Can It Be A Hit Again?

"The Song Was a Hit 20 Years Ago. It Just Got a Video. - Decades-old tracks by artists including Clap Your Hands Say Yeah, LL Cool J and Talking Heads are finding younger fans. Record labels hope new videos will feed their interest."

Free link: https://www.nytimes.com/2025/08/13/arts/music/music-videos-talking-heads-lucy-dacus.html?unlocked_article_code=1.eE8.tKj-.PVDYQPNwr0sA&smid=url-share

The hits of yore still are...HITS!

Now in the pre-internet era it made little sense to promote ancient music, because except for a thin layer of hits, the music was unavailable at retail. However, the internet has completely changed this. All the music of recorded history is at your fingertips! (And for all you lame-o's complaining that Spotify, et al, don't have certain tracks, they are seemingly all available on YouTube. Gotcha is akin to internet hate...it's irrelevant words written to make the creator feel good).

Anyway, if there's a buzz online, people can immediately find the original track and stream it and KACHING! A payment is rendered. Which is another reason why you should never ever sell your publishing. Because you're just one lightning strike away from its value going into the stratosphere. Queen sold its publishing rights to Sony for $1.27 billion. What would the price have been without the feature in "Wayne's World"? Even half?

Yes, that was the paradigm of the late nineties and the first part of the twenty first century, get a sync. But now movies are dead, however, are you following the story of Huntrix, the fictional act that stars in the animated Netflix movie "KPop Demon Hunters"? Their track "Golden" just went to number one. And so far, has reached the Top 10 in 93 countries. That's the power of Netflix. Meanwhile, all we hear about is the power of YouTube, how it eclipses other streamers. But YouTube can't make a star, never ever. Stars, hits, are made on Netflix.

Now the great thing about a fictional act is you don't have to pay them and they don't complain. Not everything is so easy. Then again, have you even heard "Golden"? I have, it's not for everybody. But those hits of yore ARE!

"Smoke on the Water"? Maybe the most iconic riff in hard rock history.

Now "Smoke on the Water" is not hidden, there are videos all over TikTok of people playing the song, or teaching you how to play the song, or video of Deep Purple. Kudos. But as far as original work? BUPKES!

The major labels survive on their catalogs. All paid for, it's pure profit. But they also don't put any money into them. There used to be compilations, but with streaming you can just pick the hit you want and anybody can create a playlist. Catalog is seen as a backwater, when in truth it should be FRONT LINE! If private equity bought a label they'd cancel new music production and milk the catalog. Does Primary Wave sign wannabe songwriters? OF COURSE NOT, THAT'S NOT WHERE THE MONEY IS!

The music labels are run by small-minded people, worried most about their salaries and bonuses. They never want to rock the boat. They're loath to spend. But NOW is the time to maximize the catalog. NOW is the time to make new videos of classic hits that cannot only be seen online, but imitated...

Control is history. Obscurity rules. Let anybody do anything with your music. Otherwise it will languish. This is the era of personal creation, don't hamstring the younger generation. Which is hungry for the hit music of yore because so much of today's hit music is so damn lame.

Once again, it's all about TikTok. Period. Too many hire a social media team which employs a firehose to send the same damn bland content to all platforms. That doesn't work on TikTok. On TikTok it's not so much about information as the essence, the riff. There are so many that young people would cotton to if they were just exposed to them.

You've got Matador making videos for ancient Lucy Dacus material, but nobody at Warner is promoting the iconic intro of "Wreck of the Edmund Fitzgerald," never mind the Gordon Lightfoot song being superior to anything Dacus has never done, never mind her group boygenius.

The riff of "Purple Haze"? I think kids today know of Hendrix, do they know the material?

These are iconic hits, but there are some songs of yore that only have double digit million streams on Spotify BECAUSE NO ONE IS MARKETING THEM!

It's kind of like the sixties, but instead of hiring a house hippie, you should hire someone young who is fluent in TikTok, maybe a student in animation at a university. They're plugged in and looking for opportunity.

The story of the summer is how there is no song of the summer. That oldies are dominating the chart. What this definitively proves is how damn hard it is to break a record these days. But the hits of yore, they've already been broken, they're certified, and people want to hear them! Hell, there was a buzz on early Dylan after the movie, but most of his greatest material was absent and is ready for promotion. Right now "It's Alright, Ma (I'm Only Bleeding)" only has 16 million streams on Spotify. How about taking a verse and doing a "Subterranean Homesick Blues" video for it? You know, with the cards?

How about:

"While one who sings with his tongue on fire
Gargles in the rat race choir
Bent out of shape from society's pliers
Cares not to come up any higher
But rather get you down in the hole
That he's in"

There's more truth and honesty in this verse than anything in the Top 10, the words still apply today, but the younger generation is mostly oblivious.

Or how about cutting just the intro to "Just the Way You Are"?

"Don't go changin'"

That's a viral hit just waiting to be exploited. The words fit so many situations.

All it takes is a bit of innovation and effort. This is low-hanging fruit. Do I expect everything to go viral on TikTok? Of course not, odds are low. But if you're not playing on the service you can't succeed.

"The Low Spark of High-Heeled Boys"? That only has 11 million streams on Spotify. That haunting sound is ready to be exploited. But the label is dominated by whiners and diners trying to exploit today's dreck, MOSTLY UNSUCCESSFULLY!

It's your move.


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