You get older and you start to disconnect.
Every morning I wake up and immediately jump on my phone. I don't leave it by the bed, at some point I turn off the ringer and plug it in in the other room, otherwise I'd never get to sleep. But when I wake up, I grab it first thing and then sit down on the throne and read the news.
Yes, the porcelain goddess. You might find that gross, but in truth I've always loved the bathroom. It's private. If the door is closed, no one can come in, especially if it's locked. Grow up in a split-level with four other people and you treasure your privacy.
And like in that old Joni Mitchell song, I'm looking at the news and it's all bad. Putin wants to invade Ukraine because Ukraine is going to start fighting first. And he's convinced his constituents of that fallacy. They're gung-ho. As for America, Tucker Carlson and Sean Hannity are fanning the flames of trucker protests in the U.S. Meanwhile, Trump takes his presidential documents to Mar-a-Lago and it seems the brouhaha of Hillary's e-mails is forgotten. As for Ukraine, Michael Moore is telling us to stay out, as is Fox News, but those in D.C. on both sides of the fence are saying we have to defend Ukraine against the Russians.
Now if you've been to the area, it's astounding how close these countries are. Like states in America. As for burying one's head in the sand in the name of nationalism, today's paper said that BMW was buying back 50% of its Chinese operation to ultimately own 75%. The old laws limited ownership, now Xi has loosened it up. And BMW has to operate in China, because it's the world's biggest market!
Having grown up in the last century it's hard to fathom the changes. Forget the loss of kumbaya, forget the greed, forget the billionaires, hands-down the United States was the most powerful and profitable nation in the world. One thing we know for sure, if the sun hasn't set on this paradigm yet, it soon will.
As for democracy…
So on one hand I'm drawn in. On another, I detach, because in truth I won't live that long. The long term effects of global warming…it's bad now, but it's going to be really bad after I pass away.
So I'm torn between two worlds.
But it's even worse. Everybody my age is retiring. That's right, they saved for decades, invested that money they made oftentimes doing work they didn't want to do and now they want to relax. Which is hard for me to fathom, I still believe I have some runway. But I'm one of the few who doesn't want to call it quits.
Furthermore, the game has changed. There used to be clearly defined winners and losers. Now I hope your victory satisfies you, because no one else cares. So you question what your direction is, and why you do it.
And back to Putin… He's stealing from his own country exactly why. To become even richer? I mean how much is enough? He's my age, I think with a hundred million dollars I could do just fine, never mind a billion.
And this weekend is the Super Bowl. Which is being played in L.A.
I think the game should be banned. One day we'll wake up and do so. A humane, caring society wouldn't let men damage themselves this way, getting CTE, shortening their lives. But there's too much money involved. And it's one of the few avenues of success available to Black people. So as long as the pay remains high, you will find people to participate.
And I remember the first Super Bowl. That's how old I am. Back when it had no gravitas, when the AFL was seen as kind of a joke, and the first two Super Bowls proved it, and then came Namath.
Now in the name of money they play football in the winter. But ironically, in L.A. this weekend, where the game is being held, it's like summer, it's in the eighties.
And in truth, I've spent most of the past two years housebound. And I've been in a cocoon. I talk on the phone even less than I did before, which was miniscule to begin with. I'm waiting for the time when I can turn into a butterfly. Which isn't quite yet. Then again, like I read in that tweet, they've done the research at YouTube University and have decided that Covid is gone and the country needs to open.
So we got on Sunset…to the beach, just like in that Steely Dan song. And the traffic was worse than it is even on a summer day. Because it's Saturday, because it's Super Bowl weekend and tourists are here, everybody wants to drive up PCH, have that California experience, which in truth, you cannot get anywhere else.
And after parking I surveyed the ocean, which is glassy, and a big wave came in.
And I smiled.
Ella was making a sand castle. She's three. When I was that age I went to the beach all the time, every day during the summer, with my mother. And I built sandcastles too, but back then the tools were made out of metal, not plastic, and I cut my hand on a rusty bucket and got my first stitches, four, in my hand, at age four.
And the waves keep coming in, big wheel turning, the hand of God.
And it really isn't any different than it's always been. Like George Carlin said, save yourself, the planet will be here forever.
But George is dead. So many are dead. The biggies and those not so big. Like Ian MacDonald of King Crimson, they wanted me to write about him. And I certainly know who he is, and how he ventured to Foreigner, and he was there for the first three albums, before Mutt Lange came aboard and jetted an already huge band into the stratosphere. And if MacDonald had died back then…it would have been big news.
But now rockers are dying left and right. It's their time. Their bad behavior and lack of medical attention is catching up with them. We thought they and their music were forever, it's weird to grow old and find out that is not true.
So there are so many things I don't own. But none of them would give me that feeling of staring out at the water, the sun on my face, just one human being on the face of the earth. That's the only context that really matters, the rest is a competition you're involved in until you reach an age where you can see it is a joke, no one is remembered, and you can't take your money with you.
So it's really about the next generation. You gain joy from seeing them experience for the very first time that which you know by heart.
And this year, reluctant to go to a party, I now realize I'm not that excited about watching the Super Bowl, that I could miss it completely and lose nothing. Even the commercials… They don't mean what they used to.
Nothing means what it used to. But you've got to get old enough to realize this.
Then again, the younger generations are all about experiences. They need to document them, but once again, you get old enough and you know you'll probably never look at those pictures again and after you die they'll get thrown out or deleted.
And this may sound like a downer, but it's not, not at all. I've been LIBERATED! It doesn't pay to fight with the ignorant. The truth always outs. And sure, you need money to live, but you don't really need that much, otherwise you're just showing off, and like David Geffen posting a pic of himself on his yacht during Covid, you become a target of ridicule.
You've got to be happy on the inside.
And that's quite a challenge. Because nobody's happy all the time, nobody. You've got to endure the lows to appreciate the highs.
Like being inside forever and then coming to the beach.
Where the freedom we embraced in the sixties was launched. By the Beach Boys, the rest of California. Now, everyone wants to make fun of California, point to its flaws, but if they were here today they'd change their opinion.
Yes, at the end of the country, three thousand miles and three time zones from the east coast. Or, as Larry Ellison told Dr. Agus… I'll give you the money to build a research facility, but not in New York. In New York you fail once and you're done. In California you fail and you pick yourself up and do it again, and again. And why would you want to be in New York anyway, where you talk to bankers, isn't it better to be on the west coast with the creative people, the thinkers?
But I'm not trying to convince you. I hope you're happy where you are.
If I had my suit with me I'd go in the water. I've already gotten my feet wet. Sure, the water is cold, but it's so hot out, it's refreshing. It would be a shock to the system.
And that's the kind of shock I'm looking for.
"Can the World's Most Connected Doctor Cure Cancer? - He was physician to the late Steve Jobs, pal to Elon Musk and Howard Stern, counselor to both Trump and Biden. Now he's founded the most cutting-edge cancer center in L.A.": https://bit.ly/33mrZVu
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Saturday, 12 February 2022
Friday, 11 February 2022
Re-David Macias/Spotify
Hi Bob-
I really appreciate you saying nice things about my contribution to Rolling Stone. I was happy with the piece, and I understand that they have limitations to how long it could be, but I wrote a more detailed breakdown of the issue. I wasn't expecting RS to just print what I wrote, but putting things down in writing helps me think more cogently. I thought you might enjoy it, so I'll copy what I wrote in preparation below.
Best-
David Macias
Many artists are hurting these days. It's become more difficult to earn a living as an artist. Anyone trying has my deep respect. For anyone who knows me and knows my company, Thirty Tigers, you know that our heart is squarely with the artist. We invest in artists; we work hard for artists. We try to help them navigate the industry so that they can earn the most money possible without sacrificing the quality of the effort in promoting their art, all while they maintain 100% ownership and control over their masters.
So, it pains me when I see artists and those who love them misdiagnose the source of their difficulty. Spotify is the current scapegoat for the ills of the working-class artist, despite them paying 63% of gross revenues back out to rights holders. This is in relative parity to other DSPs and slightly higher than brick and mortar retail (60%), which is understandable given that they must pay for physical space to conduct business.
A note about rates: Spotify is pilloried for the fact that they pay a lower net rate than Apple or Tidal. The reason for this lower rate is that Spotify offers something that the others don't – an ad-supported tier that pays at a lower rate because advertising does not bring in the amount of money subscriptions do. You can choose to feel aggrieved about the lower aggregate rate (which many do), or you can choose to be happy that people that can't afford to pay $10 a month are given a way to participate in a way that allows for some royalties to be earned (which is how I feel). People can disagree in good faith about which approach is preferable, but it's simply not the case that Spotify is just paying less to pad their bottom line. They bring in less revenue per listener but still pay out a commensurate percentage to the other DSPs.
Between DSPs like Spotify and companies like TuneCore, music is more democratized more than ever, to the point where the DSPs upload 60,000 new songs every day. Let me repeat that. 60,000. SONGS. PER. DAY. That's the equivalent of over 2,100,000 albums of material a year. The US global market share is 53%, so let's peg the number of albums (including track equivalents) released in the US at 1,100,000. By comparison, in 2004, the US music industry released around 50,000 albums.
I pick that year for a reason. It was the first year that the RIAA recorded any digital revenue, and it was also a year that nearly matches the dollar amounts made by the industry in 2020.
Let's consider what life was like for artists in 2004….
If you aspired for national or international success, you were forced to sign with a label to get the resources and advocacy that you needed to reach an audience. Those deals were most often at terms that were not favorable to the artist. Labels were absolute gatekeepers, and they wielded that advantage like a cudgel.
Today, you don't need anyone's permission.
If you look at the playlists on the DSPs, you will find an abundance of independent artists, unaffiliated with anyone getting their shot. Spotify has taken great steps to democratize access to the playlists, by allowing anyone to pitch their music to the people who make the decisions on what goes on their playlists.
As an example, Spotify's New Boots playlist currently features 20 artists on it whose work is copyrighted directly to the artist with no label affiliation listed. That playlist has over 800,000 followers.
I think of Russell Dickerson, who delivered proof of concept by having his music streamed over 25 million times before he was picked up by a label (one that I am affiliated with), who has helped him chart four consecutive singles at #1. Spotify changed his life. If this was 2004, he would have likely never gotten that opportunity.
However, democratization has come at a cost. Let's consider the math of 2004 vs. 2020. Both years saw $12.2 billion earned by the industry. If you divide that amount by 50,000 albums released, the average album in 2004 earned $244,000 in revenues. If you divide that numbers by 1,100,000 albums, the average album earned $11,090. If you apply the 80/20 rule to the 2020 numbers (a business maxim that hypothesizes that 80% of sales comes from the top 20% of money earners), you can estimate that the 880,000 least commercially successful albums earned $2.44 billion in revenue, or $2770 per album.
Democratization has been a huge boon to independent artists in that it has given more artists a chance, but not been enough to earn them a living wage. The pie is being sliced so thin, that most artists are left hungry.
A painful question must be asked at this point: Is it an artist's right to earn a living from their art in a capitalist market? In a country where the business-failure rate is 65% over ten years, should artists be immune from their businesses failing? As much as my heart goes out to anyone who is not able to make their dream come true, I would say that that answer is no.
Financially, the low point of the music business was in 2014. The RIAA figures for the retail value of all music sold then was $6.7 billion. As streaming has become the predominant way people consume music, that number has skyrocketed to that $12.2 billion figure in the US. That is a 75% increase in revenues in six years. Anyone who argues that streaming has been harmful to the ecosystem has billions of dollars to explain away when making their case.
I attended a music business conference presentation in the early 2000s, where the RIAA presented a study where they asked people who self-identified as avid music consumers how much money they spent a year on music. The average amount was about $60 a year. Remember, we're making as much money now as then, so we really are talking apples-to-apples. If you want to subscribe to a streaming service, you are contributing $120 a year to the till. The contribution of the average consumer has roughly doubled, so is it any surprise that industry revenues have mirrored this doubling since the advent of streaming?
So how then can artists make enough money to survive? There are options for a patronage model like Patreon that can operate outside the revenue models of pre-recorded music. Though I am suspicious of the lasting value of NFTs, some artists are earning money creating singular goods that can be made available to fans. Though on the horizon, potential applications of direct funding through web3 applications may give artists an opportunity to monetize their creations more directly.
What I do not want to see happen is that artists misattribute the source of their problem and undermine the DSPs that have played a huge role in the democratization of independent music.
Is Spotify perfect? Far from it. I won't touch the Joe Rogan issue. That's a matter of conscience for artists and their advocates. Do I wish that Spotify were not joining other DSPs in appealing the Copyright Royalty Board's ruling that pays the publishers and songwriters 15% of revenues? Absolutely. When artists I work with have walked into their NYC offices, as often as not, I hear about the opulence of their offices and the perks that are made available to their employees on full display. On a gut level, the artists correlate these with their lower royalty rate (explained above) as compared to other DSPs. Spotify, I tell you these things as your friend. Sometimes you don't do yourselves any favors.
Vilification is easy. I've heard that it's not the people, it's the system that is broken. To that, I counter that any system that has increased parity and overall revenues is not a broken system. There is just way, way, WAY more music available, and though the pie is growing, it's unable to feed everyone. Artists need to understand the reality of the situation and be clear eyed about what battles they need to be fighting. My contention is that dismantling the existing system without a replacement will harm independent artists.
My heart is with all of you, and I wish you all the best.
____________________________________
Amen to you and to David for this one. This debate has really gotten under my skin. I am an agent and across about 20 acts, and while I don't participate in any of the recorded revenues, they have become life changing for the artists over the past five years and especially through the pandemic. This is mostly due to Spotify. The other key is that I mostly work with independent artists - meaning they own all or parts of their catalogues. Napkin math, but out of 20 clients, 4 or 5 of them have major label deals or deal with big indies where they do not own/control masters. The rest have distro only deals (with companies like Thirty Tigers, whom I love, or AWAL), or deals with fair and artist friendly indies (like Dualtone, whom I love) where they might have a mid-term (7 year) license but still retaining masters ownership. Most of my artists are also taking small or no advances, so that they are seeing cash flow in many cases from dollar one.
My acts that own pieces or all of their catalogue, and have between 1.5mm-4mm monthly Spotify listeners, are making anywhere from $20k to $100k PER MONTH from Spotify revenues. 4mm monthly listeners is significant and means that the artist has a real following, but this is nowhere near the top of the heap and what you might consider "mainstream" names like Drake who has 53mm monthlys. My smaller acts who have between 200k-500k monthly listeners, are still making $1k-$5k per month from Spotify. When they own their catalogue - again, a key differentiator in who gets paid. These are artists you have most likely not heard of, but who ARE making a livable wage between these recorded revenues, shows, merch, etc.
So for everyone weighing in and unsubscribing from Spotify to say "fuck the man," all you're doing is fucking the little guy. Spotify in my mind is an EXTREMELY artist friendly company. As the pie gets smaller, these revenues go down for all artists, and the ones who are hurt most are the small ones at the bottom of the totem pole. Neil made his point and I commend him for it, and it made a (small) difference, but Spotify is not the problem, quite the opposite. We are living in a golden era of recorded revenues!
Keith Levy
____________________________________
Brilliant. I've been saying similar things for a long time but less eloquently.
The popular narrative is unfair to the streamers and is misdirected anger. The streamers are paying more than 50% of their gross revenue to rights owners, and in the US radio is paying what – under 3%? Concerts are paying what – fractions of what the rest of the world pays for performing rights at a concert. The most unfair royalty issue in streaming is the disparity between master and publishing. No excuse. Unsustainable. Let's see a popular uprising over those issues.
A million streams sounds like a lot so people are flummoxed that the dollars aren't commensurate with that mental image. However, the number of radio spins necessary to equal a million impressions is, for argument's sake, say 10 (100,000 listeners X 10 spins). OK let's say it's 20. Or 100. If you only had 100 spins on radio, you wouldn't say you were successful.
Best,
Michael McCarty
____________________________________
Agree with David. Side note, he has been on the front end of supporting streaming for at least a decade long before any of us could read the tea leaves.
We have been having a similar conversation in our office this week.
Should Spotify pay songwriters and artists more $? Yes. Should they stop spread of misinformation if they can? Yes. Is any tech company morally pure? No.
Amazon has had their own scandals and worker's conditions questioned consistently…Apple had the same in China…and we all remember Batterygate…on the vaccine issue the biggest spreader of all misinformation is Facebook but there isn't a mass musician's exodus to abandon the platform (along w Instagram which it owns). All commercial entities have things to own and we should all hold them accountable but we are ignoring the good that Spotify does for artists.
The first question from all of our management partners after "What playlists did we get?" is "Can you help setup our tour presale w Spotify?". Spotify has helped sell hundreds of thousands of tickets (probably more I don't have an official stat) and put money in the hands of artists and creators through their pre-sale activations. The streaming rates for songwriters and artists need to come up but it's more nuanced than that when evaluating the whole ball of wax.
We have benefited greatly from the Spotify Fans First merch activations around exclusive products generating six figures of revenue for our artists.
Spotify has developed tech to directly benefit artists…putting up the donation capability during COVID and enabling selling merch directly from Artist pages.
When comparing the big 4 (Apple, Spotify, Amazon, Youtube) no other tech company gives as much access to the fan data and ability to reach directly to fans through Spotify for Artists and through ad programs like Marquee. The comparison and chatter with Bandcamp/Patreon is a different conversation I believe as those platforms are more D2C built.
Out of home support, billboards in Times Square, Spotify Sessions developing content for Artists that they own…the list goes on.
Are there things wrong with Spotify…absolutely, as has been well documented (they just paid 300M+ to be a sponsor of premier league soccer team instead of increasing pay for artists and songwriters!). But we need to focus on the duality a bit here.
We work with several bands that literally were able to quit their day jobs to do music full time because of this service. That fact doesn't let them off the hook for Rogan and everything else but the Spotify bashing doesn't address how their innovation has shepherded us into a new music business economy that for most labels and artists on those labels is working.
They are our #1 revenue driver, it's not even close.
Because of our partnership deals with our acts those dollars flow through and we win together. It's not us vs. them and that shouldn't be the tone of the Spotify conversation either.
Paul Roper
Dualtone
____________________________________
I love how most discussions about Spotify never even bring up the biggest problem. David is correct in his assessment that the label earns approx $4000 - $5000 per million streams. In the Thirty Tigers model the artist gets the lions share of that. Very equitable.
The songwriter portion of the 4 to 5 k is ridiculous. It's approx $200. Let us remember that many of the greatest songs ever written were not written by the artist. The professional songwriter has a storied history via Tin Pan Alley, Motown and Music Row as a major contributor to the music we know and love. Are we willing to let thousands of amazing songwriters wither up and die and be left with songs that are less than the best they can be?
Here's a hypothetical for you that might make this easier to understand. "Man in the Mirror" by Michael Jackson was written by Glen Ballard and Siedah Garrett. The album it was on sold a ton of records for which the writers received mechanical royalties for at a rate of approx 9 cents per copy. Let's use 10 million as our number. Maybe they both had co-pub deals so they probably made 3 to 4 cents per album sold. That's $300, 000 TO $400, 000 EACH. Those royalties ( mechanical ) have in fact gone the way of the horse and buggy. No one buys anything any more. I'm sure they did fine on terrestrial radio performance royalties for the single.
Fast forward to the streaming era…No album sales of note. Reduced radio play. Now let's do the Spotify numbers. Total guess but I'm thinking in this era a record like that would get somewhere around 200 million streams. Michael Jackson had a more conventional deal than the Thirty Tigers model. His label would get $5000 per million streams. He would get via his artist deal some of that money. Let's do the math. $5000 x 200 million ( the lower figure ) = 1 trillion dollars. The writers would split somewhere between $40, 000 and $50, 000. So… label gets one trillion, artist maybe 1 million, writers $40,000 to $50,000. Do you think that's fair? Do you realize how much other revenue a great song generates for the label and the artist. The labels colluded with Spotify to set the system up so they would both make a ton of money during the streaming era. I am so glad I came up in an era where I was able to write songs for artists other than myself and be rewarded monetarily when something good happened with them.
When I lecture these days at Berklee school of music or Belmont in Nashville I tell young writers who are looking to go into songwriting as a profession, if you're not the artist, you are looking at a huge uphill climb when it comes to paying your bills. What is the result of this syndrome? The world loses out on great music that won't ever be written if we don't change the model. There are artists that are quite capable of writing great songs for themselves. There are just as many that have no talent in that area and should leave that piece of the puzzle to those of us who can do it well.
In closing, here's a few songs that would have never been written if there were no outside songwriters. " You've Got A Friend " I Can't Make You Love Me" "My Girl" "Up On The Roof" The entire Great American Songbook, George Gershwin, Cole Porter, Irving Berlin, Jerome Kern, Harold Arlen, Johnny Mercer, and Richard Rodgers, among others. Thanks for taking the time to read this and maybe look at it from another point of view.
Respectfully,
Steve Seskin
____________________________________
Thanks for publishing this Bob. David's one of my dearest friends, and one of not only the best business minds in the biz, but human beings. He built a revolutionary model and an alternative offering to individuals that wanted to pursue being an artist back when all that really existed before was the major label system.
I've seen him build Thirty Tigers from one man in a guest bedroom to the powerhouse that it is, and along the way his heart has been one of service and empowering artists. Through the success, both in the growth of Thirty Tigers as well as many of the acts that they have broken, many of whom went to him after everyone else said "no" in town, he has not changed one bit. His mission is and has always been on the art, but he has always had a balanced approach to how he looks at the macro economics of it all.
His message is true. It should and needs to be heard. It also comes from a good place. I'm sure the complainers will shit on it, undeservedly so. We should celebrate more having an opportunity, that's all we're given or should want is a shot, not everyone wins the game unfortunately but playing it sure can be a fulfilling ride.
Gino Genaro
CDA Entertainment
____________________________________
A few back I worked David on the board of the Americana Music Association and found him to be the most insightful guy on the board. I also found him to have integrity and honesty. Artists they took on tended to never question their decision.
Bob Benckert
The Alternate Root
____________________________________
I've had a few minor business dealings with David Macias over the years. Each time he was gracious, honest, and forthright. This was an awesome piece. It's impossible to get it right every time, but Thirty Tigers has a helluva batting average. Kudos to Macias and the company he keeps.
Matthew Sterling
____________________________________
What a great guy!
I first encountered Mr Macias maybe 20 years ago when he was managing Rich Robinson's project called Hookah Brown. Total straight shooter and hustled his butt off!
I was a young promoter / club booker, huge Crowes fan, and was completely star struck by Rich, too afraid to ask for a t-shirt and David must have read my mind because out of the blue he asked me my size and presented me with a shirt. Just a little thing like that makes memories.
While I haven't made much contact since, it's been very cool to watch him grow from afar and he's got one helluvah respectable artist roster!
Good on him for laying it out there. You're correct, almost no one will see it, including me, so glad you shot it out to us!
Rock on Bob!
Dan Millen
____________________________________
I appreciate the clarification on artist pay. I never researched it but had caught an earful from a frustrated musician. I am teaching college students these days and they all live in different realities. it's wild. i asked who would be watching the super bowl this weekend, only 5 or 6 out of almost 30 kids. yes, it's an uninspiring matchup (bengals rams ho hum) but still. they share the same tech platforms but not the same content, beliefs or worldviews. it is truly challenging.
Colleen Kenny LaRocque
____________________________________
Bob, the Cros says "Streaming stole my record money." Oh yeah? WHAT record money? The New Yorker, having no clue about music (they're great in other areas) just ran a lengthy piece trashing Spotify. I sent them a terse rebuttal, which they won't print. I'm annoyed at this shit. The enterprisimg Daniel Ek could be somewhere else altogether, but instead he pulled the entire record industry up out of the craphole it had dug itself into, and now just look at the results benefitting consumers and creators alike. Fuck Rogan, and fuck supposed music fans who'd rather line up with the last gasp of hippiedom than appreciate the most beneficial development since the debut of the 45.
Paul Lanning
____________________________________
I want to shake David Macias' hand and buy him a drink. Fuck it…two drinks.
Hugo Burnham
I really appreciate you saying nice things about my contribution to Rolling Stone. I was happy with the piece, and I understand that they have limitations to how long it could be, but I wrote a more detailed breakdown of the issue. I wasn't expecting RS to just print what I wrote, but putting things down in writing helps me think more cogently. I thought you might enjoy it, so I'll copy what I wrote in preparation below.
Best-
David Macias
Many artists are hurting these days. It's become more difficult to earn a living as an artist. Anyone trying has my deep respect. For anyone who knows me and knows my company, Thirty Tigers, you know that our heart is squarely with the artist. We invest in artists; we work hard for artists. We try to help them navigate the industry so that they can earn the most money possible without sacrificing the quality of the effort in promoting their art, all while they maintain 100% ownership and control over their masters.
So, it pains me when I see artists and those who love them misdiagnose the source of their difficulty. Spotify is the current scapegoat for the ills of the working-class artist, despite them paying 63% of gross revenues back out to rights holders. This is in relative parity to other DSPs and slightly higher than brick and mortar retail (60%), which is understandable given that they must pay for physical space to conduct business.
A note about rates: Spotify is pilloried for the fact that they pay a lower net rate than Apple or Tidal. The reason for this lower rate is that Spotify offers something that the others don't – an ad-supported tier that pays at a lower rate because advertising does not bring in the amount of money subscriptions do. You can choose to feel aggrieved about the lower aggregate rate (which many do), or you can choose to be happy that people that can't afford to pay $10 a month are given a way to participate in a way that allows for some royalties to be earned (which is how I feel). People can disagree in good faith about which approach is preferable, but it's simply not the case that Spotify is just paying less to pad their bottom line. They bring in less revenue per listener but still pay out a commensurate percentage to the other DSPs.
Between DSPs like Spotify and companies like TuneCore, music is more democratized more than ever, to the point where the DSPs upload 60,000 new songs every day. Let me repeat that. 60,000. SONGS. PER. DAY. That's the equivalent of over 2,100,000 albums of material a year. The US global market share is 53%, so let's peg the number of albums (including track equivalents) released in the US at 1,100,000. By comparison, in 2004, the US music industry released around 50,000 albums.
I pick that year for a reason. It was the first year that the RIAA recorded any digital revenue, and it was also a year that nearly matches the dollar amounts made by the industry in 2020.
Let's consider what life was like for artists in 2004….
If you aspired for national or international success, you were forced to sign with a label to get the resources and advocacy that you needed to reach an audience. Those deals were most often at terms that were not favorable to the artist. Labels were absolute gatekeepers, and they wielded that advantage like a cudgel.
Today, you don't need anyone's permission.
If you look at the playlists on the DSPs, you will find an abundance of independent artists, unaffiliated with anyone getting their shot. Spotify has taken great steps to democratize access to the playlists, by allowing anyone to pitch their music to the people who make the decisions on what goes on their playlists.
As an example, Spotify's New Boots playlist currently features 20 artists on it whose work is copyrighted directly to the artist with no label affiliation listed. That playlist has over 800,000 followers.
I think of Russell Dickerson, who delivered proof of concept by having his music streamed over 25 million times before he was picked up by a label (one that I am affiliated with), who has helped him chart four consecutive singles at #1. Spotify changed his life. If this was 2004, he would have likely never gotten that opportunity.
However, democratization has come at a cost. Let's consider the math of 2004 vs. 2020. Both years saw $12.2 billion earned by the industry. If you divide that amount by 50,000 albums released, the average album in 2004 earned $244,000 in revenues. If you divide that numbers by 1,100,000 albums, the average album earned $11,090. If you apply the 80/20 rule to the 2020 numbers (a business maxim that hypothesizes that 80% of sales comes from the top 20% of money earners), you can estimate that the 880,000 least commercially successful albums earned $2.44 billion in revenue, or $2770 per album.
Democratization has been a huge boon to independent artists in that it has given more artists a chance, but not been enough to earn them a living wage. The pie is being sliced so thin, that most artists are left hungry.
A painful question must be asked at this point: Is it an artist's right to earn a living from their art in a capitalist market? In a country where the business-failure rate is 65% over ten years, should artists be immune from their businesses failing? As much as my heart goes out to anyone who is not able to make their dream come true, I would say that that answer is no.
Financially, the low point of the music business was in 2014. The RIAA figures for the retail value of all music sold then was $6.7 billion. As streaming has become the predominant way people consume music, that number has skyrocketed to that $12.2 billion figure in the US. That is a 75% increase in revenues in six years. Anyone who argues that streaming has been harmful to the ecosystem has billions of dollars to explain away when making their case.
I attended a music business conference presentation in the early 2000s, where the RIAA presented a study where they asked people who self-identified as avid music consumers how much money they spent a year on music. The average amount was about $60 a year. Remember, we're making as much money now as then, so we really are talking apples-to-apples. If you want to subscribe to a streaming service, you are contributing $120 a year to the till. The contribution of the average consumer has roughly doubled, so is it any surprise that industry revenues have mirrored this doubling since the advent of streaming?
So how then can artists make enough money to survive? There are options for a patronage model like Patreon that can operate outside the revenue models of pre-recorded music. Though I am suspicious of the lasting value of NFTs, some artists are earning money creating singular goods that can be made available to fans. Though on the horizon, potential applications of direct funding through web3 applications may give artists an opportunity to monetize their creations more directly.
What I do not want to see happen is that artists misattribute the source of their problem and undermine the DSPs that have played a huge role in the democratization of independent music.
Is Spotify perfect? Far from it. I won't touch the Joe Rogan issue. That's a matter of conscience for artists and their advocates. Do I wish that Spotify were not joining other DSPs in appealing the Copyright Royalty Board's ruling that pays the publishers and songwriters 15% of revenues? Absolutely. When artists I work with have walked into their NYC offices, as often as not, I hear about the opulence of their offices and the perks that are made available to their employees on full display. On a gut level, the artists correlate these with their lower royalty rate (explained above) as compared to other DSPs. Spotify, I tell you these things as your friend. Sometimes you don't do yourselves any favors.
Vilification is easy. I've heard that it's not the people, it's the system that is broken. To that, I counter that any system that has increased parity and overall revenues is not a broken system. There is just way, way, WAY more music available, and though the pie is growing, it's unable to feed everyone. Artists need to understand the reality of the situation and be clear eyed about what battles they need to be fighting. My contention is that dismantling the existing system without a replacement will harm independent artists.
My heart is with all of you, and I wish you all the best.
____________________________________
Amen to you and to David for this one. This debate has really gotten under my skin. I am an agent and across about 20 acts, and while I don't participate in any of the recorded revenues, they have become life changing for the artists over the past five years and especially through the pandemic. This is mostly due to Spotify. The other key is that I mostly work with independent artists - meaning they own all or parts of their catalogues. Napkin math, but out of 20 clients, 4 or 5 of them have major label deals or deal with big indies where they do not own/control masters. The rest have distro only deals (with companies like Thirty Tigers, whom I love, or AWAL), or deals with fair and artist friendly indies (like Dualtone, whom I love) where they might have a mid-term (7 year) license but still retaining masters ownership. Most of my artists are also taking small or no advances, so that they are seeing cash flow in many cases from dollar one.
My acts that own pieces or all of their catalogue, and have between 1.5mm-4mm monthly Spotify listeners, are making anywhere from $20k to $100k PER MONTH from Spotify revenues. 4mm monthly listeners is significant and means that the artist has a real following, but this is nowhere near the top of the heap and what you might consider "mainstream" names like Drake who has 53mm monthlys. My smaller acts who have between 200k-500k monthly listeners, are still making $1k-$5k per month from Spotify. When they own their catalogue - again, a key differentiator in who gets paid. These are artists you have most likely not heard of, but who ARE making a livable wage between these recorded revenues, shows, merch, etc.
So for everyone weighing in and unsubscribing from Spotify to say "fuck the man," all you're doing is fucking the little guy. Spotify in my mind is an EXTREMELY artist friendly company. As the pie gets smaller, these revenues go down for all artists, and the ones who are hurt most are the small ones at the bottom of the totem pole. Neil made his point and I commend him for it, and it made a (small) difference, but Spotify is not the problem, quite the opposite. We are living in a golden era of recorded revenues!
Keith Levy
____________________________________
Brilliant. I've been saying similar things for a long time but less eloquently.
The popular narrative is unfair to the streamers and is misdirected anger. The streamers are paying more than 50% of their gross revenue to rights owners, and in the US radio is paying what – under 3%? Concerts are paying what – fractions of what the rest of the world pays for performing rights at a concert. The most unfair royalty issue in streaming is the disparity between master and publishing. No excuse. Unsustainable. Let's see a popular uprising over those issues.
A million streams sounds like a lot so people are flummoxed that the dollars aren't commensurate with that mental image. However, the number of radio spins necessary to equal a million impressions is, for argument's sake, say 10 (100,000 listeners X 10 spins). OK let's say it's 20. Or 100. If you only had 100 spins on radio, you wouldn't say you were successful.
Best,
Michael McCarty
____________________________________
Agree with David. Side note, he has been on the front end of supporting streaming for at least a decade long before any of us could read the tea leaves.
We have been having a similar conversation in our office this week.
Should Spotify pay songwriters and artists more $? Yes. Should they stop spread of misinformation if they can? Yes. Is any tech company morally pure? No.
Amazon has had their own scandals and worker's conditions questioned consistently…Apple had the same in China…and we all remember Batterygate…on the vaccine issue the biggest spreader of all misinformation is Facebook but there isn't a mass musician's exodus to abandon the platform (along w Instagram which it owns). All commercial entities have things to own and we should all hold them accountable but we are ignoring the good that Spotify does for artists.
The first question from all of our management partners after "What playlists did we get?" is "Can you help setup our tour presale w Spotify?". Spotify has helped sell hundreds of thousands of tickets (probably more I don't have an official stat) and put money in the hands of artists and creators through their pre-sale activations. The streaming rates for songwriters and artists need to come up but it's more nuanced than that when evaluating the whole ball of wax.
We have benefited greatly from the Spotify Fans First merch activations around exclusive products generating six figures of revenue for our artists.
Spotify has developed tech to directly benefit artists…putting up the donation capability during COVID and enabling selling merch directly from Artist pages.
When comparing the big 4 (Apple, Spotify, Amazon, Youtube) no other tech company gives as much access to the fan data and ability to reach directly to fans through Spotify for Artists and through ad programs like Marquee. The comparison and chatter with Bandcamp/Patreon is a different conversation I believe as those platforms are more D2C built.
Out of home support, billboards in Times Square, Spotify Sessions developing content for Artists that they own…the list goes on.
Are there things wrong with Spotify…absolutely, as has been well documented (they just paid 300M+ to be a sponsor of premier league soccer team instead of increasing pay for artists and songwriters!). But we need to focus on the duality a bit here.
We work with several bands that literally were able to quit their day jobs to do music full time because of this service. That fact doesn't let them off the hook for Rogan and everything else but the Spotify bashing doesn't address how their innovation has shepherded us into a new music business economy that for most labels and artists on those labels is working.
They are our #1 revenue driver, it's not even close.
Because of our partnership deals with our acts those dollars flow through and we win together. It's not us vs. them and that shouldn't be the tone of the Spotify conversation either.
Paul Roper
Dualtone
____________________________________
I love how most discussions about Spotify never even bring up the biggest problem. David is correct in his assessment that the label earns approx $4000 - $5000 per million streams. In the Thirty Tigers model the artist gets the lions share of that. Very equitable.
The songwriter portion of the 4 to 5 k is ridiculous. It's approx $200. Let us remember that many of the greatest songs ever written were not written by the artist. The professional songwriter has a storied history via Tin Pan Alley, Motown and Music Row as a major contributor to the music we know and love. Are we willing to let thousands of amazing songwriters wither up and die and be left with songs that are less than the best they can be?
Here's a hypothetical for you that might make this easier to understand. "Man in the Mirror" by Michael Jackson was written by Glen Ballard and Siedah Garrett. The album it was on sold a ton of records for which the writers received mechanical royalties for at a rate of approx 9 cents per copy. Let's use 10 million as our number. Maybe they both had co-pub deals so they probably made 3 to 4 cents per album sold. That's $300, 000 TO $400, 000 EACH. Those royalties ( mechanical ) have in fact gone the way of the horse and buggy. No one buys anything any more. I'm sure they did fine on terrestrial radio performance royalties for the single.
Fast forward to the streaming era…No album sales of note. Reduced radio play. Now let's do the Spotify numbers. Total guess but I'm thinking in this era a record like that would get somewhere around 200 million streams. Michael Jackson had a more conventional deal than the Thirty Tigers model. His label would get $5000 per million streams. He would get via his artist deal some of that money. Let's do the math. $5000 x 200 million ( the lower figure ) = 1 trillion dollars. The writers would split somewhere between $40, 000 and $50, 000. So… label gets one trillion, artist maybe 1 million, writers $40,000 to $50,000. Do you think that's fair? Do you realize how much other revenue a great song generates for the label and the artist. The labels colluded with Spotify to set the system up so they would both make a ton of money during the streaming era. I am so glad I came up in an era where I was able to write songs for artists other than myself and be rewarded monetarily when something good happened with them.
When I lecture these days at Berklee school of music or Belmont in Nashville I tell young writers who are looking to go into songwriting as a profession, if you're not the artist, you are looking at a huge uphill climb when it comes to paying your bills. What is the result of this syndrome? The world loses out on great music that won't ever be written if we don't change the model. There are artists that are quite capable of writing great songs for themselves. There are just as many that have no talent in that area and should leave that piece of the puzzle to those of us who can do it well.
In closing, here's a few songs that would have never been written if there were no outside songwriters. " You've Got A Friend " I Can't Make You Love Me" "My Girl" "Up On The Roof" The entire Great American Songbook, George Gershwin, Cole Porter, Irving Berlin, Jerome Kern, Harold Arlen, Johnny Mercer, and Richard Rodgers, among others. Thanks for taking the time to read this and maybe look at it from another point of view.
Respectfully,
Steve Seskin
____________________________________
Thanks for publishing this Bob. David's one of my dearest friends, and one of not only the best business minds in the biz, but human beings. He built a revolutionary model and an alternative offering to individuals that wanted to pursue being an artist back when all that really existed before was the major label system.
I've seen him build Thirty Tigers from one man in a guest bedroom to the powerhouse that it is, and along the way his heart has been one of service and empowering artists. Through the success, both in the growth of Thirty Tigers as well as many of the acts that they have broken, many of whom went to him after everyone else said "no" in town, he has not changed one bit. His mission is and has always been on the art, but he has always had a balanced approach to how he looks at the macro economics of it all.
His message is true. It should and needs to be heard. It also comes from a good place. I'm sure the complainers will shit on it, undeservedly so. We should celebrate more having an opportunity, that's all we're given or should want is a shot, not everyone wins the game unfortunately but playing it sure can be a fulfilling ride.
Gino Genaro
CDA Entertainment
____________________________________
A few back I worked David on the board of the Americana Music Association and found him to be the most insightful guy on the board. I also found him to have integrity and honesty. Artists they took on tended to never question their decision.
Bob Benckert
The Alternate Root
____________________________________
I've had a few minor business dealings with David Macias over the years. Each time he was gracious, honest, and forthright. This was an awesome piece. It's impossible to get it right every time, but Thirty Tigers has a helluva batting average. Kudos to Macias and the company he keeps.
Matthew Sterling
____________________________________
What a great guy!
I first encountered Mr Macias maybe 20 years ago when he was managing Rich Robinson's project called Hookah Brown. Total straight shooter and hustled his butt off!
I was a young promoter / club booker, huge Crowes fan, and was completely star struck by Rich, too afraid to ask for a t-shirt and David must have read my mind because out of the blue he asked me my size and presented me with a shirt. Just a little thing like that makes memories.
While I haven't made much contact since, it's been very cool to watch him grow from afar and he's got one helluvah respectable artist roster!
Good on him for laying it out there. You're correct, almost no one will see it, including me, so glad you shot it out to us!
Rock on Bob!
Dan Millen
____________________________________
I appreciate the clarification on artist pay. I never researched it but had caught an earful from a frustrated musician. I am teaching college students these days and they all live in different realities. it's wild. i asked who would be watching the super bowl this weekend, only 5 or 6 out of almost 30 kids. yes, it's an uninspiring matchup (bengals rams ho hum) but still. they share the same tech platforms but not the same content, beliefs or worldviews. it is truly challenging.
Colleen Kenny LaRocque
____________________________________
Bob, the Cros says "Streaming stole my record money." Oh yeah? WHAT record money? The New Yorker, having no clue about music (they're great in other areas) just ran a lengthy piece trashing Spotify. I sent them a terse rebuttal, which they won't print. I'm annoyed at this shit. The enterprisimg Daniel Ek could be somewhere else altogether, but instead he pulled the entire record industry up out of the craphole it had dug itself into, and now just look at the results benefitting consumers and creators alike. Fuck Rogan, and fuck supposed music fans who'd rather line up with the last gasp of hippiedom than appreciate the most beneficial development since the debut of the 45.
Paul Lanning
____________________________________
I want to shake David Macias' hand and buy him a drink. Fuck it…two drinks.
Hugo Burnham
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The Lindsey Vonn Book
"Rise": https://amzn.to/3uKX5kO
She's not the person I thought she was.
Not that I had a huge desire to read this book. I just reserved it at the library and when another book I was reading lost my attention I decided to skim "Rise," but I got hooked.
Lindsey's image... Beautiful untouchable champion. Smiling and fabulous everywhere. When she's not complaining. No one can deny her skiing skills, but despite all the media, no one has ever pierced the surface of Vonn until now. She had to do it. Because the media is too busy promoting fables and only you know what is going on inside your head.
She's a loner who has trouble making friends. She only feels comfortable on the hill. Skiing is everything. It adds structure to her life. And when things are not going well, she sinks, into depression.
Goals... That's the first thing I got out of this book, you can't get where you're going if you don't know where it is. We all need goals. Assuming you want to achieve excellence. Maybe the excellence you're pursuing is private. Or maybe you're more of a looker than a doer. But in truth, to achieve greatness you've got to have a goal.
Lindsey's was to be in the Olympics. She had that revelation when she was nine years old and encountered Picabo Street.
Now when one gets older, one often laughs at our younger year role models. We can now see three dimensions, oftentimes they're not that admirable. But when you're younger, these icons have incredible effect on you, especially if you're a loner who doesn't really fit in, who isn't cool.
Julia Mancuso is cool. Lindsey is always being compared to her, and always negatively. Lindsey herself tries to compete with Julia by stuffing kleenex in her bikini top, which comes out in the hot tub and exposes her and mortifies her. No matter what Lindsey does, she is not an insider, she is not cool. And all the coaches warm up to Julia. That's Lindsey's inspiration, surreptitiously hearing her coaches say they're going to put Julia in the 2002 Olympics and not her. And Lindsey turns it on, makes the team and has the best results and then...nothing. Back to regular life, back to being the underdog to Mancuso. Lindsey thought the Olympics would be transformational, but they're just another race. And then her career goes up and down and she's thinking of giving up.
That's what happens to many who achieve their goal. When they reach it and it is not satisfying, they can no longer do it anymore. Like rock stars. Oftentimes nonverbal outsiders who believe if they have hit records their lives will work. And then they do reach the pinnacle and then nothing changes and they can never do it again, they just can't find the motivation.
But Lindsey has her father.
Would it be better if we all had parents supportive of our dreams? And enough money to achieve them? Yes. But you can always change your life, you don't live with your parents forever, and not all achievements are when you're young. As a matter of fact, those who win when they're young oftentimes have trouble coping with the long life thereafter. Not only athletes, but TV stars.
Her father pushes her. Says it's not time yet. And arranges for Lindsey to spend the summer with a legendary Polish trainer in Monaco for the summer (her sponsor, Rossignol, helped out with the cost).
Lindsey had no idea what hard work was.
Most people don't. Lindsey thought she was training hard, but she wasn't even close. She now learned what she had to do and it paid off.
Most people have no context. Either they play in a minor league or not at all. But if you get a chance to go to the top... It separates the men from the boys. I remember my sophomore year in college, on the Middlebury Ski Team, doing the bleachers. We started off in September doing four sets. Hopping up on one foot, then the other and then both was one set. Never mind that it was hard, I didn't feel myself the rest of the day, even longer. And dreaded having to do five sets the following week. So I decided to quit. There was no way I'd be a starting racer anyway. But I was on the phone with my mother and told her and she bad-vibed me. So I stayed with it. Just before the snow fell we were doing SIXTEEN sets. Unfathomable back in September, but I did it.
Like running up the Middlebury Snow Bowl. As hard as that was the first time, the second time we ran to the top, then ran halfway down and back to the top again. Huh? I mean just when you're proud you made it, ready to relax, you're back in the grinder.
Lindsey's father said the family were not quitters. Even later in her career, when she'd had a bunch of injuries, her father pushed her to stay with it. To the point when Lindsey truly wanted to retire, her body having given out, no one on her team believed it, she was the one who constantly battled back from injuries. And she wanted to beat Stenmark's record, right?
Well, wanting it is not enough. Hard work doesn't mean you'll always achieve your dream. But you can come close.
And the dedication.
Lindsey didn't go to her junior prom. She didn't go to any school dances. She had to punt sleepovers. So much of what normal kids do she didn't do at all.
And she gets caught in an educational vortex and never finishes high school. Eventually gets her GED, but no one is looking out for her. There's all this money, all these coaches, but you're on your own so much. In Park City living alone as a teenager? Especially someone as isolated as Lindsey.
So she falls into a relationship with Thomas Vonn and ends up marrying him and excises whatever friends she does have and then a few years later, when she grows up, she realizes it's wrong and she's got to get divorced. Lindsey says breakups are harder than any training or racing.
And you think she's on the circuit, living it up as a bon viivant. But she didn't party, she immediately started thinking about the next race. And then there's the time she's finished in St. Moritz, gets a bunch of Red Bull and drives six hours to her place in Austria. Alone. Pretty glamorous, right?
Meanwhile, with success comes the hate. People saying her advantage is her looks, that she wouldn't get the publicity if she wasn't beautiful. Constantly complaining about perceived advantages in racing she doesn't have. You think by winning you'll be accepted, but just the opposite is true!
And then she retires. And every book has to end on a high note. She meets Ashton Kutcher and Guy Oseary and decides she wants to be a venture capitalist and...
These things are harder than they look. If you can do ONE thing at a world class level in life you're lucky. But Lindsey is all hunky-dory...I'd like to check in with her in a few years.
But therapy is helping her get through.
She's pissed she doesn't get the respect of men. But the men are too weak to seek help. She's stunned when she finds out she's depressed, she expected the doctor to say she was okay. And she's been taking the pills and been in talk therapy off and on forever.
And you think winning fixes all your problems.
So it turns out Lindsey Vonn is an imperfect person. You don't read "Rise" and want to go on a date with her, but you do start thinking about your own choices and dedication.
And the truth is almost all of the big wheels in individual sports and the arts are loners who have a hard time fitting in. They may want to, but they don't have the skills. So they fake it, or beg off from social situations. And in truth, nobody in the world really cares about you, you're fodder for the machine, there's always somebody there to replace you, so you've got to fix your own problems. But first you have to acknowledge they exist.
So do I recommend "Rise" to everybody?
Well, not really. If you're not a skier, you might not fully enjoy it.
But this is not a typical play by play sports autobiography. Not I did this and then that and aren't I great. If you know Lindsey's career, you also know how much is left out. Like her father not speaking to her after she marries Vonn. How Vonn sabotages her equipment in Aspen after she breaks up with him.
"Rise" is not a blow by blow, but a focus on the experience, the mind, what it takes, the challenges and the motivations.
And in truth, you can't learn how to act, what to do from a book. Because everybody is different, you're not the writer. But if you are an individual on their own path, seeing it, but feeling alone in the quest, I highly recommend "Rise."
The coterie of people who make it to the top is very very small. And the average person has no idea what it takes to get there. NO IDEA! Even Lindsey herself, she thought she was training hard until she spent that summer in Monaco. And the sacrifice. And if someone's boasting about how hard they're working, how great they are, don't believe them. Because the true world-beaters are internalized.
So you see Lindsey Vonn on TV, in the gossip online. And you may end up hating her, who does she think she is, beautiful, living the life of Riley. But after reading "Rise" you wouldn't want her life, no way. In a tunnel of skiing for decades, one-minded in your pursuit, only to come out the other side with no education and not enough social skills.
Every life is hard. That's the truth.
But if for whatever reason you dream big, have airy goals, you should read "Rise" to see what it takes. You truly have no idea.
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She's not the person I thought she was.
Not that I had a huge desire to read this book. I just reserved it at the library and when another book I was reading lost my attention I decided to skim "Rise," but I got hooked.
Lindsey's image... Beautiful untouchable champion. Smiling and fabulous everywhere. When she's not complaining. No one can deny her skiing skills, but despite all the media, no one has ever pierced the surface of Vonn until now. She had to do it. Because the media is too busy promoting fables and only you know what is going on inside your head.
She's a loner who has trouble making friends. She only feels comfortable on the hill. Skiing is everything. It adds structure to her life. And when things are not going well, she sinks, into depression.
Goals... That's the first thing I got out of this book, you can't get where you're going if you don't know where it is. We all need goals. Assuming you want to achieve excellence. Maybe the excellence you're pursuing is private. Or maybe you're more of a looker than a doer. But in truth, to achieve greatness you've got to have a goal.
Lindsey's was to be in the Olympics. She had that revelation when she was nine years old and encountered Picabo Street.
Now when one gets older, one often laughs at our younger year role models. We can now see three dimensions, oftentimes they're not that admirable. But when you're younger, these icons have incredible effect on you, especially if you're a loner who doesn't really fit in, who isn't cool.
Julia Mancuso is cool. Lindsey is always being compared to her, and always negatively. Lindsey herself tries to compete with Julia by stuffing kleenex in her bikini top, which comes out in the hot tub and exposes her and mortifies her. No matter what Lindsey does, she is not an insider, she is not cool. And all the coaches warm up to Julia. That's Lindsey's inspiration, surreptitiously hearing her coaches say they're going to put Julia in the 2002 Olympics and not her. And Lindsey turns it on, makes the team and has the best results and then...nothing. Back to regular life, back to being the underdog to Mancuso. Lindsey thought the Olympics would be transformational, but they're just another race. And then her career goes up and down and she's thinking of giving up.
That's what happens to many who achieve their goal. When they reach it and it is not satisfying, they can no longer do it anymore. Like rock stars. Oftentimes nonverbal outsiders who believe if they have hit records their lives will work. And then they do reach the pinnacle and then nothing changes and they can never do it again, they just can't find the motivation.
But Lindsey has her father.
Would it be better if we all had parents supportive of our dreams? And enough money to achieve them? Yes. But you can always change your life, you don't live with your parents forever, and not all achievements are when you're young. As a matter of fact, those who win when they're young oftentimes have trouble coping with the long life thereafter. Not only athletes, but TV stars.
Her father pushes her. Says it's not time yet. And arranges for Lindsey to spend the summer with a legendary Polish trainer in Monaco for the summer (her sponsor, Rossignol, helped out with the cost).
Lindsey had no idea what hard work was.
Most people don't. Lindsey thought she was training hard, but she wasn't even close. She now learned what she had to do and it paid off.
Most people have no context. Either they play in a minor league or not at all. But if you get a chance to go to the top... It separates the men from the boys. I remember my sophomore year in college, on the Middlebury Ski Team, doing the bleachers. We started off in September doing four sets. Hopping up on one foot, then the other and then both was one set. Never mind that it was hard, I didn't feel myself the rest of the day, even longer. And dreaded having to do five sets the following week. So I decided to quit. There was no way I'd be a starting racer anyway. But I was on the phone with my mother and told her and she bad-vibed me. So I stayed with it. Just before the snow fell we were doing SIXTEEN sets. Unfathomable back in September, but I did it.
Like running up the Middlebury Snow Bowl. As hard as that was the first time, the second time we ran to the top, then ran halfway down and back to the top again. Huh? I mean just when you're proud you made it, ready to relax, you're back in the grinder.
Lindsey's father said the family were not quitters. Even later in her career, when she'd had a bunch of injuries, her father pushed her to stay with it. To the point when Lindsey truly wanted to retire, her body having given out, no one on her team believed it, she was the one who constantly battled back from injuries. And she wanted to beat Stenmark's record, right?
Well, wanting it is not enough. Hard work doesn't mean you'll always achieve your dream. But you can come close.
And the dedication.
Lindsey didn't go to her junior prom. She didn't go to any school dances. She had to punt sleepovers. So much of what normal kids do she didn't do at all.
And she gets caught in an educational vortex and never finishes high school. Eventually gets her GED, but no one is looking out for her. There's all this money, all these coaches, but you're on your own so much. In Park City living alone as a teenager? Especially someone as isolated as Lindsey.
So she falls into a relationship with Thomas Vonn and ends up marrying him and excises whatever friends she does have and then a few years later, when she grows up, she realizes it's wrong and she's got to get divorced. Lindsey says breakups are harder than any training or racing.
And you think she's on the circuit, living it up as a bon viivant. But she didn't party, she immediately started thinking about the next race. And then there's the time she's finished in St. Moritz, gets a bunch of Red Bull and drives six hours to her place in Austria. Alone. Pretty glamorous, right?
Meanwhile, with success comes the hate. People saying her advantage is her looks, that she wouldn't get the publicity if she wasn't beautiful. Constantly complaining about perceived advantages in racing she doesn't have. You think by winning you'll be accepted, but just the opposite is true!
And then she retires. And every book has to end on a high note. She meets Ashton Kutcher and Guy Oseary and decides she wants to be a venture capitalist and...
These things are harder than they look. If you can do ONE thing at a world class level in life you're lucky. But Lindsey is all hunky-dory...I'd like to check in with her in a few years.
But therapy is helping her get through.
She's pissed she doesn't get the respect of men. But the men are too weak to seek help. She's stunned when she finds out she's depressed, she expected the doctor to say she was okay. And she's been taking the pills and been in talk therapy off and on forever.
And you think winning fixes all your problems.
So it turns out Lindsey Vonn is an imperfect person. You don't read "Rise" and want to go on a date with her, but you do start thinking about your own choices and dedication.
And the truth is almost all of the big wheels in individual sports and the arts are loners who have a hard time fitting in. They may want to, but they don't have the skills. So they fake it, or beg off from social situations. And in truth, nobody in the world really cares about you, you're fodder for the machine, there's always somebody there to replace you, so you've got to fix your own problems. But first you have to acknowledge they exist.
So do I recommend "Rise" to everybody?
Well, not really. If you're not a skier, you might not fully enjoy it.
But this is not a typical play by play sports autobiography. Not I did this and then that and aren't I great. If you know Lindsey's career, you also know how much is left out. Like her father not speaking to her after she marries Vonn. How Vonn sabotages her equipment in Aspen after she breaks up with him.
"Rise" is not a blow by blow, but a focus on the experience, the mind, what it takes, the challenges and the motivations.
And in truth, you can't learn how to act, what to do from a book. Because everybody is different, you're not the writer. But if you are an individual on their own path, seeing it, but feeling alone in the quest, I highly recommend "Rise."
The coterie of people who make it to the top is very very small. And the average person has no idea what it takes to get there. NO IDEA! Even Lindsey herself, she thought she was training hard until she spent that summer in Monaco. And the sacrifice. And if someone's boasting about how hard they're working, how great they are, don't believe them. Because the true world-beaters are internalized.
So you see Lindsey Vonn on TV, in the gossip online. And you may end up hating her, who does she think she is, beautiful, living the life of Riley. But after reading "Rise" you wouldn't want her life, no way. In a tunnel of skiing for decades, one-minded in your pursuit, only to come out the other side with no education and not enough social skills.
Every life is hard. That's the truth.
But if for whatever reason you dream big, have airy goals, you should read "Rise" to see what it takes. You truly have no idea.
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Thursday, 10 February 2022
David Macias On Spotify
Unfortunately, this "Rolling Stone" article is behind a paywall. But the issue is bigger than that. Today everybody knows more information, some inaccurate, but there is no single outlet that everybody reads, everybody pays attention to.
Used to be "Rolling Stone." Actually, there was a flourishing rock press in the pre-internet era. And despite all the hype about fanzines, they had a limited audience and it was the big publications that had reach: "Rolling Stone," "Spin," "Bender"... But now there is not one authoritative music information source. And this isn't only in music, but in every vertical. Used to be your story was in the newspaper and you reached everyone in the market, many had subscriptions and those who didn't got the information from the verbal scuttlebutt, after all, there wasn't a whole hell of a lot more to talk about, there was no internet, talking and arguing about music was a big deal. Now it's a much smaller deal. Social media has usurped the conversation and the delineation between artist and fan is no longer clear, the fan wants to be the artist, and can be on social media. And although artists are gods to some, they are the source of derision to others. That's what the internet has done, pulled the artists off their pedestals, they're seen as little better than you and me. Except for their devotees who police the behavior of the rest of the population, looking for negative feedback, the diss, and when they see it they bombard the perpetrator to the point where their inbox or Twitter feed is overwhelmed and nearly indecipherable, it becomes impossible to separate the wheat from the chaff.
All of which means if you're promoting your act, there's no single outlet that will reach everybody. As a matter of fact, there's no single outlet that will reach a modicum of people. Late night TV has abysmal ratings, music comes on last and it's all about creating viral content for the web, which is not the music, but comedy. Local newspapers have been on the decline in excess of a decade. The remaining majors, the "Times," "WaPo" and "WSJ," have seen their subscription numbers rise as a result of low-priced digital accessibility, and all of them cover music, in some cases quite well, but the target audience usually doesn't read them, and since they're smorgasbords of information, the market doesn't take them seriously. It's like ordering the burger at a Greek joint. Or spaghetti at the steak place. Beware.
And even when information is widely disseminated, there is no consensus. Today you believe what you want to believe, and find information confirming your bias.
All of which to say is most publicity on Spotify is that the corporation is evil and is screwing independent artists, those on the way up.
Well, David Macias runs Thirty Tigers, a label services company for independent artists, so it's fascinating to read what he has to say. It's outweighed by the contrary in every publication known to man, but it's the truth.
And here it is:
"'Vilification Is Easy': Spotify Isn't the Culprit, Says Head of Indie Label Thirty Tigers - The streaming giant isn't perfect, says David Macias — but blaming them for the state of the music economy is too reductive"
"...David Macias, the owner and co-founder of the Nashville-based label-services company Thirty Tigers, has been frustrated by what he sees as a lopsided conversation scapegoating Spotify as the lone nefarious corporate giant in the music industry. From Macias' vantage point — as the head of an independent music company that has succeeded during the streaming era — the conversation around royalty payments and streaming is much more nuanced. He spoke with Rolling Stone about the payout structures at his company and how Spotify has benefitted his roster of artists over the years:
On the whole, at Thirty Tigers the general rule of thumb is that our artists earn 75 percent of the gross. We split the remaining 25 percent with the Orchard, who is our distributor. Last year, year we did $36 million in sales, and the 10 to 12 percent of that that we keep is how we pay our staff of 27 people. We go out there and act as a label would on behalf of an artist, but we allow the artists to keep ownership of their work. The artists are their own labels. We are their loving back-end staff.
Any expense or advance comes out of the 75 percent that the artist earns, but because they are their own label, there are lots of ancillary revenues that can flow to artists — merch on the road, film or TV placement — that goes directly to them.
It's become more difficult to earn a living as an artist. Anyone trying has my deep respect. If an artist streams a million times, they should get about $4,000. And even though it seems like a million streams is a ton, last month, 45 of our roughly 100 artists streamed a million times on all streaming platforms, some considerably more than that.
So, it pains me when I see artists and those who love them misdiagnose the source of their difficulty. Spotify is the current scapegoat for the ills of the working-class artist, despite them paying 63 percent of gross revenues back out to rights holders.
Democratization has been a huge boon to independent artists in that it has given more artists a chance, but it has not been enough to earn them a living wage. The pie is being sliced so thin that most artists are left hungry. In 2021, 60,000 songs were being uploaded to Spotify every day.
So how then can artists make enough money to survive? There are options for a patronage model like Patreon that can operate outside the revenue models of pre-recorded music. But what I do not want to see happen is that artists misattribute the source of their problem and undermine the DSPs that have played a huge role in the democratization of independent music.
Is Spotify perfect? Far from it. I won't touch the Joe Rogan issue. That's a matter of conscience for artists and their advocates. Do I wish that Spotify were not joining other DSPs in appealing the Copyright Royalty Board's ruling that pays the publishers and songwriters 15 percent of revenues? Absolutely. When artists I work with have walked into their NYC offices, as often as not, I hear about the opulence of their offices and the perks that are made available to their employees on full display.
A painful question must be asked at this point: Is it an artist's right to earn a living from their art in a capitalist market? In a country where the business-failure rate is 65 percent over ten years, should artists be immune from their businesses failing? As much as my heart goes out to anyone who is not able to make their dream come true, I would say that that answer is no.
Vilification is easy. I've heard that it's not the people, it's the system that is broken. To that, I counter that any system that has increased parity and overall revenues is not a broken system. There is just way, way, way more music available, and though the pie is growing, it's unable to feed everyone. Artists need to understand the reality of the situation and be clear-eyed about what battles they need to be fighting. My contention is that dismantling the existing system without a replacement will harm independent artists."
https://www.rollingstone.com/music/music-news/spotify-streams-payouts-joe-rogan-1298101/
Unless you subscribe, that link will only show you a few lines of the story.
"Rolling Stone" has some of the best coverage of music news, and most of it sits behind the paywall. But it is all accessible with an Apple News+ subscription for ten bucks a month, which every Mac and/or iPhone owner should pay for. It's bupkes, $120 a year for not only "Rolling Stone," but the near worthless "Billboard" whose stories are too often consumer facing, as well as some of the aforementioned WaPo and WSJ and much more. Best to go to the source as opposed to reading it on social media.
Used to be "Rolling Stone." Actually, there was a flourishing rock press in the pre-internet era. And despite all the hype about fanzines, they had a limited audience and it was the big publications that had reach: "Rolling Stone," "Spin," "Bender"... But now there is not one authoritative music information source. And this isn't only in music, but in every vertical. Used to be your story was in the newspaper and you reached everyone in the market, many had subscriptions and those who didn't got the information from the verbal scuttlebutt, after all, there wasn't a whole hell of a lot more to talk about, there was no internet, talking and arguing about music was a big deal. Now it's a much smaller deal. Social media has usurped the conversation and the delineation between artist and fan is no longer clear, the fan wants to be the artist, and can be on social media. And although artists are gods to some, they are the source of derision to others. That's what the internet has done, pulled the artists off their pedestals, they're seen as little better than you and me. Except for their devotees who police the behavior of the rest of the population, looking for negative feedback, the diss, and when they see it they bombard the perpetrator to the point where their inbox or Twitter feed is overwhelmed and nearly indecipherable, it becomes impossible to separate the wheat from the chaff.
All of which means if you're promoting your act, there's no single outlet that will reach everybody. As a matter of fact, there's no single outlet that will reach a modicum of people. Late night TV has abysmal ratings, music comes on last and it's all about creating viral content for the web, which is not the music, but comedy. Local newspapers have been on the decline in excess of a decade. The remaining majors, the "Times," "WaPo" and "WSJ," have seen their subscription numbers rise as a result of low-priced digital accessibility, and all of them cover music, in some cases quite well, but the target audience usually doesn't read them, and since they're smorgasbords of information, the market doesn't take them seriously. It's like ordering the burger at a Greek joint. Or spaghetti at the steak place. Beware.
And even when information is widely disseminated, there is no consensus. Today you believe what you want to believe, and find information confirming your bias.
All of which to say is most publicity on Spotify is that the corporation is evil and is screwing independent artists, those on the way up.
Well, David Macias runs Thirty Tigers, a label services company for independent artists, so it's fascinating to read what he has to say. It's outweighed by the contrary in every publication known to man, but it's the truth.
And here it is:
"'Vilification Is Easy': Spotify Isn't the Culprit, Says Head of Indie Label Thirty Tigers - The streaming giant isn't perfect, says David Macias — but blaming them for the state of the music economy is too reductive"
"...David Macias, the owner and co-founder of the Nashville-based label-services company Thirty Tigers, has been frustrated by what he sees as a lopsided conversation scapegoating Spotify as the lone nefarious corporate giant in the music industry. From Macias' vantage point — as the head of an independent music company that has succeeded during the streaming era — the conversation around royalty payments and streaming is much more nuanced. He spoke with Rolling Stone about the payout structures at his company and how Spotify has benefitted his roster of artists over the years:
On the whole, at Thirty Tigers the general rule of thumb is that our artists earn 75 percent of the gross. We split the remaining 25 percent with the Orchard, who is our distributor. Last year, year we did $36 million in sales, and the 10 to 12 percent of that that we keep is how we pay our staff of 27 people. We go out there and act as a label would on behalf of an artist, but we allow the artists to keep ownership of their work. The artists are their own labels. We are their loving back-end staff.
Any expense or advance comes out of the 75 percent that the artist earns, but because they are their own label, there are lots of ancillary revenues that can flow to artists — merch on the road, film or TV placement — that goes directly to them.
It's become more difficult to earn a living as an artist. Anyone trying has my deep respect. If an artist streams a million times, they should get about $4,000. And even though it seems like a million streams is a ton, last month, 45 of our roughly 100 artists streamed a million times on all streaming platforms, some considerably more than that.
So, it pains me when I see artists and those who love them misdiagnose the source of their difficulty. Spotify is the current scapegoat for the ills of the working-class artist, despite them paying 63 percent of gross revenues back out to rights holders.
Democratization has been a huge boon to independent artists in that it has given more artists a chance, but it has not been enough to earn them a living wage. The pie is being sliced so thin that most artists are left hungry. In 2021, 60,000 songs were being uploaded to Spotify every day.
So how then can artists make enough money to survive? There are options for a patronage model like Patreon that can operate outside the revenue models of pre-recorded music. But what I do not want to see happen is that artists misattribute the source of their problem and undermine the DSPs that have played a huge role in the democratization of independent music.
Is Spotify perfect? Far from it. I won't touch the Joe Rogan issue. That's a matter of conscience for artists and their advocates. Do I wish that Spotify were not joining other DSPs in appealing the Copyright Royalty Board's ruling that pays the publishers and songwriters 15 percent of revenues? Absolutely. When artists I work with have walked into their NYC offices, as often as not, I hear about the opulence of their offices and the perks that are made available to their employees on full display.
A painful question must be asked at this point: Is it an artist's right to earn a living from their art in a capitalist market? In a country where the business-failure rate is 65 percent over ten years, should artists be immune from their businesses failing? As much as my heart goes out to anyone who is not able to make their dream come true, I would say that that answer is no.
Vilification is easy. I've heard that it's not the people, it's the system that is broken. To that, I counter that any system that has increased parity and overall revenues is not a broken system. There is just way, way, way more music available, and though the pie is growing, it's unable to feed everyone. Artists need to understand the reality of the situation and be clear-eyed about what battles they need to be fighting. My contention is that dismantling the existing system without a replacement will harm independent artists."
https://www.rollingstone.com/music/music-news/spotify-streams-payouts-joe-rogan-1298101/
Unless you subscribe, that link will only show you a few lines of the story.
"Rolling Stone" has some of the best coverage of music news, and most of it sits behind the paywall. But it is all accessible with an Apple News+ subscription for ten bucks a month, which every Mac and/or iPhone owner should pay for. It's bupkes, $120 a year for not only "Rolling Stone," but the near worthless "Billboard" whose stories are too often consumer facing, as well as some of the aforementioned WaPo and WSJ and much more. Best to go to the source as opposed to reading it on social media.
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Scott Rodger-This Week's Podcast
Scott Rodger manages Paul McCartney, Shania Twain, Andrea Bocelli and more. You're gonna want to listen to this!
https://www.iheart.com/podcast/1119-the-bob-lefsetz-podcast-30806836/episode/scott-rodger-92728966/
https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/scott-rodger/id1316200737?i=1000550666206
https://open.spotify.com/episode/0m3bAKdHcGJDApTDQmDcHi?si=IHpDifmLR_SuOQoYOb3tkA
https://music.amazon.com/podcasts/9ff4fb19-54d4-41ae-ae7a-8a6f8d3dafa8/episodes/30c89996-7ede-4465-b732-4e2adf6ae084/the-bob-lefsetz-podcast-scott-rodger
https://listen.stitcher.com/yvap/?af_dp=stitcher://episode/90376178&af_web_dp=https://www.stitcher.com/episode/90376178
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https://www.iheart.com/podcast/1119-the-bob-lefsetz-podcast-30806836/episode/scott-rodger-92728966/
https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/scott-rodger/id1316200737?i=1000550666206
https://open.spotify.com/episode/0m3bAKdHcGJDApTDQmDcHi?si=IHpDifmLR_SuOQoYOb3tkA
https://music.amazon.com/podcasts/9ff4fb19-54d4-41ae-ae7a-8a6f8d3dafa8/episodes/30c89996-7ede-4465-b732-4e2adf6ae084/the-bob-lefsetz-podcast-scott-rodger
https://listen.stitcher.com/yvap/?af_dp=stitcher://episode/90376178&af_web_dp=https://www.stitcher.com/episode/90376178
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Wednesday, 9 February 2022
Mailbag
Re: More Mikaela
Bob, that's an excellent and very understandable analysis of the conditions and the evolution of alpine technical racing.
Having spent a fair amount of time in the Chinese ski resorts in the same general region that these events are being held, I can confirm the snow is very different.
It can be fun, but it's very aggressive and takes a shift in mindset and expectations. When coaching there, shifting the expectation of feel and adapting has been the first thing I've worked on.
Younger American athletes, especially from the west, have to shift in a similar manner when first competing in Europe. However, to a lesser degree.
Jonathan Ballou
Managing Director
Ski and Snowboard School
Aspen Skiing Company
__________________________________
From: Kara Hoisington
Subject: Re: Mikaela Falls
Yes, yes, all of this. I was an alpine racer for 20+ years growing up with my Dad as a coach at CVA during Bode's day there and myself a coach at Whiteface when Mikaela was at Burke.
One of the hardest things about Mikaela's talent is that she makes the impossible look so easy. Her natural feel for the snow and hard work is unimaginable to people in the sport. With Bode and Lindsey you could SEE the fight. The hard grunt out of the start gate, the barely holding on and then saving it. But with Mikaela, it all just glides.
I think this is why America finds it so hard to understand when she is human.
__________________________________
From: Michael Kurtz
Subject: Re: Curation, Not Censorship
I was sitting in a Montana poker game and struck up a conversation with an older gentlemen wearing a red "Hell yeah we're pissed" cap. He wanted to know where my family was from and I said Germany. Without missing a beat he said, "I like Germans, they are good people. I was talking with a friend of mine whose family is from Germany and he told me "We may not have got the Jews the last time, but we'll get 'em next time." I swallowed and said, "Um, my wife is Jewish." He just looked blankly at me.
__________________________________
From: Hugo Burnham
Subject: Re: India.Arie And Joe Rogan
The only people whining about you writing about politics - the "Stay in your lane, Old Man!"-ers are the ones whose ignorance and selfishness you expose. Probably more of the latter, I'd guess. True Reactionaries, who are being made to feel uncomfortable, who keep staring at the same old spot for their missing cheese. Self-imposed hunger.
Pretty simple.
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Bob, that's an excellent and very understandable analysis of the conditions and the evolution of alpine technical racing.
Having spent a fair amount of time in the Chinese ski resorts in the same general region that these events are being held, I can confirm the snow is very different.
It can be fun, but it's very aggressive and takes a shift in mindset and expectations. When coaching there, shifting the expectation of feel and adapting has been the first thing I've worked on.
Younger American athletes, especially from the west, have to shift in a similar manner when first competing in Europe. However, to a lesser degree.
Jonathan Ballou
Managing Director
Ski and Snowboard School
Aspen Skiing Company
__________________________________
From: Kara Hoisington
Subject: Re: Mikaela Falls
Yes, yes, all of this. I was an alpine racer for 20+ years growing up with my Dad as a coach at CVA during Bode's day there and myself a coach at Whiteface when Mikaela was at Burke.
One of the hardest things about Mikaela's talent is that she makes the impossible look so easy. Her natural feel for the snow and hard work is unimaginable to people in the sport. With Bode and Lindsey you could SEE the fight. The hard grunt out of the start gate, the barely holding on and then saving it. But with Mikaela, it all just glides.
I think this is why America finds it so hard to understand when she is human.
__________________________________
From: Michael Kurtz
Subject: Re: Curation, Not Censorship
I was sitting in a Montana poker game and struck up a conversation with an older gentlemen wearing a red "Hell yeah we're pissed" cap. He wanted to know where my family was from and I said Germany. Without missing a beat he said, "I like Germans, they are good people. I was talking with a friend of mine whose family is from Germany and he told me "We may not have got the Jews the last time, but we'll get 'em next time." I swallowed and said, "Um, my wife is Jewish." He just looked blankly at me.
__________________________________
From: Hugo Burnham
Subject: Re: India.Arie And Joe Rogan
The only people whining about you writing about politics - the "Stay in your lane, Old Man!"-ers are the ones whose ignorance and selfishness you expose. Probably more of the latter, I'd guess. True Reactionaries, who are being made to feel uncomfortable, who keep staring at the same old spot for their missing cheese. Self-imposed hunger.
Pretty simple.
--
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--
Listen to the podcast:
-iHeart: https://ihr.fm/2Gi5PFj
-Apple: https://apple.co/2ndmpvp
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Tuesday, 8 February 2022
More Mikaela
It's the manmade snow.
Slalom racing used to be completely different, then again, so were the Olympics. The Olympics used to be held in winter burgs with nearby mountains with natural snow. They even used to be held in mountain towns, like St. Moritz, or Squaw Valley, even Lake Placid. Now the winter Olympics are held in the metropolis, to maximize dollars. The venues are almost secondary. It all comes down to money. And the country with the most money gets the games, and if there's any doubt, any difference, any question, that's where corruption comes in. The Olympics are no better than the Golden Globes. Pierce the surface of the telecast and you will not like what you see.
So, nobody wants the winter games anymore. Because they're too damn expensive. So that's how we end up with the games in Beijing, Xi believes the money spent is worth it, showing the advancement of China. As for Sochi... Since Putin is a kleptocrat, he gave the contracts to his buddies and even made money personally from the spend. And when the games were over he invaded Ukraine. As for the Sochi games... Sochi is a seaside resort. There are mountains, but the sun and temperature are intense, and what you want in ski racing is consistency, so the snow warmed up and later racers were penalized in Sochi, because the wetter snow is slower, and in Beijing...
There's essentially no snow at all. Depending upon reports, where the races are held they get somewhere between two and eight inches a year, so you've got to install the guns and make the snow yourself.
Now slalom used to be a game of going around the poles, i.e. gates. But with the advent of shaped-skis and breakaway gates, you now go through the gates as opposed to around them.
Yes, in the late nineties the skis changed. And it was the racers who cottoned to the new shaped skis last. But those who were there first, like Bode Miller and Deborah Compagnoni, ate up the field and then everybody switched... To much shorter skis that you only had to lay on edge and they carved.
As for the breakaway gates... At first the gates were made out of bamboo. Then they went to plastic, and when you hit them, it hurt. But when skiers hit traditional gates they frequently popped out of the snow. And then the race had to be stopped while the pole was replaced, and this happened over and over again. So someone came up with the idea of breakaway gates. They're still made of plastic, but there is a hinge at snow level, so when you hit the pole it bends, maybe even all the way down to the snow surface, and then pops back up, ready for the next racer
So the game changed. Now you donned your short shaped skis, which carved on a dime, put on your armor and then went as straight as you could, right into the gates.
As for the surface itself...
In the old days there used to be ruts. The initial skiers down the course had an advantage, the surface was smooth, yet it quickly got torn up. But, if they could make the course firm, it would be the same for everybody, much more fair. And you have to make it a bit fair for those at the bottom, otherwise they can never get good results and move up the ladder. And the solution to the rut problem was turning the surface into ice.
Which every recreational skier hates!
But the racers love it. Because it's consistent.
And to ensure there is ice, before the race they inject water into the course the night before, so it will freeze into ice, I kid you not.
Now making snow is an art. And don't confuse the manmade snow in Beijing with that on your local hill. The local hill always makes snow with a high water content, to make a firm base. They want a layer to cover the ground and stay there. And for decades, manmade snow was known for its iciness. But then with new equipment and greater insight they were able to make snow closer to the real thing.
So what happened in Beijing is they laid down high water content snow, for a base, but the top surface...they tried to replicate something closer to powder. So what you end up with is a firm surface with some kickaround dust that's akin to sand on top of it.
And underneath this dust is not conventional ice. It's rock hard, but it doesn't resemble what comes out of your freezer whatsoever. It's like highly compressed sand. It's firm, but the surface is different from natural snow.
So let's say you're a world class skier, a champion, and you want to win in the Olympics. You study the course, but if you're doing it right, you're skiing on feel. The more you inject your mind into the equation, the worse, the slower you ski.
Now a great slalom skier can set an edge and actually accelerate out of a turn. And a great World Cup slalom skier believes the surface surrounding the gate will be ice. That's right, like you have in your drink. You may not be able to ski on it, but their boards are tuned to an incredible sharpness at a higher angle than recreational skis and the athletes are in unbelievable shape, and so when you set your edge... It's essentially the same the entire winter. But in Beijing...
The greats have been faltering. Not only Shiffrin, but her boyfriend Kilde and her direct competitor Vlhova.
So Shiffrin pushes out of the gate, she gets into her groove, and sets her edge and... She feels this layer of sand on top. And underneath this is the brick hard compressed snow that is much harder to get an edge in than ice. So, you don't get instant grip, so you set your edge harder, and you bungle, what happens is not what you expected, your edge gets caught, or your ski slides and...you're out of the course.
But it gets even worse. Because the temperatures at the courses have been so damn low, hovering near zero, all the moisture that does exist in the snow has been wiped out, pulled out of the snow and is now gone. Try skiing on a bitter cold day, oftentimes your skis will barely move, because all the moisture has been sucked out of the snow, and the ski needs to heat up the snow underneath it to create a wet layer to slide ahead.
So, Mikaela Shiffrin feels the pressure, she's got to win. And she's got confidence in herself, she can ski these courses in her sleep, and she never skis out. But she's running on instinct, setting an edge, and it just doesn't feel like it normally does. Do you employ a lighter touch or a heavier one? Heavier ones usually slow you down, but if it's steep enough and you're good enough you can set an edge and accelerate. But your ski must hold the line exactly, never waver, which is very hard to do in the snow in Beijing.
Shiffrin is not the only skier having this problem. Her boyfriend Kilde, dominant in the downhill on the World Cup, got aggressive and set his edge and lost fractions of a second which left him out of the medals.
Same deal with Vlhova, Shiffrin's rival. She was way back in the giant slalom, and as I write this way off pace in the first run of the slalom.
But doesn't everybody ski on the same surface?
Yes, but there's less pressure on the non-stars. They can relax more, to their advantage. Whereas the stars, especially Shiffrin in the slalom, have to ski to win! They can't let their foot off the gas. And in this aggressive pose, they set their skis into this junk...
I mean it doesn't even feel like regular snow. Like I said, the top is like sand, small grains floating around. And underneath this is the same substance, just compressed so hard that there's almost no give. Whereas if it's ice, the edge comes in and melts the ice ever so minimally and you hold your carve, the ski doesn't slip, and you're on your way.
What next, winter Olympics in Miami?
This has gone too far.
P.S. Petra Vlhova won the gold medal in the slalom. Like I said above, she was far behind in the first run, in eighth place, .72 seconds off the pace, but the truth is Vlhova and Shiffrin can make up as much as 1.5 seconds in the second run, they're just that good. And on the second run, the start order is reversed. Slower skiers first, fastest skiers last, and there are thirty of them. And with absolutely nothing to lose, Vlhova threw down a blistering second run. To go into first position. With seven skiers left. And this is very tough psychologically for the remaining skiers. Vlhova is the best on the circuit, even better than Shiffrin this year, and if she threw down such a great run...to win, they had to lay down a blistering one too. Talk about pressure. No one could.
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-Apple: https://apple.co/2ndmpvp
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Slalom racing used to be completely different, then again, so were the Olympics. The Olympics used to be held in winter burgs with nearby mountains with natural snow. They even used to be held in mountain towns, like St. Moritz, or Squaw Valley, even Lake Placid. Now the winter Olympics are held in the metropolis, to maximize dollars. The venues are almost secondary. It all comes down to money. And the country with the most money gets the games, and if there's any doubt, any difference, any question, that's where corruption comes in. The Olympics are no better than the Golden Globes. Pierce the surface of the telecast and you will not like what you see.
So, nobody wants the winter games anymore. Because they're too damn expensive. So that's how we end up with the games in Beijing, Xi believes the money spent is worth it, showing the advancement of China. As for Sochi... Since Putin is a kleptocrat, he gave the contracts to his buddies and even made money personally from the spend. And when the games were over he invaded Ukraine. As for the Sochi games... Sochi is a seaside resort. There are mountains, but the sun and temperature are intense, and what you want in ski racing is consistency, so the snow warmed up and later racers were penalized in Sochi, because the wetter snow is slower, and in Beijing...
There's essentially no snow at all. Depending upon reports, where the races are held they get somewhere between two and eight inches a year, so you've got to install the guns and make the snow yourself.
Now slalom used to be a game of going around the poles, i.e. gates. But with the advent of shaped-skis and breakaway gates, you now go through the gates as opposed to around them.
Yes, in the late nineties the skis changed. And it was the racers who cottoned to the new shaped skis last. But those who were there first, like Bode Miller and Deborah Compagnoni, ate up the field and then everybody switched... To much shorter skis that you only had to lay on edge and they carved.
As for the breakaway gates... At first the gates were made out of bamboo. Then they went to plastic, and when you hit them, it hurt. But when skiers hit traditional gates they frequently popped out of the snow. And then the race had to be stopped while the pole was replaced, and this happened over and over again. So someone came up with the idea of breakaway gates. They're still made of plastic, but there is a hinge at snow level, so when you hit the pole it bends, maybe even all the way down to the snow surface, and then pops back up, ready for the next racer
So the game changed. Now you donned your short shaped skis, which carved on a dime, put on your armor and then went as straight as you could, right into the gates.
As for the surface itself...
In the old days there used to be ruts. The initial skiers down the course had an advantage, the surface was smooth, yet it quickly got torn up. But, if they could make the course firm, it would be the same for everybody, much more fair. And you have to make it a bit fair for those at the bottom, otherwise they can never get good results and move up the ladder. And the solution to the rut problem was turning the surface into ice.
Which every recreational skier hates!
But the racers love it. Because it's consistent.
And to ensure there is ice, before the race they inject water into the course the night before, so it will freeze into ice, I kid you not.
Now making snow is an art. And don't confuse the manmade snow in Beijing with that on your local hill. The local hill always makes snow with a high water content, to make a firm base. They want a layer to cover the ground and stay there. And for decades, manmade snow was known for its iciness. But then with new equipment and greater insight they were able to make snow closer to the real thing.
So what happened in Beijing is they laid down high water content snow, for a base, but the top surface...they tried to replicate something closer to powder. So what you end up with is a firm surface with some kickaround dust that's akin to sand on top of it.
And underneath this dust is not conventional ice. It's rock hard, but it doesn't resemble what comes out of your freezer whatsoever. It's like highly compressed sand. It's firm, but the surface is different from natural snow.
So let's say you're a world class skier, a champion, and you want to win in the Olympics. You study the course, but if you're doing it right, you're skiing on feel. The more you inject your mind into the equation, the worse, the slower you ski.
Now a great slalom skier can set an edge and actually accelerate out of a turn. And a great World Cup slalom skier believes the surface surrounding the gate will be ice. That's right, like you have in your drink. You may not be able to ski on it, but their boards are tuned to an incredible sharpness at a higher angle than recreational skis and the athletes are in unbelievable shape, and so when you set your edge... It's essentially the same the entire winter. But in Beijing...
The greats have been faltering. Not only Shiffrin, but her boyfriend Kilde and her direct competitor Vlhova.
So Shiffrin pushes out of the gate, she gets into her groove, and sets her edge and... She feels this layer of sand on top. And underneath this is the brick hard compressed snow that is much harder to get an edge in than ice. So, you don't get instant grip, so you set your edge harder, and you bungle, what happens is not what you expected, your edge gets caught, or your ski slides and...you're out of the course.
But it gets even worse. Because the temperatures at the courses have been so damn low, hovering near zero, all the moisture that does exist in the snow has been wiped out, pulled out of the snow and is now gone. Try skiing on a bitter cold day, oftentimes your skis will barely move, because all the moisture has been sucked out of the snow, and the ski needs to heat up the snow underneath it to create a wet layer to slide ahead.
So, Mikaela Shiffrin feels the pressure, she's got to win. And she's got confidence in herself, she can ski these courses in her sleep, and she never skis out. But she's running on instinct, setting an edge, and it just doesn't feel like it normally does. Do you employ a lighter touch or a heavier one? Heavier ones usually slow you down, but if it's steep enough and you're good enough you can set an edge and accelerate. But your ski must hold the line exactly, never waver, which is very hard to do in the snow in Beijing.
Shiffrin is not the only skier having this problem. Her boyfriend Kilde, dominant in the downhill on the World Cup, got aggressive and set his edge and lost fractions of a second which left him out of the medals.
Same deal with Vlhova, Shiffrin's rival. She was way back in the giant slalom, and as I write this way off pace in the first run of the slalom.
But doesn't everybody ski on the same surface?
Yes, but there's less pressure on the non-stars. They can relax more, to their advantage. Whereas the stars, especially Shiffrin in the slalom, have to ski to win! They can't let their foot off the gas. And in this aggressive pose, they set their skis into this junk...
I mean it doesn't even feel like regular snow. Like I said, the top is like sand, small grains floating around. And underneath this is the same substance, just compressed so hard that there's almost no give. Whereas if it's ice, the edge comes in and melts the ice ever so minimally and you hold your carve, the ski doesn't slip, and you're on your way.
What next, winter Olympics in Miami?
This has gone too far.
P.S. Petra Vlhova won the gold medal in the slalom. Like I said above, she was far behind in the first run, in eighth place, .72 seconds off the pace, but the truth is Vlhova and Shiffrin can make up as much as 1.5 seconds in the second run, they're just that good. And on the second run, the start order is reversed. Slower skiers first, fastest skiers last, and there are thirty of them. And with absolutely nothing to lose, Vlhova threw down a blistering second run. To go into first position. With seven skiers left. And this is very tough psychologically for the remaining skiers. Vlhova is the best on the circuit, even better than Shiffrin this year, and if she threw down such a great run...to win, they had to lay down a blistering one too. Talk about pressure. No one could.
--
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--
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-Apple: https://apple.co/2ndmpvp
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Steely Dan Playlist
https://spoti.fi/34IItr2
Spotify is never going to get rid of Joe Rogan.
The truth has now outed:
"'In 2019, our music and podcasting catalog was not that differentiated, and because of this we were locked out of deals with some critical hardware partners like Amazon, Google, and even Tesla,' Ek said. 'They had or were working to build their own streaming services with essentially the same content, so there was really no reason for them to integrate our service.'"
https://lat.ms/3LiO1cO
As I always say, distribution is king. You may have the greatest product extant, but if no one can consume it, or if it's hard to find, you're dead in the water.
These tech titans are evil. For a while there they were exalted. But most people today know that they are cutthroat operators. My best example of this is Bill Gates, who insisted Dell and other computer manufacturers pay for Windows EVEN IF IT WASN'T INSTALLED ON THE MACHINE! Yes, maybe you wanted Linux. You could get that, but you'd pay for Windows anyway.
And now, it's taken nearly forty years, but Bill Gates is a pariah. Turns out he's a creep. A nerd who never learned the boundaries, since he had bread and status he thought he had sexual power, he started hitting on everything that moved, EVEN THOUGH HE WAS MARRIED!
Karma, it's a bitch.
Will karma kill Mark Zuckerberg? Well, he took a hit last week, and the pile-on has been incredible, people were just waiting for this moment.
But of all the tech titans, the one with the smallest footprint and the least amount of power is Daniel Ek.
You can get his music from multiple platforms. He can compete on algorithms and playlists, but that's not enough of a differentiation to dominate.
Although Spotify does dominate in a way, that's where the most listening transpires, it's where the biggest music fans are. But now some of these fans are pissed and are ankling the service in the wake of Neil Young and his compatriots removing their music from the platform. That's right, CSNY & Nils Lofgren, who plays with Young. And India.Arie.
They've achieved their goal. You've got to know when to hold 'em and know when to fold 'em. The concept of getting rid of Rogan is a specious one, because of the above. Spotify needs Rogan for DISTRIBUTION! If you control the most popular podcast in the world, exclusively, other platforms need to make a deal with you. People want to hear Rogan via Alexa. And Tesla owners may not be that angry they've got no AM, but no Rogan? Why? It makes no sense to them.
So now these other platforms need to make Spotify available. They've got no choice, you can't get Rogan and other exclusive Spotify podcasts anywhere else.
Exclusivity. Apple was asleep at the wheel. They had first mover advantage, after all, they call it a PODcast! But they let their platform languish, and then Spotify came in, which needed podcasts, which Apple did not, and the green logo company bought the sphere in plain sight.
Everybody else saw podcasts as an open platform. Daniel Ek saw the power of exclusivity.
And he finally has a foot in the door and he's going to pull it out? NO WAY!
Not that Spotify should not be considered a publisher. Along with Facebook and the other social media platforms. Someone's got to take the tech titans' fingers out of this dike, let the water flow, leave them no choice but to admit they're publishers and need to oversee the content on their platforms.
But for now...Joe Rogan is on the run. He's going to think twice before he hosts a misinformation spewing nincompoop. He'll never use the n-word again. And if he does, HE'S TOAST! All those people defending Joe...once the n-word story came out they reneged, or went silent. You can't be aligned with the n-word unless you're Black, you cannot explain your usage of the term away, you've just got to shut up and be silent, AS IT SHOULD BE!
As for further misinformation, what Neil Young and his compadres should do is put their music back on Spotify and with the funds they now earn pay someone to listen to each and every Rogan podcast, and then blow the whistle if Joe crosses the line. That's how you win here, hold Rogan's feet to the fire. Because Ek is not giving him up unless he crosses the line, and when someone does this, after being warned, they're abandoned, repeat your bad behavior when the whole world is watching and there's no forgiveness, YOU SHOULD KNOW BETTER!
And believe me, Joe Rogan hasn't been sleeping too well, and is thinking about who he is booking and what he says in the future. You may not know this if you've never been in the public crosshairs, but anybody who has does.
As for all the b.s. about Spotify payments... CAN EVERYBODY STFU?!!
There are only a hundred cents in a dollar, Spotify is already paying seventy to rights holders, they can't pay you more than they take in, NEVER EVER!
And let's stop talking about penny rates per stream...THAT'S NOT HOW THEY'RE CALCULATED! It's a percentage, which changes based on the number of subscribers. It's not written in stone, never was.
And if we're bitching about the value of a Spotify stream, why not the payment for a terrestrial radio spin...which presently is NOTHING for the recording in the U.S. And this shouldn't be so, but in truth all online outfits pay for use of the recording, including Spotify, and terrestrial radio keeps fading, it may end up being mostly talk.
So let me see... You want more money. And Spotify's got no more. So where is it going to come from? OTHER ARTISTS! Yes, why don't you go to Drake or the Weeknd or Bruno Mars or Lady Gaga and say...you worked your butt off, you made it to the top, you sacrificed so much along the way, and now we're going to PENALIZE YOU for being so successful. Do you think they're going to buy it? NO WAY!
Yeah Kanye... You're too successful, you're taking up all the air, give a big chunk of it to us, the ones who've never broken through, because we're working really hard and we DESERVE IT!
Huh? Exactly why??
As for songwriters, they were screwed by the major labels, who own their own publishing companies, best to take less for songs and screw the rest of the songwriters. And this is on EVERY platform. As for Spotify agitating against songwriter increases... Like I said, there are only a hundred cents in the dollar, most quarters Spotify LOSES money. If you want more money songwriters, get in the face of the major labels!
That's right, all the artists bitched about streaming payments in the U.K. and the government held hearings and found out the main culprit was the major labels, paying a small percentage of what came in to artists. If songwriters want more money they need to protest against the majors, but they're opaque organizations which are famous for hoarding what they're not entitled to, do you really think they're going to give you their money? But that's where it would have to come from.
Daniel Ek is not saving Joe Rogan, he's saving HIS COMPANY! The same company that is THE MAIN DRIVER OF RECORDING INCOME! You want Spotify in business, believe me. Pressure got Ek to publish guidance, content rules, focus on those who break the proffered rules going forward! Forget the past, it's set in stone. Neil Young doesn't remake "Harvest" and post it online instead of the original.
So I'm posting my playlists on Spotify...
And do you know why I do so?? BECAUSE OF THE FREE TIER!
That's right, ANYBODY can listen to the above playlist, ANYBODY! You don't have to subscribe to Spotify. And none of the money from music subscriptions is given to podcasters. It's the free tier that built streaming into a behemoth, that saved the record business, get rid of it and watch revenues stagnate. And that's right, you can listen free on YouTube, and for years the recording industry has been fighting for higher payments and what have they achieved? BUPKES! In truth, despite all their b.s., Google could give a damn about music, it's a small part of the company's overall revenue. But, turns out dedicated music listeners have abandoned YouTube for Spotify, AND THIS IS A GOOD THING! YouTube isn't great for music, but Spotify and the rest of the streaming platforms are.
But Bob, WHAT ABOUT THE LITTLE GUY?
SCREW 'EM!
This makes me crazy, want to make some money? Jobs in America are going begging. Why are you entitled to make music from recordings? Give me one good reason. Because you WANT TO? It's a competition, and only the best win. And if you're not winning, your music doesn't appeal to most people. So either convince them to listen or deliver what they want. If you want a subsidy, talk to a museum, a nonprofit, not SPOTIFY!
I'd like to play for the Yankees. I like baseball. They should let me play. At least in the minors. And pay me enough to take care of all my bills. And I don't want to ride in the bus, give me a limo.
You can go to all these sites making a TON more money than me and get false hope. They're feeding you b.s. so you'll pay to use their platform, telling you you can win when you can't. That's an entire business, giving false hope to wannabes. How many of these wannabes break through? CLOSE TO ZERO! But they all want to be paid. They're "professionals," they deserve to make a living in music. Drake, CAN YOU HELP A BROTHER OUT?!
Once again, Spotify should consider itself a publisher and Joe Rogan should not be spewing misinformation. Now we've drawn attention to the behavior, now they're under the microscope. Mixing metaphors, once again, hold their feet to the fire, it's the only way progress can be made.
Turns out the other acts don't want to follow in Neil Young's footsteps. Own it Neil. For your own credibility. Stop spewing nonsense that people should quit working for Spotify. ARE YOU GONNA PAY THEM?
It's what they told us in the sixties, if you want real change you've got to go inside, run for office! If you want real change you want to stay on Spotify, you want to continue to use Spotify, TO MONITOR THEIR BEHAVIOR!
So tonight when you chase the dragon, listen to the above playlist on Spotify.
You might want to tour the southland in a traveling minstrel show, but that's a hard road to go down. I mean you've got costs, and you have to sell tickets...
Some people are listeners and some people are players. Some people are professionals and some people are hobbyists.
And if Rogan touches the third rail once more, go back Neil, and do it again, wheel turnin' 'round and 'round, go back Neil and do it again!
--
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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--
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Spotify is never going to get rid of Joe Rogan.
The truth has now outed:
"'In 2019, our music and podcasting catalog was not that differentiated, and because of this we were locked out of deals with some critical hardware partners like Amazon, Google, and even Tesla,' Ek said. 'They had or were working to build their own streaming services with essentially the same content, so there was really no reason for them to integrate our service.'"
https://lat.ms/3LiO1cO
As I always say, distribution is king. You may have the greatest product extant, but if no one can consume it, or if it's hard to find, you're dead in the water.
These tech titans are evil. For a while there they were exalted. But most people today know that they are cutthroat operators. My best example of this is Bill Gates, who insisted Dell and other computer manufacturers pay for Windows EVEN IF IT WASN'T INSTALLED ON THE MACHINE! Yes, maybe you wanted Linux. You could get that, but you'd pay for Windows anyway.
And now, it's taken nearly forty years, but Bill Gates is a pariah. Turns out he's a creep. A nerd who never learned the boundaries, since he had bread and status he thought he had sexual power, he started hitting on everything that moved, EVEN THOUGH HE WAS MARRIED!
Karma, it's a bitch.
Will karma kill Mark Zuckerberg? Well, he took a hit last week, and the pile-on has been incredible, people were just waiting for this moment.
But of all the tech titans, the one with the smallest footprint and the least amount of power is Daniel Ek.
You can get his music from multiple platforms. He can compete on algorithms and playlists, but that's not enough of a differentiation to dominate.
Although Spotify does dominate in a way, that's where the most listening transpires, it's where the biggest music fans are. But now some of these fans are pissed and are ankling the service in the wake of Neil Young and his compatriots removing their music from the platform. That's right, CSNY & Nils Lofgren, who plays with Young. And India.Arie.
They've achieved their goal. You've got to know when to hold 'em and know when to fold 'em. The concept of getting rid of Rogan is a specious one, because of the above. Spotify needs Rogan for DISTRIBUTION! If you control the most popular podcast in the world, exclusively, other platforms need to make a deal with you. People want to hear Rogan via Alexa. And Tesla owners may not be that angry they've got no AM, but no Rogan? Why? It makes no sense to them.
So now these other platforms need to make Spotify available. They've got no choice, you can't get Rogan and other exclusive Spotify podcasts anywhere else.
Exclusivity. Apple was asleep at the wheel. They had first mover advantage, after all, they call it a PODcast! But they let their platform languish, and then Spotify came in, which needed podcasts, which Apple did not, and the green logo company bought the sphere in plain sight.
Everybody else saw podcasts as an open platform. Daniel Ek saw the power of exclusivity.
And he finally has a foot in the door and he's going to pull it out? NO WAY!
Not that Spotify should not be considered a publisher. Along with Facebook and the other social media platforms. Someone's got to take the tech titans' fingers out of this dike, let the water flow, leave them no choice but to admit they're publishers and need to oversee the content on their platforms.
But for now...Joe Rogan is on the run. He's going to think twice before he hosts a misinformation spewing nincompoop. He'll never use the n-word again. And if he does, HE'S TOAST! All those people defending Joe...once the n-word story came out they reneged, or went silent. You can't be aligned with the n-word unless you're Black, you cannot explain your usage of the term away, you've just got to shut up and be silent, AS IT SHOULD BE!
As for further misinformation, what Neil Young and his compadres should do is put their music back on Spotify and with the funds they now earn pay someone to listen to each and every Rogan podcast, and then blow the whistle if Joe crosses the line. That's how you win here, hold Rogan's feet to the fire. Because Ek is not giving him up unless he crosses the line, and when someone does this, after being warned, they're abandoned, repeat your bad behavior when the whole world is watching and there's no forgiveness, YOU SHOULD KNOW BETTER!
And believe me, Joe Rogan hasn't been sleeping too well, and is thinking about who he is booking and what he says in the future. You may not know this if you've never been in the public crosshairs, but anybody who has does.
As for all the b.s. about Spotify payments... CAN EVERYBODY STFU?!!
There are only a hundred cents in a dollar, Spotify is already paying seventy to rights holders, they can't pay you more than they take in, NEVER EVER!
And let's stop talking about penny rates per stream...THAT'S NOT HOW THEY'RE CALCULATED! It's a percentage, which changes based on the number of subscribers. It's not written in stone, never was.
And if we're bitching about the value of a Spotify stream, why not the payment for a terrestrial radio spin...which presently is NOTHING for the recording in the U.S. And this shouldn't be so, but in truth all online outfits pay for use of the recording, including Spotify, and terrestrial radio keeps fading, it may end up being mostly talk.
So let me see... You want more money. And Spotify's got no more. So where is it going to come from? OTHER ARTISTS! Yes, why don't you go to Drake or the Weeknd or Bruno Mars or Lady Gaga and say...you worked your butt off, you made it to the top, you sacrificed so much along the way, and now we're going to PENALIZE YOU for being so successful. Do you think they're going to buy it? NO WAY!
Yeah Kanye... You're too successful, you're taking up all the air, give a big chunk of it to us, the ones who've never broken through, because we're working really hard and we DESERVE IT!
Huh? Exactly why??
As for songwriters, they were screwed by the major labels, who own their own publishing companies, best to take less for songs and screw the rest of the songwriters. And this is on EVERY platform. As for Spotify agitating against songwriter increases... Like I said, there are only a hundred cents in the dollar, most quarters Spotify LOSES money. If you want more money songwriters, get in the face of the major labels!
That's right, all the artists bitched about streaming payments in the U.K. and the government held hearings and found out the main culprit was the major labels, paying a small percentage of what came in to artists. If songwriters want more money they need to protest against the majors, but they're opaque organizations which are famous for hoarding what they're not entitled to, do you really think they're going to give you their money? But that's where it would have to come from.
Daniel Ek is not saving Joe Rogan, he's saving HIS COMPANY! The same company that is THE MAIN DRIVER OF RECORDING INCOME! You want Spotify in business, believe me. Pressure got Ek to publish guidance, content rules, focus on those who break the proffered rules going forward! Forget the past, it's set in stone. Neil Young doesn't remake "Harvest" and post it online instead of the original.
So I'm posting my playlists on Spotify...
And do you know why I do so?? BECAUSE OF THE FREE TIER!
That's right, ANYBODY can listen to the above playlist, ANYBODY! You don't have to subscribe to Spotify. And none of the money from music subscriptions is given to podcasters. It's the free tier that built streaming into a behemoth, that saved the record business, get rid of it and watch revenues stagnate. And that's right, you can listen free on YouTube, and for years the recording industry has been fighting for higher payments and what have they achieved? BUPKES! In truth, despite all their b.s., Google could give a damn about music, it's a small part of the company's overall revenue. But, turns out dedicated music listeners have abandoned YouTube for Spotify, AND THIS IS A GOOD THING! YouTube isn't great for music, but Spotify and the rest of the streaming platforms are.
But Bob, WHAT ABOUT THE LITTLE GUY?
SCREW 'EM!
This makes me crazy, want to make some money? Jobs in America are going begging. Why are you entitled to make music from recordings? Give me one good reason. Because you WANT TO? It's a competition, and only the best win. And if you're not winning, your music doesn't appeal to most people. So either convince them to listen or deliver what they want. If you want a subsidy, talk to a museum, a nonprofit, not SPOTIFY!
I'd like to play for the Yankees. I like baseball. They should let me play. At least in the minors. And pay me enough to take care of all my bills. And I don't want to ride in the bus, give me a limo.
You can go to all these sites making a TON more money than me and get false hope. They're feeding you b.s. so you'll pay to use their platform, telling you you can win when you can't. That's an entire business, giving false hope to wannabes. How many of these wannabes break through? CLOSE TO ZERO! But they all want to be paid. They're "professionals," they deserve to make a living in music. Drake, CAN YOU HELP A BROTHER OUT?!
Once again, Spotify should consider itself a publisher and Joe Rogan should not be spewing misinformation. Now we've drawn attention to the behavior, now they're under the microscope. Mixing metaphors, once again, hold their feet to the fire, it's the only way progress can be made.
Turns out the other acts don't want to follow in Neil Young's footsteps. Own it Neil. For your own credibility. Stop spewing nonsense that people should quit working for Spotify. ARE YOU GONNA PAY THEM?
It's what they told us in the sixties, if you want real change you've got to go inside, run for office! If you want real change you want to stay on Spotify, you want to continue to use Spotify, TO MONITOR THEIR BEHAVIOR!
So tonight when you chase the dragon, listen to the above playlist on Spotify.
You might want to tour the southland in a traveling minstrel show, but that's a hard road to go down. I mean you've got costs, and you have to sell tickets...
Some people are listeners and some people are players. Some people are professionals and some people are hobbyists.
And if Rogan touches the third rail once more, go back Neil, and do it again, wheel turnin' 'round and 'round, go back Neil and do it again!
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Your Favorite Steely Dan Track-This Week On SiriusXM
Tune in today, February 8th, to Volume 106, 7 PM East, 4 PM West.
Phone #: 844-6-VOLUME, 844-686-5863
Twitter: @lefsetz or @siriusxmvolume/#lefsetzlive
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Phone #: 844-6-VOLUME, 844-686-5863
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Sunday, 6 February 2022
Mikaela Falls
And now the odds of her winning five gold medals are history, her odds of winning ANY gold medals are very long.
Makes you hate American media. They need a face for the Olympics, they decided it was Shiffrin, just like they decided it was Bode Miller back in 2006 in Torino. And not delivering, despite being the overall best in the world, Bode was forever branded a loser, when in truth the Olympics are just one set of races, subject to the vagaries of the system, and the fact that Bode went on to win three medals in Vancouver, one of each color, was not good enough, the focus was now on Lindsey Vonn.
Vonn won gold in the downhill, and a bronze in the Super-G, so she became America's sweetheart. Julia Mancuso's two silvers in Vancouver, to go with her gold in Torino and bronze in Sochi...Julia WHO?
If you're a student of the game you know that Shiffrin has not been as dominant since her father died. But life intervenes. You also know that Annemarie Proser-Pröll, probably the best women's ski racer ever, not that anybody recalls, never mind remembers history, took a year off to take care of her sick father, otherwise...we wouldn't be talking about Lindsey Vonn challenging Ingemar Stenmark's record of 82 victories. Moser-Pröll won 62 times in 11 seasons. She won the gold in the downhill at the Lake Placid Olympics. Whereas Vonn won 82 times in 19 years, and there were two more events, the super-G and combined. Unlike Vonn, Moser-Pröll could win in all three events of the time, instead of today's five. But at first Moser-Pröll was not photogenic, she was significantly overweight. She ultimately slimmed down considerably and still won, but most Americans have never heard of her. The machine needs a new face, and they got it with Vonn, and they expected it with Shiffrin.
Shiffrin was a machine. She finished seemingly every race and won in slalom again and again. Once again, if you watch ski racing, you know this is essentially unheard of. Hermann Maier wasn't as good. Marcel Hirscher was the closest thing to Shiffrin, but he didn't ski downhill, with its higher odds of injury.
Now you can't completely count Shiffrin out in super-G and downhill, but the odds are very long, especially in the latter. As a matter of fact, Shiffrin skipped the speed events recently to concentrate on the so-called technical events, slalom and giant slalom, in preparation for the Olympics. After she recovered from Covid. She had to deliver for America, she was the great blonde, white hope!
But along the way, a new contender came along. She's just as good as Shiffrin in the slalom, AND NO ONE HAS EVER COME CLOSE! Petra Vlhova has already won five times in slalom this season, Shiffrin only twice. Psychologically, this is very difficult for Shiffrin, who always knew she was better, she could hold back on the first run and cruise to victory in the second, knowing she had just a little bit more in the tank than anybody else. But now she's got to go all out, all the time, which increases the odds of mistakes, like today.
Let's see... Today. A steep, icy course. Vlhova herself bungled. Shiffrin got past the first problem area, where others had fallen and bungled, but further down...she went over.
I'm sure Shiffrin's mind was now in front of her skis. She'd gotten through the hard part, she was on her way. But she lost her edge, her skis slipped out from under her.
Now if you watched it on TV, you were stunned at the angle she was at to begin with. Everyday skiers don't even come close.
But there's no joy in Mudville tonight, the mighty Shiffrin has gone down.
And if it were the normal season, Shiffrin would shrug and move on. Everybody makes mistakes. Never mind this race being on a new hill covered in manmade snow which is notoriously icy. Good for later skiers, but a bit tougher overall.
So the odds of Shiffrin delivering like Lindsey are very long. You won't see her on late night TV, she won't be on the cover of magazines and newspapers, she disappointed America, she's nothing but a LOSER!
Anything but.
It's one race out of the season. But America only pays attention to the Olympics.
Everybody knows that Shiffrin is a legend, superior in her skills to Vonn, even Bode testifies as to Shiffrin's talent. But she disappointed America, she blew it when the light was upon her, forevermore she'll be known as the woman who didn't deliver.
Forget her victories in the past, even gold medals. Doesn't matter, she was not in the spotlight, she was not carrying the weight of the entire country onto the slope.
Now in Europe, they know how good Shiffrin is. Bode too. They're heroes. They're Americans, but their legends really live overseas. And Shiffrin is one for the ages. But in the eyes of America, she's no Lindsey Vonn.
Shiffrin is 26. She could regain her edge and break Stenmark's record of 86 victories in 19 seasons. And sure, when Stenmark competed there were two fewer disciplines, but he, unlike Shiffrin, doesn't ski the downhill. But Shiffrin has even won in the downhill. She's a five event skier, like Bode Miller, a true oddity in this era of specialization. And Shiffrin has won 73 times in 12 seasons. Quite an achievement.
Now in truth ski racing is no longer the sport it was in the sixties, when Billy Kidd came out of Stowe, Vermont to challenge and beat the Europeans. Kidd was slight. Today everybody works out in the gym, year-rou
nd, something Kidd never did. Today's ski racers are jocks, they're about as similar to the average citizen as an NFL player. Because if you're not in the absolute best shape, you have no chance to win.
And in truth, almost all sacrifice their education to compete on the circuit. And when their careers are over, they can trade on their fame, or they could go back to school, but when they finally get in the groove they're a decade behind everybody else.
And no one is more regimented and focused than Shiffrin. Which is what makes her so great. She famously skied gates on powder days at Burke Mountain Academy, which is like showing up at school on a snow day, unheard of. That's what it takes to be a champion,
But no one sees all that, especially in today's world where everybody's hyping themselves online ad infinitum.
The fact that Shiffrin can compete at all with the weight of expectations upon her astounds me. You've got to be loose and flexible in ski racing, anxiety and pressure make you tense.
So I've got no problem with Mikaela Shiffrin falling in today's giant slalom, none at all.
Unfortunately, America does.
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Makes you hate American media. They need a face for the Olympics, they decided it was Shiffrin, just like they decided it was Bode Miller back in 2006 in Torino. And not delivering, despite being the overall best in the world, Bode was forever branded a loser, when in truth the Olympics are just one set of races, subject to the vagaries of the system, and the fact that Bode went on to win three medals in Vancouver, one of each color, was not good enough, the focus was now on Lindsey Vonn.
Vonn won gold in the downhill, and a bronze in the Super-G, so she became America's sweetheart. Julia Mancuso's two silvers in Vancouver, to go with her gold in Torino and bronze in Sochi...Julia WHO?
If you're a student of the game you know that Shiffrin has not been as dominant since her father died. But life intervenes. You also know that Annemarie Proser-Pröll, probably the best women's ski racer ever, not that anybody recalls, never mind remembers history, took a year off to take care of her sick father, otherwise...we wouldn't be talking about Lindsey Vonn challenging Ingemar Stenmark's record of 82 victories. Moser-Pröll won 62 times in 11 seasons. She won the gold in the downhill at the Lake Placid Olympics. Whereas Vonn won 82 times in 19 years, and there were two more events, the super-G and combined. Unlike Vonn, Moser-Pröll could win in all three events of the time, instead of today's five. But at first Moser-Pröll was not photogenic, she was significantly overweight. She ultimately slimmed down considerably and still won, but most Americans have never heard of her. The machine needs a new face, and they got it with Vonn, and they expected it with Shiffrin.
Shiffrin was a machine. She finished seemingly every race and won in slalom again and again. Once again, if you watch ski racing, you know this is essentially unheard of. Hermann Maier wasn't as good. Marcel Hirscher was the closest thing to Shiffrin, but he didn't ski downhill, with its higher odds of injury.
Now you can't completely count Shiffrin out in super-G and downhill, but the odds are very long, especially in the latter. As a matter of fact, Shiffrin skipped the speed events recently to concentrate on the so-called technical events, slalom and giant slalom, in preparation for the Olympics. After she recovered from Covid. She had to deliver for America, she was the great blonde, white hope!
But along the way, a new contender came along. She's just as good as Shiffrin in the slalom, AND NO ONE HAS EVER COME CLOSE! Petra Vlhova has already won five times in slalom this season, Shiffrin only twice. Psychologically, this is very difficult for Shiffrin, who always knew she was better, she could hold back on the first run and cruise to victory in the second, knowing she had just a little bit more in the tank than anybody else. But now she's got to go all out, all the time, which increases the odds of mistakes, like today.
Let's see... Today. A steep, icy course. Vlhova herself bungled. Shiffrin got past the first problem area, where others had fallen and bungled, but further down...she went over.
I'm sure Shiffrin's mind was now in front of her skis. She'd gotten through the hard part, she was on her way. But she lost her edge, her skis slipped out from under her.
Now if you watched it on TV, you were stunned at the angle she was at to begin with. Everyday skiers don't even come close.
But there's no joy in Mudville tonight, the mighty Shiffrin has gone down.
And if it were the normal season, Shiffrin would shrug and move on. Everybody makes mistakes. Never mind this race being on a new hill covered in manmade snow which is notoriously icy. Good for later skiers, but a bit tougher overall.
So the odds of Shiffrin delivering like Lindsey are very long. You won't see her on late night TV, she won't be on the cover of magazines and newspapers, she disappointed America, she's nothing but a LOSER!
Anything but.
It's one race out of the season. But America only pays attention to the Olympics.
Everybody knows that Shiffrin is a legend, superior in her skills to Vonn, even Bode testifies as to Shiffrin's talent. But she disappointed America, she blew it when the light was upon her, forevermore she'll be known as the woman who didn't deliver.
Forget her victories in the past, even gold medals. Doesn't matter, she was not in the spotlight, she was not carrying the weight of the entire country onto the slope.
Now in Europe, they know how good Shiffrin is. Bode too. They're heroes. They're Americans, but their legends really live overseas. And Shiffrin is one for the ages. But in the eyes of America, she's no Lindsey Vonn.
Shiffrin is 26. She could regain her edge and break Stenmark's record of 86 victories in 19 seasons. And sure, when Stenmark competed there were two fewer disciplines, but he, unlike Shiffrin, doesn't ski the downhill. But Shiffrin has even won in the downhill. She's a five event skier, like Bode Miller, a true oddity in this era of specialization. And Shiffrin has won 73 times in 12 seasons. Quite an achievement.
Now in truth ski racing is no longer the sport it was in the sixties, when Billy Kidd came out of Stowe, Vermont to challenge and beat the Europeans. Kidd was slight. Today everybody works out in the gym, year-rou
nd, something Kidd never did. Today's ski racers are jocks, they're about as similar to the average citizen as an NFL player. Because if you're not in the absolute best shape, you have no chance to win.
And in truth, almost all sacrifice their education to compete on the circuit. And when their careers are over, they can trade on their fame, or they could go back to school, but when they finally get in the groove they're a decade behind everybody else.
And no one is more regimented and focused than Shiffrin. Which is what makes her so great. She famously skied gates on powder days at Burke Mountain Academy, which is like showing up at school on a snow day, unheard of. That's what it takes to be a champion,
But no one sees all that, especially in today's world where everybody's hyping themselves online ad infinitum.
The fact that Shiffrin can compete at all with the weight of expectations upon her astounds me. You've got to be loose and flexible in ski racing, anxiety and pressure make you tense.
So I've got no problem with Mikaela Shiffrin falling in today's giant slalom, none at all.
Unfortunately, America does.
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Today's Fandom
Is not yesterday's fandom.
Every other day I have people attacking me for what I said about Taylor Swift's performance at the Grammys over a decade ago. When I research further, I find that most of these people were barely born when this happened. But they need to defend their hero.
But Taylor Swift was not like her contemporaries. She was a teenager singing from the heart. She was perceived to be genuine. She represented the demo. AND STILL DOES!
A week or so ago, Damon Albarn of Blur/Gorillaz, attacked Ms. Swift, saying that she did not write her own songs. The blowback was instant. Ms. Swift responded and then her minions piled on and Albarn retracted his statements nearly instantly.
This is also different, stars of yore didn't bite back. Nor did they have the communications methods to do so. As a matter of fact, most hatred went unnoticed and unread, the internet amplifies hate today, but there are so many more things to hate in the channel.
And hate is the word. There is nothing subtle about it. Not only are you wrong, you must be excoriated, intimidated, the goal is to get you to crawl back into the hole you came from and be silent. Which keeps many people from playing at all, or playing once and then giving up. But unless you're part of the maelstrom you've got no idea what is truly going on in America today, because it's a war.
Now Taylor Swift has been around for a long time, she broke in 2006, over fifteen years ago. When MySpace was still a thing. And not only was Facebook not dominant, Instagram and Twitter, the entire social media world of today, didn't exist and had no traction. So really, Taylor Swift is an outlier, her career began in the aughts, under a different paradigm, because today no one can have the footprint of Swift, NO ONE!
This is what the music industry media disinformation machine obscures. Rihanna revealed she was pregnant last week. But she hasn't had a record in half a decade, she's in the rearview mirror. Most people shrugged, even though the story is everywhere. In truth, Rihanna gave up music for the mainstream, the penumbra, the opportunities that stardom has delivered, she's no longer a musician. And she broke the year before Swift, and although she was in the spotlight, she had no rough edges. And sans rough edges you can't grow a fan base today.
This is what those on the way up don't realize. That they will never become ubiquitous, not even world famous. Oh, people might know them around the world, but not MOST people, even though the publicity machine will hype them to high heaven. But in today's multifarious world you don't have to pay attention to any media that doesn't appeal or agree with you.
Which is why pop stars come and go. Their fans are not dedicated, it's all about the songs, it's momentary. To have a dedicated fan base you have to think smaller, like a metal band.
Metal is thriving. It never ever crosses over to the mainstream, it puts up poor streaming numbers, but its fans are some of the hardest core extant. They relish being outsiders, they're not just fans of the music, but the whole ethos. You go to the show to be with like-minded people. It's us versus them. The fact that people outside this world can't even understand the music, never mind the fandom, only bonds believers to the act and the scene even more.
Used to be people were fans of the system. Now they're fans of INDIVIDUALS!
It was AM radio in the sixties. Then FM. Then MTV. Now there's no overarching distribution medium that bonds people to it. Certainly not a streaming service, nobody believes in Spotify, never mind Apple or Amazon. If these outlets were smart, they'd try to gain adherence from their users, akin to the "I Want My MTV" campaign, but they're run by techies, not marketers, if you don't understand fandom you cannot create it, never mind nurture it.
It must be an identity. Not only are you a fan of the person and their output, you're against anything that intrudes upon it. So, one can't believe in a streaming music distributor, because if it has everything, there's nothing to hate. You need context.
And fandom can be of a scene, like with metal above. Kind of like the jam-band scene, listeners may be mellower, but they will tell you they listen to nothing else, and everybody else's music is crap.
Which is what the Joe Rogan story is all about. Forget the content, it's HIM versus the WORLD!
What's the first thing a Roganite will say in his defense? HAVE YOU LISTENED TO HIM? Because if you did, you'd instantly become a believer, otherwise you're the enemy. You either love him or hate him, and his fans will defend him to their death. If you think this is about content, you're missing the point.
Not that content hasn't built Rogan's rep. He's hosting the outsiders, the people who get traction nowhere else. Which appeals to his outsider fans. What do they say, Rogan has 11 million listeners? That's a drop in the bucket, especially considering it's a worldwide number, and Rogan does have fans around the world, and Rogan's podcasts is the BIGGEST!
Everything is niche. Except maybe the Super Bowl. Then again, America puts on blinders as large men hit each other and cause brain damage. But everybody else is watching football too, we can root for our home team (the idea of the Dallas Cowboys being America's Team are long gone), and watch a contest which is essentially a fight to the death. It gets our ya-ya's out. We can yell and scream. We don't have to hold back. Letting go is approved, whereas every day your behavior is limited by society, what you can do or not, there's a psychological cloud atop every American, limiting their behavior. This may or may not be true, but people feel it. Because their teams have amplified the message and there are no refs in real life. The word police. The sexual behavior police. People feel constrained and they cannot escape it, nowhere is off the grid, everybody's connected, so they REACT!
And in order to react, you must have something to believe in. And it doesn't matter if what you believe in is right or wrong, or if the person delivering the message is heinous, they're INVESTED in this person and their message, and to show weakness is anathema.
Older people who grew up in the last century, yesteryear, just don't get it. They think we can all get along. NO WAY! Because for me to get along I have to give up my fandom, my allegiance, and it DEFINES ME!
Otherwise what defines you?
Certainly not your job. It's low-paying labor or service or else you're a cog in the machine at the tech company. And the rulers of this country, the billionaires, believe you should be happy, since you've got a flat screen, alcohol and maybe even legal marijuana. I mean what else could you want?
TO BE HEARD, TO BE CONSIDERED!
For a while there, people were fans of corporations, especially tech corps. But that was before solidification of the sphere. When Apple was an upstart, an underdog doing it differently, you could align your beliefs with the company. But then the sun shined on the company and its manufacturing and labor processes came into view and no matter what was said in the company's defense, it didn't wash. The truth is everybody wants the cost efficiencies of cheap labor, America has voted for lower prices even if it means people have to get on the plane last and take no luggage, and if you go against this you lose.
And Amazon has got its warehouses.
And Google and Facebook have manipulated the online advertising world.
And we get inane doublespeak, like Mark Zuckerberg railing against Apple's iPhone privacy/anti-tracking options by saying the customer will be hurt, they won't have as targeted ads. HUH? The users want NO ADS! And Zuckerberg also said this would hurt smaller merchants. Do you really think Americans care about these people? It's everybody for themselves in America today, and these small companies don't have enough FANS!
And how do you gain fans?
By being different. It hasn't been this way since the sixties. The more unique you are, the more different you are, the more you speak your mind, the more people love you. If you post and no one reacts, you're doing it wrong. As for veracity? Most of the myths of rock and roll are just that, they were manipulated publicity stunts. Rogan knows if he hosts outsiders, his fan base will go rabid, for they feel like they're outsiders, everybody feels like an outsider today. And the truth is there's so much in the channel that most egregious statements and behavior never get widespread attention anyway. It's not like Rogan has just started pushing the envelope of accepted science, he's been doing this for years! But now with the pandemic and Neil Young's focus a light is shined upon his behavior and we find...he's not a prince. But this guy has been in the marketplace FOR YEARS! The biggest podcaster, essentially unscathed. Who else has not been exposed? Spotify quietly removes over a hundred Rogan podcasts, but it can't cancel him, for one thing his fans will go INSANE! And when your future is bleak, you'll do insane things to defend your hero, you'll even show up at protest rallies with a gun. Whereas if you've got something to lose... That was the amazing thing about 1/6, all those people entering the Capitol, it didn't even occur to them that their behavior could come back and bite them in the ass. After all, Trump continued to get a pass, why shouldn't they?
And people fight over that which doesn't even affect them, because it's part of that team ethos. Like that woman who ran for the school board (and won!) even though she HOME-SCHOOLED her kids! This never would have happened in the past. But there's this feeling if we give just an inch, they're gonna take more from us, and our backs are gonna be against the wall.
The acts of the late sixties and early seventies realized this. They wanted to be on FM, they didn't care about AM hits. That was a derided club. "Stairway to Heaven" didn't have to be a single, it didn't even have to be SHORT, it wasn't made for that market, but for the band's fans and FM. You could believe in the bands of yesteryear. Embracing exploration of your mind when the establishment said to close it. And what really put the antiwar movement on the map was when the acts got involved, in songs, in statements and at protests. They took a side. If you don't take a side you don't have hard core adherents. And the lesson we learned from Woodstock was primarily THERE WERE SO MANY OF US!
That was the revelation. That 400,000 people had to be there, they couldn't be left out, that was the power of the music. Country Joe made a whole career based on his antiwar cheer and song.
Do you see this today?
Mostly not. Musicians yearn to be brands. They're fearful of pissing off a potential audience member. What they don't realize is pissing off customers IS GOOD FOR BUSINESS! That's right, the Dixie Chicks were stars in the country ghetto, but once they came out against George Bush the rest of the nation became aware of them and to this day, almost two decades later, they're heroes, icons to people who didn't even know their music before Natalie Maines made that comment.
On a national level, it's scary. But on a musical level, the opportunities are rampant. Why do you need to be in the Spotify Top 50? That's a race if you win you can only lose, because unless you keep putting up numbers on the board listeners fade away, and since you hit the heights once, people think you don't need their fandom, their support, so they fade away, follow other interests. One of the main drivers of hip-hop is the battles between the scenes and the acts. East coast versus west. Kanye versus essentially everybody! Kanye is akin to Rogan, an ongoing train-wreck. You've got no idea what he'll say. And oftentimes it's loony tunes. And you'd think he'd lose his entire audience, but his believers stand by him, even when he puts out mediocre music, they still think he might deliver in the future.
And Van Morrison and Eric Clapton chose sides too late. Turns out their fans were not as hard core as those of the acts today. Back then the scene and its music were paramount. You might argue who is best, Clapton, Page or Beck, but you'd still listen to all three. But today? NO WAY! You wouldn't want that chink in your armor
The only reason Neil Young's anti-Rogan statements had any traction was because of his hard core fans. From day one he's gone his own way, and not always admirably, like abandoning his already booked tour with Stephen Stills. But his iconoclasm is addictive to his fans. You never know what Young will do, you're always watching him, you're a believer even if you don't like half of his output. Because he aligns with your identity. He's taking a stand for YOU! He's not compromising where you're told to, FORCED TO, compromise all day.
That's right, you work in the warehouse and your breaks are timed and your output is monitored, you feel more like a machine than a human being. Which is why the STEM people ultimately lose, the battle is fought with the heart, not the head. Otherwise why would people continue to support candidates who support legislation that's against their interest?
Now there's another paradigm shift yet to come. When the boomers fade away. Perception is the boomers had it good and screwed it up for everybody else. Also, the boomers are invested in the past. The boomers are responsible for the chains.
Will the whole system blow up, will democracy die before the boomers?
That's quite possible. Because as you can see above, the underpinnings of our society are broken. We live in a Tower of Babel society when we keep being told there's one government, with our interests at heart. NO ONE BELIEVES THAT, except for people like Biden and Obama and the rest still living in the past. Trump channeled the anger, he stoked the belief of his adherents and didn't care about those he pissed off. But on the left? They still think it's the twentieth century.
So when Joe Rogan crosses the line...
The first question is whether he did or not. And we can't even agree on the rules to judge his behavior, it's open season, all the way around.
And Spotify, the host, is hands-off. It wants no part of this battle. It hopes it fades away. And Rogan built its now dominant podcast platform and they don't want to let go of their flagship podcast.
No one wants to touch this, except for the fans on both sides.
The establishment hopes this fades out, just like so much gets plowed under in today's tsunami of information.
But one thing is for sure, Rogan's fans are never giving up, NEVER!
As for Young's?
To a great degree they're asleep at the wheel.
Every other day I have people attacking me for what I said about Taylor Swift's performance at the Grammys over a decade ago. When I research further, I find that most of these people were barely born when this happened. But they need to defend their hero.
But Taylor Swift was not like her contemporaries. She was a teenager singing from the heart. She was perceived to be genuine. She represented the demo. AND STILL DOES!
A week or so ago, Damon Albarn of Blur/Gorillaz, attacked Ms. Swift, saying that she did not write her own songs. The blowback was instant. Ms. Swift responded and then her minions piled on and Albarn retracted his statements nearly instantly.
This is also different, stars of yore didn't bite back. Nor did they have the communications methods to do so. As a matter of fact, most hatred went unnoticed and unread, the internet amplifies hate today, but there are so many more things to hate in the channel.
And hate is the word. There is nothing subtle about it. Not only are you wrong, you must be excoriated, intimidated, the goal is to get you to crawl back into the hole you came from and be silent. Which keeps many people from playing at all, or playing once and then giving up. But unless you're part of the maelstrom you've got no idea what is truly going on in America today, because it's a war.
Now Taylor Swift has been around for a long time, she broke in 2006, over fifteen years ago. When MySpace was still a thing. And not only was Facebook not dominant, Instagram and Twitter, the entire social media world of today, didn't exist and had no traction. So really, Taylor Swift is an outlier, her career began in the aughts, under a different paradigm, because today no one can have the footprint of Swift, NO ONE!
This is what the music industry media disinformation machine obscures. Rihanna revealed she was pregnant last week. But she hasn't had a record in half a decade, she's in the rearview mirror. Most people shrugged, even though the story is everywhere. In truth, Rihanna gave up music for the mainstream, the penumbra, the opportunities that stardom has delivered, she's no longer a musician. And she broke the year before Swift, and although she was in the spotlight, she had no rough edges. And sans rough edges you can't grow a fan base today.
This is what those on the way up don't realize. That they will never become ubiquitous, not even world famous. Oh, people might know them around the world, but not MOST people, even though the publicity machine will hype them to high heaven. But in today's multifarious world you don't have to pay attention to any media that doesn't appeal or agree with you.
Which is why pop stars come and go. Their fans are not dedicated, it's all about the songs, it's momentary. To have a dedicated fan base you have to think smaller, like a metal band.
Metal is thriving. It never ever crosses over to the mainstream, it puts up poor streaming numbers, but its fans are some of the hardest core extant. They relish being outsiders, they're not just fans of the music, but the whole ethos. You go to the show to be with like-minded people. It's us versus them. The fact that people outside this world can't even understand the music, never mind the fandom, only bonds believers to the act and the scene even more.
Used to be people were fans of the system. Now they're fans of INDIVIDUALS!
It was AM radio in the sixties. Then FM. Then MTV. Now there's no overarching distribution medium that bonds people to it. Certainly not a streaming service, nobody believes in Spotify, never mind Apple or Amazon. If these outlets were smart, they'd try to gain adherence from their users, akin to the "I Want My MTV" campaign, but they're run by techies, not marketers, if you don't understand fandom you cannot create it, never mind nurture it.
It must be an identity. Not only are you a fan of the person and their output, you're against anything that intrudes upon it. So, one can't believe in a streaming music distributor, because if it has everything, there's nothing to hate. You need context.
And fandom can be of a scene, like with metal above. Kind of like the jam-band scene, listeners may be mellower, but they will tell you they listen to nothing else, and everybody else's music is crap.
Which is what the Joe Rogan story is all about. Forget the content, it's HIM versus the WORLD!
What's the first thing a Roganite will say in his defense? HAVE YOU LISTENED TO HIM? Because if you did, you'd instantly become a believer, otherwise you're the enemy. You either love him or hate him, and his fans will defend him to their death. If you think this is about content, you're missing the point.
Not that content hasn't built Rogan's rep. He's hosting the outsiders, the people who get traction nowhere else. Which appeals to his outsider fans. What do they say, Rogan has 11 million listeners? That's a drop in the bucket, especially considering it's a worldwide number, and Rogan does have fans around the world, and Rogan's podcasts is the BIGGEST!
Everything is niche. Except maybe the Super Bowl. Then again, America puts on blinders as large men hit each other and cause brain damage. But everybody else is watching football too, we can root for our home team (the idea of the Dallas Cowboys being America's Team are long gone), and watch a contest which is essentially a fight to the death. It gets our ya-ya's out. We can yell and scream. We don't have to hold back. Letting go is approved, whereas every day your behavior is limited by society, what you can do or not, there's a psychological cloud atop every American, limiting their behavior. This may or may not be true, but people feel it. Because their teams have amplified the message and there are no refs in real life. The word police. The sexual behavior police. People feel constrained and they cannot escape it, nowhere is off the grid, everybody's connected, so they REACT!
And in order to react, you must have something to believe in. And it doesn't matter if what you believe in is right or wrong, or if the person delivering the message is heinous, they're INVESTED in this person and their message, and to show weakness is anathema.
Older people who grew up in the last century, yesteryear, just don't get it. They think we can all get along. NO WAY! Because for me to get along I have to give up my fandom, my allegiance, and it DEFINES ME!
Otherwise what defines you?
Certainly not your job. It's low-paying labor or service or else you're a cog in the machine at the tech company. And the rulers of this country, the billionaires, believe you should be happy, since you've got a flat screen, alcohol and maybe even legal marijuana. I mean what else could you want?
TO BE HEARD, TO BE CONSIDERED!
For a while there, people were fans of corporations, especially tech corps. But that was before solidification of the sphere. When Apple was an upstart, an underdog doing it differently, you could align your beliefs with the company. But then the sun shined on the company and its manufacturing and labor processes came into view and no matter what was said in the company's defense, it didn't wash. The truth is everybody wants the cost efficiencies of cheap labor, America has voted for lower prices even if it means people have to get on the plane last and take no luggage, and if you go against this you lose.
And Amazon has got its warehouses.
And Google and Facebook have manipulated the online advertising world.
And we get inane doublespeak, like Mark Zuckerberg railing against Apple's iPhone privacy/anti-tracking options by saying the customer will be hurt, they won't have as targeted ads. HUH? The users want NO ADS! And Zuckerberg also said this would hurt smaller merchants. Do you really think Americans care about these people? It's everybody for themselves in America today, and these small companies don't have enough FANS!
And how do you gain fans?
By being different. It hasn't been this way since the sixties. The more unique you are, the more different you are, the more you speak your mind, the more people love you. If you post and no one reacts, you're doing it wrong. As for veracity? Most of the myths of rock and roll are just that, they were manipulated publicity stunts. Rogan knows if he hosts outsiders, his fan base will go rabid, for they feel like they're outsiders, everybody feels like an outsider today. And the truth is there's so much in the channel that most egregious statements and behavior never get widespread attention anyway. It's not like Rogan has just started pushing the envelope of accepted science, he's been doing this for years! But now with the pandemic and Neil Young's focus a light is shined upon his behavior and we find...he's not a prince. But this guy has been in the marketplace FOR YEARS! The biggest podcaster, essentially unscathed. Who else has not been exposed? Spotify quietly removes over a hundred Rogan podcasts, but it can't cancel him, for one thing his fans will go INSANE! And when your future is bleak, you'll do insane things to defend your hero, you'll even show up at protest rallies with a gun. Whereas if you've got something to lose... That was the amazing thing about 1/6, all those people entering the Capitol, it didn't even occur to them that their behavior could come back and bite them in the ass. After all, Trump continued to get a pass, why shouldn't they?
And people fight over that which doesn't even affect them, because it's part of that team ethos. Like that woman who ran for the school board (and won!) even though she HOME-SCHOOLED her kids! This never would have happened in the past. But there's this feeling if we give just an inch, they're gonna take more from us, and our backs are gonna be against the wall.
The acts of the late sixties and early seventies realized this. They wanted to be on FM, they didn't care about AM hits. That was a derided club. "Stairway to Heaven" didn't have to be a single, it didn't even have to be SHORT, it wasn't made for that market, but for the band's fans and FM. You could believe in the bands of yesteryear. Embracing exploration of your mind when the establishment said to close it. And what really put the antiwar movement on the map was when the acts got involved, in songs, in statements and at protests. They took a side. If you don't take a side you don't have hard core adherents. And the lesson we learned from Woodstock was primarily THERE WERE SO MANY OF US!
That was the revelation. That 400,000 people had to be there, they couldn't be left out, that was the power of the music. Country Joe made a whole career based on his antiwar cheer and song.
Do you see this today?
Mostly not. Musicians yearn to be brands. They're fearful of pissing off a potential audience member. What they don't realize is pissing off customers IS GOOD FOR BUSINESS! That's right, the Dixie Chicks were stars in the country ghetto, but once they came out against George Bush the rest of the nation became aware of them and to this day, almost two decades later, they're heroes, icons to people who didn't even know their music before Natalie Maines made that comment.
On a national level, it's scary. But on a musical level, the opportunities are rampant. Why do you need to be in the Spotify Top 50? That's a race if you win you can only lose, because unless you keep putting up numbers on the board listeners fade away, and since you hit the heights once, people think you don't need their fandom, their support, so they fade away, follow other interests. One of the main drivers of hip-hop is the battles between the scenes and the acts. East coast versus west. Kanye versus essentially everybody! Kanye is akin to Rogan, an ongoing train-wreck. You've got no idea what he'll say. And oftentimes it's loony tunes. And you'd think he'd lose his entire audience, but his believers stand by him, even when he puts out mediocre music, they still think he might deliver in the future.
And Van Morrison and Eric Clapton chose sides too late. Turns out their fans were not as hard core as those of the acts today. Back then the scene and its music were paramount. You might argue who is best, Clapton, Page or Beck, but you'd still listen to all three. But today? NO WAY! You wouldn't want that chink in your armor
The only reason Neil Young's anti-Rogan statements had any traction was because of his hard core fans. From day one he's gone his own way, and not always admirably, like abandoning his already booked tour with Stephen Stills. But his iconoclasm is addictive to his fans. You never know what Young will do, you're always watching him, you're a believer even if you don't like half of his output. Because he aligns with your identity. He's taking a stand for YOU! He's not compromising where you're told to, FORCED TO, compromise all day.
That's right, you work in the warehouse and your breaks are timed and your output is monitored, you feel more like a machine than a human being. Which is why the STEM people ultimately lose, the battle is fought with the heart, not the head. Otherwise why would people continue to support candidates who support legislation that's against their interest?
Now there's another paradigm shift yet to come. When the boomers fade away. Perception is the boomers had it good and screwed it up for everybody else. Also, the boomers are invested in the past. The boomers are responsible for the chains.
Will the whole system blow up, will democracy die before the boomers?
That's quite possible. Because as you can see above, the underpinnings of our society are broken. We live in a Tower of Babel society when we keep being told there's one government, with our interests at heart. NO ONE BELIEVES THAT, except for people like Biden and Obama and the rest still living in the past. Trump channeled the anger, he stoked the belief of his adherents and didn't care about those he pissed off. But on the left? They still think it's the twentieth century.
So when Joe Rogan crosses the line...
The first question is whether he did or not. And we can't even agree on the rules to judge his behavior, it's open season, all the way around.
And Spotify, the host, is hands-off. It wants no part of this battle. It hopes it fades away. And Rogan built its now dominant podcast platform and they don't want to let go of their flagship podcast.
No one wants to touch this, except for the fans on both sides.
The establishment hopes this fades out, just like so much gets plowed under in today's tsunami of information.
But one thing is for sure, Rogan's fans are never giving up, NEVER!
As for Young's?
To a great degree they're asleep at the wheel.
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