Tune in Saturday March 2nd to Faction Talk, channel 103, at 4 PM East, 1 PM West.
If you miss the episode, you can hear it on demand on the SiriusXM app. Search: Lefsetz
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Friday 1 March 2024
The Truth About Ticket Prices
https://shorturl.at/aG189
This went up yesterday, but I didn't find out about it until today, from a tweet by analyst Brandon Ross.
No post in "Hits." No post in "Billboard." It's like the announcement was dropped and it didn't even make a ripple in the water.
I Googled. I couldn't find one reference to this post, NOT ONE!
Then I went to the Apple News. Ditto.
I'm a pretty good Googler, there's a chance I missed something, but I don't think so.
So how is it the biggest name in live entertainment gives a detailed explanation of how ticketing and concert promotion work and no one cares?
All I can say is we live in a post-truth society. You make up your own facts. Ticketmaster is the devil and they're taking advantage of those damn acts and you. This might feel right, but it's patently untrue.
You've even got Zach Bryan deriding Live Nation with the title of an album!
And you wonder how come truth can't penetrate politics...
This is great evidence of the fact that you can make it, you can post it, but that does not mean anybody will pay attention.
Live Nation should include this screed with each and every ticket it sells. Not once, but for a year or two or three until the message finally penetrates the public consciousness.
You still may not understand how ticketing and concert promotion work. Hell, the acts don't want you to know. I've delineated it many times, but many readers still don't want to believe what I say.
So read this Live Nation post. You can click on the link above, or if that's too much, I'm going to post the entire statement below.
Of course not everything in the concert world is covered. But as far as this post goes, it's right.
"The Truth About Ticket Prices"
By Dan Wall
In the ongoing antitrust attacks on Live Nation and Ticketmaster, a constant theme is that their alleged "monopolies" are responsible for high ticket prices. Rhetorically, that's understandable, because if you want to rile up fans against Live Nation and Ticketmaster, there is no better way than to blame them for something you know fans dislike. But is there really a connection between any of these antitrust arguments and prices for concert tickets? That's the subject of today's post.
The starting point is what Live Nation and Ticketmaster actually do. What roles do they play in the concert industry and what power does that give them to influence ticket prices? We'll start with Ticketmaster, since it tends to get the lion's share of the blame for high ticket prices even though, as we shall see, it has the least influence over prices.
HOW TICKETING WORKS
Ticketmaster and other "primary ticketing companies" provide the technology and services that venues need to manage and market shows, sell tickets, and validate tickets for entry. Typically, one primary ticketing company provides these services for all events at a given venue. The chosen ticketing company then interfaces with consumers on online marketplaces, not to sell inventory of their own, but as agents of the venues selling tickets priced by performers and production entities. Fans tend not to understand that. They think of Ticketmaster as an enormous ticket retailer that acquires vast quantities of tickets and puts them up for sale at prices Ticketmaster determines – an assumption that makes it easy to blame Ticketmaster for high ticket prices. But that's not true.
Tickets are actually priced by artists and teams. It's their show, they get to decide what it costs to get in. The NFL tickets on Ticketmaster were priced by the home teams, concert tickets were priced by the performer's business teams, Monster Jam tickets were priced by its producer (Feld Entertainment), and so forth.
THE TRUTH ABOUT FEES
The argument that Ticketmaster is responsible for high prices is really about service charges. The practice in the U.S. for decades has been to break down the cost of admission into a "face value" sum and one or more fees added to face value. There is a common perception that service charges are "junk fees" and that Ticketmaster sets the fees and pockets the money. Again, that's not true.
Service charges are added to the face value of concert tickets because two important players in the concert ecosystem – venues and primary ticketing companies – get little or nothing out of the revenues derived from the ticket's face value. That money goes mostly to the performers, secondarily to cover certain show costs, and if anything is left over to the promoters. So, the practice developed to add a percentage service charge to a ticket's face value to pay the venue for hosting the event and the primary ticketing company for servicing venues and distributing tickets. The add-on nature of the service fee is annoying to many fans and fuels the narrative that these are junk fees. But they are not junk fees for the simple reason that the venues and ticketing companies have costs associated with the services they provide to help produce the show. They provide value and one way or another will be compensated for it.
Fans are also told that service charges are Ticketmaster's way of raising ticket prices. In fact, Ticketmaster does not set service charges, venues do, and most of the money goes to the venues. Let's break that down.
Primary ticketing service charges are a product of the hundreds of contracts that exist between venues and their exclusive ticketing providers. They are not uniform, but a typical contract will provide that in exchange for its services and some guaranteed cash payments to the venue, the ticketing company will get a stated percentage of the service charge the venue intends to impose, a dollar-per-ticket fee, or some combination of the two. The venue decides on the service fees. During the ticketing contract bidding process, the venue tells the bidding ticketing companies that it intends to charge certain fees, and the ticketing companies structure their offers accordingly.
However the contract turns out, the venue gets most of the service fee, not Ticketmaster or any other primary ticketing company. In fact, the venue normally gets around two-thirds of the service charge and in many cases a facility fee as well. So, if fees add, say, 30% to the face value of a ticket, the primary ticketing company is getting perhaps a quarter of that – something in the range of 5-7%. And the primary ticketing company is not making 5-7% per ticket as profit because it has costs to cover, not the least of which are the guaranteed payments to the venue it needed to promise to win the contract. A primary ticketing company's profit per ticket is closer to 2% of the average ticket price, a figure far too low to be the cause of high ticket prices.
But let's ignore costs and just ask whether getting a 5-7% commission on the sale of a concert ticket is abnormal or unreasonable. In today's economy we have a lot of data points about what digital distribution usually costs. We can, for example, compare Ticketmaster's 5-7% commission rate with what other digital distribution platforms charge. The fact is that the 5-7% fee that primary ticketing companies earn on ticket sales is extremely low by the standards
of digital distribution. Here's how it stacks up against a collection of other fees charged by online marketplaces.
If distribution makes up 25%, 37% or 50% of what a consumer pays for something, of course it bears some responsibility for the ultimate price. But at just 5-7%, there is no rational basis for thinking that primary ticketing companies are the cause of high concert ticket prices. They charge too little, and even if one were to assume — without any evidence — that there is some amount of unjustified "monopoly profit" in a 5-7% commission, it could not affect ticket prices by more than one or two percent at worst. So the narrative that Ticketmaster fees are responsible for high ticket prices makes no sense. There is no way that's true.
THE ROLE OF THE PROMOTER
Now let's consider Live Nation in its role as a concert promoter. The arguments we hear about Live Nation's role in concert pricing are inconsistent. Some claim that Live Nation is so powerful in concert promotion that it can dictate what artists charge; others claim that Live Nation can raise its prices to artists, and this gets passed through to fans in higher ticket prices. Neither argument is plausible.
Concert promoters provide an array of services related to putting on memorable and financially successful concerts. They help the performers secure the right venues, negotiate deals with venues and others, advise on pricing, market the shows, and manage the countless details involved in hosting a concert. But promoters don't get paid for their services directly, the way a lawyer or an accountant might. Concert promoters invest in the show or tour by guaranteeing the performers a certain amount of money on the hope and expectation that there will be some profit for the promoter after the performers have been paid and all show costs have been covered. Promoters, in other words, are risk takers: they bankroll the show hoping it turns out to be profitable, but the risks they take make their compensation uncertain.
Promoters do not set ticket prices. They care deeply about pricing, and are usually quite sophisticated about it, because the offers they make to artists necessarily anticipate and depend on the number of, and prices for, tickets likely to be sold. Think about a simple guarantee to an artist of $100,000 for one show at a 5,000 seat venue: there is no way for a responsible promoter to offer that guarantee without at least a general understanding of what those 5,000 tickets will sell for. This is the same reason why the investors on Shark Tank ask potential partners how much they charge for their products. If your money is at risk, you pay attention to pricing.
Nevertheless, promoters don't set prices, artists do. The artist and her business team listen to the promoter's input and then decide. This is the case even with a promoter as large as Live Nation or AEG. Furthermore, if you want to talk about a promoter's pricing incentives, the last thing a concert promoter wants to do is charge too much for a show. That is a surefire way for the promoter to lose money. The promoter's incentive is to find the sweet spot that balances ticket revenues and the probability of a sellout. That's what gives promoters a reasonable chance of making money on the show.
There is even less merit to the idea that the promoter's take from a concert pushes up ticket prices. Concert promotion services are not remotely expensive enough, let alone profitable enough, to have that effect.
A promoter's compensation is the product of numerous terms in its contract with an artist. The most important are the guarantee to the artist, the artist percentage of revenues after ticket sales exceed the guarantee, and the terms defining the expenses that the promoter is allowed to recover. The guarantee is a fixed amount paid by the promoter to the artist regardless of whether the promoter loses money. For example, a band might be guaranteed $100,000, in which case it will be paid $100,000 irrespective of whether the concert makes money. The band may even make more if the show is successful, however, because through the artist percentage the band will also be entitled to a substantial part of any net ticket revenues. Nowadays, it's common for top artists to get 90% or more of the net ticket revenues. The promoter gets only what remains after the guarantee, other show costs, and the artist's percentage have been paid out. That depends critically on how many tickets are sold, which is unknown until the night of the show. To further complicate things, every deal is different, and artists vary widely by their popularity and bargaining power. Promoter "prices" — whatever one chooses that to mean — vary from deal to deal.
What we can say is that concert promotion is not a highly profitable business, even for Live Nation. In its annual reports, Live Nation reports billions of dollars of revenue for its Concerts segment because the acts it promotes sell billions of dollars in tickets. But Live Nation's own income as a concert promoter is less than 2% of concert revenues. The Concerts segment's adjusted operating income margin in 2023 was 1.7%.
On that basis alone it is obvious that what Live Nation earns as a concert promoter can't be responsible for high ticket prices. It is not taking nearly enough of the ticket revenue to force up ticket prices meaningfully. And despite all the talk that Live Nation is becoming more and more powerful, the secular trend in the industry is that artists are getting an increasingly large share of ticket revenues. Concert promotion is an attractive business today largely because of its relationship to selling corporate sponsorships — an advertising business in which money comes neither from artists nor fans, but rather from big corporations.
We are left, then, with a ticketing distribution "monopoly" that charges a fraction of what most digital platforms charge and a concert promotions "monopoly" with a 1.7% AOI margin. And neither sets ticket prices.
WHAT REALLY CAUSES HIGH TICKET PRICES
The real explanations for high ticket prices are well-understood and have very little to do with Live Nation or Ticketmaster. They begin with the economic conditions that explain most pricing: supply and demand. For a small percentage of concerts — the high-profile ones — consumer demand greatly exceeds the supply of available tickets. This is obvious at the apex of the industry, where stars like Taylor Swift, Beyoncé, Ed Sheeran, Bruce Springsteen and Harry Styles could easily sell out far more shows than they could realistically play. But it's not just them. For the top 5-10% of touring artists, demand is regularly well in excess of the supply of tickets. We are fortunate that artists in this category choose not to exercise their full pricing power; otherwise, they would charge the much higher prices we see on resale markets. But basic economics applies to concert tickets too, so strong demand naturally leads to higher ticket pricing.
Closely related to this is the phenomenon of concerts becoming premier "experience goods." Much has been written about the advent of the "experience economy," in which economic value has shifted progressively from the production and supply of goods, to the delivery of services, and now to the staging of experiences. Music, whether recorded or live, is by its nature experienced, but plainly the live experience is richer and in economic terms more valuable. Concerts also have the potential to become spectacles, whether though elaborate staging and production or a consumer buzz that makes them "the place to be." This factor is magnified by social media, which in addition to creating demand through ongoing connections to artists, allows concerts to be shared experiences when fans upload videos and "Instagrammable moments" to their social media platforms. The experience value of concerts has been increasing for decades, and with it the price of tickets.
Artists have also become more dependent on touring income over the last 25 years — the factor that Alan Krueger, who served as the Chairman of President Barack Obama's Council of Economic Advisers, cited as "the primary reason why concert prices have risen so much since the late 1990s." This is the direct result of a precipitous decline in the value of recorded music when streaming (and unauthorized duplication) led to drastically lower record sales, which in turn led record companies to withdraw from their traditional role bankrolling touring. In that environment, concerts could no longer be loss leaders to sell albums. They became the artist's principal source of income, and priced accordingly.
HOW RESALE IMPACTS PRICES
Finally, the rise of today's mammoth online resale markets has profoundly affected concert pricing. It has done so by undermining to a degree the longstanding practice of performers to substantially underprice tickets to their performances, especially the best seats to the hottest shows. Artists underprice tickets for several reasons, but mostly out of regard for their fans. There is a kind of social compact between performers and their devoted fans to charge them fair prices, not whatever the market will bear. StubHub and the resale marketplaces that followed it changed that forever by presenting artists with 24/7 reminders of what the true market value for their tickets is — and that when they don't charge those prices scalpers will find ways to acquire tickets and resell them at full market value. That unquestionably affects what artists charge. They still don't charge what the market will bear, not even for the best seats, but most charge more for the best seats than they would in the absence of all that scalping.
The common thread to all these factors is that they have nothing to do with who the promoter is or who sells tickets to the show. What Taylor Swift charges has nothing to do with whether she is promoted by Live Nation (which she is not) or Louis Messina of AEG (which she is). What Beyoncé charges has nothing to do with whether Ticketmaster or SeatGeek serves the venues she chooses to play. Either way, the performer's business team will work with their chosen promoter and try to come up with the pricing strategy that strikes the right balance between the economic returns from the tour and doing right by their fans. The first part of that will turn mainly on data-driven judgments about demand. How did the performer's last tour sell, and at what prices? What are comparable artists charging in similar venues in this tour cycle? How strong is demand for concerts generally at this time? Does the artist have recent hit songs — or a following that shows up every tour cycle regardless of recent hits? It may also be affected by venue considerations; for example, amphitheaters have lawn seating that traditionally commands low prices. The point, again, is that nothing turns on who the promoter or ticketing company is. Neither has the power to set prices, and the identity of the promoter or ticketing company is unrelated to the actual determinants of pricing.
Statements to the effect that Live Nation and Ticketmaster "keep ticket prices high" are just flat wrong. Anyone with a basic understanding of the industry knows this. Those who perpetuate this falsehood are cynical at best. They do a disservice to consumers and to rational political discourse.
This went up yesterday, but I didn't find out about it until today, from a tweet by analyst Brandon Ross.
No post in "Hits." No post in "Billboard." It's like the announcement was dropped and it didn't even make a ripple in the water.
I Googled. I couldn't find one reference to this post, NOT ONE!
Then I went to the Apple News. Ditto.
I'm a pretty good Googler, there's a chance I missed something, but I don't think so.
So how is it the biggest name in live entertainment gives a detailed explanation of how ticketing and concert promotion work and no one cares?
All I can say is we live in a post-truth society. You make up your own facts. Ticketmaster is the devil and they're taking advantage of those damn acts and you. This might feel right, but it's patently untrue.
You've even got Zach Bryan deriding Live Nation with the title of an album!
And you wonder how come truth can't penetrate politics...
This is great evidence of the fact that you can make it, you can post it, but that does not mean anybody will pay attention.
Live Nation should include this screed with each and every ticket it sells. Not once, but for a year or two or three until the message finally penetrates the public consciousness.
You still may not understand how ticketing and concert promotion work. Hell, the acts don't want you to know. I've delineated it many times, but many readers still don't want to believe what I say.
So read this Live Nation post. You can click on the link above, or if that's too much, I'm going to post the entire statement below.
Of course not everything in the concert world is covered. But as far as this post goes, it's right.
"The Truth About Ticket Prices"
By Dan Wall
In the ongoing antitrust attacks on Live Nation and Ticketmaster, a constant theme is that their alleged "monopolies" are responsible for high ticket prices. Rhetorically, that's understandable, because if you want to rile up fans against Live Nation and Ticketmaster, there is no better way than to blame them for something you know fans dislike. But is there really a connection between any of these antitrust arguments and prices for concert tickets? That's the subject of today's post.
The starting point is what Live Nation and Ticketmaster actually do. What roles do they play in the concert industry and what power does that give them to influence ticket prices? We'll start with Ticketmaster, since it tends to get the lion's share of the blame for high ticket prices even though, as we shall see, it has the least influence over prices.
HOW TICKETING WORKS
Ticketmaster and other "primary ticketing companies" provide the technology and services that venues need to manage and market shows, sell tickets, and validate tickets for entry. Typically, one primary ticketing company provides these services for all events at a given venue. The chosen ticketing company then interfaces with consumers on online marketplaces, not to sell inventory of their own, but as agents of the venues selling tickets priced by performers and production entities. Fans tend not to understand that. They think of Ticketmaster as an enormous ticket retailer that acquires vast quantities of tickets and puts them up for sale at prices Ticketmaster determines – an assumption that makes it easy to blame Ticketmaster for high ticket prices. But that's not true.
Tickets are actually priced by artists and teams. It's their show, they get to decide what it costs to get in. The NFL tickets on Ticketmaster were priced by the home teams, concert tickets were priced by the performer's business teams, Monster Jam tickets were priced by its producer (Feld Entertainment), and so forth.
THE TRUTH ABOUT FEES
The argument that Ticketmaster is responsible for high prices is really about service charges. The practice in the U.S. for decades has been to break down the cost of admission into a "face value" sum and one or more fees added to face value. There is a common perception that service charges are "junk fees" and that Ticketmaster sets the fees and pockets the money. Again, that's not true.
Service charges are added to the face value of concert tickets because two important players in the concert ecosystem – venues and primary ticketing companies – get little or nothing out of the revenues derived from the ticket's face value. That money goes mostly to the performers, secondarily to cover certain show costs, and if anything is left over to the promoters. So, the practice developed to add a percentage service charge to a ticket's face value to pay the venue for hosting the event and the primary ticketing company for servicing venues and distributing tickets. The add-on nature of the service fee is annoying to many fans and fuels the narrative that these are junk fees. But they are not junk fees for the simple reason that the venues and ticketing companies have costs associated with the services they provide to help produce the show. They provide value and one way or another will be compensated for it.
Fans are also told that service charges are Ticketmaster's way of raising ticket prices. In fact, Ticketmaster does not set service charges, venues do, and most of the money goes to the venues. Let's break that down.
Primary ticketing service charges are a product of the hundreds of contracts that exist between venues and their exclusive ticketing providers. They are not uniform, but a typical contract will provide that in exchange for its services and some guaranteed cash payments to the venue, the ticketing company will get a stated percentage of the service charge the venue intends to impose, a dollar-per-ticket fee, or some combination of the two. The venue decides on the service fees. During the ticketing contract bidding process, the venue tells the bidding ticketing companies that it intends to charge certain fees, and the ticketing companies structure their offers accordingly.
However the contract turns out, the venue gets most of the service fee, not Ticketmaster or any other primary ticketing company. In fact, the venue normally gets around two-thirds of the service charge and in many cases a facility fee as well. So, if fees add, say, 30% to the face value of a ticket, the primary ticketing company is getting perhaps a quarter of that – something in the range of 5-7%. And the primary ticketing company is not making 5-7% per ticket as profit because it has costs to cover, not the least of which are the guaranteed payments to the venue it needed to promise to win the contract. A primary ticketing company's profit per ticket is closer to 2% of the average ticket price, a figure far too low to be the cause of high ticket prices.
But let's ignore costs and just ask whether getting a 5-7% commission on the sale of a concert ticket is abnormal or unreasonable. In today's economy we have a lot of data points about what digital distribution usually costs. We can, for example, compare Ticketmaster's 5-7% commission rate with what other digital distribution platforms charge. The fact is that the 5-7% fee that primary ticketing companies earn on ticket sales is extremely low by the standards
of digital distribution. Here's how it stacks up against a collection of other fees charged by online marketplaces.
If distribution makes up 25%, 37% or 50% of what a consumer pays for something, of course it bears some responsibility for the ultimate price. But at just 5-7%, there is no rational basis for thinking that primary ticketing companies are the cause of high concert ticket prices. They charge too little, and even if one were to assume — without any evidence — that there is some amount of unjustified "monopoly profit" in a 5-7% commission, it could not affect ticket prices by more than one or two percent at worst. So the narrative that Ticketmaster fees are responsible for high ticket prices makes no sense. There is no way that's true.
THE ROLE OF THE PROMOTER
Now let's consider Live Nation in its role as a concert promoter. The arguments we hear about Live Nation's role in concert pricing are inconsistent. Some claim that Live Nation is so powerful in concert promotion that it can dictate what artists charge; others claim that Live Nation can raise its prices to artists, and this gets passed through to fans in higher ticket prices. Neither argument is plausible.
Concert promoters provide an array of services related to putting on memorable and financially successful concerts. They help the performers secure the right venues, negotiate deals with venues and others, advise on pricing, market the shows, and manage the countless details involved in hosting a concert. But promoters don't get paid for their services directly, the way a lawyer or an accountant might. Concert promoters invest in the show or tour by guaranteeing the performers a certain amount of money on the hope and expectation that there will be some profit for the promoter after the performers have been paid and all show costs have been covered. Promoters, in other words, are risk takers: they bankroll the show hoping it turns out to be profitable, but the risks they take make their compensation uncertain.
Promoters do not set ticket prices. They care deeply about pricing, and are usually quite sophisticated about it, because the offers they make to artists necessarily anticipate and depend on the number of, and prices for, tickets likely to be sold. Think about a simple guarantee to an artist of $100,000 for one show at a 5,000 seat venue: there is no way for a responsible promoter to offer that guarantee without at least a general understanding of what those 5,000 tickets will sell for. This is the same reason why the investors on Shark Tank ask potential partners how much they charge for their products. If your money is at risk, you pay attention to pricing.
Nevertheless, promoters don't set prices, artists do. The artist and her business team listen to the promoter's input and then decide. This is the case even with a promoter as large as Live Nation or AEG. Furthermore, if you want to talk about a promoter's pricing incentives, the last thing a concert promoter wants to do is charge too much for a show. That is a surefire way for the promoter to lose money. The promoter's incentive is to find the sweet spot that balances ticket revenues and the probability of a sellout. That's what gives promoters a reasonable chance of making money on the show.
There is even less merit to the idea that the promoter's take from a concert pushes up ticket prices. Concert promotion services are not remotely expensive enough, let alone profitable enough, to have that effect.
A promoter's compensation is the product of numerous terms in its contract with an artist. The most important are the guarantee to the artist, the artist percentage of revenues after ticket sales exceed the guarantee, and the terms defining the expenses that the promoter is allowed to recover. The guarantee is a fixed amount paid by the promoter to the artist regardless of whether the promoter loses money. For example, a band might be guaranteed $100,000, in which case it will be paid $100,000 irrespective of whether the concert makes money. The band may even make more if the show is successful, however, because through the artist percentage the band will also be entitled to a substantial part of any net ticket revenues. Nowadays, it's common for top artists to get 90% or more of the net ticket revenues. The promoter gets only what remains after the guarantee, other show costs, and the artist's percentage have been paid out. That depends critically on how many tickets are sold, which is unknown until the night of the show. To further complicate things, every deal is different, and artists vary widely by their popularity and bargaining power. Promoter "prices" — whatever one chooses that to mean — vary from deal to deal.
What we can say is that concert promotion is not a highly profitable business, even for Live Nation. In its annual reports, Live Nation reports billions of dollars of revenue for its Concerts segment because the acts it promotes sell billions of dollars in tickets. But Live Nation's own income as a concert promoter is less than 2% of concert revenues. The Concerts segment's adjusted operating income margin in 2023 was 1.7%.
On that basis alone it is obvious that what Live Nation earns as a concert promoter can't be responsible for high ticket prices. It is not taking nearly enough of the ticket revenue to force up ticket prices meaningfully. And despite all the talk that Live Nation is becoming more and more powerful, the secular trend in the industry is that artists are getting an increasingly large share of ticket revenues. Concert promotion is an attractive business today largely because of its relationship to selling corporate sponsorships — an advertising business in which money comes neither from artists nor fans, but rather from big corporations.
We are left, then, with a ticketing distribution "monopoly" that charges a fraction of what most digital platforms charge and a concert promotions "monopoly" with a 1.7% AOI margin. And neither sets ticket prices.
WHAT REALLY CAUSES HIGH TICKET PRICES
The real explanations for high ticket prices are well-understood and have very little to do with Live Nation or Ticketmaster. They begin with the economic conditions that explain most pricing: supply and demand. For a small percentage of concerts — the high-profile ones — consumer demand greatly exceeds the supply of available tickets. This is obvious at the apex of the industry, where stars like Taylor Swift, Beyoncé, Ed Sheeran, Bruce Springsteen and Harry Styles could easily sell out far more shows than they could realistically play. But it's not just them. For the top 5-10% of touring artists, demand is regularly well in excess of the supply of tickets. We are fortunate that artists in this category choose not to exercise their full pricing power; otherwise, they would charge the much higher prices we see on resale markets. But basic economics applies to concert tickets too, so strong demand naturally leads to higher ticket pricing.
Closely related to this is the phenomenon of concerts becoming premier "experience goods." Much has been written about the advent of the "experience economy," in which economic value has shifted progressively from the production and supply of goods, to the delivery of services, and now to the staging of experiences. Music, whether recorded or live, is by its nature experienced, but plainly the live experience is richer and in economic terms more valuable. Concerts also have the potential to become spectacles, whether though elaborate staging and production or a consumer buzz that makes them "the place to be." This factor is magnified by social media, which in addition to creating demand through ongoing connections to artists, allows concerts to be shared experiences when fans upload videos and "Instagrammable moments" to their social media platforms. The experience value of concerts has been increasing for decades, and with it the price of tickets.
Artists have also become more dependent on touring income over the last 25 years — the factor that Alan Krueger, who served as the Chairman of President Barack Obama's Council of Economic Advisers, cited as "the primary reason why concert prices have risen so much since the late 1990s." This is the direct result of a precipitous decline in the value of recorded music when streaming (and unauthorized duplication) led to drastically lower record sales, which in turn led record companies to withdraw from their traditional role bankrolling touring. In that environment, concerts could no longer be loss leaders to sell albums. They became the artist's principal source of income, and priced accordingly.
HOW RESALE IMPACTS PRICES
Finally, the rise of today's mammoth online resale markets has profoundly affected concert pricing. It has done so by undermining to a degree the longstanding practice of performers to substantially underprice tickets to their performances, especially the best seats to the hottest shows. Artists underprice tickets for several reasons, but mostly out of regard for their fans. There is a kind of social compact between performers and their devoted fans to charge them fair prices, not whatever the market will bear. StubHub and the resale marketplaces that followed it changed that forever by presenting artists with 24/7 reminders of what the true market value for their tickets is — and that when they don't charge those prices scalpers will find ways to acquire tickets and resell them at full market value. That unquestionably affects what artists charge. They still don't charge what the market will bear, not even for the best seats, but most charge more for the best seats than they would in the absence of all that scalping.
The common thread to all these factors is that they have nothing to do with who the promoter is or who sells tickets to the show. What Taylor Swift charges has nothing to do with whether she is promoted by Live Nation (which she is not) or Louis Messina of AEG (which she is). What Beyoncé charges has nothing to do with whether Ticketmaster or SeatGeek serves the venues she chooses to play. Either way, the performer's business team will work with their chosen promoter and try to come up with the pricing strategy that strikes the right balance between the economic returns from the tour and doing right by their fans. The first part of that will turn mainly on data-driven judgments about demand. How did the performer's last tour sell, and at what prices? What are comparable artists charging in similar venues in this tour cycle? How strong is demand for concerts generally at this time? Does the artist have recent hit songs — or a following that shows up every tour cycle regardless of recent hits? It may also be affected by venue considerations; for example, amphitheaters have lawn seating that traditionally commands low prices. The point, again, is that nothing turns on who the promoter or ticketing company is. Neither has the power to set prices, and the identity of the promoter or ticketing company is unrelated to the actual determinants of pricing.
Statements to the effect that Live Nation and Ticketmaster "keep ticket prices high" are just flat wrong. Anyone with a basic understanding of the industry knows this. Those who perpetuate this falsehood are cynical at best. They do a disservice to consumers and to rational political discourse.
--
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Label Layoffs
They used to do this when times were bad, but never when times were good. Hell, the three major label groups all keep trumpeting their results, how great they are, then again Bill Ackman has a big position in Universal, which proves the point, it's all about the stock price baby, the underlying business is irrelevant.
Don't confuse this with the tech layoffs of the past year. Unlike the record labels, the tech companies had been on a hiring spree, they were all about growth, the future was so bright they had to wear shades, the layoffs were all about right-sizing, not undercutting the essence of the business.
Let's be clear, almost all these layoffs concern people in the new music sphere. It's like Universal and Warner are abdicating their power in this world, throwing their hands up in the air and saying we can't figure it out, we're catalog companies with new music businesses that focus on moonshots, the rest of the landscape be damned.
Yes, indies keep gaining market share. You'd think the majors would wade in and figure out how to get more of this action, but instead they've punted.
You don't see Live Nation laying off people in light of great profitability. Proving how healthy the live sphere is. And Live Nation is promoting shows from clubs to stadiums, they're not ceding market share to anyone, they're going where there is demand, which appears to be insatiable, well, at least growing... It's a worldwide market, think of the possibilities! And Live Nation is.
But at Universal and Warner... They think everyone's still playing the old game. You sign some nitwit, massage them with producers and remixers and then hype it in the press, get them on TV and do your best to get on terrestrial radio. And believe me, terrestrial radio still has power, but it's shrinking. The majors are clinging to the avenues of most exposure instead of retooling to promote from the bottom up, which requires hard work, investment and time. But they just want to cruise along trying to create the next JLo, some other empty vessel that they can convince preteens and brain dead adults they should care about, as if hit music is all there is, as if it's that which touches souls most, which lasts, when that is patently untrue.
Never have the majors played in fewer genres and released fewer records. In other words, they've pulled back, and now they're pulling back further!
And, new signings primarily come from those who've built it themselves online, via social media/TikTok. The main criterion is how many followers you've got. So if you're a great marketer, this is your time. But if you're a great musician who is not so good at online marketing, you're SOL.
The labels want the acts to do the work. So why do they expect the acts to make a deal with them? In truth, many who do end up with contracts unheard of previously, with a greater royalty rate and the return of masters, the act has most of the leverage, this is topsy-turvy.
Then again, the acts can make more going independent. They can get nearly 70% of income from the DSPs, and if they sign with a major good luck getting 50%, or anywhere close.
Back in the heyday of the recorded music business, the seventies and eighties, labels were always creating new imprints, adding staff, believing you needed more people to grow. CBS had Portrait... I could list more, never mind independent upstarts, like Interscope, but today it's doom and gloom in the halls of the labels, it's consolidation instead of growth, meanwhile the overall numbers are good. Isn't this when you try to take market share from your competitors, isn't this when you add staff?
One staff can only sign and promote a limited number of records. People count. This is not work that can be done by AI.
But man, Wall Street eats this stuff up. As if the recorded music business was simple, as if Bill Ackman, a money man to the core, can comprehend it. As if there's no expertise involved.
The labels should be nurturing new executive talent. But no, they don't want to pay for it. The fat cats make money and the rest of the staff are underpaid worker bees who need to be on call 24/7. Where are the stock options for the rank and file, all the perks that tech and other companies now provide. Nonexistent. How do you expect to get the best and the brightest? You don't!
Used to be a privilege to work at a record label, but that went out the door with Tower Records. Music isn't the only cool sphere. Go try and recruit an assistant director of anything at an elite college, they'll laugh at you.
This is all good for independent artists. And good for the business at large. Because it presages opportunity. The labels do have their catalogs, then again, so did Paramount, and look what has happened to that company, it had to sell its valued real estate just to make a debt payment. The landscape changes, and the lumbering giant labels do not. Once again, leaving opportunity.
More genres will flourish. More acts will bubble up and grow. The labels' hold on marketing and distribution has been broken by the internet, today anybody can play. And you don't have to worry if your music fits narrow terrestrial radio formats. You're one on one with your audience, that's the magic. The major labels still don't know who their customers are, still don't have a one on one relationship with the people who actually pay their salaries. They'll wine and dine radio programmers, DSP programmers, but the great unwashed? They've got nothing to do with them.
Once again, you don't pull back when times are good, you do your best to grow! Monty can't promote every record. And as good as Janick is...
But Kyncl and Grainge know better. As they promote the drivel that puts up momentary numbers and then recedes into the woodwork.
The music business grew by delivering album acts that oftentimes didn't even have hit records. And these acts still exist, and they're on the road. But they're not flashy enough for the majors, not an easy enough sell, so they're ignored.
Ukraine has a hard time fighting with one hand behind its back. To stand up and win it needs American money. To achieve great goals you need people, time and money. And believe me, breaking records is war.
But now major labels want to fight with one hand tied behind their back. The stock might go up for now, but what about the long term?
Screw the long term.
--
Visit the archive: http://lefsetz.com/wordpress/
--
Listen to the podcast:
-iHeart: https://ihr.fm/2Gi5PFj
-Apple: https://apple.co/2ndmpvp
--
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Don't confuse this with the tech layoffs of the past year. Unlike the record labels, the tech companies had been on a hiring spree, they were all about growth, the future was so bright they had to wear shades, the layoffs were all about right-sizing, not undercutting the essence of the business.
Let's be clear, almost all these layoffs concern people in the new music sphere. It's like Universal and Warner are abdicating their power in this world, throwing their hands up in the air and saying we can't figure it out, we're catalog companies with new music businesses that focus on moonshots, the rest of the landscape be damned.
Yes, indies keep gaining market share. You'd think the majors would wade in and figure out how to get more of this action, but instead they've punted.
You don't see Live Nation laying off people in light of great profitability. Proving how healthy the live sphere is. And Live Nation is promoting shows from clubs to stadiums, they're not ceding market share to anyone, they're going where there is demand, which appears to be insatiable, well, at least growing... It's a worldwide market, think of the possibilities! And Live Nation is.
But at Universal and Warner... They think everyone's still playing the old game. You sign some nitwit, massage them with producers and remixers and then hype it in the press, get them on TV and do your best to get on terrestrial radio. And believe me, terrestrial radio still has power, but it's shrinking. The majors are clinging to the avenues of most exposure instead of retooling to promote from the bottom up, which requires hard work, investment and time. But they just want to cruise along trying to create the next JLo, some other empty vessel that they can convince preteens and brain dead adults they should care about, as if hit music is all there is, as if it's that which touches souls most, which lasts, when that is patently untrue.
Never have the majors played in fewer genres and released fewer records. In other words, they've pulled back, and now they're pulling back further!
And, new signings primarily come from those who've built it themselves online, via social media/TikTok. The main criterion is how many followers you've got. So if you're a great marketer, this is your time. But if you're a great musician who is not so good at online marketing, you're SOL.
The labels want the acts to do the work. So why do they expect the acts to make a deal with them? In truth, many who do end up with contracts unheard of previously, with a greater royalty rate and the return of masters, the act has most of the leverage, this is topsy-turvy.
Then again, the acts can make more going independent. They can get nearly 70% of income from the DSPs, and if they sign with a major good luck getting 50%, or anywhere close.
Back in the heyday of the recorded music business, the seventies and eighties, labels were always creating new imprints, adding staff, believing you needed more people to grow. CBS had Portrait... I could list more, never mind independent upstarts, like Interscope, but today it's doom and gloom in the halls of the labels, it's consolidation instead of growth, meanwhile the overall numbers are good. Isn't this when you try to take market share from your competitors, isn't this when you add staff?
One staff can only sign and promote a limited number of records. People count. This is not work that can be done by AI.
But man, Wall Street eats this stuff up. As if the recorded music business was simple, as if Bill Ackman, a money man to the core, can comprehend it. As if there's no expertise involved.
The labels should be nurturing new executive talent. But no, they don't want to pay for it. The fat cats make money and the rest of the staff are underpaid worker bees who need to be on call 24/7. Where are the stock options for the rank and file, all the perks that tech and other companies now provide. Nonexistent. How do you expect to get the best and the brightest? You don't!
Used to be a privilege to work at a record label, but that went out the door with Tower Records. Music isn't the only cool sphere. Go try and recruit an assistant director of anything at an elite college, they'll laugh at you.
This is all good for independent artists. And good for the business at large. Because it presages opportunity. The labels do have their catalogs, then again, so did Paramount, and look what has happened to that company, it had to sell its valued real estate just to make a debt payment. The landscape changes, and the lumbering giant labels do not. Once again, leaving opportunity.
More genres will flourish. More acts will bubble up and grow. The labels' hold on marketing and distribution has been broken by the internet, today anybody can play. And you don't have to worry if your music fits narrow terrestrial radio formats. You're one on one with your audience, that's the magic. The major labels still don't know who their customers are, still don't have a one on one relationship with the people who actually pay their salaries. They'll wine and dine radio programmers, DSP programmers, but the great unwashed? They've got nothing to do with them.
Once again, you don't pull back when times are good, you do your best to grow! Monty can't promote every record. And as good as Janick is...
But Kyncl and Grainge know better. As they promote the drivel that puts up momentary numbers and then recedes into the woodwork.
The music business grew by delivering album acts that oftentimes didn't even have hit records. And these acts still exist, and they're on the road. But they're not flashy enough for the majors, not an easy enough sell, so they're ignored.
Ukraine has a hard time fighting with one hand behind its back. To stand up and win it needs American money. To achieve great goals you need people, time and money. And believe me, breaking records is war.
But now major labels want to fight with one hand tied behind their back. The stock might go up for now, but what about the long term?
Screw the long term.
--
Visit the archive: http://lefsetz.com/wordpress/
--
Listen to the podcast:
-iHeart: https://ihr.fm/2Gi5PFj
-Apple: https://apple.co/2ndmpvp
--
http://www.twitter.com/lefsetz
--
If you would like to subscribe to the LefsetzLetter,
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Thursday 29 February 2024
God & Country
Trailer: https://shorturl.at/byOUW
They've got to stop releasing these documentaries theatrically.
Did you see that "Love on the Spectrum" was the number six most watched original streaming series last week? Yes, with 433 million minutes. The producers could have made a film on autism, taken it to a bunch of festivals, waited two years to release it theatrically, getting reviews but almost no attendance, and then the production would end up on a streaming outlet with little fanfare thereafter. There's so much in the pipeline that delayed buzz does not work. You want your product available when the buzz happens. With a low bar, so everyone interested can partake. That's the beauty of streaming music. You hear about it and you can immediately click to hear it. You don't have to wait for the radio to play it, you don't have to buy it.
But most things are not worth hearing. And most series are not worth watching. But there's a humanity that results in magic in "Love on the Spectrum." Furthermore, the series doesn't pander. I'm absolutely shocked, shocked I tell you, that it's so successful, there's been no big ad campaign, no press think pieces, it's all happening by word of mouth, online, in a way that major media misses.
That's what quality'll do for you.
And the quality of "God & Country" is absolutely top-notch. Everyone in America should see it, but everybody won't.
The producers are afraid that Rob Reiner's involvement will alienate people, they're so fearful of the right that they've got one hand tied behind their back.
But "God & Country" isn't made for the right, it's made for the left, that thinks it knows it all, whose jaws will drop and will promptly go out and vote for Biden or whomever the candidate is because they don't want to risk letting these people be in charge.
Come on, we think we know everything. Like I need to see a movie about Christian Nationalism?
But when they take the cameras inside these churches, inside these confabs, your head will spin. You wonder why people blindly support Trump? Because they believe he's doing God's work. Forget the foibles, they've got some looney tunes explanation that Trump is like Cyrus, so they can overlook the bad in pursuit of their end desires.
You have no idea. You think you do, but you don't.
First and foremost, these people are ORGANIZED! Didn't we learn that with the Federalist Society? Those on the left are bumbling along, voting their hearts, and they don't know they're up against a monolith. Trump is the candidate the Christian Nationalists have been waiting for, and they're ALL-IN!
Forget the truth. It's a Christian nation founded on Judeo-Christian values. ONLY IT'S NOT! Yes, those in the Christian Nationalist world spew endless untruths and no one inside the bubble questions them, the statements are taken as fact.
FURTHERMORE, they believe they're being attacked. Now I understand the "War on Christmas." I mean it makes no sense unless you realize that Christian Nationalists believe they're oppressed, that we lousy, stinkin' Dems want to take away their religion, their right to practice it. And of course we want nothing of the sort, but that doesn't matter to them, they're convinced!
So what we've got here is footage of the inner-workings of the Christian Nationalist right. This is not Episcopals going to church on an occasional Sunday. These people are dedicated to the church, they live for the church, God runs their lives and they need the Almighty to prevail. And they take the word of the preachers as gospel. And these often money-hungry men are riling their constituents up, they're telling them it's war, and only Trump can save them and the country. They've been fighting this battle for decades, now they have their savior.
Of course so much of this is rooted in racism. They don't want them damn n-word people in their schools. Public schools? These are the people who have demonized them, who want to destroy them, so all the white people can go to school together.
And believe me, it is white versus black.
And then you've got the disaffected preachers. They just don't understand how the Christian Nationalist movement aligns with Christian values. They're not helping people, they're all wrapped up in politics.
This is the power of the image. There are pedigreed talking heads and some footage conveys the message with no words. But those on the right are trying to deny so much of what we've seen with our own eyes.
The Democrats, those on the left, keep being surprised. They were stunned that Trump won, it was inconceivable, who would vote for this guy?
Watch this movie and you'll know.
On TikTok they've got all these wackos interviewed who spew falsehoods and pledge fealty to Trump, watch this movie and you'll know.
There's so much information in America, so much going on, that some of the biggest stories can fly under the radar. This Christian Nationalism is one.
Believe me, if the producer hadn't reached out I wouldn't have watched this flick. I mean there are only twenty four hours in day. This isn't news to me... But I watched it and it was!
My only regret is it's not on Netflix right this very second. So you can immediately turn on the screen and watch it. You'll tell all your friends about it.
I mean come on, almost no one believes in Biden. Most of us will vote for him reluctantly.
But not all of us will vote. We're fatigued. I mean if I get one damn more political text I'm going to campaign for all these spammers not to be elected. Stop asking me for money. It's hard to believe in any politician these days. But we can be motivated by fear of consequences.
Oh come on, every day there are stories about what Trump is going to do in office. Stop trying to scare me with stuff that is in the uncertain future. But these Christian Nationalists, this is happening NOW! Don't try to convince your brethren that Biden isn't too old, don't ask for money for candidates, just make them watch this movie. Done deal. Case closed. They'll show up at the polls in November (or vote by mail) without a further push. Forget TV ads. All the stories of the past.
This is the exposé. This explains Fox News better than watching the outlet 24/7. "God & Country" is the essence.
And forget about trying to convince these lemmings otherwise. Nobody appeals to all these days, nobody. Don't be afraid of the right, that they'll decry everything you say. That's their game, to intimidate you, to make you shut up.
No, "God & Country" is for the left, for the anti-Trumpers, for those who are not evangelicals, who really don't know what goes on behind closed doors. This film is the greatest tool the left has got.
Meanwhile, you've got to pay to see it in a theatre. I mean come on, I've got to get dressed, go out, show up to see a zillion trailers at a specific time? How twentieth century. Today you've got to make it easy. There need to be almost no barriers to consumption.
The kids know this. And many of them are old enough to vote.
But all we've got is oldsters lost in the past repeating the same methods that are inefficient if they work at all.
But if everybody just saw this damn movie... This is a national story. But it looks like it will end up being a minor kerfuffle, another episode in the endless smorgasbord of entertainment.
No one can keep up. They need an incentive to partake. And the funny thing is that incentive can only come from their brethren.
I'm one of your brethren. Remember "God & Country" because sometime in the future you'll be able to stream it. And you'll want to, because it's that good. And it alone will motivate you to vote. You'll need no phone call, advertising is irrelevant. This movie alone will change hearts and minds, and isn't that what it's all about?
P.S. "God & Country" has a 92% Critics rating on RottenTomatoes. As for the public, there's no rating yet, not enough people have seen it, proving my point. But 92% is a slam dunk. My threshold is 80%, when it's in the nineties, it's a MUST-SEE!
--
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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They've got to stop releasing these documentaries theatrically.
Did you see that "Love on the Spectrum" was the number six most watched original streaming series last week? Yes, with 433 million minutes. The producers could have made a film on autism, taken it to a bunch of festivals, waited two years to release it theatrically, getting reviews but almost no attendance, and then the production would end up on a streaming outlet with little fanfare thereafter. There's so much in the pipeline that delayed buzz does not work. You want your product available when the buzz happens. With a low bar, so everyone interested can partake. That's the beauty of streaming music. You hear about it and you can immediately click to hear it. You don't have to wait for the radio to play it, you don't have to buy it.
But most things are not worth hearing. And most series are not worth watching. But there's a humanity that results in magic in "Love on the Spectrum." Furthermore, the series doesn't pander. I'm absolutely shocked, shocked I tell you, that it's so successful, there's been no big ad campaign, no press think pieces, it's all happening by word of mouth, online, in a way that major media misses.
That's what quality'll do for you.
And the quality of "God & Country" is absolutely top-notch. Everyone in America should see it, but everybody won't.
The producers are afraid that Rob Reiner's involvement will alienate people, they're so fearful of the right that they've got one hand tied behind their back.
But "God & Country" isn't made for the right, it's made for the left, that thinks it knows it all, whose jaws will drop and will promptly go out and vote for Biden or whomever the candidate is because they don't want to risk letting these people be in charge.
Come on, we think we know everything. Like I need to see a movie about Christian Nationalism?
But when they take the cameras inside these churches, inside these confabs, your head will spin. You wonder why people blindly support Trump? Because they believe he's doing God's work. Forget the foibles, they've got some looney tunes explanation that Trump is like Cyrus, so they can overlook the bad in pursuit of their end desires.
You have no idea. You think you do, but you don't.
First and foremost, these people are ORGANIZED! Didn't we learn that with the Federalist Society? Those on the left are bumbling along, voting their hearts, and they don't know they're up against a monolith. Trump is the candidate the Christian Nationalists have been waiting for, and they're ALL-IN!
Forget the truth. It's a Christian nation founded on Judeo-Christian values. ONLY IT'S NOT! Yes, those in the Christian Nationalist world spew endless untruths and no one inside the bubble questions them, the statements are taken as fact.
FURTHERMORE, they believe they're being attacked. Now I understand the "War on Christmas." I mean it makes no sense unless you realize that Christian Nationalists believe they're oppressed, that we lousy, stinkin' Dems want to take away their religion, their right to practice it. And of course we want nothing of the sort, but that doesn't matter to them, they're convinced!
So what we've got here is footage of the inner-workings of the Christian Nationalist right. This is not Episcopals going to church on an occasional Sunday. These people are dedicated to the church, they live for the church, God runs their lives and they need the Almighty to prevail. And they take the word of the preachers as gospel. And these often money-hungry men are riling their constituents up, they're telling them it's war, and only Trump can save them and the country. They've been fighting this battle for decades, now they have their savior.
Of course so much of this is rooted in racism. They don't want them damn n-word people in their schools. Public schools? These are the people who have demonized them, who want to destroy them, so all the white people can go to school together.
And believe me, it is white versus black.
And then you've got the disaffected preachers. They just don't understand how the Christian Nationalist movement aligns with Christian values. They're not helping people, they're all wrapped up in politics.
This is the power of the image. There are pedigreed talking heads and some footage conveys the message with no words. But those on the right are trying to deny so much of what we've seen with our own eyes.
The Democrats, those on the left, keep being surprised. They were stunned that Trump won, it was inconceivable, who would vote for this guy?
Watch this movie and you'll know.
On TikTok they've got all these wackos interviewed who spew falsehoods and pledge fealty to Trump, watch this movie and you'll know.
There's so much information in America, so much going on, that some of the biggest stories can fly under the radar. This Christian Nationalism is one.
Believe me, if the producer hadn't reached out I wouldn't have watched this flick. I mean there are only twenty four hours in day. This isn't news to me... But I watched it and it was!
My only regret is it's not on Netflix right this very second. So you can immediately turn on the screen and watch it. You'll tell all your friends about it.
I mean come on, almost no one believes in Biden. Most of us will vote for him reluctantly.
But not all of us will vote. We're fatigued. I mean if I get one damn more political text I'm going to campaign for all these spammers not to be elected. Stop asking me for money. It's hard to believe in any politician these days. But we can be motivated by fear of consequences.
Oh come on, every day there are stories about what Trump is going to do in office. Stop trying to scare me with stuff that is in the uncertain future. But these Christian Nationalists, this is happening NOW! Don't try to convince your brethren that Biden isn't too old, don't ask for money for candidates, just make them watch this movie. Done deal. Case closed. They'll show up at the polls in November (or vote by mail) without a further push. Forget TV ads. All the stories of the past.
This is the exposé. This explains Fox News better than watching the outlet 24/7. "God & Country" is the essence.
And forget about trying to convince these lemmings otherwise. Nobody appeals to all these days, nobody. Don't be afraid of the right, that they'll decry everything you say. That's their game, to intimidate you, to make you shut up.
No, "God & Country" is for the left, for the anti-Trumpers, for those who are not evangelicals, who really don't know what goes on behind closed doors. This film is the greatest tool the left has got.
Meanwhile, you've got to pay to see it in a theatre. I mean come on, I've got to get dressed, go out, show up to see a zillion trailers at a specific time? How twentieth century. Today you've got to make it easy. There need to be almost no barriers to consumption.
The kids know this. And many of them are old enough to vote.
But all we've got is oldsters lost in the past repeating the same methods that are inefficient if they work at all.
But if everybody just saw this damn movie... This is a national story. But it looks like it will end up being a minor kerfuffle, another episode in the endless smorgasbord of entertainment.
No one can keep up. They need an incentive to partake. And the funny thing is that incentive can only come from their brethren.
I'm one of your brethren. Remember "God & Country" because sometime in the future you'll be able to stream it. And you'll want to, because it's that good. And it alone will motivate you to vote. You'll need no phone call, advertising is irrelevant. This movie alone will change hearts and minds, and isn't that what it's all about?
P.S. "God & Country" has a 92% Critics rating on RottenTomatoes. As for the public, there's no rating yet, not enough people have seen it, proving my point. But 92% is a slam dunk. My threshold is 80%, when it's in the nineties, it's a MUST-SEE!
--
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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Dayna Frank-This Week's Podcast
Dayna Frank is CEO of First Avenue Productions. She's also the co-founder and first President of the Board of the National Independent Venue Association. We discuss her involvement in the passage of the Save Our Stages Act and the formulation of the new TICKET Act and the ins and outs of getting things accomplished in D.C. as well as concert promotion in the Twin Cities. Dayna is a powerhouse, she gets things done!
https://www.iheart.com/podcast/1119-the-bob-lefsetz-podcast-30806836/episode/dayna-frank-155112616/
https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/dayna-frank/id1316200737?i=1000647520971
https://open.spotify.com/episode/7zsWVHxKh74DTPYJBqqSxY?si=NbRXXFZkRt6heOEbalsltg
https://music.amazon.com/podcasts/9ff4fb19-54d4-41ae-ae7a-8a6f8d3dafa8/episodes/a912f67c-fbaf-4dda-89d6-b71db5c47472/the-bob-lefsetz-podcast-dayna-frank
--
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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https://music.amazon.com/podcasts/9ff4fb19-54d4-41ae-ae7a-8a6f8d3dafa8/episodes/a912f67c-fbaf-4dda-89d6-b71db5c47472/the-bob-lefsetz-podcast-dayna-frank
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Wednesday 28 February 2024
The Judee Sill Movie
"Lost Angel: The Genius of Judee Sill"
Website: https://shorturl.at/ALP03
Trailer: http://tinyurl.com/mutzbddn
It creeped me out, in a good way.
I got e-mail from Cheryl Strayed, telling me her documentarian husband had made a movie about Judee Sill...did I know who she was, would I watch it?
Of course I know who Judee Sill is/was. She was on Asylum Records, and she was the only initial signing other than Ned Doheny who didn't break through.
Now in truth there's a documentary about everyone these days. Oftentimes done on a budget, hagiography for diehard fans only. And normally it would have been hard to say yes, but Cheryl Strayed? How can I say no?
Now in truth there is evidence and there is not. There's some video footage, a bunch of audio and some diaries. So at first the film seems slim. But then...
The first third is the backstory. Which is pretty unique. Going to jail for robbery, becoming a prostitute to pay for her heroin habit and ending up in reform school, where she honed her chops playing the church organ.
David Geffen said he didn't care about all that, he was concerned with the artist and the songs. And when Geffen believed in you...
Let's not forget, Geffen made Laura Nyro a star, and after she left him, well, refused to move from Columbia to Asylum, she never had another hit. Never mind sacrificing her publishing when Geffen promptly sold it.
Managers make a difference. It's oftentimes hard to quantify what they do, but sans a manager no one has ever made it. You need someone to believe in you, to not only look out for you, but push you, take advantage of opportunities, never mind create opportunities.
But Judee Sill could never write a hit. A hit back then was something that was played regularly on FM radio. And either an act got airplay or was nowhere. FM had a wider playlist than AM, but there were not unlimited slots. It's not like today where other than a few acts pushed by the majors everybody is cottage industry. Judee Sill was built for today, when the gatekeepers don't matter, when you can go direct to fan, when you can build it yourself.
So I never heard Judee Sill. I saw her albums in the bins, but I never purchased one. Money was limited. And if it wasn't on the radio you had to buy it to hear it, and most people did not. That's also contrary to today, when everything can be heard, even for free. Sure, it's hard to gain someone's attention, but if you do and you've got the chops, they'll tell everybody they know, you can build a solid career, that is anything but evanescent, careers built on hits can fade away, but not those built on one to one bonds between fans and artists.
So, Sill's dream comes true. She lives large on the advances, and then it all evaporates.
Well, never forget that Sill was born in 1944. She came of age in the early sixties, before the Beatles, when the most most people knew about Southern California was from network TV. There were not only beatniks in San Francisco, but Los Angeles too. Sill got by by the skin of her teeth. She survived on nothing when that was still possible.
And she made contacts, with Jim Pons of the Turtles and...
J.D. Souther.
I didn't know that. That's the heart of the movie, well, that and a slew of other boyfriends. J.D. inspired her most famous song, and not in a good way. She could never get over J.D.
We get more footage and more insight into J.D. in this movie than anywhere previously. We get a feel for the turn of the decade, from the sixties to the seventies, when Los Angeles was the epicenter of the music business and there was no social media, little news at all, and we had no idea how these inspired hedonistic musicians lived and created these legendary songs.
But it came to an end. There's some hokum about her alienating David Geffen, but he denies it. Geffen says he was gone from the label by time she was dropped. And Geffen famously did move on.
But when things didn't turn out for her, Sill was not calm and peaceful, she was pissed, and acted accordingly.
This side of life is rarely depicted. Most of these musicians have no C.V. It's not like if things don't work out they can work at the bank, even work anywhere, they're not good with showing up, time. They're heroes, and suddenly they're zeros. You put in your all, you believe in yourself, but the public doesn't react. How do you cope then?
Well, Sill got back on drugs. You've got to soothe the pain somehow. And there was a car accident, and maybe a boyfriend pushed her down the stairs, but...
Oh, one more thing, that car accident, it was in J.D.'s VW Bug. Yeah, that's what hit records will get you, it's all artifice, J.D. was still driving the People's Car.
But the denouement... She'd gotten into the Big Top, she'd reached for the brass ring, but she'd fallen. She was known to many, after all you saw her records in the store, she got reviews, but she was nowhere broke on Morrison St. in Hollywood when she died. People thought about her, but they were caught up in their own lives. That's how it is, if you can't save yourself...
And Sill had saved herself so many times.
Now you'll see modern acts testifying about Sill's songs. Is she the new Nick Drake? Well, the internet allows her to survive. She's got some notice, her music is out there, available.
But I'm not expecting even the level of acclaim and acceptance of Eva Cassidy. Then again, Judee Sill was a writer, not an interpreter.
But she was a person.
There's hogwash saying she wasn't successful because of her looks. Well, I'm a red-blooded American male and she looks good to me! But in truth it didn't matter what you looked like, it all came down to the music, did it get a chance and was it accepted by the public. Sill got a chance, but somehow her music didn't resonate with the audience. Doesn't mean it's bad, but when you come close it's so disheartening.
Today everybody wants to become a brand. Everybody is selling 24/7, dunning you to pay attention, and most of the stuff isn't worth paying attention to.
And you can bitch about the gatekeepers of yore, but if you had one of the five thousand albums released each year, you were a cut above. The internet proved that that were not a ton of unsigned acts who just needed exposure to prove their greatness. The labels did a good job of finding talent. And if you were on a heralded label, like Asylum, believe me, people paid attention.
It was a different era. We were not all connected. What happened in your burg, never mind your life, was unknown by most. You foraged, you plotted, you made mistakes... Maybe you went to college, maybe you didn't, but there was a level of equality, we were all in it together. In other words, Judee Sill was one of us. Then again, she was not. She was an artist. Not an influencer. Not in it solely for the fame or even the remuneration. Being a great songwriter was paramount. Forget writing with a dozen others, Judee Sill had a statement to make, a personal statement.
And most people shrugged, if they were aware of her or her music at all.
Now this film is getting a limited theatrical release in April. But these projects are always about streaming TV. I'm thinking if this is available on Netflix word of mouth will spread. Because Judee Sill was not like everybody else. She had an inner strength, a desire. But it just did not pan out and that was too much to take.
Keep this film in mind, at some point you'll come across it and be able to click. You should. Because, like me, you'll be creeped out. Judee didn't die at 27, she lived all the way to 35, still too young to die, but she saw a good amount, she knew what was going on.
This is not "Behind the Music" where the arc transcends the act. One thing is for sure, Judee Sill was an original. And this is iconic in an era of me-too, or individuals desiring attention who do not deserve it.
This is Judee Sill's story. Not yours. There are some connections, some similarities, but she was different, unique, and it is this kind of person who scales the heights, becomes a successful artist, because they need it, they've got something to prove, and they don't fit into regular society, this is the only thing they can do and they're all in.
Makes you think, makes you sad.
It's life and life only.
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Website: https://shorturl.at/ALP03
Trailer: http://tinyurl.com/mutzbddn
It creeped me out, in a good way.
I got e-mail from Cheryl Strayed, telling me her documentarian husband had made a movie about Judee Sill...did I know who she was, would I watch it?
Of course I know who Judee Sill is/was. She was on Asylum Records, and she was the only initial signing other than Ned Doheny who didn't break through.
Now in truth there's a documentary about everyone these days. Oftentimes done on a budget, hagiography for diehard fans only. And normally it would have been hard to say yes, but Cheryl Strayed? How can I say no?
Now in truth there is evidence and there is not. There's some video footage, a bunch of audio and some diaries. So at first the film seems slim. But then...
The first third is the backstory. Which is pretty unique. Going to jail for robbery, becoming a prostitute to pay for her heroin habit and ending up in reform school, where she honed her chops playing the church organ.
David Geffen said he didn't care about all that, he was concerned with the artist and the songs. And when Geffen believed in you...
Let's not forget, Geffen made Laura Nyro a star, and after she left him, well, refused to move from Columbia to Asylum, she never had another hit. Never mind sacrificing her publishing when Geffen promptly sold it.
Managers make a difference. It's oftentimes hard to quantify what they do, but sans a manager no one has ever made it. You need someone to believe in you, to not only look out for you, but push you, take advantage of opportunities, never mind create opportunities.
But Judee Sill could never write a hit. A hit back then was something that was played regularly on FM radio. And either an act got airplay or was nowhere. FM had a wider playlist than AM, but there were not unlimited slots. It's not like today where other than a few acts pushed by the majors everybody is cottage industry. Judee Sill was built for today, when the gatekeepers don't matter, when you can go direct to fan, when you can build it yourself.
So I never heard Judee Sill. I saw her albums in the bins, but I never purchased one. Money was limited. And if it wasn't on the radio you had to buy it to hear it, and most people did not. That's also contrary to today, when everything can be heard, even for free. Sure, it's hard to gain someone's attention, but if you do and you've got the chops, they'll tell everybody they know, you can build a solid career, that is anything but evanescent, careers built on hits can fade away, but not those built on one to one bonds between fans and artists.
So, Sill's dream comes true. She lives large on the advances, and then it all evaporates.
Well, never forget that Sill was born in 1944. She came of age in the early sixties, before the Beatles, when the most most people knew about Southern California was from network TV. There were not only beatniks in San Francisco, but Los Angeles too. Sill got by by the skin of her teeth. She survived on nothing when that was still possible.
And she made contacts, with Jim Pons of the Turtles and...
J.D. Souther.
I didn't know that. That's the heart of the movie, well, that and a slew of other boyfriends. J.D. inspired her most famous song, and not in a good way. She could never get over J.D.
We get more footage and more insight into J.D. in this movie than anywhere previously. We get a feel for the turn of the decade, from the sixties to the seventies, when Los Angeles was the epicenter of the music business and there was no social media, little news at all, and we had no idea how these inspired hedonistic musicians lived and created these legendary songs.
But it came to an end. There's some hokum about her alienating David Geffen, but he denies it. Geffen says he was gone from the label by time she was dropped. And Geffen famously did move on.
But when things didn't turn out for her, Sill was not calm and peaceful, she was pissed, and acted accordingly.
This side of life is rarely depicted. Most of these musicians have no C.V. It's not like if things don't work out they can work at the bank, even work anywhere, they're not good with showing up, time. They're heroes, and suddenly they're zeros. You put in your all, you believe in yourself, but the public doesn't react. How do you cope then?
Well, Sill got back on drugs. You've got to soothe the pain somehow. And there was a car accident, and maybe a boyfriend pushed her down the stairs, but...
Oh, one more thing, that car accident, it was in J.D.'s VW Bug. Yeah, that's what hit records will get you, it's all artifice, J.D. was still driving the People's Car.
But the denouement... She'd gotten into the Big Top, she'd reached for the brass ring, but she'd fallen. She was known to many, after all you saw her records in the store, she got reviews, but she was nowhere broke on Morrison St. in Hollywood when she died. People thought about her, but they were caught up in their own lives. That's how it is, if you can't save yourself...
And Sill had saved herself so many times.
Now you'll see modern acts testifying about Sill's songs. Is she the new Nick Drake? Well, the internet allows her to survive. She's got some notice, her music is out there, available.
But I'm not expecting even the level of acclaim and acceptance of Eva Cassidy. Then again, Judee Sill was a writer, not an interpreter.
But she was a person.
There's hogwash saying she wasn't successful because of her looks. Well, I'm a red-blooded American male and she looks good to me! But in truth it didn't matter what you looked like, it all came down to the music, did it get a chance and was it accepted by the public. Sill got a chance, but somehow her music didn't resonate with the audience. Doesn't mean it's bad, but when you come close it's so disheartening.
Today everybody wants to become a brand. Everybody is selling 24/7, dunning you to pay attention, and most of the stuff isn't worth paying attention to.
And you can bitch about the gatekeepers of yore, but if you had one of the five thousand albums released each year, you were a cut above. The internet proved that that were not a ton of unsigned acts who just needed exposure to prove their greatness. The labels did a good job of finding talent. And if you were on a heralded label, like Asylum, believe me, people paid attention.
It was a different era. We were not all connected. What happened in your burg, never mind your life, was unknown by most. You foraged, you plotted, you made mistakes... Maybe you went to college, maybe you didn't, but there was a level of equality, we were all in it together. In other words, Judee Sill was one of us. Then again, she was not. She was an artist. Not an influencer. Not in it solely for the fame or even the remuneration. Being a great songwriter was paramount. Forget writing with a dozen others, Judee Sill had a statement to make, a personal statement.
And most people shrugged, if they were aware of her or her music at all.
Now this film is getting a limited theatrical release in April. But these projects are always about streaming TV. I'm thinking if this is available on Netflix word of mouth will spread. Because Judee Sill was not like everybody else. She had an inner strength, a desire. But it just did not pan out and that was too much to take.
Keep this film in mind, at some point you'll come across it and be able to click. You should. Because, like me, you'll be creeped out. Judee didn't die at 27, she lived all the way to 35, still too young to die, but she saw a good amount, she knew what was going on.
This is not "Behind the Music" where the arc transcends the act. One thing is for sure, Judee Sill was an original. And this is iconic in an era of me-too, or individuals desiring attention who do not deserve it.
This is Judee Sill's story. Not yours. There are some connections, some similarities, but she was different, unique, and it is this kind of person who scales the heights, becomes a successful artist, because they need it, they've got something to prove, and they don't fit into regular society, this is the only thing they can do and they're all in.
Makes you think, makes you sad.
It's life and life only.
--
Visit the archive: http://lefsetz.com/wordpress/
--
Listen to the podcast:
-iHeart: https://ihr.fm/2Gi5PFj
-Apple: https://apple.co/2ndmpvp
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Universal Publishing Joins TikTok Takedown
I'm on Universal's side on this. TikTok should pay rightsholders more.
But we've seen this movie before. As documented in the book "Hit Men," CBS Records wanted to eliminate the underworld of independent radio promotion. Therefore, it refused to pay. End result, the radio stations played music by acts on the other five major labels and eventually CBS caved and started paying the indie promo fees once again.
Of course now there are only three major label groups. And the facts are not an exact fit. But TikTok is the new radio, even worse, that's not only where records blow up, but where the labels find their new acts.
And the labels only have themselves to blame. Ever since the near monopoly of MTV the labels have been pissed that they had little control over what was played and were left out of the financial action. Their goal ever since has been to establish competitors, so they could play one off the other.
This is not the case with TikTok. The me-too product Instagram Reels has some traction, but it's a sideline venture compared to TikTok, which skews younger, where the creators have time to make the videos and the early adopters surf and get addicted to songs. And today's youngsters watch TikTok much more than they used to listen to the radio.
So TikTok has power.
And then there's the recent Spotify announcement that $4.5 billion of their royalty payouts, half of what they paid in total, went to indies. Now the devil is in the details here, because a lot of these indies are actually distributed by major labels. But, the indie part of the pie is growing. And the need for major distribution is falling. You can go nearly direct to DSPs and get almost all of the money. The advantages of major distribution keep eroding, this is not the physical retail of yore.
In other words, TikTok can survive without Universal's recordings and publishing assets. It will be hobbled, but not put out of business. This is not like Spotify losing Universal's music, as a matter of fact, Spotify refused to launch in America, its launch was delayed in America, until all major label groups signed on. Funny how feet were dragged and then Spotify and streaming saved the labels' bottom lines. If you're looking for foresight, don't look to record labels.
So what will happen here, and what has been happening is...
Nature abhors a vacuum. So users are adjusting, and employing music from the other two major label groups and independents. And those signed to Universal are pissed. Just like they were at CBS thirty five years ago. You see removing content may be good for the label overall, but for the individual artist? It can be a serious impediment. Forget the royalties, they want the exposure, their career only involves them, Universal needs some act to hit, not necessarily theirs.
The loss of major label market share is the story of the streaming era. Hits are smaller, the total of indie streams and payouts keeps growing. Turns out not everybody wants the same music. And you can do quite well financially flying under the radar. One of the great things about TikTok is it's free promotion. Independent artists are kept off terrestrial radio to this day, TikTok is a field day. Never mind the ability to expose your music elsewhere online, and to even make it cheaply on your computer.
It's not like this evidence was hidden, anybody observing the sphere knew that the indie piece of the puzzle was growing. But the majors keep focusing on fewer and fewer acts, in most cases poached from TikTok. They are responsible for this mess.
Now in truth the majors will never die. Because of their catalogs. It's not just about new music, but all the recordings of the past. And now, with Universal Publishing involved, even more recordings of the past. Believe me, that's why TikTok will eventually settle. It's hard to do business in the music world without the assets of Universal, or Sony or Warner. But the number? Once again, sans music Spotify is out of business, but not TikTok.
So what we've got here is a mess. A backward looking Universal throwing its weight around based on history and a bunch of newbies creating out of thin air to put their music on TikTok, a site that didn't even exist when the major labels froze their hit paradigm back in the last century. Furthermore, not all material on TikTok is based on music. TikTok could survive quite well without music!
So the majors are slowly losing control. It equates with the film business. Remember when the heads of studios were household names? Not anymore. Other than the hated Zaslav, most people don't know those in control of old school entertainment powerhouses. But Reed Hastings? Everybody knows him, he disrupted the landscape with Netflix. He's not holding on to the past, he's jetting into the future. HBO might dribble out product week to week, but Netflix which drops it all at once is winning the war, hell, Zaslav is now licensing to Netflix once again!
Will we have a similar situation in music?
Well, the landscape is not the same, but... If you want to have a gigantic worldwide hit you really need the major, it can grease the skids in exposure, i.e. radio, press, television... Then again, terrestrial radio, traditional press and network/late night/cable TV now have dwindling returns. The public is in charge online, and all oldsters can do is pooh-pooh this. Never forget, the internet is high school on steroids. And you remember how fast information spread in high school.
Now TikTok and Universal will settle. But pull back the lens, look at the big picture. The majors continue to lose market share and influence. It's a long evolution, but...
And the real money is on the road, so entrepreneurs are not focused on recordings.
But when you look at the music world at large... Hell, a lot of acts grossing a ton of dough live are not signed to majors, no way.
And when it comes to creation, when it comes to content, expect this trend to grow. Believe me, hits are nothing compared with the aggregate. That's the essence of TikTok, of all social media, they cover all the niches, they're quite broad.
Universal used to cover all the niches in the old days. But instead of putting out the red carpet, it's pulling up the drawbridge, it wants low-streaming indies not to be paid. And most of these indies are not making beaucoup bucks, but in the aggregate it's a serious number.
They thought Ukraine couldn't stand up to Mother Russia. But it turns out hearts and minds are powerful. Didn't we learn that in Vietnam? That America couldn't triumph over guerilla warfare?
Then again, the three majors are all publicly traded companies, everybody's on salary, no one's an owner, so there's short term thinking involved. It's outsiders, with a personal investment, who disrupt the landscape. Isn't that the story of the past twenty five years?
Don't expect the major labels to be concerned with this, to even know this, to even care about this... Because they want their money now, so the execs can get their bonuses!
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-iHeart: https://ihr.fm/2Gi5PFj
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But we've seen this movie before. As documented in the book "Hit Men," CBS Records wanted to eliminate the underworld of independent radio promotion. Therefore, it refused to pay. End result, the radio stations played music by acts on the other five major labels and eventually CBS caved and started paying the indie promo fees once again.
Of course now there are only three major label groups. And the facts are not an exact fit. But TikTok is the new radio, even worse, that's not only where records blow up, but where the labels find their new acts.
And the labels only have themselves to blame. Ever since the near monopoly of MTV the labels have been pissed that they had little control over what was played and were left out of the financial action. Their goal ever since has been to establish competitors, so they could play one off the other.
This is not the case with TikTok. The me-too product Instagram Reels has some traction, but it's a sideline venture compared to TikTok, which skews younger, where the creators have time to make the videos and the early adopters surf and get addicted to songs. And today's youngsters watch TikTok much more than they used to listen to the radio.
So TikTok has power.
And then there's the recent Spotify announcement that $4.5 billion of their royalty payouts, half of what they paid in total, went to indies. Now the devil is in the details here, because a lot of these indies are actually distributed by major labels. But, the indie part of the pie is growing. And the need for major distribution is falling. You can go nearly direct to DSPs and get almost all of the money. The advantages of major distribution keep eroding, this is not the physical retail of yore.
In other words, TikTok can survive without Universal's recordings and publishing assets. It will be hobbled, but not put out of business. This is not like Spotify losing Universal's music, as a matter of fact, Spotify refused to launch in America, its launch was delayed in America, until all major label groups signed on. Funny how feet were dragged and then Spotify and streaming saved the labels' bottom lines. If you're looking for foresight, don't look to record labels.
So what will happen here, and what has been happening is...
Nature abhors a vacuum. So users are adjusting, and employing music from the other two major label groups and independents. And those signed to Universal are pissed. Just like they were at CBS thirty five years ago. You see removing content may be good for the label overall, but for the individual artist? It can be a serious impediment. Forget the royalties, they want the exposure, their career only involves them, Universal needs some act to hit, not necessarily theirs.
The loss of major label market share is the story of the streaming era. Hits are smaller, the total of indie streams and payouts keeps growing. Turns out not everybody wants the same music. And you can do quite well financially flying under the radar. One of the great things about TikTok is it's free promotion. Independent artists are kept off terrestrial radio to this day, TikTok is a field day. Never mind the ability to expose your music elsewhere online, and to even make it cheaply on your computer.
It's not like this evidence was hidden, anybody observing the sphere knew that the indie piece of the puzzle was growing. But the majors keep focusing on fewer and fewer acts, in most cases poached from TikTok. They are responsible for this mess.
Now in truth the majors will never die. Because of their catalogs. It's not just about new music, but all the recordings of the past. And now, with Universal Publishing involved, even more recordings of the past. Believe me, that's why TikTok will eventually settle. It's hard to do business in the music world without the assets of Universal, or Sony or Warner. But the number? Once again, sans music Spotify is out of business, but not TikTok.
So what we've got here is a mess. A backward looking Universal throwing its weight around based on history and a bunch of newbies creating out of thin air to put their music on TikTok, a site that didn't even exist when the major labels froze their hit paradigm back in the last century. Furthermore, not all material on TikTok is based on music. TikTok could survive quite well without music!
So the majors are slowly losing control. It equates with the film business. Remember when the heads of studios were household names? Not anymore. Other than the hated Zaslav, most people don't know those in control of old school entertainment powerhouses. But Reed Hastings? Everybody knows him, he disrupted the landscape with Netflix. He's not holding on to the past, he's jetting into the future. HBO might dribble out product week to week, but Netflix which drops it all at once is winning the war, hell, Zaslav is now licensing to Netflix once again!
Will we have a similar situation in music?
Well, the landscape is not the same, but... If you want to have a gigantic worldwide hit you really need the major, it can grease the skids in exposure, i.e. radio, press, television... Then again, terrestrial radio, traditional press and network/late night/cable TV now have dwindling returns. The public is in charge online, and all oldsters can do is pooh-pooh this. Never forget, the internet is high school on steroids. And you remember how fast information spread in high school.
Now TikTok and Universal will settle. But pull back the lens, look at the big picture. The majors continue to lose market share and influence. It's a long evolution, but...
And the real money is on the road, so entrepreneurs are not focused on recordings.
But when you look at the music world at large... Hell, a lot of acts grossing a ton of dough live are not signed to majors, no way.
And when it comes to creation, when it comes to content, expect this trend to grow. Believe me, hits are nothing compared with the aggregate. That's the essence of TikTok, of all social media, they cover all the niches, they're quite broad.
Universal used to cover all the niches in the old days. But instead of putting out the red carpet, it's pulling up the drawbridge, it wants low-streaming indies not to be paid. And most of these indies are not making beaucoup bucks, but in the aggregate it's a serious number.
They thought Ukraine couldn't stand up to Mother Russia. But it turns out hearts and minds are powerful. Didn't we learn that in Vietnam? That America couldn't triumph over guerilla warfare?
Then again, the three majors are all publicly traded companies, everybody's on salary, no one's an owner, so there's short term thinking involved. It's outsiders, with a personal investment, who disrupt the landscape. Isn't that the story of the past twenty five years?
Don't expect the major labels to be concerned with this, to even know this, to even care about this... Because they want their money now, so the execs can get their bonuses!
--
Visit the archive: http://lefsetz.com/wordpress/
--
Listen to the podcast:
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-Apple: https://apple.co/2ndmpvp
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Tuesday 27 February 2024
New People
I started a new book and it set my mind adrift.
Actually, I finished one about Nazis, brief but overrated. But it's funny how my generation has a fascination with Nazis. I don't think younger people do. World War II was close by in our rearview mirror growing up. We couldn't quite understand how it happened. Then again, this was when America was a clear number one. Isn't it funny that all the progress is initiated by the EU these days? The USB-C connection on your new iPhone...credit the EU, trying to reduce waste, never mind enable convenience. When it comes to stopping bad corporate behavior, it's the EU that takes the lead, the EU that is supporting Ukraine, as America slowly loses its perch as the keeper of the world's peace. It's like the country is Freddie Prinze, and I'm not talking about Junior. Remember, "Eez not my job!" Actually, it seems not to be America's job to do so much these days, not only outside the country but inside. You're on your own, it's not my responsibility. Actually, there's a great story in today's "Wall Street Journal":
"Money floods into shares based on memes, is shifted around by algorithms based on past patterns, or goes into vast passive index trackers sold on the basis of being virtually free. None have an incentive to devote resources to keeping the corporate bureaucracy in check, since day traders and hedge funds will be gone before the next CEO meeting, while passive funds can't sell even if the CEO is thrown in prison."
"Why We Risk a Cartoon Version of Capitalism - Private-sector investors are so ineffective at overseeing companies that state-run funds feel the need to step in": https://shorturl.at/TWZ27 (That's a free link.)
I'd like to tell you there are stories this interesting in music, but despite being the canary in the coal mine for digital disruption in the aughts, music is now adrift. Now it's all AI and politics, with a mix of business stories thrown in.
Anyway, I'm addicted to the news. And not the analysis from biased sites on the right and left, but the derided mainstream news, which is flawed but far superior to the outlets cited by the cranks who can't accept that we all live in society together and if you don't come together... Well, you risk the end of democracy. Never forget, fascists promise the trains will run on time, that there will be order, and then you wake up one day and you realize you're the one who has sacrificed.
But I don't read much nonfiction. Because at best it's informational, it doesn't set your mind free like fiction.
Write what you know is an aphorism we hear constantly. And the truth is this is what most people do, which is why we have so many books set in college, college towns, because the writers have gotten their graduate degrees there. And in this book, three girls (we can call college students girls, can't we?) are being interviewed about marriage, which then devolves into a conversation about money, and along the way we find out why they're all ensconced in the same dorm building.
And this reminded me of going to college. You remember, being thrown in with a bunch of kids you'd never met before. Your family and friends from back home irrelevant. And it was just your personality, trappings were irrelevant. And everybody had the same status, everybody earned their right to be there, you were forced to interact, to make friends, to find your own people.
Same deal at summer camp.
But that does not happen when you're an adult. Sure, you can go to a conference and you might not know anybody, but there are already cliques, and status is important and evident.
You can go to work in a new office but there's a definite hierarchy, and the others have experience, you're the odd person out.
This experience of being thrown into a new situation, raw, with only your wits, I miss. Growing up there were resets on a regular basis. But then they stop. People move up the economic ladder, they gain assets, there's a striation of society. Except maybe when you go into the old folks home, after they strip you of your possessions and everybody is similar, then again they're all not healthy, they all don't have their wits about them, and family visits. Your family didn't come rescue you at college, not even kindergarten or high school. You were on your own. And it was anxiety-provoking and thrilling. An adventure.
Now maybe if you've lived in the same town all your life you're not quite sure what I'm talking about. Maybe this is another case of the hoi polloi versus the elite. Maybe it's another way the elite are advantaged, by being forced into these new situations and gaining life skills. Maybe this is a way private college students are advantaged, at state schools you probably already know people and so many go home on the weekends. At a private college, an elite college, you're stuck there with all new people.
Then again, today you've got your parents on speed dial. You may meet new people, but the old ones haunt you forever. You never lose touch with anyone. You can look them up online. If they're not on Facebook, they're on LinkedIn. The past haunts you in a way it did not in the pre-internet era. Then again, statistically fewer people move these days, it's too expensive, but when the boomers grew up you picked up and plopped down in a new town on a regular basis. And you got in your car and went exploring, maybe drove cross-country. Our experience was visceral and real as opposed to virtual. Not that I want to put down the virtual world, the internet, in many ways it saved my life.
But that experience of entering new worlds raw, that's gone. And if you boasted that you owned this or that, or had been here or there, you were an object of ridicule in college. Who you were was what it was all about. Be a joker, be a good conversationalist, be someone who can be trusted...that was what was valued. We were all sifting these new societies for friends. Even stranger, who we started out being friends with oftentimes was not who we ended up being friends with.
But get older and everybody clings to their résumé. They don't want to let us forget their job, their house, their cars, their trips... Hell, social media is mostly about bragging.
But we're all just people underneath. We can relate to most everybody in truth, despite the polarization in society.
Furthermore, it's a personal responsibility to keep growing, to push the envelope, and too many are tired, just playing out their years. And you don't need money to have these new experiences, you can go volunteer in your own damn neighborhood. But that would mean you've got to meet new people, feel uncomfortable, question your suppositions.
Talk to anybody who's got children. They go to college and they come home different. They shed the indoctrination of their parents, they have their own ideas. They call this growing up.
But too many people stop growing.
Actually, I finished one about Nazis, brief but overrated. But it's funny how my generation has a fascination with Nazis. I don't think younger people do. World War II was close by in our rearview mirror growing up. We couldn't quite understand how it happened. Then again, this was when America was a clear number one. Isn't it funny that all the progress is initiated by the EU these days? The USB-C connection on your new iPhone...credit the EU, trying to reduce waste, never mind enable convenience. When it comes to stopping bad corporate behavior, it's the EU that takes the lead, the EU that is supporting Ukraine, as America slowly loses its perch as the keeper of the world's peace. It's like the country is Freddie Prinze, and I'm not talking about Junior. Remember, "Eez not my job!" Actually, it seems not to be America's job to do so much these days, not only outside the country but inside. You're on your own, it's not my responsibility. Actually, there's a great story in today's "Wall Street Journal":
"Money floods into shares based on memes, is shifted around by algorithms based on past patterns, or goes into vast passive index trackers sold on the basis of being virtually free. None have an incentive to devote resources to keeping the corporate bureaucracy in check, since day traders and hedge funds will be gone before the next CEO meeting, while passive funds can't sell even if the CEO is thrown in prison."
"Why We Risk a Cartoon Version of Capitalism - Private-sector investors are so ineffective at overseeing companies that state-run funds feel the need to step in": https://shorturl.at/TWZ27 (That's a free link.)
I'd like to tell you there are stories this interesting in music, but despite being the canary in the coal mine for digital disruption in the aughts, music is now adrift. Now it's all AI and politics, with a mix of business stories thrown in.
Anyway, I'm addicted to the news. And not the analysis from biased sites on the right and left, but the derided mainstream news, which is flawed but far superior to the outlets cited by the cranks who can't accept that we all live in society together and if you don't come together... Well, you risk the end of democracy. Never forget, fascists promise the trains will run on time, that there will be order, and then you wake up one day and you realize you're the one who has sacrificed.
But I don't read much nonfiction. Because at best it's informational, it doesn't set your mind free like fiction.
Write what you know is an aphorism we hear constantly. And the truth is this is what most people do, which is why we have so many books set in college, college towns, because the writers have gotten their graduate degrees there. And in this book, three girls (we can call college students girls, can't we?) are being interviewed about marriage, which then devolves into a conversation about money, and along the way we find out why they're all ensconced in the same dorm building.
And this reminded me of going to college. You remember, being thrown in with a bunch of kids you'd never met before. Your family and friends from back home irrelevant. And it was just your personality, trappings were irrelevant. And everybody had the same status, everybody earned their right to be there, you were forced to interact, to make friends, to find your own people.
Same deal at summer camp.
But that does not happen when you're an adult. Sure, you can go to a conference and you might not know anybody, but there are already cliques, and status is important and evident.
You can go to work in a new office but there's a definite hierarchy, and the others have experience, you're the odd person out.
This experience of being thrown into a new situation, raw, with only your wits, I miss. Growing up there were resets on a regular basis. But then they stop. People move up the economic ladder, they gain assets, there's a striation of society. Except maybe when you go into the old folks home, after they strip you of your possessions and everybody is similar, then again they're all not healthy, they all don't have their wits about them, and family visits. Your family didn't come rescue you at college, not even kindergarten or high school. You were on your own. And it was anxiety-provoking and thrilling. An adventure.
Now maybe if you've lived in the same town all your life you're not quite sure what I'm talking about. Maybe this is another case of the hoi polloi versus the elite. Maybe it's another way the elite are advantaged, by being forced into these new situations and gaining life skills. Maybe this is a way private college students are advantaged, at state schools you probably already know people and so many go home on the weekends. At a private college, an elite college, you're stuck there with all new people.
Then again, today you've got your parents on speed dial. You may meet new people, but the old ones haunt you forever. You never lose touch with anyone. You can look them up online. If they're not on Facebook, they're on LinkedIn. The past haunts you in a way it did not in the pre-internet era. Then again, statistically fewer people move these days, it's too expensive, but when the boomers grew up you picked up and plopped down in a new town on a regular basis. And you got in your car and went exploring, maybe drove cross-country. Our experience was visceral and real as opposed to virtual. Not that I want to put down the virtual world, the internet, in many ways it saved my life.
But that experience of entering new worlds raw, that's gone. And if you boasted that you owned this or that, or had been here or there, you were an object of ridicule in college. Who you were was what it was all about. Be a joker, be a good conversationalist, be someone who can be trusted...that was what was valued. We were all sifting these new societies for friends. Even stranger, who we started out being friends with oftentimes was not who we ended up being friends with.
But get older and everybody clings to their résumé. They don't want to let us forget their job, their house, their cars, their trips... Hell, social media is mostly about bragging.
But we're all just people underneath. We can relate to most everybody in truth, despite the polarization in society.
Furthermore, it's a personal responsibility to keep growing, to push the envelope, and too many are tired, just playing out their years. And you don't need money to have these new experiences, you can go volunteer in your own damn neighborhood. But that would mean you've got to meet new people, feel uncomfortable, question your suppositions.
Talk to anybody who's got children. They go to college and they come home different. They shed the indoctrination of their parents, they have their own ideas. They call this growing up.
But too many people stop growing.
--
Visit the archive: http://lefsetz.com/wordpress/
--
Listen to the podcast:
-iHeart: https://ihr.fm/2Gi5PFj
-Apple: https://apple.co/2ndmpvp
--
http://www.twitter.com/lefsetz
--
If you would like to subscribe to the LefsetzLetter,
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Monday 26 February 2024
The Medium Affects The Message
1
Why can't we have more albums like "Frampton at Royal Albert Hall"?
Today's listening experience is different. So much of music is foreground, whereas yesterday the music used to live in the background, it was personal, just you and the tunes, a secret communication.
Credit FM radio. Before that, it was all about the hit. The album was an afterthought, usually a mish-mash collection of hits and dreck. Of course the Beatles changed that, inspiring others to make cohesive album statements, but they wouldn't have triumphed without FM radio. You may think the White Album is a classic, but it was not played on AM radio. "Sgt. Pepper" debuted at the same time as FM underground rock, it was a marriage made in heaven, along with a bunch of bands from the San Francisco Bay Area, Big Daddy Tom Donahue and KSAN revolutionized music. Because suddenly there was a place to hear these sounds, that were not made for AM radio. The apotheosis was Woodstock, when all the bands making these sounds appeared in one place and the staid media and those it informed were positively stunned. All those people showing up for THAT?
After KSAN FM underground rock moved to New York City. And slowly populated the rest of the metropolises thereafter. If you lived in a backwater, you could not hear these tunes. Unless they crossed over. The best example being Cream's "Sunshine of Your Love," that got AM airplay in the summer of '68, long after the underground FM stations had worn out the groove.
So many of the iconic bands of the era, they didn't have an AM hit. "Purple Haze" wasn't heard on AM, although years later Hendrix's cover of "All Along the Watchtower" crossed over. Steve Miller? He didn't have an AM hit until 1973! Traffic? They never ever crossed over to AM, not in America. Sure, some of their tunes were covered by acts that had singles success, but not Stevie Winwood and company. There were no AM hits from Blind Faith...
And the labels signed all these acts without AM hit potential. Because record companies were about singles and doubles more than home runs, never mind grand slams. The music was the key element. And this music infiltrated the youth, affected society in a way no other medium came close to doing.
Of course it couldn't go on forever. Lee Abrams came along with his Superstars format, which was close to Top 40 on FM. So either you were played, or you weren't. Which meant acts started making music they thought Abrams would add. And this led to corporate rock and then the reaction of disco and it all imploded at the end of the seventies, the cynicism was felt by the public, which turned elsewhere for entertainment satiation, and then along came MTV.
MTV was AM radio all over again. It was about the hit. And if you didn't follow its playlist, your radio station lost ratings and ultimately flipped format. MTV dictated. Furthermore, the acts MTV featured were bigger than almost all of the acts prior. Yes, that rocket ship bumper was apropos. Because if MTV aired it, it blew up, it went worldwide. And conjoined with the new CD format, coin rained down in amounts previously unheard of.
So, the cynicism set in again. After the "novelty" records of the early years, the Haircut 100s, the T'Paus, never mind Duran Duran and Culture Club. First and foremost you had to look good, and then you had to make an expensive video, and then MTV still might not air it. But if it did...
We had hair bands. Eclipsed by the Seattle sound. Actually, MTV was constantly causing whiplash in the recording industry. It would have edicts. Less metal. More of this, no more of that.
And by time we hit the nineties, it was all about the money.
And then the internet came along and blew it all apart.
2
The major labels didn't understand the internet, they still don't. They think it's physical in the virtual world, but nothing could be further from the truth. For many reasons... Most people cotton to single outlets online. Amazon and Apple have traction, but really it's a Spotify world, not only in America, but the entire globe. Because people go where everybody else does. Like in retail, there's Amazon and...minor players. This is unlike the bricks and mortar retail of yore, where there was a record shop not exactly on every street corner, but there was a plethora of them.
The major labels want codification, they want rules, they want a system. But in truth, the internet blew it all to smithereens.
Sure, there are still "hits," but if you're not a fan of the act, you don't have to listen to the track, the act, you may be completely unaware it exists!
But the major labels can't adjust for the modern era, they're like the newspapers. Rather than investing and growing, they're cutting. They're putting out fewer albums by fewer acts in fewer genres, wanting to have gigantic hits, meanwhile the landscape has changed. Most of the money is deeper down. The hits are losing market share, the great unwashed, not signed to major labels, are gaining it.
I could say it's 1967 all over again, but although history repeats, it's always with a twist.
Once again, the landscape has been broadened. It's the opposite of AM, of MTV, it's not a controlled market whatsoever. In fact, ANYONE can play. And instead of adjusting for this, Lucian Grainge wants to lop off the compensation of those with little market share, few streams. If he were smart, he'd dig down deep and find a way to monetize the music of the great unwashed, because you never know where your next hit is coming from.
Today major labels believe hits come from the internet. Prove it and they might sign it. This has to do with clicks, with views, it's got nothing to do with music. If people are clicking on goose farts, the majors will sign the goose and put out its record. Whereas major labels used to hunt for talent, and then nurture it, mostly in a hands-off manner. Today? They'll ask you to do a cover, to employ another songwriter, to remix. The opportunity cost is so high that they want insurance, but this is the opposite of the essence of music. This is not collaborative art like movies or TV, music is about pure inspiration, resulting in a creation that almost no one can define, can quantify, but that resonates with the public.
So the majors, if they want to survive in the new music world, need to sign more acts in more genres, and should stop laying off workers to satiate Wall Street. I mean what does your stock price have to do with music anyway? And Warner is run by a man from the visual world, imagine that in the days of Ahmet Ertegun.
But unless you're employed by the major label, you don't care about it. But you still make music, and...
If you want the rich and famous contract proffered by Orson Welles to the Muppets stop now. That's no longer the paradigm. You're on your own. And if you truly want to succeed... Well, are you an artist? Or are you a me-too influencer looking for brand extensions? Both coexist, but the nougat is in the artists. And there are very few artists. You can make music, but that does not mean it has the je ne sais quoi that resonates with an audience. Just because everybody can play doesn't mean everybody deserves attention.
So radio airplay means less than ever before. And Spotify and the rest of the streaming outlets do a piss-poor job of featuring new music. This is not Tom Donahue, music maniacs moving the culture, rather it's a slew of drones creating playlists for the brain dead. Caught up in monetization, saving the recording industry, the streamers have abdicated their responsibility to break quality new music. And how important is music to Apple and Amazon anyway? Not very.
Maybe this will change. Maybe there will be some coherence, the streamers will find a better way to connect artists and listeners, but I wouldn't bet on it.
Which means the onus is on the artists themselves.
And an artist is not entitled to an audience, or to make a living. The question is... Can you come up with something that resonates with people, in quantity? And can you continue to do this?
Very few can. But today, most are starting live, on the road, because if you can draw an audience, promoters don't care what your music sounds like. Don't equate this with social media goose farts. To put together a live act, hone it and draw people to see and hear it requires a lot of effort and very few can achieve this.
We live in an era when everybody is looking for the visceral, for a connection. And despite all the hoopla, most times hit music does not provide this. And whereas it used to be all about the recording, now the song is just a framework for the live performance. People want a sensation beyond just listening to a recording. They want to feel the music, want to be in an assembled multitude, they want a unique experience, they want to be taken higher.
And the entire recording industry is unprepared for this. Because they can't understand it and can't think of a quick way to make money on it.
I mean Peter Frampton didn't have an AM hit until his double live album, after four previous solo albums.
The same game is being played today. You keep doing it until you achieve critical mass. Look at Hurray for the Riff Raff. That woman has been doing it for years, she's just getting big time traction, and she's got a catalog, like the acts of yore.
You've got to be willing to labor in the wilderness. And find a way to keep yourself alive.
And if you're twelve and can play the hits on YouTube... You're a long way from the top, hell AC/DC had multiple albums and two lead singers before they became monolithic.
So all the action is in the underground once again. Will these new underground acts blow up to the level of yore? Well, the interesting thing about the internet is you can reach everybody, but it's hard to get everybody to pay attention.
So stop trying to write a hit, that's passé. Stop thinking about being lifted by radio and TV, which mean less than ever before anyway. No, now is the time to go on your own hejira, to woodshed, to come up with something completely different, like in the days of FM underground rock, that was the amazing thing, none of the acts sounded the same.
But be sure of one thing, the audience is hungry for something new and different that titillates them.
Hell, much of the audience thinks music is all about hits you can dance and party to. Their idea of an oldie is Mariah Carey.
We've driven this train about as far as it can go. Today's "hit" music is more vapid and less influential than it has been in sixty years. All the action is in the back alleys, in the penumbra.
Hit music is a business that draws blind acolytes. But when you get discerning people, who live for the music...
I'm not talking about fandom, people bonded to BTS, or Swifties... I'm talking about people addicted to music, period. Early adopters. Who are sifting the sounds, looking for fulfillment. The recording industry has done its best to turn these people off, with the crap being purveyed, but it is these people who are the heart of the business. Not the pre-teen who goes to the show and buys a ton of merch, that's momentary. No, we're talking lifers.
Sure, you like music, but that may not be enough. We hear all the time that young people love music. But that's not what I'm talking about. I'm talking about the vinyl junkies of yore, who had an insatiable need, whose life was consumed by music. There's no infrastructure nurturing and satiating these people.
But that's the future. The smaller acts, that can't be categorized, whose music listeners can't stop testifying about.
And no one on the business side of recording wants to go there because the parameters are not clear and it's a long haul.
But those who put in the effort, on both the creative and business sides, are the ones who will revolutionize this business. It's coming. If for no other reason than it just can't go on like this.
--
Visit the archive: http://lefsetz.com/wordpress/
--
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-Apple: https://apple.co/2ndmpvp
--
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Why can't we have more albums like "Frampton at Royal Albert Hall"?
Today's listening experience is different. So much of music is foreground, whereas yesterday the music used to live in the background, it was personal, just you and the tunes, a secret communication.
Credit FM radio. Before that, it was all about the hit. The album was an afterthought, usually a mish-mash collection of hits and dreck. Of course the Beatles changed that, inspiring others to make cohesive album statements, but they wouldn't have triumphed without FM radio. You may think the White Album is a classic, but it was not played on AM radio. "Sgt. Pepper" debuted at the same time as FM underground rock, it was a marriage made in heaven, along with a bunch of bands from the San Francisco Bay Area, Big Daddy Tom Donahue and KSAN revolutionized music. Because suddenly there was a place to hear these sounds, that were not made for AM radio. The apotheosis was Woodstock, when all the bands making these sounds appeared in one place and the staid media and those it informed were positively stunned. All those people showing up for THAT?
After KSAN FM underground rock moved to New York City. And slowly populated the rest of the metropolises thereafter. If you lived in a backwater, you could not hear these tunes. Unless they crossed over. The best example being Cream's "Sunshine of Your Love," that got AM airplay in the summer of '68, long after the underground FM stations had worn out the groove.
So many of the iconic bands of the era, they didn't have an AM hit. "Purple Haze" wasn't heard on AM, although years later Hendrix's cover of "All Along the Watchtower" crossed over. Steve Miller? He didn't have an AM hit until 1973! Traffic? They never ever crossed over to AM, not in America. Sure, some of their tunes were covered by acts that had singles success, but not Stevie Winwood and company. There were no AM hits from Blind Faith...
And the labels signed all these acts without AM hit potential. Because record companies were about singles and doubles more than home runs, never mind grand slams. The music was the key element. And this music infiltrated the youth, affected society in a way no other medium came close to doing.
Of course it couldn't go on forever. Lee Abrams came along with his Superstars format, which was close to Top 40 on FM. So either you were played, or you weren't. Which meant acts started making music they thought Abrams would add. And this led to corporate rock and then the reaction of disco and it all imploded at the end of the seventies, the cynicism was felt by the public, which turned elsewhere for entertainment satiation, and then along came MTV.
MTV was AM radio all over again. It was about the hit. And if you didn't follow its playlist, your radio station lost ratings and ultimately flipped format. MTV dictated. Furthermore, the acts MTV featured were bigger than almost all of the acts prior. Yes, that rocket ship bumper was apropos. Because if MTV aired it, it blew up, it went worldwide. And conjoined with the new CD format, coin rained down in amounts previously unheard of.
So, the cynicism set in again. After the "novelty" records of the early years, the Haircut 100s, the T'Paus, never mind Duran Duran and Culture Club. First and foremost you had to look good, and then you had to make an expensive video, and then MTV still might not air it. But if it did...
We had hair bands. Eclipsed by the Seattle sound. Actually, MTV was constantly causing whiplash in the recording industry. It would have edicts. Less metal. More of this, no more of that.
And by time we hit the nineties, it was all about the money.
And then the internet came along and blew it all apart.
2
The major labels didn't understand the internet, they still don't. They think it's physical in the virtual world, but nothing could be further from the truth. For many reasons... Most people cotton to single outlets online. Amazon and Apple have traction, but really it's a Spotify world, not only in America, but the entire globe. Because people go where everybody else does. Like in retail, there's Amazon and...minor players. This is unlike the bricks and mortar retail of yore, where there was a record shop not exactly on every street corner, but there was a plethora of them.
The major labels want codification, they want rules, they want a system. But in truth, the internet blew it all to smithereens.
Sure, there are still "hits," but if you're not a fan of the act, you don't have to listen to the track, the act, you may be completely unaware it exists!
But the major labels can't adjust for the modern era, they're like the newspapers. Rather than investing and growing, they're cutting. They're putting out fewer albums by fewer acts in fewer genres, wanting to have gigantic hits, meanwhile the landscape has changed. Most of the money is deeper down. The hits are losing market share, the great unwashed, not signed to major labels, are gaining it.
I could say it's 1967 all over again, but although history repeats, it's always with a twist.
Once again, the landscape has been broadened. It's the opposite of AM, of MTV, it's not a controlled market whatsoever. In fact, ANYONE can play. And instead of adjusting for this, Lucian Grainge wants to lop off the compensation of those with little market share, few streams. If he were smart, he'd dig down deep and find a way to monetize the music of the great unwashed, because you never know where your next hit is coming from.
Today major labels believe hits come from the internet. Prove it and they might sign it. This has to do with clicks, with views, it's got nothing to do with music. If people are clicking on goose farts, the majors will sign the goose and put out its record. Whereas major labels used to hunt for talent, and then nurture it, mostly in a hands-off manner. Today? They'll ask you to do a cover, to employ another songwriter, to remix. The opportunity cost is so high that they want insurance, but this is the opposite of the essence of music. This is not collaborative art like movies or TV, music is about pure inspiration, resulting in a creation that almost no one can define, can quantify, but that resonates with the public.
So the majors, if they want to survive in the new music world, need to sign more acts in more genres, and should stop laying off workers to satiate Wall Street. I mean what does your stock price have to do with music anyway? And Warner is run by a man from the visual world, imagine that in the days of Ahmet Ertegun.
But unless you're employed by the major label, you don't care about it. But you still make music, and...
If you want the rich and famous contract proffered by Orson Welles to the Muppets stop now. That's no longer the paradigm. You're on your own. And if you truly want to succeed... Well, are you an artist? Or are you a me-too influencer looking for brand extensions? Both coexist, but the nougat is in the artists. And there are very few artists. You can make music, but that does not mean it has the je ne sais quoi that resonates with an audience. Just because everybody can play doesn't mean everybody deserves attention.
So radio airplay means less than ever before. And Spotify and the rest of the streaming outlets do a piss-poor job of featuring new music. This is not Tom Donahue, music maniacs moving the culture, rather it's a slew of drones creating playlists for the brain dead. Caught up in monetization, saving the recording industry, the streamers have abdicated their responsibility to break quality new music. And how important is music to Apple and Amazon anyway? Not very.
Maybe this will change. Maybe there will be some coherence, the streamers will find a better way to connect artists and listeners, but I wouldn't bet on it.
Which means the onus is on the artists themselves.
And an artist is not entitled to an audience, or to make a living. The question is... Can you come up with something that resonates with people, in quantity? And can you continue to do this?
Very few can. But today, most are starting live, on the road, because if you can draw an audience, promoters don't care what your music sounds like. Don't equate this with social media goose farts. To put together a live act, hone it and draw people to see and hear it requires a lot of effort and very few can achieve this.
We live in an era when everybody is looking for the visceral, for a connection. And despite all the hoopla, most times hit music does not provide this. And whereas it used to be all about the recording, now the song is just a framework for the live performance. People want a sensation beyond just listening to a recording. They want to feel the music, want to be in an assembled multitude, they want a unique experience, they want to be taken higher.
And the entire recording industry is unprepared for this. Because they can't understand it and can't think of a quick way to make money on it.
I mean Peter Frampton didn't have an AM hit until his double live album, after four previous solo albums.
The same game is being played today. You keep doing it until you achieve critical mass. Look at Hurray for the Riff Raff. That woman has been doing it for years, she's just getting big time traction, and she's got a catalog, like the acts of yore.
You've got to be willing to labor in the wilderness. And find a way to keep yourself alive.
And if you're twelve and can play the hits on YouTube... You're a long way from the top, hell AC/DC had multiple albums and two lead singers before they became monolithic.
So all the action is in the underground once again. Will these new underground acts blow up to the level of yore? Well, the interesting thing about the internet is you can reach everybody, but it's hard to get everybody to pay attention.
So stop trying to write a hit, that's passé. Stop thinking about being lifted by radio and TV, which mean less than ever before anyway. No, now is the time to go on your own hejira, to woodshed, to come up with something completely different, like in the days of FM underground rock, that was the amazing thing, none of the acts sounded the same.
But be sure of one thing, the audience is hungry for something new and different that titillates them.
Hell, much of the audience thinks music is all about hits you can dance and party to. Their idea of an oldie is Mariah Carey.
We've driven this train about as far as it can go. Today's "hit" music is more vapid and less influential than it has been in sixty years. All the action is in the back alleys, in the penumbra.
Hit music is a business that draws blind acolytes. But when you get discerning people, who live for the music...
I'm not talking about fandom, people bonded to BTS, or Swifties... I'm talking about people addicted to music, period. Early adopters. Who are sifting the sounds, looking for fulfillment. The recording industry has done its best to turn these people off, with the crap being purveyed, but it is these people who are the heart of the business. Not the pre-teen who goes to the show and buys a ton of merch, that's momentary. No, we're talking lifers.
Sure, you like music, but that may not be enough. We hear all the time that young people love music. But that's not what I'm talking about. I'm talking about the vinyl junkies of yore, who had an insatiable need, whose life was consumed by music. There's no infrastructure nurturing and satiating these people.
But that's the future. The smaller acts, that can't be categorized, whose music listeners can't stop testifying about.
And no one on the business side of recording wants to go there because the parameters are not clear and it's a long haul.
But those who put in the effort, on both the creative and business sides, are the ones who will revolutionize this business. It's coming. If for no other reason than it just can't go on like this.
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Sunday 25 February 2024
Beyonce's Country #1
What a crock of sh*t.
This is not a judgment of "Texas Hold 'Em," it's a great track, nearly a one listen hit. But if you think the country audience has embraced it...
You've got another think coming.
We do not only have duplicity in politics, we've got it in music too. Those who are not students of the game, who are exposed to this headline, which is everywhere, will believe that race relation issues have been exterminated, that Black Beyonce has been embraced by White Country.
But nothing could be further from the truth.
It all comes down to Lil Nas X. After signing the man, Columbia ginned up a fake controversy. Saying that "Billboard"'s charts were racist, that the entire country community was racist, because they didn't acknowledge the success of "Old Town Road," they were boycotting it.
And what did "Billboard" do? Say "Old Town Road" wasn't country, therefore it wasn't on the country chart. As for country radio, have you ever listened to it? "Old Town Road" fits not at all.
Columbia laughed all the way to the bank. This fake controversy gained media traction and it blew up Lil Nas X even bigger. Let's be clear, "Old Town Road" was pretty gigantic before this fake controversy, but after it the track became ubiquitous. Billy Ray Cyrus, who hadn't had a hit in eons, glommed on to the controversy, cutting a duet on the track with Lil Nas X... It was another music business victory, no harm, no foul.
Well, not really. Actions have consequences.
Now Beyonce's "Texas Hold 'Em" is a lot more country than "Old Town Road," and it's possible that country radio may embrace the cut, BUT THIS HASN'T HAPPENED YET!
Check the latest Mediabase Country chart, there are forty cuts, AND "Texas Hold 'Em" is nowhere to be seen! Doubt me? Check it out for yourself": https://rb.gy/14213h
So what is a country hit?
Well, according to "Billboard," it's a combination of airplay, sales and streams, a secret sauce. And one thing is for sure, Beyonce is a superstar, she had ton of sales and streams, but seemingly no country radio airplay, not a spin to be found.
Now if you want to have a chart with all genres included, be my guest. As a matter of fact, it exists, it's called the "Hot 100."
Now that chart is a miasma of obfuscation, talk about a special sauce... It includes single sales, radio airplay, digital downloads and streams. DIGITAL DOWNLOADS??
I get the e-mail all the time, some track is number one at the iTunes Store. That's like telling me how many DVDs a movie sold. It's all streaming now. Even worse, digital downloads and physical sales heavily outweigh streams in the formula employed by "Billboard."
So let me get this straight... Almost all of consumption is streaming, but when it comes to the chart...streaming is a second-class citizen.
Now on the Hot 100, Jack Harlow's "Lovin On Me" eclipses "Texas Hold 'Em." That's a bad headline, #2 only worked for Avis.
Now the definitive statement when it comes to streaming, when it comes to consumption, is the Spotify Top 50. On that "Texas Hold 'Em" is also number two.
Now "Texas Hold 'Em" does appear on Spotify's Hot Country, but it is not number one, it's number ten.
So "Billboard," fearful of getting into an "Old Town Road" kerfuffle, considered "Texas Hold 'Em" to be country, where it promptly went to number one, where the big pond eclipsed the little creek. It's like bringing a major leaguer to a Little League game.
But to what degree has the country audience embraced "Texas Hold 'Em"?
Now some country fans may be listening to Beyonce, to "Texas Hold 'Em," they may even be listening to Metallica. But the Nashville based scene... So far, it doesn't look like Beyonce is a factor whatsoever.
BUT SHE'S NUMBER ONE!
Let's be very clear, "Texas Hold 'Em" is a hit, a very big hit. But is it a COUNTRY HIT?
What are the criteria for a country song?
That's murky, but I'd say to be a country hit a track must "fit the format" and be embraced by the audience. We can debate whether "Texas Hold 'Em" fits the format, but one thing is for sure, it has not been embraced by the country audience in any significant way.
Is it because the country audience is racist? Or because the country audience hasn't heard the track on the radio, the last bastion of a controlled ecosystem?
Or maybe the country audience doesn't see "Texas Hold 'Em" as country. They see Beyonce as pop, as living in a different domain.
This is all gray. And even by discussing it one risks being called a racist.
But come on, how come we can't face facts here. The music business is as bad as Kellyanne Conway and her cronies. To say "Texas Hold 'Em" is the number one country cut is to employ alternative facts.
And who does this behoove?
Beyonce. Period.
And "Billboard" is nothing without the labels, piss them off at your peril. Hell, "Billboard" has the backbone of a jellyfish.
Could everyone agree to consider "Texas Hold 'Em" to be country, could it be embraced by the country community?
That could certainly happen, but it hasn't happened yet.
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This is not a judgment of "Texas Hold 'Em," it's a great track, nearly a one listen hit. But if you think the country audience has embraced it...
You've got another think coming.
We do not only have duplicity in politics, we've got it in music too. Those who are not students of the game, who are exposed to this headline, which is everywhere, will believe that race relation issues have been exterminated, that Black Beyonce has been embraced by White Country.
But nothing could be further from the truth.
It all comes down to Lil Nas X. After signing the man, Columbia ginned up a fake controversy. Saying that "Billboard"'s charts were racist, that the entire country community was racist, because they didn't acknowledge the success of "Old Town Road," they were boycotting it.
And what did "Billboard" do? Say "Old Town Road" wasn't country, therefore it wasn't on the country chart. As for country radio, have you ever listened to it? "Old Town Road" fits not at all.
Columbia laughed all the way to the bank. This fake controversy gained media traction and it blew up Lil Nas X even bigger. Let's be clear, "Old Town Road" was pretty gigantic before this fake controversy, but after it the track became ubiquitous. Billy Ray Cyrus, who hadn't had a hit in eons, glommed on to the controversy, cutting a duet on the track with Lil Nas X... It was another music business victory, no harm, no foul.
Well, not really. Actions have consequences.
Now Beyonce's "Texas Hold 'Em" is a lot more country than "Old Town Road," and it's possible that country radio may embrace the cut, BUT THIS HASN'T HAPPENED YET!
Check the latest Mediabase Country chart, there are forty cuts, AND "Texas Hold 'Em" is nowhere to be seen! Doubt me? Check it out for yourself": https://rb.gy/14213h
So what is a country hit?
Well, according to "Billboard," it's a combination of airplay, sales and streams, a secret sauce. And one thing is for sure, Beyonce is a superstar, she had ton of sales and streams, but seemingly no country radio airplay, not a spin to be found.
Now if you want to have a chart with all genres included, be my guest. As a matter of fact, it exists, it's called the "Hot 100."
Now that chart is a miasma of obfuscation, talk about a special sauce... It includes single sales, radio airplay, digital downloads and streams. DIGITAL DOWNLOADS??
I get the e-mail all the time, some track is number one at the iTunes Store. That's like telling me how many DVDs a movie sold. It's all streaming now. Even worse, digital downloads and physical sales heavily outweigh streams in the formula employed by "Billboard."
So let me get this straight... Almost all of consumption is streaming, but when it comes to the chart...streaming is a second-class citizen.
Now on the Hot 100, Jack Harlow's "Lovin On Me" eclipses "Texas Hold 'Em." That's a bad headline, #2 only worked for Avis.
Now the definitive statement when it comes to streaming, when it comes to consumption, is the Spotify Top 50. On that "Texas Hold 'Em" is also number two.
Now "Texas Hold 'Em" does appear on Spotify's Hot Country, but it is not number one, it's number ten.
So "Billboard," fearful of getting into an "Old Town Road" kerfuffle, considered "Texas Hold 'Em" to be country, where it promptly went to number one, where the big pond eclipsed the little creek. It's like bringing a major leaguer to a Little League game.
But to what degree has the country audience embraced "Texas Hold 'Em"?
Now some country fans may be listening to Beyonce, to "Texas Hold 'Em," they may even be listening to Metallica. But the Nashville based scene... So far, it doesn't look like Beyonce is a factor whatsoever.
BUT SHE'S NUMBER ONE!
Let's be very clear, "Texas Hold 'Em" is a hit, a very big hit. But is it a COUNTRY HIT?
What are the criteria for a country song?
That's murky, but I'd say to be a country hit a track must "fit the format" and be embraced by the audience. We can debate whether "Texas Hold 'Em" fits the format, but one thing is for sure, it has not been embraced by the country audience in any significant way.
Is it because the country audience is racist? Or because the country audience hasn't heard the track on the radio, the last bastion of a controlled ecosystem?
Or maybe the country audience doesn't see "Texas Hold 'Em" as country. They see Beyonce as pop, as living in a different domain.
This is all gray. And even by discussing it one risks being called a racist.
But come on, how come we can't face facts here. The music business is as bad as Kellyanne Conway and her cronies. To say "Texas Hold 'Em" is the number one country cut is to employ alternative facts.
And who does this behoove?
Beyonce. Period.
And "Billboard" is nothing without the labels, piss them off at your peril. Hell, "Billboard" has the backbone of a jellyfish.
Could everyone agree to consider "Texas Hold 'Em" to be country, could it be embraced by the country community?
That could certainly happen, but it hasn't happened yet.
--
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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