Jeff Beck. And unlike Hendrix, JEFF BECK IS STILL HERE!
Makes me crazy. At some point Jeff is going to pass and people will be listening to the records lamenting they never saw him.
I saw him back in 2018. Outdoors, where it's even harder to mesmerize, but he blew minds that night too, just by being him, with no flash, no production, HE'S ENOUGH!
And listening to Jeff play today it occurred to me that when time marches on his work has a much better chance of being remembered than most of the hits, which almost always end up being period pieces. Jeff Beck's work is TIMELESS! It's a bridge between what once was and still is.
Well, rock no longer gets any respect. Then again, today's rock is far from Jeff Beck.
And it's hard for anybody to be recognized.
But Jeff Beck could do an album of covers and it could become a classic. Rod Stewart's "Great American Songbook" albums have already been forgotten, another Clive Davis marketing exercise, a dash for cash, but Jeff Beck adds something to the classics, makes them different, the underlying songs are just a jumping off point.
All these aged acts are getting unending hosannas for work they did decades ago, when Jeff Beck is still doing incredible work NOW!
Do I expect Beck covers to be in the Spotify Top 50?
No.
Think of it like Rick Rubin doing those Johnny Cash records. Not bringing Johnny up to date, but stripping away all the dross and just letting his pure essence shine through.
It's criminal Jeff Beck doesn't get attention, for not only him, but us, we're deprived of his music. And that's what it is, the penumbra is irrelevant. There's no perfume, no clothing line, just the sound itself, as it's been from the beginning of time. Jeff Beck is closer to Beethoven and Bach than he is to today's pop hits. Sure, he may not write, but actually he does, he takes what's already down and turns it into something brand new. Anybody can just perform the notes, covers albums are rampant, but Jeff Beck is something else, he's iconic, HE'S THE BEST!
Listen...
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This album is a masterpiece.
Except when Johnny Depp sings, that's unlistenable, you can't click off fast enough.
This collaboration between Jeff Beck and Johnny Depp has gotten positively scathing reviews. The kind that say why was this record made and no one should ever hear it. Which meant that I wasn't interested in it.
But then...
I'm still fascinated by my Dragonfly Cobalt. I heard from Gordon Rankin, who designed the product, and he said:
"Quality wise Qobuz is the best, Tidal second if you have MQA capable setup, Apple then Amazon."
Normally I listen to Amazon, because they have more Ultra HD tracks than Apple by far. And I tell you, I can hear the difference, ANYBODY could hear the difference! There's more presence, more immediacy.
But today I started researching what else was in Hi-Res Lossless on Apple Music, and I ultimately came upon a Reddit thread and someone said "Cause We've Ended As Lovers" by Jeff Beck.
Everyone should know this track.
The song is payback for "Superstition," which was written for Jeff and then ultimately taken back by Stevie Wonder, so the no longer Little Stevie wrote "Cause We've Ended As Lovers" for Jeff.
"Blow By Blow" is the apotheosis of Beck's recorded work. Not only does it have the iconic version of "Cause We've Ended As Lovers," it's got a cover of the Beatles' "She's a Woman" and one of Beck's signature tunes, "Freeway Jam," made legendary mostly by the live version with Jan Hammer. That they played all over the radio, whereas "Blow By Blow" not so much. "Blow By Blow" was a secret, well, a well-known one, but the immediacy of the live version was undeniable.
And since that time, Beck has been a journeyman putting out eclectic albums, like "Crazy Legs," his tribute to Gene Vincent and His Blue Caps, but then came 1999's "Who Else!" With "Brush with the Blues," whew!
It's the only live cut on the LP, and if it weren't for the occasional cheering you would swear it was cut in the studio, I mean who else can do this so definitively on the fly? NOBODY!
I went to see Beck at the long lamented Universal Amphitheatre on that tour.
It's hard to describe rock and roll.
It's hard to describe Jeff Beck.
Beck started when it was about the music, and pretty much only about the music. You had to know how to play to sustain. And that Beck knew how to do.
But he couldn't write and sing like Jimi Hendrix or Eric Clapton. And he legendarily didn't get along with people, which even Jimmy Page could do, so Beck was left out in the cold. Well, there was "Truth" with Rod Stewart," but unfortunately it came out about the same time as the first Led Zeppelin album, and not long thereafter Stewart left the band and went solo. Stewart didn't need Beck, but Beck needed Stewart. Until Beck decided to ditch the lead singer, to lead the band himself, make the instrumentals the most important element, ergo "Blow By Blow."
So if you see Jeff...
It's not like the usual rock act. It's not the song so much as the playing. Not the singing, but the guitar work. Also, Jeff always surrounds himself with the best players, even another guitarist, Jennifer Batten, who was a woman to boot. Jeff was pushing the envelope, and he was willing to share the stage, because nobody could blow him off it.
So you go to see Jeff Beck and it's a primal experience. It starts in the chest, not the head. Your whole body resonates with the music, the sound. You can't ignore it, you can't talk, you can't sit on the phone, there's a channel directly between Jeff and you, it's electric, but so solid, so ALIVE!
And then Harvey Goldsmith became his manager a little over a decade back and got Beck the appearances he needed for his well-deserved victory lap. But then there was an argument, the partnership ended, and you don't see Jeff at Musicares or on TV like you used to, and that's a damn shame. If for no other reason than Jeff is getting older every day. He turned 78 just last month. You see Jeff is a progenitor, positively first wave, he came in with the Beatles and the rest of the original British Invasion. But unlike those on the oldies circuit, Jeff is still testing the limits, he's not just repeating what he once did to satiate aged boomers wanting to relive their youth, what he's doing may not be commercially popular but it's positively now, if not FUTURISTIC!
SO WHY'S HE WASTING HIS TIME WITH JOHNNY DEPP?
Depp can play the guitar, he hangs with rockers, some of the most famous, but he is not in their league, he's essentially a wannabe. He looks the part, but he has no track record of success in music, and good guitar players are a dime a dozen and he can't write and he can't sing. Why is he muddying up, why is he messing with, WHY IS HE WASTING THE TIME OF JEFF BECK?
Pisses me off. Beck was the best and he's still got the chops, and he doesn't work that much, we want more of HIM!
So I'm not going to bother listening to the album "18," the collaboration between Beck and Depp, but after listening to "Truth," which suffers sonically from its age, my mind flashed on their album and I decided to play it.
First thing I noticed is it was only in Lossless. I can't understand the rhythm of what's in Hi-Res and what is not. The funny thing is "18" is in Ultra HD on Amazon Music. And I'm comparing the two now. It's like a bit of noise has been scrubbed from the Ultra HD take, it's cleaner, more in focus, and just a bit more immediate. You really think Jeff is playing right in front of you.
But at the time I stay with Apple, because I'm not going to listen for long, it really doesn't matter that it's only in Lossless, it sucks anyway, RIGHT?
Well, I start right at the top, with "Midnight Walker," and Jeff's presence is immediate, that sting that no one else can replicate with the same tone. And I'm waiting for Johnny Depp and...HE NEVER COMES IN! It's an instrumental. And it's not "Cause We've Ended as Lovers," but it's beyond everybody else playing in this sphere. I mean Peter Frampton plays instrumentals extremely well, his last album is phenomenal, but it's kind of the difference between today's MVPs and Babe Ruth. Ruth was one step beyond, AND HE DIDN'T EVEN SEEM TO BE TRYING!
Oh, Beck is concentrating, he's taking the music seriously, but he's not overdoing it, it's like listening to a player with the Philharmonic!
Now I'm excited, maybe I have it all wrong, maybe it's an instrumental album!
But NO! Depp starts to sing near the beginning of the next track, and it's UNLISTENABLE! It's not terrible, it's MEDIOCRE! And nobody has time for mediocre anymore. Beck is still good, but just when you get into his playing Depp starts singing again.
And Depp is singing on the following track, "Time," and it's damn near execrable, and I'm done, I get what the reviews are saying. So I stop the music and look at the track listing before I bolt. And I see "Don't Talk (Put Your Head On My Shoulder)." Really? From "Pet Sounds"?
IT'S INCREDIBLE!
No Depp whatsoever. And somehow Beck channels the same gravitas that's in the Beach Boys original, but it's up to date, it's not nostalgia, it's more than a cover, it's not even an interpretation, it's a LEVITATION! As if God stopped by in the studio to show the mere mortals how it's done.
And then there's a cover of "Caroline No."
All the rest of the tracks, Johnny Depp ruins. But these three instrumentals, I'd say they're world class, but once again, Jeff Beck is OUT OF THIS WORLD!
If only people heard these cuts.
I constantly ask guitar players, famous names, who the best rock guitarist ever is. And almost all of them say Jeff Beck. Occasionally, I hear Jimi Hendrix, but when I press the players they talk about Jimi's innovation, but when it comes to pure playing, everybody ultimately agrees it's Jeff Beck. And unlike Hendrix, JEFF BECK IS STILL HERE!
Makes me crazy. At some point Jeff is going to pass and people will be listening to the records lamenting they never saw him.
I saw him back in 2018. Outdoors, where it's even harder to mesmerize, but he blew minds that night too, just by being him, with no flash, no production, HE'S ENOUGH!
And listening to Jeff play today it occurred to me that when time marches on his work has a much better chance of being remembered than most of the hits, which almost always end up being period pieces. Jeff Beck's work is TIMELESS! It's a bridge between what once was and still is.
Well, rock no longer gets any respect. Then again, today's rock is far from Jeff Beck.
And it's hard for anybody to be recognized.
But Jeff Beck could do an album of covers and it could become a classic. Rod Stewart's "Great American Songbook" albums have already been forgotten, another Clive Davis marketing exercise, a dash for cash, but Jeff Beck adds something to the classics, makes them different, the underlying songs are just a jumping off point.
All these aged acts are getting unending hosannas for work they did decades ago, when Jeff Beck is still doing incredible work NOW!
Do I expect Beck covers to be in the Spotify Top 50?
No.
Think of it like Rick Rubin doing those Johnny Cash records. Not bringing Johnny up to date, but stripping away all the dross and just letting his pure essence shine through.
It's criminal Jeff Beck doesn't get attention, for not only him, but us, we're deprived of his music. And that's what it is, the penumbra is irrelevant. There's no perfume, no clothing line, just the sound itself, as it's been from the beginning of time. Jeff Beck is closer to Beethoven and Bach than he is to today's pop hits. Sure, he may not write, but actually he does, he takes what's already down and turns it into something brand new. Anybody can just perform the notes, covers albums are rampant, but Jeff Beck is something else, he's iconic, HE'S THE BEST!
Listen...
--
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Mike Campbell-This Week's Podcast
We cover it all, from Florida to L.A. to Denny Cordell to Jimmy Iovine to Jeff Lynne to George Drakoulias to the Dirty Knobs and Don Henley. You're gonna dig this Heartbreaker's testimony!
https://www.iheart.com/podcast/1119-the-bob-lefsetz-podcast-30806836/episode/mike-campbell-99803324/
https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/mike-campbell/id1316200737?i=1000571437437
https://open.spotify.com/episode/5VqdhMIzOaLLSlermGJvVz?si=jTB880yLQZmZIOAgJ63ZpQ
https://music.amazon.com/podcasts/9ff4fb19-54d4-41ae-ae7a-8a6f8d3dafa8/episodes/248baae6-8f71-4d5e-93d6-6387f45f196b/the-bob-lefsetz-podcast-mike-campbell
https://www.stitcher.com/show/the-bob-lefsetz-podcast/episode/mike-campbell-205262200
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https://www.iheart.com/podcast/1119-the-bob-lefsetz-podcast-30806836/episode/mike-campbell-99803324/
https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/mike-campbell/id1316200737?i=1000571437437
https://open.spotify.com/episode/5VqdhMIzOaLLSlermGJvVz?si=jTB880yLQZmZIOAgJ63ZpQ
https://music.amazon.com/podcasts/9ff4fb19-54d4-41ae-ae7a-8a6f8d3dafa8/episodes/248baae6-8f71-4d5e-93d6-6387f45f196b/the-bob-lefsetz-podcast-mike-campbell
https://www.stitcher.com/show/the-bob-lefsetz-podcast/episode/mike-campbell-205262200
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Wednesday 27 July 2022
Mailbag
From: Steve Stewart
Subject: Re: Too Much Springsteen / Ticketmaster Boycott
Date: July 26, 2022 at 8:05:14 PM PDT
I have a quick Ticketmaster story for you, Bob - Back in the mid-90s, when I was managing Stone Temple Pilots, I was in close touch with Kelly Curtis, who was managing Pearl Jam. Kelly's tour accountant, The Goon, figured he could do an end-run around Ticketmaster and the high service charges they slapped on every ticket. The STP guys were concerned about high ticket prices as well, and always pushed for a percentage of tickets to be sold for about $16 (this was the 90s!), as a "gesture" to their fans. The issue was the service charges ended up being more than 25% for these modestly priced tickets.
So, Pearl Jam decided they were going to boycott the "evil" Ticketmaster and not play any of their venues (which were most all of the sheds and larger venues across the country). They took a stand in the press, started a boycott, and ended up booking shows in some really unusual (and inconvenient) places. I remember stories of fans driving more than 3 hours to muddy fields in WA state - which turned out to be a nightmare for many.
I thought there might be a better way, and figured I would go right to the root of all this "evil" - I called and scheduled a meeting with the "devil" himself, Fred Rosen, who was running Ticketmaster at the time. When I sat with him a few days later, I asked him why he hadn't put anything in place with any of the other managers who had joined the boycott. "You're the only one who's called me," he said. I was floored. Instead of trying to work (or even communicate) with Ticketmaster, they chose to boycott and build their own makeshift venues - at a huge expense to the artists and their fans.
Fred was as accommodating as could be, and asked me what he could do. I told him that his service charges accounted for more than 25% of our low priced tickets. Could he make the fee a percentage of the ticket's face value, rather than a flat dollar amount? "Done." Could he roll the other fees fees back on the lower priced tickets and push them up on the higher priced tickets (as the higher priced buyers could better absorb them)? "Done." All that in 15 minutes - and it saved us the monumental expense of building staging, sound, lighting, fencing, generators, parking, prota-potties, security, concessions, etc. in the middle of nowhere. We could play fan-convenient amphitheaters with low ticket prices and Ticketmaster still made money on the deal. Everybody won!
Eventually, the boycott fell apart, as the other artists realized that Ticketmaster was willing to work with them - if they would only ask.
You are right about the money - Ticketmaster is no more evil than your record label or your local hamburger stand - they're in business to make a profit. They depend on artists to fill their seats, and know where their bread is buttered. Managers and agents are well aware of ticketing prices and potential costs and profits. No one is forcing them to accept deals they don't think is in the best interests of their artists. Touring accounts for a very large portion of a top level artist's cash flow - and in my experience, most artists will look for the best paying offer - why wouldn't they?
Managers and agents work for the artist, and they're only signing deals with the artist's explicit approval. I've seen situations where I know scalpers were making more in a night than individual band members (band members have to cover expenses) and scalpers are getting "market" value for tickets rather than what artists might think their tickets are worth. I used to walk the venues every night and actually ask people what they paid to get in - the answers were always shocking to me - 10-20X face value was not uncommon in those days.
Is it greed? Would you sell your house for $500K more than what you think it's worth, if that's what someone was willing to pay? I bet most would. It's just human nature, and will probably always be…
-Steve Stewart
_______________________________________
From: john dittmar
Subject: Re: Springsteen's Silence
Date: July 23, 2022 at 9:25:22 AM PDT
Hey Bob,
The folks tossing this Bruce ticketing issue around are missing a significant point regarding ticketing controls.
Unless Landau did his deal directly with Live Nation brass, it's the booking agent's responsibility! Agencies, more than lawyers or anyone else for that matter, deal with the ticketing world every day and should advise management accordingly. You're right; Landau and Bruce are grizzled veterans; hard to imagine they have intimate knowledge of how the tech works.
A dirty little secret is that most managers, regardless of age, don't fully understand the system. It's part of an agent's job to know the ticket system and how it can positively (and negatively) affect the client. That expertise should then provide a breakdown in clear terms to management before any ticket is on sale. It's part of having a good team around the client.
Maybe the agent red-flagged this, maybe not. However, the buck does stop with the manager, so again, you're right; it's on Jon and Bruce's doorstep.
PS, this will blow over soon, but hopefully a good lesson for all.
_______________________________________
From: John Butler
Subject: Re: The Playlist Fallacy
Date: July 27, 2022 at 4:09:17 PM PDT
Bob,
This is wonderfully written and I thank you for sharing it with everyone. In my post Spotify life I have been evangelizing about never relying on the editorial team to be the arbiters of an artist's success ever. It's like I've been talking to a wall since I left. I loved the ability to suggest and put artists in our frontline lists, find gold in the never ending soil of new releases each week and spread them out among our worldwide team. That was a privilege but to me it was only the beginning of the journey! Just like getting an add on a radio station was the beginning of your job (have to thank my old boss Jack Satter for that promotion wisdom!), the same is true. What was a label, artist, manager going to do or not do with what we may or may not do in a list? We could put a song in a list and sure the streams may come but it's downhill without the real artist work. I can tell you in my post Spotify life how much I advise my colleagues and industry partners to not give god status to the lists, be a good partner, don't sell your soul for the playlist. Often it's falling on deaf ears..it's hard to change and the industry is very willing to look at editorial playlists as a plug and play feature of the business. They are not. Not a single one of my editor peers at Spotify would ever claim that they do "artist development" so don't do that to them. A lot, maybe even more than shared here, of streams are produced by people just looking for good music amongst the deep soil of releases. In fact Bob, one of the last playlists I launched at Spotify is called Just Good Music
https://open.spotify.com/playlist/37i9dQZF1DX0b1hHYQtJjp?si=cjIQuinDRKeVKZrodCTp9w
to tip my cap to those just looking for a good experience. The experience and hope that we could offer a wonderful, easy editorial experience. They could always just hit play too!
John Butler
Fmr Spotify editor
_______________________________________
From: PAUL TRUST
Subject: Re: The Playlist Fallacy
Date: July 27, 2022 at 4:56:04 PM PDT
Hey Bob,
Let me give you a case study that you might find interesting on several levels. I have a song that is now platinum and if it's current rate of streaming continues will be double platinum in 13 months. This song has NEVER been featured on an editorial playlist. It's never been on the radio. There hasn't been a dime of promotion. We are the label so I can attest to the fact there is real money to be made with streaming, IF YOU OWN THE MASTER. It just so happens that the artist of said song became one of the biggest (and maybe most notorious) artists in the U.S., and fans found this song. That's the key to streaming, once you have exposure it's the greatest social experiment ever devised at least as it pertains to the arts. It has become one of this artists 10-12 top streaming songs out of a catalog of around 50.
Oh and who is this artist? His name is Morgan Wallen. You know him well.
If you can separate from the noise, get the exposure and build a better mouse trap this social experiment pays well.
Paul Trust
songwriter | producer | mixer
_______________________________________
From: Chris White
Subject: Re: Springsteen/Motley Crue
Date: July 24, 2022 at 6:54:58 PM PDT
Bob -
For the record, Live Nation (or maybe Ticketmaster) sent me an email a week or two ago, spelling out the process through which I could qualify as a legit fan and not a scalper, and earn a spot in the queue before those guys get a shot at tickets. The night before they went on sale, I got another email with details on how to enter the queue with other approved "fans."
When tix went on sale, I had 2000+ people ahead of me. Within minutes, that wilted away and I was allowed to pick seats. I chose 2 tickets on the lower level midway up, in the first section after the edge of the stage--great seats. $99 each, plus the usual fees, for about $265 total (for the show in Portland). Sweet!
The next day I was at a family picnic thing where a guy a couple of years older than me (I'm 65) was babbling on about how he heard Springsteen tickets were $6000 each. I started to correct him, but why bother? He was fully enjoying his outrage, regardless of what the truth might be.
Chris W.
_______________________________________
From: Dave Murray
Subject: Re: Springsteen/Motley Crue
Date: July 24, 2022 at 8:36:07 PM PDT
Hi Bob,
I was about 360th in the queue, which only took about four or five minutes to get me to the top. I picked seats at the very back of the arena, for 99.50 each. I was prepared to spend $300 so was happy. The service fees on EACH ticket were $31.60. I think that part is getting lost in the conversation about $5000 tickets.
Thanks,
Dave Murray
_______________________________________
From: Martin Valentine
Subject: Re: Too Much Springsteen
Date: July 26, 2022 at 11:05:47 PM PDT
Spot on Bob. Over these last few days I've had endless arguments with supposed Bruce fans. One was desperate to convince me that less than 10,000 tickets had been sold for Edinburgh - and that no standing tickets had been put on sale at all. No amount of me telling him I had three of those tickets in my possession convinced him. Another said nobody should pay more than £25 for a ticket..... living in dreamworld.
Meanwhile I have tickets for six shows in five countries in Europe, all bought within the first 10 minutes of going on sale, and bought at face value. I'm happy.
Strangely enough, all the folks bleating on about how unfair it is are the same ones who missed out on that first rush. Stuff 'em! They either need to now pay up or, for the love of god, shut up.
Martin, Nottingham, UK.
_______________________________________
From: Tom Spitzer
Subject: Re: Too Much Springsteen
Date: July 26, 2022 at 9:29:35 PM PDT
Sports has used dynamic pricing for quite a while. Games with in-demand opponents cost more than games against some team from Florida. It's funny that I accept that going to an NBA game costs me a couple hundred dollars a ticket, but I resist it for the artists I grew up with. Its an emotional thing, but that's where we are.
_______________________________________
From: Matt Robertson
Subject: Re: The Springsteen Ticket Fracas
Date: July 25, 2022 at 9:50:22 AM PDT
Look at tickets to Pearl Jam's upcoming Madison Square Garden show on Stubhub. Seats close $3K a pop - in the nosebleeds!!
_______________________________________
From: Andrew Brooslin
Subject: Springsteen- TM Verified Resale Tickets
Date: July 25, 2022 at 1:39:00 PM PDT
Hi Bob
One aspect of the Springsteen ticket onsale that I haven't seen discussed is the Ticketmaster Verified Resale. Using TD Garden in Boston as an example, there are blocks of nearly entire rows available in the Loge and blocks of prime seats on the floor available as Verified Resale tickets. With a four ticket limit how is it possible that these tickets were legitimately sold on the open market and those buyers (who ended up buying seats next to each other) just happened to place them all up for sale through Ticketmaster? Perhaps it's an arrangement with the arena or promoter? Did TM place them straight on the resale market after briefly making them available for sale? The whole Verified Resale has always been a little opaque. Certainly a money maker for TM. They collect fees on the initial sale and more fees on the resale. It's another layer of this onsale fueling fans frustration and anger at Bruce, Inc.
Best regards,
Andrew Brooslin
_______________________________________
From: Mark Beaven
Subject: RE: Too Much Springsteen
Date: July 26, 2022 at 6:52:54 PM PDT
Amen. My first thought when I saw Jon commented was, "Why shut your head in the door now?" And why you? Why so after the fact and impotently? Never half apologize or niggle.
There is so rarely a win in opposing a social media framed groundswell or mob. Especially when much of it is comprised of your fans. It is no longer about who's right, it's about who has the best or most resonant story. $40k tix, real or no, is a big, mythic indefensible crater to fill. Especially for an Everyman.
These days one lobbies through blinds or other parties in social media. If the temperature suits a win or redirect, you go. If not, you keep your head down and don't extend the life of the story by commenting. No one has the patience to stay focused long. Look at the Ukraine War. You pray some bigger disaster comes along and distracts everyone. Today, it's just a matter of when or redirection. People hire very expensive and seasoned teams to chum the environment, quash the haters' stories, and provide counterpoint. This HAS to happen real time.
That was Trump's formula. In a democracy, especially one where there is meaningful leverage of support within the courts, one can keep piling up damages in differing arenas and quickly no one can keep up or stop you. The courts can be stalled for years while someone "rapes and pillages" repeatedly. It's a real problem and major knife to the throat of our and every Democracy.
If Jon had to speak, he should have fallen on his sword and shared that the metrics got away, this had NEVER happened before, and it's history. Probably will serve so it never happens again. And... It's purely due to the LOVE and COMMITMENT of Bruce's fans. We LOVE them for it and want to honor that relationship in the framework it always has been. While the level of outpouring in demand for tickets is absolutely what we wanted, these pricing aberations are not at all what we wanted, expected, or stand for.
We look forward to getting out on the road and seeing everyone soon. Peace. Out.
_______________________________________
From: Adam Harrison
Subject: The Latecomer
Date: July 26, 2022 at 2:30:36 PM PDT
I'm at the chapter before the clambake.
I don't want to do anything else in life but wait for the drama to unfurl.
Tough day working. It's Tuesday at 230pm and only thing on my mind.
Thank you for the recommendation.
Adam
_______________________________________
From: John Parikhal
Subject: Re: Mailbag
Bob,
To be fair about our generation.
We did multi-task when we listened to music.
We smoked pot at the same time. Made love while we listened. Cooked dinner while we listened. Just for starters.
John
Subject: Re: Too Much Springsteen / Ticketmaster Boycott
Date: July 26, 2022 at 8:05:14 PM PDT
I have a quick Ticketmaster story for you, Bob - Back in the mid-90s, when I was managing Stone Temple Pilots, I was in close touch with Kelly Curtis, who was managing Pearl Jam. Kelly's tour accountant, The Goon, figured he could do an end-run around Ticketmaster and the high service charges they slapped on every ticket. The STP guys were concerned about high ticket prices as well, and always pushed for a percentage of tickets to be sold for about $16 (this was the 90s!), as a "gesture" to their fans. The issue was the service charges ended up being more than 25% for these modestly priced tickets.
So, Pearl Jam decided they were going to boycott the "evil" Ticketmaster and not play any of their venues (which were most all of the sheds and larger venues across the country). They took a stand in the press, started a boycott, and ended up booking shows in some really unusual (and inconvenient) places. I remember stories of fans driving more than 3 hours to muddy fields in WA state - which turned out to be a nightmare for many.
I thought there might be a better way, and figured I would go right to the root of all this "evil" - I called and scheduled a meeting with the "devil" himself, Fred Rosen, who was running Ticketmaster at the time. When I sat with him a few days later, I asked him why he hadn't put anything in place with any of the other managers who had joined the boycott. "You're the only one who's called me," he said. I was floored. Instead of trying to work (or even communicate) with Ticketmaster, they chose to boycott and build their own makeshift venues - at a huge expense to the artists and their fans.
Fred was as accommodating as could be, and asked me what he could do. I told him that his service charges accounted for more than 25% of our low priced tickets. Could he make the fee a percentage of the ticket's face value, rather than a flat dollar amount? "Done." Could he roll the other fees fees back on the lower priced tickets and push them up on the higher priced tickets (as the higher priced buyers could better absorb them)? "Done." All that in 15 minutes - and it saved us the monumental expense of building staging, sound, lighting, fencing, generators, parking, prota-potties, security, concessions, etc. in the middle of nowhere. We could play fan-convenient amphitheaters with low ticket prices and Ticketmaster still made money on the deal. Everybody won!
Eventually, the boycott fell apart, as the other artists realized that Ticketmaster was willing to work with them - if they would only ask.
You are right about the money - Ticketmaster is no more evil than your record label or your local hamburger stand - they're in business to make a profit. They depend on artists to fill their seats, and know where their bread is buttered. Managers and agents are well aware of ticketing prices and potential costs and profits. No one is forcing them to accept deals they don't think is in the best interests of their artists. Touring accounts for a very large portion of a top level artist's cash flow - and in my experience, most artists will look for the best paying offer - why wouldn't they?
Managers and agents work for the artist, and they're only signing deals with the artist's explicit approval. I've seen situations where I know scalpers were making more in a night than individual band members (band members have to cover expenses) and scalpers are getting "market" value for tickets rather than what artists might think their tickets are worth. I used to walk the venues every night and actually ask people what they paid to get in - the answers were always shocking to me - 10-20X face value was not uncommon in those days.
Is it greed? Would you sell your house for $500K more than what you think it's worth, if that's what someone was willing to pay? I bet most would. It's just human nature, and will probably always be…
-Steve Stewart
_______________________________________
From: john dittmar
Subject: Re: Springsteen's Silence
Date: July 23, 2022 at 9:25:22 AM PDT
Hey Bob,
The folks tossing this Bruce ticketing issue around are missing a significant point regarding ticketing controls.
Unless Landau did his deal directly with Live Nation brass, it's the booking agent's responsibility! Agencies, more than lawyers or anyone else for that matter, deal with the ticketing world every day and should advise management accordingly. You're right; Landau and Bruce are grizzled veterans; hard to imagine they have intimate knowledge of how the tech works.
A dirty little secret is that most managers, regardless of age, don't fully understand the system. It's part of an agent's job to know the ticket system and how it can positively (and negatively) affect the client. That expertise should then provide a breakdown in clear terms to management before any ticket is on sale. It's part of having a good team around the client.
Maybe the agent red-flagged this, maybe not. However, the buck does stop with the manager, so again, you're right; it's on Jon and Bruce's doorstep.
PS, this will blow over soon, but hopefully a good lesson for all.
_______________________________________
From: John Butler
Subject: Re: The Playlist Fallacy
Date: July 27, 2022 at 4:09:17 PM PDT
Bob,
This is wonderfully written and I thank you for sharing it with everyone. In my post Spotify life I have been evangelizing about never relying on the editorial team to be the arbiters of an artist's success ever. It's like I've been talking to a wall since I left. I loved the ability to suggest and put artists in our frontline lists, find gold in the never ending soil of new releases each week and spread them out among our worldwide team. That was a privilege but to me it was only the beginning of the journey! Just like getting an add on a radio station was the beginning of your job (have to thank my old boss Jack Satter for that promotion wisdom!), the same is true. What was a label, artist, manager going to do or not do with what we may or may not do in a list? We could put a song in a list and sure the streams may come but it's downhill without the real artist work. I can tell you in my post Spotify life how much I advise my colleagues and industry partners to not give god status to the lists, be a good partner, don't sell your soul for the playlist. Often it's falling on deaf ears..it's hard to change and the industry is very willing to look at editorial playlists as a plug and play feature of the business. They are not. Not a single one of my editor peers at Spotify would ever claim that they do "artist development" so don't do that to them. A lot, maybe even more than shared here, of streams are produced by people just looking for good music amongst the deep soil of releases. In fact Bob, one of the last playlists I launched at Spotify is called Just Good Music
https://open.spotify.com/playlist/37i9dQZF1DX0b1hHYQtJjp?si=cjIQuinDRKeVKZrodCTp9w
to tip my cap to those just looking for a good experience. The experience and hope that we could offer a wonderful, easy editorial experience. They could always just hit play too!
John Butler
Fmr Spotify editor
_______________________________________
From: PAUL TRUST
Subject: Re: The Playlist Fallacy
Date: July 27, 2022 at 4:56:04 PM PDT
Hey Bob,
Let me give you a case study that you might find interesting on several levels. I have a song that is now platinum and if it's current rate of streaming continues will be double platinum in 13 months. This song has NEVER been featured on an editorial playlist. It's never been on the radio. There hasn't been a dime of promotion. We are the label so I can attest to the fact there is real money to be made with streaming, IF YOU OWN THE MASTER. It just so happens that the artist of said song became one of the biggest (and maybe most notorious) artists in the U.S., and fans found this song. That's the key to streaming, once you have exposure it's the greatest social experiment ever devised at least as it pertains to the arts. It has become one of this artists 10-12 top streaming songs out of a catalog of around 50.
Oh and who is this artist? His name is Morgan Wallen. You know him well.
If you can separate from the noise, get the exposure and build a better mouse trap this social experiment pays well.
Paul Trust
songwriter | producer | mixer
_______________________________________
From: Chris White
Subject: Re: Springsteen/Motley Crue
Date: July 24, 2022 at 6:54:58 PM PDT
Bob -
For the record, Live Nation (or maybe Ticketmaster) sent me an email a week or two ago, spelling out the process through which I could qualify as a legit fan and not a scalper, and earn a spot in the queue before those guys get a shot at tickets. The night before they went on sale, I got another email with details on how to enter the queue with other approved "fans."
When tix went on sale, I had 2000+ people ahead of me. Within minutes, that wilted away and I was allowed to pick seats. I chose 2 tickets on the lower level midway up, in the first section after the edge of the stage--great seats. $99 each, plus the usual fees, for about $265 total (for the show in Portland). Sweet!
The next day I was at a family picnic thing where a guy a couple of years older than me (I'm 65) was babbling on about how he heard Springsteen tickets were $6000 each. I started to correct him, but why bother? He was fully enjoying his outrage, regardless of what the truth might be.
Chris W.
_______________________________________
From: Dave Murray
Subject: Re: Springsteen/Motley Crue
Date: July 24, 2022 at 8:36:07 PM PDT
Hi Bob,
I was about 360th in the queue, which only took about four or five minutes to get me to the top. I picked seats at the very back of the arena, for 99.50 each. I was prepared to spend $300 so was happy. The service fees on EACH ticket were $31.60. I think that part is getting lost in the conversation about $5000 tickets.
Thanks,
Dave Murray
_______________________________________
From: Martin Valentine
Subject: Re: Too Much Springsteen
Date: July 26, 2022 at 11:05:47 PM PDT
Spot on Bob. Over these last few days I've had endless arguments with supposed Bruce fans. One was desperate to convince me that less than 10,000 tickets had been sold for Edinburgh - and that no standing tickets had been put on sale at all. No amount of me telling him I had three of those tickets in my possession convinced him. Another said nobody should pay more than £25 for a ticket..... living in dreamworld.
Meanwhile I have tickets for six shows in five countries in Europe, all bought within the first 10 minutes of going on sale, and bought at face value. I'm happy.
Strangely enough, all the folks bleating on about how unfair it is are the same ones who missed out on that first rush. Stuff 'em! They either need to now pay up or, for the love of god, shut up.
Martin, Nottingham, UK.
_______________________________________
From: Tom Spitzer
Subject: Re: Too Much Springsteen
Date: July 26, 2022 at 9:29:35 PM PDT
Sports has used dynamic pricing for quite a while. Games with in-demand opponents cost more than games against some team from Florida. It's funny that I accept that going to an NBA game costs me a couple hundred dollars a ticket, but I resist it for the artists I grew up with. Its an emotional thing, but that's where we are.
_______________________________________
From: Matt Robertson
Subject: Re: The Springsteen Ticket Fracas
Date: July 25, 2022 at 9:50:22 AM PDT
Look at tickets to Pearl Jam's upcoming Madison Square Garden show on Stubhub. Seats close $3K a pop - in the nosebleeds!!
_______________________________________
From: Andrew Brooslin
Subject: Springsteen- TM Verified Resale Tickets
Date: July 25, 2022 at 1:39:00 PM PDT
Hi Bob
One aspect of the Springsteen ticket onsale that I haven't seen discussed is the Ticketmaster Verified Resale. Using TD Garden in Boston as an example, there are blocks of nearly entire rows available in the Loge and blocks of prime seats on the floor available as Verified Resale tickets. With a four ticket limit how is it possible that these tickets were legitimately sold on the open market and those buyers (who ended up buying seats next to each other) just happened to place them all up for sale through Ticketmaster? Perhaps it's an arrangement with the arena or promoter? Did TM place them straight on the resale market after briefly making them available for sale? The whole Verified Resale has always been a little opaque. Certainly a money maker for TM. They collect fees on the initial sale and more fees on the resale. It's another layer of this onsale fueling fans frustration and anger at Bruce, Inc.
Best regards,
Andrew Brooslin
_______________________________________
From: Mark Beaven
Subject: RE: Too Much Springsteen
Date: July 26, 2022 at 6:52:54 PM PDT
Amen. My first thought when I saw Jon commented was, "Why shut your head in the door now?" And why you? Why so after the fact and impotently? Never half apologize or niggle.
There is so rarely a win in opposing a social media framed groundswell or mob. Especially when much of it is comprised of your fans. It is no longer about who's right, it's about who has the best or most resonant story. $40k tix, real or no, is a big, mythic indefensible crater to fill. Especially for an Everyman.
These days one lobbies through blinds or other parties in social media. If the temperature suits a win or redirect, you go. If not, you keep your head down and don't extend the life of the story by commenting. No one has the patience to stay focused long. Look at the Ukraine War. You pray some bigger disaster comes along and distracts everyone. Today, it's just a matter of when or redirection. People hire very expensive and seasoned teams to chum the environment, quash the haters' stories, and provide counterpoint. This HAS to happen real time.
That was Trump's formula. In a democracy, especially one where there is meaningful leverage of support within the courts, one can keep piling up damages in differing arenas and quickly no one can keep up or stop you. The courts can be stalled for years while someone "rapes and pillages" repeatedly. It's a real problem and major knife to the throat of our and every Democracy.
If Jon had to speak, he should have fallen on his sword and shared that the metrics got away, this had NEVER happened before, and it's history. Probably will serve so it never happens again. And... It's purely due to the LOVE and COMMITMENT of Bruce's fans. We LOVE them for it and want to honor that relationship in the framework it always has been. While the level of outpouring in demand for tickets is absolutely what we wanted, these pricing aberations are not at all what we wanted, expected, or stand for.
We look forward to getting out on the road and seeing everyone soon. Peace. Out.
_______________________________________
From: Adam Harrison
Subject: The Latecomer
Date: July 26, 2022 at 2:30:36 PM PDT
I'm at the chapter before the clambake.
I don't want to do anything else in life but wait for the drama to unfurl.
Tough day working. It's Tuesday at 230pm and only thing on my mind.
Thank you for the recommendation.
Adam
_______________________________________
From: John Parikhal
Subject: Re: Mailbag
Bob,
To be fair about our generation.
We did multi-task when we listened to music.
We smoked pot at the same time. Made love while we listened. Cooked dinner while we listened. Just for starters.
John
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The Playlist Fallacy
You may or may not be aware of the CMA announcement yesterday.
The bottom line, streaming works fine.
Needless to say, the songwriters, the indies, are up in arms.
So, what is the CMA? It's the U.K. Competition and Markets Authority. You remember, they held hearings. And now they say there's not going to be a market investigation. The study that was initiated six months ago will be completed, but as for the heinous streaming payouts small labels and players themselves have been complaining about:
"There has been a huge increase in the number of artists sharing their music and a vast back catalogue made available via streaming. This, coupled with the fact that there is only a finite amount of music a consumer can listen to and a relatively fixed pot of revenue from streaming, inevitably reduces the amount that most artists can earn, even with increased royalty rates"
But it gets even worse for the naysayers:
"While the majors' profits have been increasing since the lows of piracy, the current evidence does not suggest that market concentration is allowing the majors to make sustained and substantial excess profits."
And, it puts a stake in the heart of the publishing complaint, saying revenues have gone from 8% in 2007 to 15% today, although there was a slight dip between 2017 and 2021, but this was as a result of the increase of the DSPs' share, not that of a rights holder.
It's a sad, strange business out there. The U.K. government held hearings, and ultimately found...there were no major problems. Sure, the study might ultimately recommend adjustments, but a wholesale investigation into abuses by the DSPs and the major labels...the CMA believes it's unnecessary.
This is vastly different from a hearing in the U.S. Where elected officials grandstand with no knowledge of the underlying business and nothing changes anyway.
But if you pay attention to the business, you know all of the above. It's just like politics, you can live in a bubble, you can avoid hearing the truth, if the facts don't align with your feelings, they must be untrue!
So, the above is mostly a footnote to insiders, but buried in the CMA statement is a chart on streaming services, now THIS is interesting:
https://bit.ly/3J8PDoK
You can see the table with surrounding analysis from MusicAlly here: https://bit.ly/3J8PIbW
If you study the table, and you should, you should click through, you'll learn...
THE POWER OF PLAYLISTS IS WAY OVERSTATED!
Yes, all the bitching is how you can't get on playlists.
The bottom line, on Spotify, the biggest streaming service with the most active customers, meaning they stream the most music, 50-60% of listening is done via USER CURATED PLAYLISTS! What that means...well, you know what it means, you build your own playlist and listen to it, as opposed to the ones proffered by Spotify.
And 10-20% of listening on Spotify is NON-PLAYLIST!
In other words, listening on Spotify is between 60 and 80% user-driven, user choice, user selected.
How do they find out what to listen to?
Well, it ain't algorithm driven radio. That accounts for 0 to 5% on Spotify, YouTube Music and Apple. It's higher on Amazon, 5-10%, but that's mostly about calling out to Alexa and...
What about the vaunted company generated playlists. On Spotify, the most active service, with the youngest customers, it's 5-10%. And it's the same on YouTube Music. Apple and Amazon are both 10-20%, but are those services actually breaking acts, or is this mostly passive listening by older generations wanting background music?
Then there's "Algotorial."
The devil is in the details. But basically, it's a blend of company picks with tracks delivered algorithmically based on an individual's listening preferences.
You can read Spotify's explanation of algotorial here:
https://bit.ly/3vkZZMC
But better to read this page:
https://bit.ly/3PWS7c2
Bottom line? Spotify does pick priorities and places them high in algatorial playlists, but the share of algatorial on Spotify is 10-20%. On YouTube Music it's 30-40%. But on Apple and Amazon, the other two biggies, it's only 5-10%. So compared to user-picked listening...IT'S DE MINIMIS!
But let's dig deeper into YouTube Music, Apple and Amazon.
A much lower percentage of listens on those services is via user curated playlists. On YouTube Music it's 10-20%, as it is on Amazon. On Apple, it's 20-30%. What this tells us is the listeners on all three of these services are not only lower in number, but lower in effort, activity, picking and choosing their own songs. These are the people who cotton to your act LAST!
As for non-playlist listening, on YouTube Music, Apple and Amazon, it's 40-50%
As for Autoplay... That means the service keeps delivering music after your choice is finished. It makes up 0-5% on YouTube Music, and 5-10% on Spotify, Apple and Amazon. And we all know the songs played automatically are always in the same wheelhouse of what's been chosen previously, there is an opportunity for music discovery here but it's very small, the services don't want to serve up any tune-outs, because then the listener will stop the stream.
So on every service, the vast majority is user picked listening. Apple's customers are a bit more active than YouTube Music's and Amazon's, but not in the league of Spotify's.
So, to bottom line it, subscribers are not going to DSPs for music discovery, chances are they already know what they want to hear and are picking that exactly!
Because in truth, the streaming services are positively awful for music discovery. You've got to wade through so much crap to get to what you want.
So, you find out what you want to listen to elsewhere. And then you go to the streaming service and pick that exact music and listen to it.
Whoa, so all this b.s. about playlists, is just that, B.S!
I'm not saying playlists have no effect on music discovery. And, if you have a relationship with the streaming service you have a much better chance of getting heard by more people as one of the DSP's priorities, but most people, the active listeners, those on Spotify...want almost nothing to do with playlists unless they've created them by themselves!
Have you ever tried to listen to these company or algorithm driven playlists? It's interminable. You check out a few tracks, then you skip forward, keep skipping forward, and then you give up and go back to what you already know.
So...
Sure, radio and streaming service playlists might be the easiest way to reach the most people, but they mean LITTLE!
Analogize it to network TV. Sure, that's where advertisers go, pay money to have their product seen, but each ad reaches just a small fraction of the number of people from the era prior to basic and pay cable. And now in the era of streaming, despite all the talk of Netflix adding an ad-supported tier, MOST PEOPLE PAY TO NOT SEE ANY COMMERCIALS!
Happens to me all the time, people say, "You know that commercial..." And I always respond, I DON'T! I'm now watching a ton of TV, but it's all high quality fare on streaming services with no ads.
So, if a song gets traction on TikTok, fans will go to their streaming service of choice to listen to it. The listening is done on the DSP, but the DISCOVERY IS DONE ON TIKTOK!
Or some other social media platform.
And then there's a bit of press. Conventional, the big media kahunas, and then the web only outlets.
But in truth, most of the listening is being driven by WORD OF MOUTH!
That's how you want to get your story started, not by convincing a DSP to playlist you.
But that's much harder. A listener has no financial investment, and has a limited amount of time. They need to hear a HIT! And a hit doesn't mean just a three minute pop or hip-hop ditty, but something that they need to hear again and again, that they will ultimately tell their friends about.
And if you've got fans, you can play live, and sell merch, there are a ton of ways to monetize.
But many true music fans do not have the ability to listen to music 24/7, or choose not to, with so many other diversions, so the teen driven stuff makes up the Spotify Top 50, giving an even more skewed view of the overall picture.
Let me restate.
The streaming music platforms are terrible at music discovery. Being open to all customers, i.e. labels and individual musicians, they promote so much stuff that little gets traction, and this plethora of stuff turns off customers who don't even bother to partake in the push of this music upon them.
You want to start small, not big. You want to build a fan base, not convince the middlemen/women. It's slower than ever, and even if you succeed wildly, your reach is less. These are facts. Ignore the hype.
And know that although you can make bank in the music business, more than you ever could before, it doesn't compare to what you can make at a straight job in banking or tech.
Think about it. The winners take most of the pot. In EVERY industry. And at the bottom, you have more competition than ever fighting over fewer spoils. Maybe if you can't make ends meet, it's not the system's fault, there is no enemy you can point to, it's not the DSP, it's not the major label, it's REALITY!
It's harder to make it than ever before, and it's harder to move up the food chain than ever before, and this is for EVERYBODY!
There are few short cuts and they rarely pay lasting dividends.
Best to own the truth and start there.
--
Visit the archive: http://lefsetz.com/wordpress/
--
Listen to the podcast:
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The bottom line, streaming works fine.
Needless to say, the songwriters, the indies, are up in arms.
So, what is the CMA? It's the U.K. Competition and Markets Authority. You remember, they held hearings. And now they say there's not going to be a market investigation. The study that was initiated six months ago will be completed, but as for the heinous streaming payouts small labels and players themselves have been complaining about:
"There has been a huge increase in the number of artists sharing their music and a vast back catalogue made available via streaming. This, coupled with the fact that there is only a finite amount of music a consumer can listen to and a relatively fixed pot of revenue from streaming, inevitably reduces the amount that most artists can earn, even with increased royalty rates"
But it gets even worse for the naysayers:
"While the majors' profits have been increasing since the lows of piracy, the current evidence does not suggest that market concentration is allowing the majors to make sustained and substantial excess profits."
And, it puts a stake in the heart of the publishing complaint, saying revenues have gone from 8% in 2007 to 15% today, although there was a slight dip between 2017 and 2021, but this was as a result of the increase of the DSPs' share, not that of a rights holder.
It's a sad, strange business out there. The U.K. government held hearings, and ultimately found...there were no major problems. Sure, the study might ultimately recommend adjustments, but a wholesale investigation into abuses by the DSPs and the major labels...the CMA believes it's unnecessary.
This is vastly different from a hearing in the U.S. Where elected officials grandstand with no knowledge of the underlying business and nothing changes anyway.
But if you pay attention to the business, you know all of the above. It's just like politics, you can live in a bubble, you can avoid hearing the truth, if the facts don't align with your feelings, they must be untrue!
So, the above is mostly a footnote to insiders, but buried in the CMA statement is a chart on streaming services, now THIS is interesting:
https://bit.ly/3J8PDoK
You can see the table with surrounding analysis from MusicAlly here: https://bit.ly/3J8PIbW
If you study the table, and you should, you should click through, you'll learn...
THE POWER OF PLAYLISTS IS WAY OVERSTATED!
Yes, all the bitching is how you can't get on playlists.
The bottom line, on Spotify, the biggest streaming service with the most active customers, meaning they stream the most music, 50-60% of listening is done via USER CURATED PLAYLISTS! What that means...well, you know what it means, you build your own playlist and listen to it, as opposed to the ones proffered by Spotify.
And 10-20% of listening on Spotify is NON-PLAYLIST!
In other words, listening on Spotify is between 60 and 80% user-driven, user choice, user selected.
How do they find out what to listen to?
Well, it ain't algorithm driven radio. That accounts for 0 to 5% on Spotify, YouTube Music and Apple. It's higher on Amazon, 5-10%, but that's mostly about calling out to Alexa and...
What about the vaunted company generated playlists. On Spotify, the most active service, with the youngest customers, it's 5-10%. And it's the same on YouTube Music. Apple and Amazon are both 10-20%, but are those services actually breaking acts, or is this mostly passive listening by older generations wanting background music?
Then there's "Algotorial."
The devil is in the details. But basically, it's a blend of company picks with tracks delivered algorithmically based on an individual's listening preferences.
You can read Spotify's explanation of algotorial here:
https://bit.ly/3vkZZMC
But better to read this page:
https://bit.ly/3PWS7c2
Bottom line? Spotify does pick priorities and places them high in algatorial playlists, but the share of algatorial on Spotify is 10-20%. On YouTube Music it's 30-40%. But on Apple and Amazon, the other two biggies, it's only 5-10%. So compared to user-picked listening...IT'S DE MINIMIS!
But let's dig deeper into YouTube Music, Apple and Amazon.
A much lower percentage of listens on those services is via user curated playlists. On YouTube Music it's 10-20%, as it is on Amazon. On Apple, it's 20-30%. What this tells us is the listeners on all three of these services are not only lower in number, but lower in effort, activity, picking and choosing their own songs. These are the people who cotton to your act LAST!
As for non-playlist listening, on YouTube Music, Apple and Amazon, it's 40-50%
As for Autoplay... That means the service keeps delivering music after your choice is finished. It makes up 0-5% on YouTube Music, and 5-10% on Spotify, Apple and Amazon. And we all know the songs played automatically are always in the same wheelhouse of what's been chosen previously, there is an opportunity for music discovery here but it's very small, the services don't want to serve up any tune-outs, because then the listener will stop the stream.
So on every service, the vast majority is user picked listening. Apple's customers are a bit more active than YouTube Music's and Amazon's, but not in the league of Spotify's.
So, to bottom line it, subscribers are not going to DSPs for music discovery, chances are they already know what they want to hear and are picking that exactly!
Because in truth, the streaming services are positively awful for music discovery. You've got to wade through so much crap to get to what you want.
So, you find out what you want to listen to elsewhere. And then you go to the streaming service and pick that exact music and listen to it.
Whoa, so all this b.s. about playlists, is just that, B.S!
I'm not saying playlists have no effect on music discovery. And, if you have a relationship with the streaming service you have a much better chance of getting heard by more people as one of the DSP's priorities, but most people, the active listeners, those on Spotify...want almost nothing to do with playlists unless they've created them by themselves!
Have you ever tried to listen to these company or algorithm driven playlists? It's interminable. You check out a few tracks, then you skip forward, keep skipping forward, and then you give up and go back to what you already know.
So...
Sure, radio and streaming service playlists might be the easiest way to reach the most people, but they mean LITTLE!
Analogize it to network TV. Sure, that's where advertisers go, pay money to have their product seen, but each ad reaches just a small fraction of the number of people from the era prior to basic and pay cable. And now in the era of streaming, despite all the talk of Netflix adding an ad-supported tier, MOST PEOPLE PAY TO NOT SEE ANY COMMERCIALS!
Happens to me all the time, people say, "You know that commercial..." And I always respond, I DON'T! I'm now watching a ton of TV, but it's all high quality fare on streaming services with no ads.
So, if a song gets traction on TikTok, fans will go to their streaming service of choice to listen to it. The listening is done on the DSP, but the DISCOVERY IS DONE ON TIKTOK!
Or some other social media platform.
And then there's a bit of press. Conventional, the big media kahunas, and then the web only outlets.
But in truth, most of the listening is being driven by WORD OF MOUTH!
That's how you want to get your story started, not by convincing a DSP to playlist you.
But that's much harder. A listener has no financial investment, and has a limited amount of time. They need to hear a HIT! And a hit doesn't mean just a three minute pop or hip-hop ditty, but something that they need to hear again and again, that they will ultimately tell their friends about.
And if you've got fans, you can play live, and sell merch, there are a ton of ways to monetize.
But many true music fans do not have the ability to listen to music 24/7, or choose not to, with so many other diversions, so the teen driven stuff makes up the Spotify Top 50, giving an even more skewed view of the overall picture.
Let me restate.
The streaming music platforms are terrible at music discovery. Being open to all customers, i.e. labels and individual musicians, they promote so much stuff that little gets traction, and this plethora of stuff turns off customers who don't even bother to partake in the push of this music upon them.
You want to start small, not big. You want to build a fan base, not convince the middlemen/women. It's slower than ever, and even if you succeed wildly, your reach is less. These are facts. Ignore the hype.
And know that although you can make bank in the music business, more than you ever could before, it doesn't compare to what you can make at a straight job in banking or tech.
Think about it. The winners take most of the pot. In EVERY industry. And at the bottom, you have more competition than ever fighting over fewer spoils. Maybe if you can't make ends meet, it's not the system's fault, there is no enemy you can point to, it's not the DSP, it's not the major label, it's REALITY!
It's harder to make it than ever before, and it's harder to move up the food chain than ever before, and this is for EVERYBODY!
There are few short cuts and they rarely pay lasting dividends.
Best to own the truth and start there.
--
Visit the archive: http://lefsetz.com/wordpress/
--
Listen to the podcast:
-iHeart: https://ihr.fm/2Gi5PFj
-Apple: https://apple.co/2ndmpvp
--
http://www.twitter.com/lefsetz
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Tuesday 26 July 2022
Too Much Springsteen
"The Case of the $5,000 Springsteen Tickets - Triumphant fans showed up in Ticketmaster's queue with special codes, only to encounter its 'dynamic pricing' system. Was the Boss OK with that?": https://nyti.ms/3bc5FBB
This is why people hate the mainstream media. This was FRIDAY'S story, and today is TUESDAY!
If you're interested in breaking news, go on Twitter. Maybe, and I mean MAYBE if someone famous gets shot, or if it's a national disaster, the TV stations and maybe even the newspapers will cover it and be up to date. But they only seem to glom on to a story after it's made a ton of noise online.
This is a broken system.
And who is this article for?
Certainly not for the fans. How many of them actually read the "New York Times"? As far as being forwarded, forgetting issues of the soft paywall, most people have made up their mind about Springsteen tickets, they're on to new subjects. So who are you going to trust?
The traditional outlets are the most trustworthy, despite what people say, if for no other reason that they have more at risk, make a mistake and you risk getting sued, although the bar is very high in America, at least for now, the right and the Supreme Court would like to lower it.
But we live in a fast-paced society. Four days later is TOO LATE!
And who is going to read this in the "New York Times"? PEOPLE WHO DON'T CARE! This is not where this story needs to be placed, but on Reddit, in Bruce forums, where the people who buy tickets to the show go.
So what we've got is hearsay for days, based on some facts and a lot of opinions, and then the Grand Poobah weighs in when nobody cares and misinformation reigns.
Want to know what is going on?
Start with Twitter, then go to Reddit. They are the best places to find things out, especially Twitter, and Reddit is a great place to take the temperature, measure and evaluate the reaction. You'd think that some traditional news outlet would figure out how to marry these elements, put all the news in one place, a la WeChat in China, but the antique newspaper people don't stop decrying the loss of newspapers when it's a poor business model and papers are never coming back. People need NEWS, they don't need newspapers.
As for Jon Landau's comment:
"'Regardless of the commentary about a modest number of tickets costing $1,000 or more, our true average ticket price has been in the mid-$200 range,' he continued. 'I believe that in today's environment, that is a fair price to see someone universally regarded as among the very greatest artists of his generation.'"
You don't defend the indefensible.
This is not computer code, zeros and ones. This is not facts, this is emotion, this is FEEL! Don't tell people how to feel, that's a losing game. If you want to respond you have to have sympathy, you've got to make them feel warm, you've got to make them feel understood.
As for all those tickets that were sold for a low price, most customers complaining DIDN'T GET THEM! Never mind it's a tiny minority that is most vocal. You've got to ignore these people, you can never win.
Also, everybody lies in entertainment, and they're almost never caught. If Landau wanted to talk about the ticket prices, he should have said that Bruce was upset about the situation, he had no idea tickets would appear so expensive. He loves his fans, he has a bond with them, he would never do anything to screw them over. WHERE IS THAT?
Of course, Jon may have told the reporter all this and the writer didn't include it. Which is why when you want to make a public statement, YOU PUBLISH IT YOURSELF! More people will see what you say on your own Instagram/Facebook/Twitter/TikTok account than they will in the "New York Times." In an era when you can go directly to the people, why bother to go through an intermediary, that's positively old school. Young acts, athletes, seemingly every one of today's celebrities makes their statement on social media, not the NEWSPAPER!
And the truth does not matter. Not whatsoever. So why are you trying to convince people to think one way when their heart says something else.
And you never want to do cleanup, you want to get AHEAD of the story!
If the Boss was going to talk, he should have fallen on his sword, this was a mistake. Something akin to an apology.
But the real story is this kerfuffle was passé, in the rearview mirror. Why talk to the "New York Times" at all? You don't talk, there's no story. The press is there to be manipulated, to be used, not to satiate. Reporters are the worst, they'll bleed you dry and disappear. It's a game, feed them gossip and information that doesn't hurt you such that when you need a favor you have some cards to play. To keep a story out of the news. Sans Landau's comments here, this "New York Times" story has essentially nothing new, there's no news there! It's not worth publishing without Landau's comments.
And in today's world it's all about virality. If it's a rehash of what's already known, "Variety" got Ticketmaster's view two days ago, a story is dead on arrival.
Of course the author could have done some real reporting, researched dynamic pricing with other acts. But that would have been too hard, too much effort on a story he didn't really care about anyway.
And today's story is not Springsteen anyway, it's Adele in Vegas.
I saw a tweet saying tickets were priced at $40,000. I did a modicum of research, saw some bad seats going for four figures, like in the very last row, all resale, but it really doesn't matter, the truth is irrelevant in a case like this. People don't care enough to research, so the 40k number sticks. THAT'S the story.
And is there a ton of bitching?
Is there bitching about any other act using dynamic pricing?
NO! At least not anywhere near the intensity regarding Springsteen.
There is no way in hell you can convince me this wasn't screwed up. I got an email today saying tickets were capped at a new Springsteen on sale at $2500. True? I don't care! But they should be. Because as Landau said in this article, almost no one was paying those insane prices.
And I keep getting e-mail from people saying they paid reasonable prices. Why pour gasoline on the fire of high prices, why not wait for all the hard core fans to get tickets and ultimately be satisfied.
If you're willing to wait...
A few hours, a few days, right before the show... Odds are pretty good you can score.
But with all this verified fan nonsense, people's expectations were high, and what they got was in most cases...NOTHING!
They wasted their time. This was worse than showing up at ten a.m. without being verified!
Maybe you should have a lottery. If you're really interested in being fair. But people will still complain, everybody wants an edge.
I'll go even further than this... In today's money-oriented society, NO ONE CARES ABOUT SPRINGSTEEN TICKETS EXCEPT HIS FANS!
Come on, even lousy baseball tickets are expensive. All NFL seats are expensive. Concert tickets have been expensive since hell froze over and the Eagles reunited in 1994. And then Napster and the internet caused them to go nuclear. You mean there are people bitching about high ticket prices still today? Do they still use flip-phones? Are they still on dialup?
And we all know concerts are not a commodity. And everybody knows you pay more for a unique service.
But you can't convince the squeaky wheel.
This is my favorite e-mail I got in response to all this:
"Many years ago, my record store was a Ticketmaster outlet. You have no idea how many ticket customers, when we'd show them the venue layout and what seats were available, would look us in the face and say, dead serious, 'You don't have any in the front row?'"
Galen"
As for the fees... THE ACTS ARE TO BLAME! But you can explain the economics over and over and the public refuses to acknowledge this. You'd think that Ticketmaster is run by the Mafia and the acts are beholden to them when just the reverse is true. As for promoter loyalty, the act will go with whoever pays them the most. And if Live Nation and AEG aren't interested, there's always someone who will step up for a sell-out act. And then there are the casinos that OVERPAY for acts just to bring people to the premises to gamble.
As for a monopoly...
This is where it gets dangerous, where the blowback gets severe, but the truth is Ticketmaster gets all these events BECAUSE IT CAN HANDLE THE TRAFFIC, IT DOESN'T BREAK DOWN! All these people e-mail me about their services, how they can solve all the problems. And true, they have features Ticketmaster does not, but can they handle millions of ticket requests simultaneously?
And to hammer Ticketmaster's advantages even more... If you're not on the service you're immediately selling tickets with one arm behind your back. That's where people go to buy tickets first, Ticketmaster. They see what is available there, it's one stop shopping. Whereas if another service is employed...most people never even go there! Online, there's one entity that dominates every sphere, Google in search, Amazon in commerce... And to dethrone them entails more than being better. It can be done, but it's very difficult. AND TICKETMASTER IS AN E-COMMERCE COMPANY! Yes, you buy all those tickets through the INTERNET!
I've got no sympathy for everybody bitching about Springsteen ticket prices, grow up.
But I must say, these on sales have been mishandled from the get-go.
As for the truth...
PEOPLE DON'T CARE!
--
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--
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This is why people hate the mainstream media. This was FRIDAY'S story, and today is TUESDAY!
If you're interested in breaking news, go on Twitter. Maybe, and I mean MAYBE if someone famous gets shot, or if it's a national disaster, the TV stations and maybe even the newspapers will cover it and be up to date. But they only seem to glom on to a story after it's made a ton of noise online.
This is a broken system.
And who is this article for?
Certainly not for the fans. How many of them actually read the "New York Times"? As far as being forwarded, forgetting issues of the soft paywall, most people have made up their mind about Springsteen tickets, they're on to new subjects. So who are you going to trust?
The traditional outlets are the most trustworthy, despite what people say, if for no other reason that they have more at risk, make a mistake and you risk getting sued, although the bar is very high in America, at least for now, the right and the Supreme Court would like to lower it.
But we live in a fast-paced society. Four days later is TOO LATE!
And who is going to read this in the "New York Times"? PEOPLE WHO DON'T CARE! This is not where this story needs to be placed, but on Reddit, in Bruce forums, where the people who buy tickets to the show go.
So what we've got is hearsay for days, based on some facts and a lot of opinions, and then the Grand Poobah weighs in when nobody cares and misinformation reigns.
Want to know what is going on?
Start with Twitter, then go to Reddit. They are the best places to find things out, especially Twitter, and Reddit is a great place to take the temperature, measure and evaluate the reaction. You'd think that some traditional news outlet would figure out how to marry these elements, put all the news in one place, a la WeChat in China, but the antique newspaper people don't stop decrying the loss of newspapers when it's a poor business model and papers are never coming back. People need NEWS, they don't need newspapers.
As for Jon Landau's comment:
"'Regardless of the commentary about a modest number of tickets costing $1,000 or more, our true average ticket price has been in the mid-$200 range,' he continued. 'I believe that in today's environment, that is a fair price to see someone universally regarded as among the very greatest artists of his generation.'"
You don't defend the indefensible.
This is not computer code, zeros and ones. This is not facts, this is emotion, this is FEEL! Don't tell people how to feel, that's a losing game. If you want to respond you have to have sympathy, you've got to make them feel warm, you've got to make them feel understood.
As for all those tickets that were sold for a low price, most customers complaining DIDN'T GET THEM! Never mind it's a tiny minority that is most vocal. You've got to ignore these people, you can never win.
Also, everybody lies in entertainment, and they're almost never caught. If Landau wanted to talk about the ticket prices, he should have said that Bruce was upset about the situation, he had no idea tickets would appear so expensive. He loves his fans, he has a bond with them, he would never do anything to screw them over. WHERE IS THAT?
Of course, Jon may have told the reporter all this and the writer didn't include it. Which is why when you want to make a public statement, YOU PUBLISH IT YOURSELF! More people will see what you say on your own Instagram/Facebook/Twitter/TikTok account than they will in the "New York Times." In an era when you can go directly to the people, why bother to go through an intermediary, that's positively old school. Young acts, athletes, seemingly every one of today's celebrities makes their statement on social media, not the NEWSPAPER!
And the truth does not matter. Not whatsoever. So why are you trying to convince people to think one way when their heart says something else.
And you never want to do cleanup, you want to get AHEAD of the story!
If the Boss was going to talk, he should have fallen on his sword, this was a mistake. Something akin to an apology.
But the real story is this kerfuffle was passé, in the rearview mirror. Why talk to the "New York Times" at all? You don't talk, there's no story. The press is there to be manipulated, to be used, not to satiate. Reporters are the worst, they'll bleed you dry and disappear. It's a game, feed them gossip and information that doesn't hurt you such that when you need a favor you have some cards to play. To keep a story out of the news. Sans Landau's comments here, this "New York Times" story has essentially nothing new, there's no news there! It's not worth publishing without Landau's comments.
And in today's world it's all about virality. If it's a rehash of what's already known, "Variety" got Ticketmaster's view two days ago, a story is dead on arrival.
Of course the author could have done some real reporting, researched dynamic pricing with other acts. But that would have been too hard, too much effort on a story he didn't really care about anyway.
And today's story is not Springsteen anyway, it's Adele in Vegas.
I saw a tweet saying tickets were priced at $40,000. I did a modicum of research, saw some bad seats going for four figures, like in the very last row, all resale, but it really doesn't matter, the truth is irrelevant in a case like this. People don't care enough to research, so the 40k number sticks. THAT'S the story.
And is there a ton of bitching?
Is there bitching about any other act using dynamic pricing?
NO! At least not anywhere near the intensity regarding Springsteen.
There is no way in hell you can convince me this wasn't screwed up. I got an email today saying tickets were capped at a new Springsteen on sale at $2500. True? I don't care! But they should be. Because as Landau said in this article, almost no one was paying those insane prices.
And I keep getting e-mail from people saying they paid reasonable prices. Why pour gasoline on the fire of high prices, why not wait for all the hard core fans to get tickets and ultimately be satisfied.
If you're willing to wait...
A few hours, a few days, right before the show... Odds are pretty good you can score.
But with all this verified fan nonsense, people's expectations were high, and what they got was in most cases...NOTHING!
They wasted their time. This was worse than showing up at ten a.m. without being verified!
Maybe you should have a lottery. If you're really interested in being fair. But people will still complain, everybody wants an edge.
I'll go even further than this... In today's money-oriented society, NO ONE CARES ABOUT SPRINGSTEEN TICKETS EXCEPT HIS FANS!
Come on, even lousy baseball tickets are expensive. All NFL seats are expensive. Concert tickets have been expensive since hell froze over and the Eagles reunited in 1994. And then Napster and the internet caused them to go nuclear. You mean there are people bitching about high ticket prices still today? Do they still use flip-phones? Are they still on dialup?
And we all know concerts are not a commodity. And everybody knows you pay more for a unique service.
But you can't convince the squeaky wheel.
This is my favorite e-mail I got in response to all this:
"Many years ago, my record store was a Ticketmaster outlet. You have no idea how many ticket customers, when we'd show them the venue layout and what seats were available, would look us in the face and say, dead serious, 'You don't have any in the front row?'"
Galen"
As for the fees... THE ACTS ARE TO BLAME! But you can explain the economics over and over and the public refuses to acknowledge this. You'd think that Ticketmaster is run by the Mafia and the acts are beholden to them when just the reverse is true. As for promoter loyalty, the act will go with whoever pays them the most. And if Live Nation and AEG aren't interested, there's always someone who will step up for a sell-out act. And then there are the casinos that OVERPAY for acts just to bring people to the premises to gamble.
As for a monopoly...
This is where it gets dangerous, where the blowback gets severe, but the truth is Ticketmaster gets all these events BECAUSE IT CAN HANDLE THE TRAFFIC, IT DOESN'T BREAK DOWN! All these people e-mail me about their services, how they can solve all the problems. And true, they have features Ticketmaster does not, but can they handle millions of ticket requests simultaneously?
And to hammer Ticketmaster's advantages even more... If you're not on the service you're immediately selling tickets with one arm behind your back. That's where people go to buy tickets first, Ticketmaster. They see what is available there, it's one stop shopping. Whereas if another service is employed...most people never even go there! Online, there's one entity that dominates every sphere, Google in search, Amazon in commerce... And to dethrone them entails more than being better. It can be done, but it's very difficult. AND TICKETMASTER IS AN E-COMMERCE COMPANY! Yes, you buy all those tickets through the INTERNET!
I've got no sympathy for everybody bitching about Springsteen ticket prices, grow up.
But I must say, these on sales have been mishandled from the get-go.
As for the truth...
PEOPLE DON'T CARE!
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The Most You Ever Paid For A Ticket-This Week On SiriusXM
Tune in today, July 26th, to Volume 106, 7 PM East, 4 PM West.
Starting next Tuesday, August 2nd, Lefsetz Live will be one hour earlier, 6 PM East, 3 PM West.
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Sunday 24 July 2022
Bob Rafelson
He was a stalwart of the counterculture.
Earlier today I read an article about Haley Kiyoko. It was in the "New York Times": https://nyti.ms/3zray37 I realized instantly it was hype, that it only existed because a publicist had pitched a story related to Kiyoko's new record, but it was brief and I wanted to catch up on a woman that I was not sure I'd seen live or not. Halfway through the article, I realized I was confusing Kiyoko with another "artist," but just before I was about to stop reading I read about Haley's perfume. It said she had her own fragrance, "Hue." I stupidly thought that "Hue" was a commercial product that she loved, because how could a woman with so little career traction have her own perfume? I mean this album coming out on Friday is only her second! Although she's been releasing singles since 2013, but only one charted, 2018's "Curious," which made it all the way to #40 on the U.S. Pop chart, but it went to #37 on the U.S. Dance chart!
Yes, Ms. Kiyoko has her own perfume. That used to be a victory lap, the perfume, the clothing line. Now it's a feature right from the get-go.
As for Ms. Kiyoko's life... She loves to watch "Friends," three episodes a night. And she loves Adobe's Premiere Pro, because she uses it to create her clips for social media. COULD SHE BE ANY EMPTIER?
Haley Kiyoko is 31. When Bob Rafelson was 32 he created the Monkees, along with Bert Schneider.
Seen as somewhat of a rip-off of the music scene, "The Monkees" was a breakthrough because it brought the younger generation to TV, in a relatively uncompromised form. Never mind that the band had hits which survive to this day, Micky Dolenz's breathy "ahh" in "I'm a Believer," and his pregnant vocal in the theme to the television show are magic. And Davy Jones had a good voice and Michael Nesmith actually had cred and...
This was not New Kids on the Block.
But Bob Rafelson's death wouldn't have hit me so hard if he was only responsible for "The Monkees."
Ultimately, Rafelson directed the Monkees' movie, "Head," which you have to be stoned to watch, it was not an auspicious debut.
But "Head" was in '68. in '69 Rafelson and Schneider produced "Easy Rider." Made on a tiny budget, "Easy Rider" captured both the excitement of the sixties and the ultimate ennui of the seventies. We were all searching, we were all looking, no one is testing limits in movies today. Marvel movies are the standard, and their fans bitch when they don't win Oscars! Well, none of them are in the league of 1974's "Hearts and Minds," co-produced by Rafelson. I still remember when it won the Oscar. It was a surprise, it was a counterculture breakthrough, it was an acknowledgement that we got it wrong in Vietnam.
But what lasts is "Five Easy Pieces."
That's the movie that made Jack Nicholson a star. And Karen Black too. You couldn't be an adult, a late teenager, without seeing this 1970 film. It was about alienation, rejection of one's past...
Today kids don't reject their parents' careers, they want IN! Yes, use your connections to get me into a good college, get me a gig at the bank, I'm all about the bucks, I don't want to risk my lifestyle.
Whereas it used to be about coming to Hollywood and making it on your wiles and your wits. A degree didn't mean much, although Rafelson did go to Dartmouth. And it wasn't about money so much as about thinking.
When did it all start?
Most people say "The Graduate" and "Bonnie and Clyde" in 1967.
But as great as those sixties films were, it was the seventies that are revered as the best decade for films since the thirties.
And what did the seventies start with, what got the ball rolling? "The Last Picture Show." You left the theatre feeling...empty and numb. Take that those of you who need someone to root for, who need a happy ending. And "The Last Picture Show" was produced by BBS, the production company run by Rafelson, Schneider and Stephen Blauner.
You might say Rafelson is Zelig, but in addition to being everywhere, he took action, he was responsible, he was known, HE WAS AT THE CRUX of the counterculture in film.
Rafelson also specialized in alienation. That was a feature of the sixties and seventies, feeling alone, like you don't fit in, and you don't want to fit in. Today, everybody is eager to sell out, they want to buy in, to be an outsider is to be discounted and forgotten, whereas the alienated were our heroes fifty years ago. They were the leaders. They were the musicians. Their perspective was skewed, and their art told us they were on the right path and we needed to get on it.
"The King of Marvin Gardens" was not as successful as "Five Easy Pieces," either commercially or artistically, but if you were a film buff, and we all were, you had to see it. We were fans of the creators. We appreciated their singular vision.
And when money became paramount in the film business, Rafelson did a remake of "The Postman Always Rings Twice" that was so vivid, so edgy, so SEXY, that despite being unlike the pablum it competed with, it still made it into profits.
Not that Rafelson was a warm guy. He got canned at Universal for clearing Lew Wasserman's desk. He stood his ground. Corporate executives compromise, politicians compromise, but not artists.
Like Steve Jobs.
Steve Jobs was an alienated college dropout who had a vision, and it had to be executed on his terms. Many didn't like this, he got canned from his own company, but when he came back everyone realized he was the secret sauce, he was the heart of Apple, he was our leader, who pushed the entire world into the future. Focus groups? Why would he listen to the people, they don't know what they want until you give it to them!
Jobs was informed by Bob Dylan, the Beatles, the movies of the sixties and seventies, they carved him into who he was. If you're being carved by today's records and movies I have pity for you.
Rafelson was an original. Far from warm and fuzzy.
And now he's dead.
Nobody lives forever, he was 89, that's a pretty good ride. He smoked, he died of lung cancer. You can almost say he beat the odds.
But with Bob and his brethren go the ethos of what once was, the leaders of what once was. That's what John Lennon represented, not Paul McCartney, and Lennon is gone too.
The artists of yore tested limits, pushed the art form further, and it was clear who were the amateurs and the professionals.
But today it's all about getting rich. You want to be a "brand." A conglomerate, someone like the empty Kim Kardashian. If she's your hero...I'm laughing. At you. She has done well in business, but I'm not listening to a single word she says, she's uneducated, not very intelligent, not very articulate, and furthermore, her look is the product of plastic surgery. Otherwise, she was just an average girl in your math class. And really, I give kudos to Kim and the Kardashians, they blazed a trail. But it's got nothing to do with art, it's got nothing to do with the mind.
The mind... That was everything back in the sixties and seventies. Could you parse truth, could you analyze? Talking about movies was a thing, you sat around for hours discussing films. Today's movies you can't even talk about for MINUTES!
And why even be a director, the dream of the boomers? The boomers wanted to forge art, not create cookie cutter dreck.
Rafelson is why we wanted to come to Hollywood, why we wanted to create, why we wanted to hang, why we wanted to be involved! We wanted the power to do the same thing. And then the positively pedestrian Stephen Spielberg came along and changed the entire paradigm. That's why they never gave him an Oscar before "Schindler's List," he had craft, he could put the pieces together, but he couldn't touch our souls, couldn't create art, still can't, IT'S NOT IN HIM!
But the renegades...
Jack Nicholson, a Rafelson crony, was an unknown outsider, and through sheer grit and sheer talent, he broke through and became our hero. Jack was cool, he was different, he knew something we didn't, and we wanted to hang with him, hoping some of that fairy dust would rub off on us.
Talk about being born that way...
Lady Gaga is a poor imitation of Madonna. Oh, maybe she's a bit better than that, but where is her string of hit records? You'd think she's Barbra Streisand, and she's not, AND STREISAND WAS NEVER COOL! Barbra had a great voice, could act pretty well, but if you were looking for someone who channeled the zeitgeist, you didn't look to her.
There is no counterculture anymore. It used to be a badge of honor to be on the outside looking in, joking about those who drank the kool-aid, knowing you could topple them with your mind. A mind is still more important than bucks. One person can make all the difference, but in truth everybody's depressed, they don't see opportunity.
I could go on, but let me just say that I saw Bob Rafelson died and I not only thought of his creative output, I was struck that an era was gone, and its progenitors are passing.
Maybe you had to be there.
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Earlier today I read an article about Haley Kiyoko. It was in the "New York Times": https://nyti.ms/3zray37 I realized instantly it was hype, that it only existed because a publicist had pitched a story related to Kiyoko's new record, but it was brief and I wanted to catch up on a woman that I was not sure I'd seen live or not. Halfway through the article, I realized I was confusing Kiyoko with another "artist," but just before I was about to stop reading I read about Haley's perfume. It said she had her own fragrance, "Hue." I stupidly thought that "Hue" was a commercial product that she loved, because how could a woman with so little career traction have her own perfume? I mean this album coming out on Friday is only her second! Although she's been releasing singles since 2013, but only one charted, 2018's "Curious," which made it all the way to #40 on the U.S. Pop chart, but it went to #37 on the U.S. Dance chart!
Yes, Ms. Kiyoko has her own perfume. That used to be a victory lap, the perfume, the clothing line. Now it's a feature right from the get-go.
As for Ms. Kiyoko's life... She loves to watch "Friends," three episodes a night. And she loves Adobe's Premiere Pro, because she uses it to create her clips for social media. COULD SHE BE ANY EMPTIER?
Haley Kiyoko is 31. When Bob Rafelson was 32 he created the Monkees, along with Bert Schneider.
Seen as somewhat of a rip-off of the music scene, "The Monkees" was a breakthrough because it brought the younger generation to TV, in a relatively uncompromised form. Never mind that the band had hits which survive to this day, Micky Dolenz's breathy "ahh" in "I'm a Believer," and his pregnant vocal in the theme to the television show are magic. And Davy Jones had a good voice and Michael Nesmith actually had cred and...
This was not New Kids on the Block.
But Bob Rafelson's death wouldn't have hit me so hard if he was only responsible for "The Monkees."
Ultimately, Rafelson directed the Monkees' movie, "Head," which you have to be stoned to watch, it was not an auspicious debut.
But "Head" was in '68. in '69 Rafelson and Schneider produced "Easy Rider." Made on a tiny budget, "Easy Rider" captured both the excitement of the sixties and the ultimate ennui of the seventies. We were all searching, we were all looking, no one is testing limits in movies today. Marvel movies are the standard, and their fans bitch when they don't win Oscars! Well, none of them are in the league of 1974's "Hearts and Minds," co-produced by Rafelson. I still remember when it won the Oscar. It was a surprise, it was a counterculture breakthrough, it was an acknowledgement that we got it wrong in Vietnam.
But what lasts is "Five Easy Pieces."
That's the movie that made Jack Nicholson a star. And Karen Black too. You couldn't be an adult, a late teenager, without seeing this 1970 film. It was about alienation, rejection of one's past...
Today kids don't reject their parents' careers, they want IN! Yes, use your connections to get me into a good college, get me a gig at the bank, I'm all about the bucks, I don't want to risk my lifestyle.
Whereas it used to be about coming to Hollywood and making it on your wiles and your wits. A degree didn't mean much, although Rafelson did go to Dartmouth. And it wasn't about money so much as about thinking.
When did it all start?
Most people say "The Graduate" and "Bonnie and Clyde" in 1967.
But as great as those sixties films were, it was the seventies that are revered as the best decade for films since the thirties.
And what did the seventies start with, what got the ball rolling? "The Last Picture Show." You left the theatre feeling...empty and numb. Take that those of you who need someone to root for, who need a happy ending. And "The Last Picture Show" was produced by BBS, the production company run by Rafelson, Schneider and Stephen Blauner.
You might say Rafelson is Zelig, but in addition to being everywhere, he took action, he was responsible, he was known, HE WAS AT THE CRUX of the counterculture in film.
Rafelson also specialized in alienation. That was a feature of the sixties and seventies, feeling alone, like you don't fit in, and you don't want to fit in. Today, everybody is eager to sell out, they want to buy in, to be an outsider is to be discounted and forgotten, whereas the alienated were our heroes fifty years ago. They were the leaders. They were the musicians. Their perspective was skewed, and their art told us they were on the right path and we needed to get on it.
"The King of Marvin Gardens" was not as successful as "Five Easy Pieces," either commercially or artistically, but if you were a film buff, and we all were, you had to see it. We were fans of the creators. We appreciated their singular vision.
And when money became paramount in the film business, Rafelson did a remake of "The Postman Always Rings Twice" that was so vivid, so edgy, so SEXY, that despite being unlike the pablum it competed with, it still made it into profits.
Not that Rafelson was a warm guy. He got canned at Universal for clearing Lew Wasserman's desk. He stood his ground. Corporate executives compromise, politicians compromise, but not artists.
Like Steve Jobs.
Steve Jobs was an alienated college dropout who had a vision, and it had to be executed on his terms. Many didn't like this, he got canned from his own company, but when he came back everyone realized he was the secret sauce, he was the heart of Apple, he was our leader, who pushed the entire world into the future. Focus groups? Why would he listen to the people, they don't know what they want until you give it to them!
Jobs was informed by Bob Dylan, the Beatles, the movies of the sixties and seventies, they carved him into who he was. If you're being carved by today's records and movies I have pity for you.
Rafelson was an original. Far from warm and fuzzy.
And now he's dead.
Nobody lives forever, he was 89, that's a pretty good ride. He smoked, he died of lung cancer. You can almost say he beat the odds.
But with Bob and his brethren go the ethos of what once was, the leaders of what once was. That's what John Lennon represented, not Paul McCartney, and Lennon is gone too.
The artists of yore tested limits, pushed the art form further, and it was clear who were the amateurs and the professionals.
But today it's all about getting rich. You want to be a "brand." A conglomerate, someone like the empty Kim Kardashian. If she's your hero...I'm laughing. At you. She has done well in business, but I'm not listening to a single word she says, she's uneducated, not very intelligent, not very articulate, and furthermore, her look is the product of plastic surgery. Otherwise, she was just an average girl in your math class. And really, I give kudos to Kim and the Kardashians, they blazed a trail. But it's got nothing to do with art, it's got nothing to do with the mind.
The mind... That was everything back in the sixties and seventies. Could you parse truth, could you analyze? Talking about movies was a thing, you sat around for hours discussing films. Today's movies you can't even talk about for MINUTES!
And why even be a director, the dream of the boomers? The boomers wanted to forge art, not create cookie cutter dreck.
Rafelson is why we wanted to come to Hollywood, why we wanted to create, why we wanted to hang, why we wanted to be involved! We wanted the power to do the same thing. And then the positively pedestrian Stephen Spielberg came along and changed the entire paradigm. That's why they never gave him an Oscar before "Schindler's List," he had craft, he could put the pieces together, but he couldn't touch our souls, couldn't create art, still can't, IT'S NOT IN HIM!
But the renegades...
Jack Nicholson, a Rafelson crony, was an unknown outsider, and through sheer grit and sheer talent, he broke through and became our hero. Jack was cool, he was different, he knew something we didn't, and we wanted to hang with him, hoping some of that fairy dust would rub off on us.
Talk about being born that way...
Lady Gaga is a poor imitation of Madonna. Oh, maybe she's a bit better than that, but where is her string of hit records? You'd think she's Barbra Streisand, and she's not, AND STREISAND WAS NEVER COOL! Barbra had a great voice, could act pretty well, but if you were looking for someone who channeled the zeitgeist, you didn't look to her.
There is no counterculture anymore. It used to be a badge of honor to be on the outside looking in, joking about those who drank the kool-aid, knowing you could topple them with your mind. A mind is still more important than bucks. One person can make all the difference, but in truth everybody's depressed, they don't see opportunity.
I could go on, but let me just say that I saw Bob Rafelson died and I not only thought of his creative output, I was struck that an era was gone, and its progenitors are passing.
Maybe you had to be there.
--
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Springsteen/Motley Crue
So what have we learned here?
1. Your image is everything. Think of your image first. Do nothing to jeopardize it. If Springsteen were on the way up as opposed to fading away, if he needed more hits, this flagging of good will would not only mean the loss of fans, but the loss of opportunities. Companies want to work with someone who is hot, not someone with a negative stink upon them.
2. Ticketmaster is the enemy. The truth doesn't matter, this is what the public believes. I'm surprised someone hasn't claimed that Ticketmaster stuffed ballot boxes to make sure Biden got elected, or that in reality Michael Rapino is Q.
3. Everybody has an opinion and everybody gets to express it. If this were the pre-internet era, this probably wouldn't have even been news. Maybe a major outlet in New York or New Jersey, Boss strongholds, would have picked up on it, but this story broke and grew online.
4. You can't be beholden to the crowd. You cannot cave to the people. The people are insatiable, you can never give them enough, you can never satisfy them. Your only option is to do what you want to. Could this have negative effects? Of course! But at least you're in control, you can go to bed saying you screwed up, as opposed to telling yourself you were going to do something else but you were negatively influenced.
5. Concert tickets are expensive and you cannot get what you want. There are few hidden acts anymore. You're either a legend, or big overnight, or you don't sell out. When everybody wants to go, prices go up, it's supply and demand, raw economics.
6. Everybody claims to be poor, but in truth they are not. If you're truly poor, you don't have internet access to complain, never mind the ability to travel to multiple Springsteen shows. The truly poor refrain from advertising their financial situation.
7. Music is a big business, it's a mature business. Only the strong survive. The major labels, Spotify, never mind Apple and Amazon, even Live Nation are all public companies. And when you're listed, money is everything.
8. The same people complaining about Springsteen ticket prices made stock bets on Robinhood, they are doing their best to get ahead, because if you're not in America you fall behind.
9. Ticket prices are not getting cheaper. Sure, festivals are being canceled because of low ticket sales. But if you're a star, you do business, the only issue is what you can charge, and right now that's over a C-note for essentially all the tickets.
Damage control has begun:
"Ticketmaster Says Most Bruce Springsteen Tickets Go for Under $200, and Only 11% are Part of Controversial 'Dynamic Pricing' Program": https://bit.ly/3zsyxz4
This is what Ticketmaster is paid to do. Take the heat for the artist's greed. Which is why you hate Ticketmaster. Your favorite artist can't be at fault, NO WAY!
Springsteen has played this beautifully. And now he may not have culpable deniability, but something akin to that. Whereas if Bruce had said ANYTHING, he would have been deemed guilty. Anything other than everybody gets their money back and I'm gonna play for free in everybody's living room would be considered inadequate.
Which is why you don't see politicians responding to inane commentary, like with Obama's birth certificate. Obama ignored the claims for years, and then when he finally produced his birth certificate it wasn't sufficient, no, they needed the LONG FORM birth certificate. They still believe Obama was not born in the United States. If you say ANYTHING it amplifies the story.
This is what the internet has wrought. Being above the fray for eons, out of touch with the people they believe they control, politicians, celebrities, most with a profile have been caught off guard by public opinion, which used to be limited to private discussion, but is now posted online for everybody to see. And for a few years, the famous thought that everybody saw these denunciations, these pokes at them, but now, with so much sludge in the channel, the hatred doesn't get traction unless YOU RESPOND TO IT!
You start off looking for any and all traction, and then you have to pull back. This has been the rule in celebrity publicity forever. But since celebrities can now interact personally online, and traditional PR people are unaware of the rules, cultivating relationships with major publications as opposed to trawling social media, celebrities get in scuffles on a regular basis online, and then the story becomes news!
You have no idea how many outlets thrive on these stories. They love the click-bait headlines. Celebrities create traffic. Which is how these companies make their bread. If you're famous and you say ANYTHING outlets will pick up on it, create a story about it, even if really there's no story at all.
This is the modern world.
Also, in the modern world, you have access to data. That Twitter hater who excoriates you every day, almost always utilizing a fake name? Check them out, some of them don't have ANY followers. It's like fishing. They're just trying to catch something, odds are low, but you never know.
I don't care what is said by Ticketmaster, the variable pricing of Springsteen tickets was screwed up. But having said that, you can spin, you can lie, and you'd be stunned how many buy your explanation, especially when it comes to something as minor as entertainment.
But now, Ticketmaster, which shares the most hated title with your cable company, has pushed back a bit, because the company has nothing to lose!
So what is the truth?
It's ALWAYS up for debate!
Expect Springsteen to stay silent.
But what does this bode for the future?
NOT MUCH!
Let's see... Motley Crue signed IN BLOOD that they would never tour again. And not twenty or thirty years later, but soon thereafter, they reneged.
What about all those people who overpaid for the last tour?
THEY'RE THRILLED! They get to see the band again!
Yes, talk to those who paid hundreds of dollars to see the Crue on their "final" tour. Nobody is pissed, everybody is happy. The only people who are angry are those who would never go to a Crue show to begin with. As for casual fans... Do you think at this late date Motley Crue has casual fans? NO WAY! It's their hard core keeping them alive, the looky-loos moved on long ago.
Or, as my nephew, the world class foreign car salesman tells me... The people who pay the most are the happiest. Seems counterintuitive, they got ripped off. But they got what they wanted, they're happy. Whereas those who got a deal... Did they get the best deal? If they'd paid more would they have gotten exactly what they wanted?
Same deal with concert tickets. It's those who buy the overpriced platinum tickets up front who are happiest, those who buy the overpriced scalper tickets. So, those who actually have tickets to Springsteen shows are never going to bitch.
As for those boxed out...
They would have complained no matter what. The tickets were inherently too expensive. They didn't get the right seat, they didn't get tickets to multiple shows. Are these superfans going to sit out the next tour? NO! If anything they'll be more prepared, because they want to GO!
This is not Billy Squier, cavorting in pink on MTV. If he'd been in business for decades, had multiple hit albums, Squier would have been able to continue. But he hadn't yet cemented his fan base. Furthermore, MTV rocketed you to space and you fell back to earth just as fast. Nothing burns you out as much as television exposure, at least when there were so few outlets. Actually, now it's the opposite. You're thrilled about that TV appearance, and the end result? NOTHING! Kind of like comedians still looking for sitcoms, that paradigm died years ago. You make your bones on social media and you cement your career with specials, on Netflix or HBO. That's where fans go. You can do a sitcom, which is far from your core competence, which is writing and telling jokes, and you have to bland down your personality, work 24/7, and almost no one sees you, not even your fans. Furthermore, pay is decreased. You're actually taking yourself OUT OF THE MARKETPLACE!
I used to be flummoxed that Bill Maher announced all his live dates at the end of "Real Time" on HBO. In fact, I thought it was cheesy. But in today's world, HOW ELSE ARE PEOPLE GOING TO KNOW?
Think about it, a star can come through your burg and you had no idea they were there. Awareness is everything. If you've got people's attention, seal the deal. As for trying to grow your audience, most effort other than your core work pays very few dividends. Want to broaden your appeal? Write better jokes, record better songs. That's the fastest way to more acceptance, not a feature in the paper, on TV, ANYWHERE!
So I won't say that Springsteen dodged a bullet here. But I will say that this will blow over. Even the hard core fans. They've got lives outside Bruce Springsteen. It's not the seventies with limited cash and options where you'd listen to one act and one act only, never mind the plethora of other diversions commanding your time and interest.
Bruce Springsteen wants to make bank. I dare you to find one single act that doesn't care about the money, getting paid. THAT'S WHY THEY DO IT! And you don't own the act, the act has no responsibility to you. Just like you've got no responsibility to pay for a ticket. But when it all blows over...YOU WANT TO GO!
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1. Your image is everything. Think of your image first. Do nothing to jeopardize it. If Springsteen were on the way up as opposed to fading away, if he needed more hits, this flagging of good will would not only mean the loss of fans, but the loss of opportunities. Companies want to work with someone who is hot, not someone with a negative stink upon them.
2. Ticketmaster is the enemy. The truth doesn't matter, this is what the public believes. I'm surprised someone hasn't claimed that Ticketmaster stuffed ballot boxes to make sure Biden got elected, or that in reality Michael Rapino is Q.
3. Everybody has an opinion and everybody gets to express it. If this were the pre-internet era, this probably wouldn't have even been news. Maybe a major outlet in New York or New Jersey, Boss strongholds, would have picked up on it, but this story broke and grew online.
4. You can't be beholden to the crowd. You cannot cave to the people. The people are insatiable, you can never give them enough, you can never satisfy them. Your only option is to do what you want to. Could this have negative effects? Of course! But at least you're in control, you can go to bed saying you screwed up, as opposed to telling yourself you were going to do something else but you were negatively influenced.
5. Concert tickets are expensive and you cannot get what you want. There are few hidden acts anymore. You're either a legend, or big overnight, or you don't sell out. When everybody wants to go, prices go up, it's supply and demand, raw economics.
6. Everybody claims to be poor, but in truth they are not. If you're truly poor, you don't have internet access to complain, never mind the ability to travel to multiple Springsteen shows. The truly poor refrain from advertising their financial situation.
7. Music is a big business, it's a mature business. Only the strong survive. The major labels, Spotify, never mind Apple and Amazon, even Live Nation are all public companies. And when you're listed, money is everything.
8. The same people complaining about Springsteen ticket prices made stock bets on Robinhood, they are doing their best to get ahead, because if you're not in America you fall behind.
9. Ticket prices are not getting cheaper. Sure, festivals are being canceled because of low ticket sales. But if you're a star, you do business, the only issue is what you can charge, and right now that's over a C-note for essentially all the tickets.
Damage control has begun:
"Ticketmaster Says Most Bruce Springsteen Tickets Go for Under $200, and Only 11% are Part of Controversial 'Dynamic Pricing' Program": https://bit.ly/3zsyxz4
This is what Ticketmaster is paid to do. Take the heat for the artist's greed. Which is why you hate Ticketmaster. Your favorite artist can't be at fault, NO WAY!
Springsteen has played this beautifully. And now he may not have culpable deniability, but something akin to that. Whereas if Bruce had said ANYTHING, he would have been deemed guilty. Anything other than everybody gets their money back and I'm gonna play for free in everybody's living room would be considered inadequate.
Which is why you don't see politicians responding to inane commentary, like with Obama's birth certificate. Obama ignored the claims for years, and then when he finally produced his birth certificate it wasn't sufficient, no, they needed the LONG FORM birth certificate. They still believe Obama was not born in the United States. If you say ANYTHING it amplifies the story.
This is what the internet has wrought. Being above the fray for eons, out of touch with the people they believe they control, politicians, celebrities, most with a profile have been caught off guard by public opinion, which used to be limited to private discussion, but is now posted online for everybody to see. And for a few years, the famous thought that everybody saw these denunciations, these pokes at them, but now, with so much sludge in the channel, the hatred doesn't get traction unless YOU RESPOND TO IT!
You start off looking for any and all traction, and then you have to pull back. This has been the rule in celebrity publicity forever. But since celebrities can now interact personally online, and traditional PR people are unaware of the rules, cultivating relationships with major publications as opposed to trawling social media, celebrities get in scuffles on a regular basis online, and then the story becomes news!
You have no idea how many outlets thrive on these stories. They love the click-bait headlines. Celebrities create traffic. Which is how these companies make their bread. If you're famous and you say ANYTHING outlets will pick up on it, create a story about it, even if really there's no story at all.
This is the modern world.
Also, in the modern world, you have access to data. That Twitter hater who excoriates you every day, almost always utilizing a fake name? Check them out, some of them don't have ANY followers. It's like fishing. They're just trying to catch something, odds are low, but you never know.
I don't care what is said by Ticketmaster, the variable pricing of Springsteen tickets was screwed up. But having said that, you can spin, you can lie, and you'd be stunned how many buy your explanation, especially when it comes to something as minor as entertainment.
But now, Ticketmaster, which shares the most hated title with your cable company, has pushed back a bit, because the company has nothing to lose!
So what is the truth?
It's ALWAYS up for debate!
Expect Springsteen to stay silent.
But what does this bode for the future?
NOT MUCH!
Let's see... Motley Crue signed IN BLOOD that they would never tour again. And not twenty or thirty years later, but soon thereafter, they reneged.
What about all those people who overpaid for the last tour?
THEY'RE THRILLED! They get to see the band again!
Yes, talk to those who paid hundreds of dollars to see the Crue on their "final" tour. Nobody is pissed, everybody is happy. The only people who are angry are those who would never go to a Crue show to begin with. As for casual fans... Do you think at this late date Motley Crue has casual fans? NO WAY! It's their hard core keeping them alive, the looky-loos moved on long ago.
Or, as my nephew, the world class foreign car salesman tells me... The people who pay the most are the happiest. Seems counterintuitive, they got ripped off. But they got what they wanted, they're happy. Whereas those who got a deal... Did they get the best deal? If they'd paid more would they have gotten exactly what they wanted?
Same deal with concert tickets. It's those who buy the overpriced platinum tickets up front who are happiest, those who buy the overpriced scalper tickets. So, those who actually have tickets to Springsteen shows are never going to bitch.
As for those boxed out...
They would have complained no matter what. The tickets were inherently too expensive. They didn't get the right seat, they didn't get tickets to multiple shows. Are these superfans going to sit out the next tour? NO! If anything they'll be more prepared, because they want to GO!
This is not Billy Squier, cavorting in pink on MTV. If he'd been in business for decades, had multiple hit albums, Squier would have been able to continue. But he hadn't yet cemented his fan base. Furthermore, MTV rocketed you to space and you fell back to earth just as fast. Nothing burns you out as much as television exposure, at least when there were so few outlets. Actually, now it's the opposite. You're thrilled about that TV appearance, and the end result? NOTHING! Kind of like comedians still looking for sitcoms, that paradigm died years ago. You make your bones on social media and you cement your career with specials, on Netflix or HBO. That's where fans go. You can do a sitcom, which is far from your core competence, which is writing and telling jokes, and you have to bland down your personality, work 24/7, and almost no one sees you, not even your fans. Furthermore, pay is decreased. You're actually taking yourself OUT OF THE MARKETPLACE!
I used to be flummoxed that Bill Maher announced all his live dates at the end of "Real Time" on HBO. In fact, I thought it was cheesy. But in today's world, HOW ELSE ARE PEOPLE GOING TO KNOW?
Think about it, a star can come through your burg and you had no idea they were there. Awareness is everything. If you've got people's attention, seal the deal. As for trying to grow your audience, most effort other than your core work pays very few dividends. Want to broaden your appeal? Write better jokes, record better songs. That's the fastest way to more acceptance, not a feature in the paper, on TV, ANYWHERE!
So I won't say that Springsteen dodged a bullet here. But I will say that this will blow over. Even the hard core fans. They've got lives outside Bruce Springsteen. It's not the seventies with limited cash and options where you'd listen to one act and one act only, never mind the plethora of other diversions commanding your time and interest.
Bruce Springsteen wants to make bank. I dare you to find one single act that doesn't care about the money, getting paid. THAT'S WHY THEY DO IT! And you don't own the act, the act has no responsibility to you. Just like you've got no responsibility to pay for a ticket. But when it all blows over...YOU WANT TO GO!
--
Visit the archive: http://lefsetz.com/wordpress/
--
Listen to the podcast:
-iHeart: https://ihr.fm/2Gi5PFj
-Apple: https://apple.co/2ndmpvp
--
http://www.twitter.com/lefsetz
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If you would like to subscribe to the LefsetzLetter,
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