It's also about Neil Young and his credibility.
For decades we've heard that selling out doesn't matter, that you should take the money, that you should become a brand, that your music is just a step towards becoming a conglomerate, that the public doesn't care and neither should you.
But this is patently wrong.
No one else could lead this charge, make this stand, because they don't have a concomitant amount of credibility, nowhere close. Except maybe for Paul McCartney and Don Henley. But at this point McCartney is overexposed, trying to stay relevant, making crap with the young 'uns, as for Mr. Henley...remember when he got us all interested in Walden Woods?
One thing Young and Henley share is they're not warm and fuzzy. They're iconoclastic. They put the music first, and you can accept it or not. And the public did.
Now the Eagles have never licensed "Hotel California," in fact they've sued people who ripped-off the name. And some might see this as an abuse of power, Disneyesque, but music is not like movies, movies are a facsimile of life, music is life itself. You can easily taint a song. Hell, "Good Vibrations" has been whored out to the point where it's lost its underlying meaning and a whole bunch of its charisma. But people just know "Hotel California," and "Heart of Gold," they're in the ether. Then again, they both were hits before the internet came along and blew the old paradigm to hell, before everything became so much smaller.
The fact that youngsters are laughing at Neil Young, oh you've heard the jokes, misses the point completely. They're all into vinyl, it's only a matter of time before they get into classic rock and start building upon it. And it's not only the music, but the values. But you've got to be an outsider, you've got to follow your own muse, you can't care what others think, and in this alienated world people are loath to do so, being a member of a club gives them identity, and without it you're isolated and depressed.
So Neil Young takes a stand and...instantly it's international news.
270 doctors took a stand just a few weeks ago and...crickets. If you read the news comprehensively you were aware of this. Then again, not if you were ensconced in the right wing news bubble. This story didn't penetrate it. But Neil Young? He crosses all lines, he penetrates EVERYTHING!
That's the power of a rock star.
No young act has this power. These young acts have acolytes, fans who will defend them to the death, publicly diss their hero and you'll feel the blowback for years. But don't confuse the power of these new acts with that of Neil Young.
It's not like people are talking about Neil Young 24/7, but they're not forgetting about him either. As for Springsteen, he's opened up, become warm and fuzzy, whereas if anything Young has flown even farther from the center down a hole of his own making, that's why he's so interesting,.
Young wouldn't be so interesting if he worked with Max Martin, if he tried to have a hit. It's all Neil all the time. He writes the songs, he doesn't buy beats and sit down with seventeen people to finish them. The statements come straight from Neil, and that's quite a surprise these days. And sure, there are acts following in Neil's footsteps, my inbox will fill up with protestation, especially from the never known pressing their music upon me. But the truth is Neil has traction. Yes, he built his career under the old system, but he's stayed true to his ethos.
Come on, there's a ton of history here. David Geffen suing him for putting out uncommercial music. And then there were the bio vehicles and music quality and Pono... Even pushback against GMOs. Was Neil right every time? No. But he put it out there, he's not afraid of taking a risk and he's not afraid of the naysayers. As a result, he's got tons of fans, and they're not fly by night, they're dedicated. And maybe they only like "Harvest." Or the Crazy Horse stuff. It doesn't matter, something Neil did resonated with them and they can't forget it. Furthermore, so many of the classic tracks, that we know by heart were never hits. "Down By the River"? "Old Man"? "Alabama"? You know 'em because you played them over and over again.
Spotify?
It's a business.
There's so much to laud with Spotify. It literally saved the recorded music business. And it all comes down to one person, Daniel Ek. He believed when almost no one did. He flew around the world trying to convince rights holders. The VCs? They had little traction. But this nobody pulled it off. That's more rock and roll than any of the acts bitching that they're not making enough money on his service. Then again, Daniel Ek knows math, and those acts do not.
And that's one other thing that came out in this brouhaha. That Spotify accounts for 60% of Neil Young's worldwide streams.
Huh? But Spotify only has thirtysomething percent market share!
People keep e-mailing me. About Spotify stalling. About competitors. But the bottom line is active music listeners are on Spotify. Period. A stream may be worth more on a competing service, but that just means fewer people are listening! It's about exposure, especially today, distribution trumps everything. If your music is not heard, you're nowhere.
But there are alternatives to Spotify, which is what makes this Joe Rogan case unique.
Everyone bitches about Facebook. But where else are its users supposed to go? Ditto re Instagram. And TikTok. And YouTube. Of course there's some crossover between all these platforms, but in many ways they're unique. Whereas the similarities between Amazon, Apple and Spotify far outweigh the differences. You can switch platforms and not lose that much. Hell, Apple is now pushing that you can hear Neil on its music service. You don't see some social media company doing the same, competing with Facebook.
So this is a test case. This is where the war is being fought.
It should be fought at Facebook. But because of the lack of competition and the hubris of Mark Zuckerberg, along with the duplicity and misinformation of Sheryl Sandberg and the rest of the execs, the company evades accountability and ultimately doesn't change. As for change...it's all algorithms, a secret sauce no one who doesn't work at the company is privy to. And after the whistleblower, Facebook has been siloed, you can work there and have no idea what is going on at the company other than in your own vertical.
But we've got to push back against technology. We have to recapture truth from the techies who have taken it from us, knowingly or unknowingingly.
That's the issue. It's got nothing to do with payouts or audio quality or any of the sub subjects being discussed ad infinitum in the past few days. And I hate to tell you, but Spotify is so superior to the other services it's not even funny. Works right away. Log into Apple and at first it won't stream, it says you're not authorized. And on Amazon the albums are not in chronological order. That takes money and manpower, and people who believe it's important. And first and foremost, Spotify is superior because of its algorithms. They provide personalized music to every subscriber. Old tunes, new tunes, playlists of what you've been listening to. As for the constant drumbeat of the power of playlists, Spotify announced this week that the majority of listening comes from active choices: https://bit.ly/3ILCJvE Passive is a provided playlist. Active means you pick the tracks you want to hear yourself. All that b.s. about playlists... They're for the passive, those who use music as background, not the early adopters and fans who spread the word.
But the sound on Apple and Amazon is better. It's not only the bit rate, but the codec. However, Spotify plays right away. I've tested this again and again and again. It makes no sense, but Spotify will play when Apple and Amazon won't. Maybe the latter need more bandwidth, I don't know. But you want your music all the time, right?
As far as Daniel Ek and Spotify...
They have no coherent detailed misinformation policy. The best explanation of this is here: https://lat.ms/3H67o6l
There has to be a defined policy. There's got to be clear penalties. We have to restore faith in the truth. I'm not saying that cannot be debated, but on a lot of topics, especially science, it can't. Rogan has said that the vaccines cause more heart problems in young people than getting Covid. The expert guest says he's absolutely wrong, Rogan doesn't own it, then goes online and sees that the expert was right, but then Joe starts questioning the article he Googled. Watch this:
"Joe Rogan ignores Covid science while reading it out loud": https://bit.ly/3AIFquQ
And while you're at it, watch this one too:
"Jordan Peterson got his climate info on controversial Joe Rogan podcast from an Exxon-funded climate denier": https://bit.ly/34h7cmm
This guy is completely wackadoodle. He says all the climate change data is b.s. because...the meaning of "climate" has to be taken into account and his definition is different from the experts'.
And in the case of the climate change guy, there was huge blowback:
"Scientist slam Joe Rogan's podcast episode with Jordan Peterson as 'absurd' and 'dangerous': https://cnn.it/3HfnJWy
And what do both of the above incidents have in common? THEY WEREN'T COVERED BY RIGHT WING MEDIA!
Never mind Rogan hosting other inane Covid deniers.
So we're supposed to give Rogan a pass because there are worse offenders? How do we stop the insanity? Where's Susan Powter when we need her!
This story isn't just about Spotify and it's not just about Joe Rogan. This is a story about all media. And it took Neil Young to shine a light on it, a rock star.
All these corporations have these social responsibility efforts. Do-gooding behavior that burnishes the company's image. But when it comes down to the most important thing, TRUTH, they're silent, unlike Neil Young they're afraid to take a stand, they're mealy-mouthed, they fear alienating the ignorant. Is that how we should run our country? At the level of the mis and uninformed? Trump loved those people. As for truth, he won the election you know. That's right, tons of Republicans believe this and elected officials are afraid to deny the Big Lie for fear of incurring Trump's wrath. This is the country we want to live in?
What did John Lennon famously sing?
"All I want is the truth
Just give me some truth, now"
That was what rock stars were seeking. That's why John Lennon may be the most revered rock star of all time. Forget the melodies, the vocals, he was willing to put everything on the line for his beliefs. Paul McCartney ultimately said we should give Ireland back to the Irish, but that's a forgotten blip in his career, whereas a search for truth, an excision of b.s., is what John Lennon was all about.
And almost nobody is about today.
So who knows, maybe Spotify will cave here or it won't. But if it doesn't, that just adds fuel to the rest of the entities supporting misinformation. If we can't stop Spotify, what are the odds we can stop Fox News? NIL!
And if you think Rogan's speech has no effect, I proffer this e-mail I got:
"From: Dulcie May Mareno
Re: Re-Neil Young/Spotify
Hey Bob,
Dulcie here from Canterbury, UK.
I realised I've been directly affected by Joe Rogans podcasts. My partner religiously tunes in to these and expressed so much worry about the vaccine that neither of us have had it, were in our 30's.
I suffer with OCD and anxiety, so once I get an idea in my head it is frankly impossible to shake it off. The nature of obsessive compulsive behaviour.
I have scheduled it many times but chickened out as I don't want to go alone.
It sounds pathetic, but this is the reality of mis-information for the sensitive and troubled among us , which is probably 50% at least of the entire population, if not more!
I'm a jazz singer and I want to keep singing in venues but I now have the added anxiety knowing I haven't had the vaccine.
Mis information needs to be stopped, Joe Rogan and his conspiracy theories, unless there is basis on some actual FACTS it should be illegal to spread this kind of false news. Speculation should be saved for philosophical conversations. They are far more interesting anyway!
Thanks for talking about some really important and interesting stuff.
Yours
Dulcie"
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