Spotify: https://spoti.fi/3oiqWQr
The Factory - "Smile, Let Your Life Begin"
Frank Zappa- "Didja Get Any Onya?"
Little Feat - "Willin'"
Seatrain - "Willin'"
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JAXUQENUP8A
Linda Ronstadt - "Willin'"
Little Feat - "Willin'"
Little Feat - "Juliette"
Little Feat - "Fool Yourself"
Bonnie Raitt -"Fool Yourself"
Little Feat - "Fat Man in the Bathtub"
Little Feat - "Two Trains"
Little Feat - "Roll Um Easy"
Linda Ronstadt - "Roll Um Easy"
Little Feat - "Kiss It Off"
Little Feat - "On Your Way Down"
Allen Toussaint - "On Your Way Down"
Little Feat - "Dixie Chicken"
Little Feat - "Easy to Slip"
Bob Weir - "Easy to Slip"
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EjOkk8uf4Cw
Little Feat - "A Apolitical Blues"
Van Halen - "A Apolitical Blues"
from vocal at :13
Little Feat - "Sailin' Shoes"
Robert Palmer - "Sailin' Shoes"
Little Feat - "Tripe Face Boogie"
Little Feat - "Spanish Moon"
Little Feat - "Rock & Roll Doctor"
James Taylor - "Angry Blues"
Little Feat - "Long Distance Love"
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Saturday, 15 April 2023
Friday, 14 April 2023
Lowell George-1-This Week On SiriusXM
Tune in Saturday April 15th to Faction Talk, channel 103, at 4 PM East, 1 PM West.
If you miss the episode, you can hear it on demand on the SiriusXM app. Search: Lefsetz
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Scarcity
"When you assemble artisans and create scarcity that results in a supply/demand imbalance, you generate a cash volcano that you can cap the same way you do an oil well — and turn on/off as needed. Businesses are either supply-constrained (e.g., rare earth minerals, 1945 Château Mouton wine, etc.) or demand-constrained (pretty much everything else). The companies that trade at the greatest multiples are those that are artificially supply-constrained, where the supply/demand imbalance puts a dial on the spigot the managers control. Imagine the decision to have more revenue is just a function of when you'd like more revenue (see above: Hermès)."
That's the concert business. It's predicated on not filling demand. Sure, Garth Brooks has gone in the opposite direction, playing in a market until demand is satiated, in the process keeping ticket prices low, but he can only do so in one market at a time, inherently constraining demand.
This is the essence of the big time concert business. You can't get a ticket! What could be better. There are only a limited number available and how are you going to get yours. Are you going to join the fan club, sign up for a credit card, become a verified fan, log on at 10 on Saturday morning... You want to go, you need to go, but the bottom line is everybody can't.
So it must be somebody's fault.
Believe me, concert tickets were always in demand. But like rare records once the internet came along light was shined on the whole process. There was more information. There was StubHub, suddenly you could see that you were competing against professionals, and the odds of you getting a ticket were low. You felt frustrated, it had to be somebody's fault. But certainly not the acts'. The acts were trustworthy and inviolate, someone else must be at fault.
And all the acts complaining about the death of recording royalties... Turns out it was the best thing that could ever happen. Because now your music was freely available to everyone. Literally on YouTube, at a de minimis cost on Spotify, et al. And if you had notice, demand was greater than it had ever been in history. Think about it. For decades there were few stadium shows, the demand was not there. Now there is a plethora of stadium shows, because of overwhelming demand.
Not to mention that there's a slice of acts making a fortune on streaming. Not to mention that many acts complaining couldn't even play, couldn't get their recordings released, couldn't create live demand, in the pre-internet era. As for the endless sea of product, the end result is there is a thin layer of luxury brands that have become ever more desirable, that people will pay a fortune to see. Certainly the oldsters, like the Stones and the Eagles, never mind McCartney, but newbies too, like Beyoncé and Taylor Swift and Bad Bunny. Demand so far exceeds supply that these acts' images are burnished, paying dividends for their entire careers. Come on, how many stories have there been in the press about the inability to get Taylor Swift tickets? It seems to be easier to meet the President!
And then there's Lady Gaga. Who continued to sell tickets without any hits. She had her original slew, but until "A Star is Born" she hadn't had one in years, but people still bought her tickets. What a business!
Even better, if you need some cash, you just put up some shows, demand seems to be endless.
The ticket frenzy is akin to Birkin bags. Or even Rolexes. Rolex limits supply. During the 2008 recession they repurchased watches to ensure they were not sold at a discount, hurting the brand. And now you can't buy a Rolex at retail, unless you're very connected. Third parties buy them and the flip them online, at a premium. Just like ticket scalpers. Are people mad at Rolex? Of course not, they love Rolex. They're mad at the third parties. Meanwhile, in truth Rolex could make more watches, but it doesn't want to! Because the virtuous economic circle would be devastated. If everybody can buy a Rolex what is it worth? It's devalued.
When it comes to concert tickets, the enemies are Ticketmaster and the scalpers. Talk to anybody in the business, the acts love to blame Ticketmaster, that's what the company is paid for. As for acts bitching about the ticketing company, it reminds me of when Jay Leno took over the "Tonight Show." He kept saying he wasn't preventing stars from appearing on competing shows, and then his manager, Helen Kushnick, took him aside and said..,.
"I've been serving you steak dinners for almost eighteen years, I just haven't bothered showing you how I slaughtered the cow."
The acts are ignorant. Get them to talk about publishing and recording royalties, it's laughable, they've got no clue. They're just sure they're being ripped-off and it's somebody else's fault. That's why there's a music business, because without it the acts would never break, and would be broke, all those people behind the curtain actually do something.
And it's not only the acts, some of the managers are clueless too. If your act has been off the road for a year or more, don't negotiate without calling your attorney, your agent, getting up to speed on what is happening in the marketplace, otherwise you're going to negotiate to your detriment.
As for Robert Smith and the fees... That was a screw-up by Live Nation, by labeling the money as fees. AEG just baked the cost into the overall ticket. I mean who can go to see the Cure for twenty bucks, I mean really. If I told you you could buy a Birkin bag for a grand would you believe me? Or a Rolex for the same price? You'd think something shady was going on, and you'd be right.
This is the essence of the music business, supply and demand. This is why we're in the heyday. It's only going to get better, for the act side of it anyway. It's going to get harder and harder to get a ticket, especially as live experiences continue to be treasured, one of the non-digital, non-commoditized items out there.
As for the value...
You're a fan of the Yankees, you watch every game on TV, are you entitled to a cheap ticket? Of course not! It's the same with a band. Just because you stream their music every day ad infinitum, that does not mean you're entitled to get in the building at all, never mind for a cheap price. That doesn't square almost anywhere, certainly not when demand far outstrips supply.
That's the goal of touring, to leave people wanting more. To make sure there are never tickets available, that every gig sells out. This stokes demand down the road. If there are empty seats then the image of the act is impinged, and people think they'll be able to get a ticket in the future, assuming they want one.
So demand keeps going up and ticket prices keep going up and sure, Zach Bryan is keeping prices low, but getting tickets is nearly impossible. And there are always outliers, like Garth Brooks, but they are not the mainstream. Why work that hard and not make the bucks?
And you don't want someone else making the bucks off you, ergo the scalpers. Platinum, etc... They exist because demand is so damn high! The act just wants to capture some of the income that would otherwise go to the aftermarket. At least Bruce Springsteen owned it. And when the Boss does so, it makes it easier for everybody else. Do you see any Taylor Swift fans complaining that tickets are too expensive? No, they're thrilled to be in the building at all, having a once-in-a-lifetime experience.
Go to the grocery store, and buy milk, or chicken, it's there every day, and it's relatively cheap. You don't buy it and thank your lucky stars you could get it and then go home and spend hours savoring it. But if the producers limited supply... Wow, chicken prices would go through the roof!
But they can't get away with it, food is seen as a staple, people need to eat.
But they don't need to go to the concert, they're not entitled to go to the concert, it's a luxury good, and priced accordingly! And the prices are so high only because people want to pay them!
The above quote is from Scott Galloway, you can read the complete screed here: https://www.profgalloway.com/scarcity-2/
In the piece Scott also says:
"This trend highlights what has got to be a first-ballot-hall-of-fame strategic head-up-your-ass decision: Do away with one of the great artisanal brands of the 20th century, HBO."
You see Galloway is in branding 24/7. Zaslav is like an act that goes on the road every three years. He doesn't know the landscape. So he's out of the loop and making a big mistake.
Believe me, the insiders in the touring business know exactly what they're doing. And they don't want you to know how it all works, just like Hermes and Rolex don't want you to know how they limit production to keep prices and image high.
Ultimately, demand outstrips supply, there is mania, people spend time talking and hunting for acquisition. Those who get the product, the tickets, are seen as stars, ultimately making the product even more desirable.
That's the game. Don't think you can break it. Because you want to go to the show...
And so does everybody else.
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That's the concert business. It's predicated on not filling demand. Sure, Garth Brooks has gone in the opposite direction, playing in a market until demand is satiated, in the process keeping ticket prices low, but he can only do so in one market at a time, inherently constraining demand.
This is the essence of the big time concert business. You can't get a ticket! What could be better. There are only a limited number available and how are you going to get yours. Are you going to join the fan club, sign up for a credit card, become a verified fan, log on at 10 on Saturday morning... You want to go, you need to go, but the bottom line is everybody can't.
So it must be somebody's fault.
Believe me, concert tickets were always in demand. But like rare records once the internet came along light was shined on the whole process. There was more information. There was StubHub, suddenly you could see that you were competing against professionals, and the odds of you getting a ticket were low. You felt frustrated, it had to be somebody's fault. But certainly not the acts'. The acts were trustworthy and inviolate, someone else must be at fault.
And all the acts complaining about the death of recording royalties... Turns out it was the best thing that could ever happen. Because now your music was freely available to everyone. Literally on YouTube, at a de minimis cost on Spotify, et al. And if you had notice, demand was greater than it had ever been in history. Think about it. For decades there were few stadium shows, the demand was not there. Now there is a plethora of stadium shows, because of overwhelming demand.
Not to mention that there's a slice of acts making a fortune on streaming. Not to mention that many acts complaining couldn't even play, couldn't get their recordings released, couldn't create live demand, in the pre-internet era. As for the endless sea of product, the end result is there is a thin layer of luxury brands that have become ever more desirable, that people will pay a fortune to see. Certainly the oldsters, like the Stones and the Eagles, never mind McCartney, but newbies too, like Beyoncé and Taylor Swift and Bad Bunny. Demand so far exceeds supply that these acts' images are burnished, paying dividends for their entire careers. Come on, how many stories have there been in the press about the inability to get Taylor Swift tickets? It seems to be easier to meet the President!
And then there's Lady Gaga. Who continued to sell tickets without any hits. She had her original slew, but until "A Star is Born" she hadn't had one in years, but people still bought her tickets. What a business!
Even better, if you need some cash, you just put up some shows, demand seems to be endless.
The ticket frenzy is akin to Birkin bags. Or even Rolexes. Rolex limits supply. During the 2008 recession they repurchased watches to ensure they were not sold at a discount, hurting the brand. And now you can't buy a Rolex at retail, unless you're very connected. Third parties buy them and the flip them online, at a premium. Just like ticket scalpers. Are people mad at Rolex? Of course not, they love Rolex. They're mad at the third parties. Meanwhile, in truth Rolex could make more watches, but it doesn't want to! Because the virtuous economic circle would be devastated. If everybody can buy a Rolex what is it worth? It's devalued.
When it comes to concert tickets, the enemies are Ticketmaster and the scalpers. Talk to anybody in the business, the acts love to blame Ticketmaster, that's what the company is paid for. As for acts bitching about the ticketing company, it reminds me of when Jay Leno took over the "Tonight Show." He kept saying he wasn't preventing stars from appearing on competing shows, and then his manager, Helen Kushnick, took him aside and said..,.
"I've been serving you steak dinners for almost eighteen years, I just haven't bothered showing you how I slaughtered the cow."
The acts are ignorant. Get them to talk about publishing and recording royalties, it's laughable, they've got no clue. They're just sure they're being ripped-off and it's somebody else's fault. That's why there's a music business, because without it the acts would never break, and would be broke, all those people behind the curtain actually do something.
And it's not only the acts, some of the managers are clueless too. If your act has been off the road for a year or more, don't negotiate without calling your attorney, your agent, getting up to speed on what is happening in the marketplace, otherwise you're going to negotiate to your detriment.
As for Robert Smith and the fees... That was a screw-up by Live Nation, by labeling the money as fees. AEG just baked the cost into the overall ticket. I mean who can go to see the Cure for twenty bucks, I mean really. If I told you you could buy a Birkin bag for a grand would you believe me? Or a Rolex for the same price? You'd think something shady was going on, and you'd be right.
This is the essence of the music business, supply and demand. This is why we're in the heyday. It's only going to get better, for the act side of it anyway. It's going to get harder and harder to get a ticket, especially as live experiences continue to be treasured, one of the non-digital, non-commoditized items out there.
As for the value...
You're a fan of the Yankees, you watch every game on TV, are you entitled to a cheap ticket? Of course not! It's the same with a band. Just because you stream their music every day ad infinitum, that does not mean you're entitled to get in the building at all, never mind for a cheap price. That doesn't square almost anywhere, certainly not when demand far outstrips supply.
That's the goal of touring, to leave people wanting more. To make sure there are never tickets available, that every gig sells out. This stokes demand down the road. If there are empty seats then the image of the act is impinged, and people think they'll be able to get a ticket in the future, assuming they want one.
So demand keeps going up and ticket prices keep going up and sure, Zach Bryan is keeping prices low, but getting tickets is nearly impossible. And there are always outliers, like Garth Brooks, but they are not the mainstream. Why work that hard and not make the bucks?
And you don't want someone else making the bucks off you, ergo the scalpers. Platinum, etc... They exist because demand is so damn high! The act just wants to capture some of the income that would otherwise go to the aftermarket. At least Bruce Springsteen owned it. And when the Boss does so, it makes it easier for everybody else. Do you see any Taylor Swift fans complaining that tickets are too expensive? No, they're thrilled to be in the building at all, having a once-in-a-lifetime experience.
Go to the grocery store, and buy milk, or chicken, it's there every day, and it's relatively cheap. You don't buy it and thank your lucky stars you could get it and then go home and spend hours savoring it. But if the producers limited supply... Wow, chicken prices would go through the roof!
But they can't get away with it, food is seen as a staple, people need to eat.
But they don't need to go to the concert, they're not entitled to go to the concert, it's a luxury good, and priced accordingly! And the prices are so high only because people want to pay them!
The above quote is from Scott Galloway, you can read the complete screed here: https://www.profgalloway.com/scarcity-2/
In the piece Scott also says:
"This trend highlights what has got to be a first-ballot-hall-of-fame strategic head-up-your-ass decision: Do away with one of the great artisanal brands of the 20th century, HBO."
You see Galloway is in branding 24/7. Zaslav is like an act that goes on the road every three years. He doesn't know the landscape. So he's out of the loop and making a big mistake.
Believe me, the insiders in the touring business know exactly what they're doing. And they don't want you to know how it all works, just like Hermes and Rolex don't want you to know how they limit production to keep prices and image high.
Ultimately, demand outstrips supply, there is mania, people spend time talking and hunting for acquisition. Those who get the product, the tickets, are seen as stars, ultimately making the product even more desirable.
That's the game. Don't think you can break it. Because you want to go to the show...
And so does everybody else.
--
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Thursday, 13 April 2023
Birnam Wood
https://amzn.to/3L0ZXSt
Now that's a book. Expect to see it on the ten best lists at the end of the year.
"Birnam Wood" is no "Maame." "Birnam Wood" is literary fiction. As in the concepts supersede the plot, big ideas are wrestled with and... I don't think anybody can really come up with a clear definition of "literary fiction," it's more like pornography, to paraphrase that Supreme Court Justice, you know it when you see it. Then again, with pornography at your fingertips via Google (and Bing!) what exactly is pornography. What crosses the line? I'd say very little. Oh yeah, your kids are seeing pornography before they reach puberty. All the child locks known to man can't keep them from it. And this is good, because sex will be decriminalized, it will no longer be seen as a bad thing. I mean why prevent kids from seeing pornography when they endure active shooter drills and must confront the distinct possibility of being mowed down in school?
So what you've got here is the do-gooders and the billionaire. And they're chiaroscuro, as in they're neither perfectly good nor perfectly bad. For someone who came of age in the sixties, the number one societal issue is income inequality. Not only can we not make the money of the billionaires, we pay fealty to them, we lionize them, as if by having money they're better than we are.
But what kind of person can make this money? Elon Musk has been exposed as two-dimensional and evil. Furthermore, he thinks he's above the law. What is this new class of people who exist in this rarefied air? Like Trump. If you consider him to be wrongly accused, just think of the Black people who endure this each and every day. Or the Central Park Five Trump declared to be guilty who were put behind bars, losing all that time when in truth they were completely innocent. But if you let your jeans hang low and wear a do-rag you're guilty until proven innocent. Whereas if you wear a suit, it's the other way around.
There's a great passage about our adulation of the rich near the end of the book:
"And she had always known. That was the sad thing. Neither she nor Owen had ever been under any illusions that Lemoine was a good person, Lady Darvish thought, as she advanced. They'd known he was bad right from the start. And still they'd courted his business. Still they'd courted his approval, his respect. Still they'd courted him."
The sycophants. Be privileged to hang with the rich and powerful and the hangers-on will have you rolling your eyes, if you're not one of them yourself. You want some of that shine to rub off on you. You want to fly on the private jet, relax on Necker Island. This is the power of Epstein. Everybody looked the other way because he was rich. And even the justice system gave him a pass, with an unwarranted plea bargain in Florida. I mean after all, rich people can't be guilty, can they?
Of course they can.
And I'm going to let you in on a little secret. These people who made these fortunes... They're very smart, very business savvy, very people savvy. They veer on being sociopaths, and some are. They can make you feel good while ripping you off. They're always moving forward. As for friends? They know their kind, there are no real friends at this level.
But can the do-gooders triumph? Can we conquer climate change?
And it's always the youth who lead the charge. Because they're still optimistic, they still believe in possibilities, whereas when you get older you're resigned to the way the world works, at least how America works. Your only choice is to be an artist and speak truth to power. But the artists don't want to do this, they want to hang with the billionaires too, nobody wants to be poor, and nobody wants to alienate a potential customer, whether it be a brand or a person.
Speaking of Elon... Have you been following the story of NPR and PBS? Elon basically labeled them, inaccurately, as tools of the government, and they've decided to no longer tweet. Maybe because they're not typical corporations who have to deliver better numbers each and every quarter. But they're taking a stand. When seemingly no one else can. Those on Twitter not only want to glean information, they want to play, post and burnish their image. All these oldsters complaining about TikTok addiction in the youth should look at themselves. And why is it that the media can't stop covering Musk and Trump. They're laughing all the way to the bank! Biden doesn't get anywhere near the mindshare, and he's the President!
So "Birnam Wood" is set in New Zealand. The author, Elizabeth Catton, moved there from Canada with her family, she now lives in the U.K. But this story could take place anywhere. However, the New Zealand government is seen as more benevolent than typical western governments.
But it's not only the big societal issues that "Birnam Wood" addresses, but the personal. Who is the leader and why. Who is stifled and why. Who will sell out and who won't. These are questions we deal with every day. All of us. If you take the money they own you, you're compromised. But today everybody is looking to sell out, just look at the "influencers" hawking products they don't believe in just for some of that corporate dough. They think they're winning but in truth it's the companies that are winning, the influencers are just pawns in their game. Working 24/7 with no portfolio to make money. And when they're burned out and it's over, what have they got? Nothing. Why is it suddenly a badge of honor to drop out of school. Education itself has a bad rap. They're afraid you might learn to think so they make sure you're not exposed to stuff. As for college, it's now a glorified trade school. When I went it was about becoming a well-rounded person. Not a single person I went to college with thought about a well-paying job before graduation. That's not what they were in it for, they wanted to expand their minds before their pocketbooks.
And the jet set lifestyle of the billionaires. They actually own their own jets, which was not the case back in the sixties when the term was coined. And they have security, both cameras and people. And their goal is to keep themselves separate from the rest of us, the great unwashed. And they sell the fiction that if we just work hard enough, we too can become rich. What a crock...
So some of the reviews, even Stephen King, consider "Birnam Wood" to be a thriller. And I guess it is, but that's not how it felt to me, I wasn't reading for the great surprise at the end.
And did I tell you that Catton won the Booker Prize?
This is usually a badge of unreadability. And I won't say that "Birnam Wood" is an easy read, but it's not that hard. It does not cut like butter, but you'll get involved in the world, you'll think and you'll care.
So would I tell you to put "Birnam Wood" at the top of your reading list?
No. "Birnam Wood" isn't for everybody. If you never read books, don't start here. If books put you to sleep, don't even bother starting. But if in your high school English class you were searching for the zeitgeist... If you took liberal arts courses in college instead of science and engineering... "Birnam Wood" is right up your alley.
You see it isn't only about money...critical thinking, the power to analyze, the ability to wrestle with the big issues... These are critical to our society. Remember, all those TV series and movies and records were not made by techies. That's a different vertical. Needed, but we live for the soft issues. That which is not black and white, that which is not easily defined, like life. We're all wandering, looking for insight, but that is not primary, it all comes down to the bucks. Oh, and looking good too. So the Kardashians are billionaires. Would you treat your body that way, with so much plastic surgery? And I've yet to hear one of them utter truths gleaned from an analysis of experience. No, they went there and did that and they're empty vessels but they're billionaires, so we have to read about them and the young and impressionable try to be like them and...
Our society is truly screwed up. I won't even bother to delve into politics. Then an issue in "Birnam Wood" is whether you can trust the government. I mean if everything is a conspiracy...
And Elizabeth Catton is only 37 years old. I'm not saying she's a prodigy, but she's not an oldster stuck in her ways like so many of the vaunted writers of literary fiction. I mean wipe out the boomers and Gen-X'ers who come down from the mountaintop with tablets, holier-than-thou. The only hope for our society is the youth. I wish they'd read "Birnam Wood" rather than go to business school, then again...
I'm not rich.
Now that's a book. Expect to see it on the ten best lists at the end of the year.
"Birnam Wood" is no "Maame." "Birnam Wood" is literary fiction. As in the concepts supersede the plot, big ideas are wrestled with and... I don't think anybody can really come up with a clear definition of "literary fiction," it's more like pornography, to paraphrase that Supreme Court Justice, you know it when you see it. Then again, with pornography at your fingertips via Google (and Bing!) what exactly is pornography. What crosses the line? I'd say very little. Oh yeah, your kids are seeing pornography before they reach puberty. All the child locks known to man can't keep them from it. And this is good, because sex will be decriminalized, it will no longer be seen as a bad thing. I mean why prevent kids from seeing pornography when they endure active shooter drills and must confront the distinct possibility of being mowed down in school?
So what you've got here is the do-gooders and the billionaire. And they're chiaroscuro, as in they're neither perfectly good nor perfectly bad. For someone who came of age in the sixties, the number one societal issue is income inequality. Not only can we not make the money of the billionaires, we pay fealty to them, we lionize them, as if by having money they're better than we are.
But what kind of person can make this money? Elon Musk has been exposed as two-dimensional and evil. Furthermore, he thinks he's above the law. What is this new class of people who exist in this rarefied air? Like Trump. If you consider him to be wrongly accused, just think of the Black people who endure this each and every day. Or the Central Park Five Trump declared to be guilty who were put behind bars, losing all that time when in truth they were completely innocent. But if you let your jeans hang low and wear a do-rag you're guilty until proven innocent. Whereas if you wear a suit, it's the other way around.
There's a great passage about our adulation of the rich near the end of the book:
"And she had always known. That was the sad thing. Neither she nor Owen had ever been under any illusions that Lemoine was a good person, Lady Darvish thought, as she advanced. They'd known he was bad right from the start. And still they'd courted his business. Still they'd courted his approval, his respect. Still they'd courted him."
The sycophants. Be privileged to hang with the rich and powerful and the hangers-on will have you rolling your eyes, if you're not one of them yourself. You want some of that shine to rub off on you. You want to fly on the private jet, relax on Necker Island. This is the power of Epstein. Everybody looked the other way because he was rich. And even the justice system gave him a pass, with an unwarranted plea bargain in Florida. I mean after all, rich people can't be guilty, can they?
Of course they can.
And I'm going to let you in on a little secret. These people who made these fortunes... They're very smart, very business savvy, very people savvy. They veer on being sociopaths, and some are. They can make you feel good while ripping you off. They're always moving forward. As for friends? They know their kind, there are no real friends at this level.
But can the do-gooders triumph? Can we conquer climate change?
And it's always the youth who lead the charge. Because they're still optimistic, they still believe in possibilities, whereas when you get older you're resigned to the way the world works, at least how America works. Your only choice is to be an artist and speak truth to power. But the artists don't want to do this, they want to hang with the billionaires too, nobody wants to be poor, and nobody wants to alienate a potential customer, whether it be a brand or a person.
Speaking of Elon... Have you been following the story of NPR and PBS? Elon basically labeled them, inaccurately, as tools of the government, and they've decided to no longer tweet. Maybe because they're not typical corporations who have to deliver better numbers each and every quarter. But they're taking a stand. When seemingly no one else can. Those on Twitter not only want to glean information, they want to play, post and burnish their image. All these oldsters complaining about TikTok addiction in the youth should look at themselves. And why is it that the media can't stop covering Musk and Trump. They're laughing all the way to the bank! Biden doesn't get anywhere near the mindshare, and he's the President!
So "Birnam Wood" is set in New Zealand. The author, Elizabeth Catton, moved there from Canada with her family, she now lives in the U.K. But this story could take place anywhere. However, the New Zealand government is seen as more benevolent than typical western governments.
But it's not only the big societal issues that "Birnam Wood" addresses, but the personal. Who is the leader and why. Who is stifled and why. Who will sell out and who won't. These are questions we deal with every day. All of us. If you take the money they own you, you're compromised. But today everybody is looking to sell out, just look at the "influencers" hawking products they don't believe in just for some of that corporate dough. They think they're winning but in truth it's the companies that are winning, the influencers are just pawns in their game. Working 24/7 with no portfolio to make money. And when they're burned out and it's over, what have they got? Nothing. Why is it suddenly a badge of honor to drop out of school. Education itself has a bad rap. They're afraid you might learn to think so they make sure you're not exposed to stuff. As for college, it's now a glorified trade school. When I went it was about becoming a well-rounded person. Not a single person I went to college with thought about a well-paying job before graduation. That's not what they were in it for, they wanted to expand their minds before their pocketbooks.
And the jet set lifestyle of the billionaires. They actually own their own jets, which was not the case back in the sixties when the term was coined. And they have security, both cameras and people. And their goal is to keep themselves separate from the rest of us, the great unwashed. And they sell the fiction that if we just work hard enough, we too can become rich. What a crock...
So some of the reviews, even Stephen King, consider "Birnam Wood" to be a thriller. And I guess it is, but that's not how it felt to me, I wasn't reading for the great surprise at the end.
And did I tell you that Catton won the Booker Prize?
This is usually a badge of unreadability. And I won't say that "Birnam Wood" is an easy read, but it's not that hard. It does not cut like butter, but you'll get involved in the world, you'll think and you'll care.
So would I tell you to put "Birnam Wood" at the top of your reading list?
No. "Birnam Wood" isn't for everybody. If you never read books, don't start here. If books put you to sleep, don't even bother starting. But if in your high school English class you were searching for the zeitgeist... If you took liberal arts courses in college instead of science and engineering... "Birnam Wood" is right up your alley.
You see it isn't only about money...critical thinking, the power to analyze, the ability to wrestle with the big issues... These are critical to our society. Remember, all those TV series and movies and records were not made by techies. That's a different vertical. Needed, but we live for the soft issues. That which is not black and white, that which is not easily defined, like life. We're all wandering, looking for insight, but that is not primary, it all comes down to the bucks. Oh, and looking good too. So the Kardashians are billionaires. Would you treat your body that way, with so much plastic surgery? And I've yet to hear one of them utter truths gleaned from an analysis of experience. No, they went there and did that and they're empty vessels but they're billionaires, so we have to read about them and the young and impressionable try to be like them and...
Our society is truly screwed up. I won't even bother to delve into politics. Then an issue in "Birnam Wood" is whether you can trust the government. I mean if everything is a conspiracy...
And Elizabeth Catton is only 37 years old. I'm not saying she's a prodigy, but she's not an oldster stuck in her ways like so many of the vaunted writers of literary fiction. I mean wipe out the boomers and Gen-X'ers who come down from the mountaintop with tablets, holier-than-thou. The only hope for our society is the youth. I wish they'd read "Birnam Wood" rather than go to business school, then again...
I'm not rich.
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Holly Knight-This Week's Podcast
Holly Knight started out as the pianist in the band Spider (alongside drummer Anton Fig), which was managed by Bill Aucoin. Holly even played on KISS's "Unmasked" (uncredited, of course). After Spider made an album for Dreamland Records, Mike Chapman convinced Holly to move to Los Angeles to be a songwriter. The two of them ended up writing Pat Benatar's "Love Is a Battlefield" and Tina Turner's signature song "The Best." Holly also co-wrote Tina's "Better Be Good to Me" as well as Patty Smyth's "The Warrior," Animotion's "Obsession" and even Aerosmith's "Rag Doll." Holly has a new book "I Am the Warrior: My Crazy Life Writing the Hits and Rocking the MTV Eighties" and we discuss it as well as so much more!
https://www.iheart.com/podcast/1119-the-bob-lefsetz-podcast-30806836/episode/holly-knight-112927296/
https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/holly-knight/id1316200737?i=1000608772170
https://open.spotify.com/episode/5igVjEhvj7mQxwAa3A194E?si=i7LYU5UJR3O2oEoox5yCDA
https://music.amazon.com/podcasts/9ff4fb19-54d4-41ae-ae7a-8a6f8d3dafa8/episodes/bafe9912-f9b9-4427-bb84-cc8e8e5a8805/the-bob-lefsetz-podcast-holly-knight
https://www.stitcher.com/show/the-bob-lefsetz-podcast/episode/holly-knight-301968342
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https://www.iheart.com/podcast/1119-the-bob-lefsetz-podcast-30806836/episode/holly-knight-112927296/
https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/holly-knight/id1316200737?i=1000608772170
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https://music.amazon.com/podcasts/9ff4fb19-54d4-41ae-ae7a-8a6f8d3dafa8/episodes/bafe9912-f9b9-4427-bb84-cc8e8e5a8805/the-bob-lefsetz-podcast-holly-knight
https://www.stitcher.com/show/the-bob-lefsetz-podcast/episode/holly-knight-301968342
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Wednesday, 12 April 2023
Re-Max
I don't understand ditching a long-established brand. Especially in 2023. I remember the introduction of "New Coke" back in the 80s. Bill Cosby assured us all that it was better than the old Coke. Maybe Bill is available to help with this re-brand too?
Ken Misch
_______________________________________
HBO contributes just about everything worthwhile in programming to what can be found within HBO Max/Max. Absolutely brain dead move. That's the equivalent of renaming Disneyland "Tune Town".
Jaime Feldman
_______________________________________
Talk of Zas dropping the HBO in HBO was around for months and optimistically I chose to believe no one could possibly be this out of touch.
OK he's got all these 'reasons,' but none of them have anything to do with the basics of brands, pop culture, consumer awareness and behaviors.
Don't know if this will go *all the way down in flames, but it's a lock for the next megalomania textbook. Like Musk not understanding even the basics of social media.
Deb Wilker
_______________________________________
Zaslov will go down as one of the most short-sighted, anti-creative, destructive bean counters in history. Just google what he's done to the animation industry, to an entire generation of creatives. Cancelling shows, shuttering studios, wiping out the careers of thousands. Because… Discovery Channel?? This week there is news of Warner Brothers literally throwing out press kits and posters dating back to the 1950s as another cost-cutting move. A cost cutting move caused by the pointless financial shenanigans of Zaslav, who apparently makes more than 40 million a year. As you point out, it's truly pathetic. In the age of streaming this blinkered greedy moron is burying and cancelling content. Max will fail. He will fail. But the damage is being done to real people and real culture. ugh
Xeth
_______________________________________
I was heavily involved in the development of HBO advertising in the mid 90s at BBDO advertising. The agency's job was to develop tune-in advertising for select HBO programming, just when the network was pivoting from theatrical movie releases to original programming. The decision to heavily invest in original programming was a strong and bold move by HBO management, somewhat similar to Reed Hastings jettisoning DVD's for streaming w/ Netflix. HBO's unique, original and high-quality programming immediately created a point-of-difference vs. programming offered by other networks; which led to the "It's Not TV, It's HBO" tagline. Back then, the network was run by programmers (not bean counters), who also understood the importance of both branding and marketing. Now admittedly, the television landscape has shifted dramatically in the past 10+ years with much more competition. There now are many, many players. That said, I knew the brand was in deep trouble the minute AT&T took ownership of HBO in 2019. Very few brands have the equity and iconic imagery of HBO that was built and nurtured over several decades. Bob, this branding debacle isn't as bad as New Coke, it's far, far worse. It's inexplicably Harvard case study worse. Stuart K. Marvin
_______________________________________
Talk about living in the past. Crazy that "HBOMax" goes with "Max", a brand whose legacy nods to Cinemax (Skinemax) and HBO's common corporate parentage. I have had for years the highest regard for the quality of HBO programming like Succession, Sopranos, True Detective, Game of thrones, The Wire, Perry Mason, John Oliver, Real Time, etc. "Max" is a silly, puzzling and backward move at a Min(imum). And how is it they have ceded the comedy market HBO once owned to Netflix. Comedy specials (Pryor, Robin Williams, etc) and movies established their elite brand early on. Color me baffled. Jim McKeon
_______________________________________
Typical idiocy anyone could see coming a mile away that will result in a devalued brand and golden parachutes for the architects of the stupidity.
Dave Conklin
_______________________________________
The name and logo remind me of the old skinemax (Cinemax)
Maury Wilks
_______________________________________
I thought the exact same thing when I saw this. I mean who's brilliant idea was it to go from HBOMax and leave just "max" when Cinemax already failed and HBO was the only thing going for this "venture"?! The optics are horrible. Talk about complete self own.
L.A. Gonzalez
_______________________________________
I'll bet people will think MAX is a new version of Cinemax. If it ain't broke……
Russ Turk
_______________________________________
Agree on all points - And also, hasn't MAX always been shorthand for Cinemax?
Ball of confusion.
Brian Howell
_______________________________________
Max / CineMax was HBO's 2nd tier product. Seems so silly to rebrand to something related to your 2nd tier product.
Rusty Hodge
_______________________________________
Totally agree first thing I thought when announced. MAX has a soft porn rep to us gen xers but HBO had the cache'…oh well.
Luke Joerger
_______________________________________
Truth. I didn't subscribe to Max. I subscribed to HBO.
Steve Schalchlin
_______________________________________
I think it's safe to say that every single person who subscribes to Discovery+ does so in order to watch reality tv. Don't underestimate the power of Bravo's various franchises.
I'm only slightly ashamed to admit that I subscribe to Paramount+ for no other reason than to watch Survivor and The Challenge.
Zac Lasher
_______________________________________
Max is a plane with an unfavourable legacy. HBO is the service that brought us the Sopranos. What are they thinking? Andrew Forsyth
_______________________________________
Bob: Took your recommendation to check out Love Life on HBO Max. Show has been pulled, effective last February. Bob Paris
"William Jackson Harper Says He Was 'Big Mad' After 'Love Life' Was Pulled From HBO Max. The anthology series, which starred Harper in its second season, was recently canceled and removed from the streaming service as part of cost-cutting measures."
https://bit.ly/3GEfTap
No Love Life on HBO MAX, gone to pay on Amazon and others.
Paul Zullo
_______________________________________
it's worse than calling 'NEW COKE' just NEW. why are people so dumb sometimes???
Rob Preuss
_______________________________________
Bob, nailed it.
Mike Vial
_______________________________________
Hear hear. Insanity. Nick Davis
_______________________________________
Agree Bob. Completely.
The most important thing Zaslav could do is find some outsiders and listen to them. Unfortunately, ego and isolation are the enemy of success during periods of the kind change that is disrupting his world.
John Parikhal
_______________________________________
I don't care what they call it. Just give the app some much needed tech support. Not being able to play downloaded content on a device in airplane mode is pointless.
Keith Farszmil
_______________________________________
As a very fine actor said in a great film: "stupid is as stupid does. " This is marketing 101. Amazing.
Martin Tudor
_______________________________________
I'm changing my name to Murray.
Steven Ross
Ken Misch
_______________________________________
HBO contributes just about everything worthwhile in programming to what can be found within HBO Max/Max. Absolutely brain dead move. That's the equivalent of renaming Disneyland "Tune Town".
Jaime Feldman
_______________________________________
Talk of Zas dropping the HBO in HBO was around for months and optimistically I chose to believe no one could possibly be this out of touch.
OK he's got all these 'reasons,' but none of them have anything to do with the basics of brands, pop culture, consumer awareness and behaviors.
Don't know if this will go *all the way down in flames, but it's a lock for the next megalomania textbook. Like Musk not understanding even the basics of social media.
Deb Wilker
_______________________________________
Zaslov will go down as one of the most short-sighted, anti-creative, destructive bean counters in history. Just google what he's done to the animation industry, to an entire generation of creatives. Cancelling shows, shuttering studios, wiping out the careers of thousands. Because… Discovery Channel?? This week there is news of Warner Brothers literally throwing out press kits and posters dating back to the 1950s as another cost-cutting move. A cost cutting move caused by the pointless financial shenanigans of Zaslav, who apparently makes more than 40 million a year. As you point out, it's truly pathetic. In the age of streaming this blinkered greedy moron is burying and cancelling content. Max will fail. He will fail. But the damage is being done to real people and real culture. ugh
Xeth
_______________________________________
I was heavily involved in the development of HBO advertising in the mid 90s at BBDO advertising. The agency's job was to develop tune-in advertising for select HBO programming, just when the network was pivoting from theatrical movie releases to original programming. The decision to heavily invest in original programming was a strong and bold move by HBO management, somewhat similar to Reed Hastings jettisoning DVD's for streaming w/ Netflix. HBO's unique, original and high-quality programming immediately created a point-of-difference vs. programming offered by other networks; which led to the "It's Not TV, It's HBO" tagline. Back then, the network was run by programmers (not bean counters), who also understood the importance of both branding and marketing. Now admittedly, the television landscape has shifted dramatically in the past 10+ years with much more competition. There now are many, many players. That said, I knew the brand was in deep trouble the minute AT&T took ownership of HBO in 2019. Very few brands have the equity and iconic imagery of HBO that was built and nurtured over several decades. Bob, this branding debacle isn't as bad as New Coke, it's far, far worse. It's inexplicably Harvard case study worse. Stuart K. Marvin
_______________________________________
Talk about living in the past. Crazy that "HBOMax" goes with "Max", a brand whose legacy nods to Cinemax (Skinemax) and HBO's common corporate parentage. I have had for years the highest regard for the quality of HBO programming like Succession, Sopranos, True Detective, Game of thrones, The Wire, Perry Mason, John Oliver, Real Time, etc. "Max" is a silly, puzzling and backward move at a Min(imum). And how is it they have ceded the comedy market HBO once owned to Netflix. Comedy specials (Pryor, Robin Williams, etc) and movies established their elite brand early on. Color me baffled. Jim McKeon
_______________________________________
Typical idiocy anyone could see coming a mile away that will result in a devalued brand and golden parachutes for the architects of the stupidity.
Dave Conklin
_______________________________________
The name and logo remind me of the old skinemax (Cinemax)
Maury Wilks
_______________________________________
I thought the exact same thing when I saw this. I mean who's brilliant idea was it to go from HBOMax and leave just "max" when Cinemax already failed and HBO was the only thing going for this "venture"?! The optics are horrible. Talk about complete self own.
L.A. Gonzalez
_______________________________________
I'll bet people will think MAX is a new version of Cinemax. If it ain't broke……
Russ Turk
_______________________________________
Agree on all points - And also, hasn't MAX always been shorthand for Cinemax?
Ball of confusion.
Brian Howell
_______________________________________
Max / CineMax was HBO's 2nd tier product. Seems so silly to rebrand to something related to your 2nd tier product.
Rusty Hodge
_______________________________________
Totally agree first thing I thought when announced. MAX has a soft porn rep to us gen xers but HBO had the cache'…oh well.
Luke Joerger
_______________________________________
Truth. I didn't subscribe to Max. I subscribed to HBO.
Steve Schalchlin
_______________________________________
I think it's safe to say that every single person who subscribes to Discovery+ does so in order to watch reality tv. Don't underestimate the power of Bravo's various franchises.
I'm only slightly ashamed to admit that I subscribe to Paramount+ for no other reason than to watch Survivor and The Challenge.
Zac Lasher
_______________________________________
Max is a plane with an unfavourable legacy. HBO is the service that brought us the Sopranos. What are they thinking? Andrew Forsyth
_______________________________________
Bob: Took your recommendation to check out Love Life on HBO Max. Show has been pulled, effective last February. Bob Paris
"William Jackson Harper Says He Was 'Big Mad' After 'Love Life' Was Pulled From HBO Max. The anthology series, which starred Harper in its second season, was recently canceled and removed from the streaming service as part of cost-cutting measures."
https://bit.ly/3GEfTap
No Love Life on HBO MAX, gone to pay on Amazon and others.
Paul Zullo
_______________________________________
it's worse than calling 'NEW COKE' just NEW. why are people so dumb sometimes???
Rob Preuss
_______________________________________
Bob, nailed it.
Mike Vial
_______________________________________
Hear hear. Insanity. Nick Davis
_______________________________________
Agree Bob. Completely.
The most important thing Zaslav could do is find some outsiders and listen to them. Unfortunately, ego and isolation are the enemy of success during periods of the kind change that is disrupting his world.
John Parikhal
_______________________________________
I don't care what they call it. Just give the app some much needed tech support. Not being able to play downloaded content on a device in airplane mode is pointless.
Keith Farszmil
_______________________________________
As a very fine actor said in a great film: "stupid is as stupid does. " This is marketing 101. Amazing.
Martin Tudor
_______________________________________
I'm changing my name to Murray.
Steven Ross
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Max
"HBO Max to Be Renamed 'Max' With Addition of Discovery+ Content, Launch Date and Pricing Revealed": https://bit.ly/3zPpWWB
Only a newbie with no history would jettison the brand value of HBO. It would be like the Rolling Stones replacing two members and calling themselves the Drivers. Actually, the Stones have replaced two members and they still call themselves the Stones!
It's well-known in the music business that if you go solo you're not exactly starting from zero, but close. You'd think everybody would know you're the lead singer, but they don't. You'd think everybody would know that HBO is Max, but they won't. Just like they have never activated the free digital HBO Max app that comes with their cable TV subscription. Hell, if Warner Bros. Discovery were a tech company, it would sunset HBO on cable. Otherwise you risk an aged audience which dissipates and is too unworldly to migrate to the app. Steve Jobs specialized in ripping the band-aid off. Sure, people complained, but today Apple is the world's most valuable company. You push people into the future. Imagine if the last season of "Succession" was only on the app, people would find it.
But Warner Bros. Discovery's research said otherwise. That the poor Discovery+ reality TV watchers were turned off by the elite HBO. Not only is that ridiculous, streaming television is not politics, this is the same kind of research that had Coke reformulating its flagship brand as New Coke. Talk about a disaster. Furthermore, Diet Coke is the flagship brand these days, evolution happens, pay attention.
Everybody knows that when it comes to streaming television subscriptions it's all about hit product. Word of mouth that garners viewers. Without "Ted Lasso," Apple TV+ is dead on arrival. I wish Zaslav talked about new programming as opposed to this business nonsense. This is the man who eliminated shows and a brand name movie based on some cockamamie financial engineering. When it comes to streaming TV, brand is everything. Subscribing to a streaming service is not a financial decision, it's an emotional decision. Which is why all these paid ad services miss the point. If someone wants the programming, they'll pay. Otherwise you're just cannibalizing your profits. Mercedes-Benz stopped importing its A-class to America, the company decided to stop making cheap models and focus on the expensive ones, where the profit is. But Zaslav? He's bottom-feeding, appealing to the watchers of reality TV. Have you ever heard someone say they subscribed to a pay service to watch a reality show? I never have. Reality TV is mostly a time-killer, a guilty pleasure, very rarely is it appointment TV. You can live without the latest Bobby Flay competition show, but not the latest "Succession," or "Stranger Things."
Where is the vision?
That's what made Netflix a powerhouse. The paradigm was established and other companies eventually replicated it but Netflix is still the big kahuna, the one with the most subscribers. And Netflix is viewer-centric. Dropping all episodes at once. Didn't we learn this at the advent of this century, with music? Give the public what it wants or be ready for it to abandon you. Turns out people only wanted the hits, i.e. Napster and then the iTunes Store. But artists kept saying they wanted to make an album-long statement and labels said the economics didn't work and along came streaming where you can do what you want and the public was satiated and the business rebounded.
There are good shows on HBO Max that no one knows about. Especially "Love Life." An adult "Friends." Zaslav could have focused on how to get the word out, but instead he's glad-handing, worried about the Street and missing the point. Who cares if "Love Life" is a couple of years old, so was "Breaking Bad" when it was blown up on Netflix.
This is what is wrong with television and this is what is wrong with music. Those in control never had skin in the game, they're managers, not entrepreneurs. They're anti-risk. Reed Hastings was all about risk, and he had vision, to switch from DVDs by mail to streaming. Do you remember when he announced that? The public screamed! The same public that today doesn't even own a DVD player. You get ahead of the public, that's how Spotify won, that's how you will win, by providing something that people can't even conceive of as opposed to trying to drag them back to the past.
In order to win in the streaming game you need fresh new product. This is something that has never been Zaslav's focus. You've got to spend to win in entertainment. Sometimes you even have to bet the farm, as Hastings did. The only way Max works is if there's fantastic new product. However, HBO puts out a very limited amount of product. It tries to focus on great, but sometimes it misses, and you never know what will appeal to some people. Streaming is not about mass, but satiating the niches. The goal is to get people to continue to subscribe. There might be one hot show on a streaming service, but when it's done, you disconnect. What has HBO got? As for Apple dribbling out product week by week, it's because it's got so little of it, and not all succeeds. The goal isn't to satiate the press or the oldsters still watching week by week on cable, but the youngsters coming up, who hate commercials and want it all and they want it now. Why frustrate your customers? Give it to them all at once and then give them something new. And despite conventional wisdom, when you drop all the episodes at once you foment word of mouth, the early adopters spread the word. Forget about the water cooler. Not only do people not show up at the workplace, these people who find out about it late are like those who used to buy the CD two years after it came out. They didn't go to the show, or at least not the next one, they didn't automatically buy the next CD, they were casual customers, Luddites. Streaming TV is all about the active consumer.
Forget about legs. How long do movies play in theatres these days? They open on thousands of theatres to satiate demand. But streaming TV wants to frustrate this? And when you binge...you remember what happened from episode to episode, it's a more rewarding experience.
But you can't convince the suits. With history in the entertainment business. Who were disrupted by Silicon Valley to begin with. You need outside vision. And as Clayton Christensen detailed, you have to disrupt yourself. Where is the disruption in Max? it doesn't even roll off the tongue. Worst case scenario, they could have called it HBOD. Like SiriusXM. People could use all the letters or just the first three, but why get rid of the essence of the brand?
Insane.
Only a newbie with no history would jettison the brand value of HBO. It would be like the Rolling Stones replacing two members and calling themselves the Drivers. Actually, the Stones have replaced two members and they still call themselves the Stones!
It's well-known in the music business that if you go solo you're not exactly starting from zero, but close. You'd think everybody would know you're the lead singer, but they don't. You'd think everybody would know that HBO is Max, but they won't. Just like they have never activated the free digital HBO Max app that comes with their cable TV subscription. Hell, if Warner Bros. Discovery were a tech company, it would sunset HBO on cable. Otherwise you risk an aged audience which dissipates and is too unworldly to migrate to the app. Steve Jobs specialized in ripping the band-aid off. Sure, people complained, but today Apple is the world's most valuable company. You push people into the future. Imagine if the last season of "Succession" was only on the app, people would find it.
But Warner Bros. Discovery's research said otherwise. That the poor Discovery+ reality TV watchers were turned off by the elite HBO. Not only is that ridiculous, streaming television is not politics, this is the same kind of research that had Coke reformulating its flagship brand as New Coke. Talk about a disaster. Furthermore, Diet Coke is the flagship brand these days, evolution happens, pay attention.
Everybody knows that when it comes to streaming television subscriptions it's all about hit product. Word of mouth that garners viewers. Without "Ted Lasso," Apple TV+ is dead on arrival. I wish Zaslav talked about new programming as opposed to this business nonsense. This is the man who eliminated shows and a brand name movie based on some cockamamie financial engineering. When it comes to streaming TV, brand is everything. Subscribing to a streaming service is not a financial decision, it's an emotional decision. Which is why all these paid ad services miss the point. If someone wants the programming, they'll pay. Otherwise you're just cannibalizing your profits. Mercedes-Benz stopped importing its A-class to America, the company decided to stop making cheap models and focus on the expensive ones, where the profit is. But Zaslav? He's bottom-feeding, appealing to the watchers of reality TV. Have you ever heard someone say they subscribed to a pay service to watch a reality show? I never have. Reality TV is mostly a time-killer, a guilty pleasure, very rarely is it appointment TV. You can live without the latest Bobby Flay competition show, but not the latest "Succession," or "Stranger Things."
Where is the vision?
That's what made Netflix a powerhouse. The paradigm was established and other companies eventually replicated it but Netflix is still the big kahuna, the one with the most subscribers. And Netflix is viewer-centric. Dropping all episodes at once. Didn't we learn this at the advent of this century, with music? Give the public what it wants or be ready for it to abandon you. Turns out people only wanted the hits, i.e. Napster and then the iTunes Store. But artists kept saying they wanted to make an album-long statement and labels said the economics didn't work and along came streaming where you can do what you want and the public was satiated and the business rebounded.
There are good shows on HBO Max that no one knows about. Especially "Love Life." An adult "Friends." Zaslav could have focused on how to get the word out, but instead he's glad-handing, worried about the Street and missing the point. Who cares if "Love Life" is a couple of years old, so was "Breaking Bad" when it was blown up on Netflix.
This is what is wrong with television and this is what is wrong with music. Those in control never had skin in the game, they're managers, not entrepreneurs. They're anti-risk. Reed Hastings was all about risk, and he had vision, to switch from DVDs by mail to streaming. Do you remember when he announced that? The public screamed! The same public that today doesn't even own a DVD player. You get ahead of the public, that's how Spotify won, that's how you will win, by providing something that people can't even conceive of as opposed to trying to drag them back to the past.
In order to win in the streaming game you need fresh new product. This is something that has never been Zaslav's focus. You've got to spend to win in entertainment. Sometimes you even have to bet the farm, as Hastings did. The only way Max works is if there's fantastic new product. However, HBO puts out a very limited amount of product. It tries to focus on great, but sometimes it misses, and you never know what will appeal to some people. Streaming is not about mass, but satiating the niches. The goal is to get people to continue to subscribe. There might be one hot show on a streaming service, but when it's done, you disconnect. What has HBO got? As for Apple dribbling out product week by week, it's because it's got so little of it, and not all succeeds. The goal isn't to satiate the press or the oldsters still watching week by week on cable, but the youngsters coming up, who hate commercials and want it all and they want it now. Why frustrate your customers? Give it to them all at once and then give them something new. And despite conventional wisdom, when you drop all the episodes at once you foment word of mouth, the early adopters spread the word. Forget about the water cooler. Not only do people not show up at the workplace, these people who find out about it late are like those who used to buy the CD two years after it came out. They didn't go to the show, or at least not the next one, they didn't automatically buy the next CD, they were casual customers, Luddites. Streaming TV is all about the active consumer.
Forget about legs. How long do movies play in theatres these days? They open on thousands of theatres to satiate demand. But streaming TV wants to frustrate this? And when you binge...you remember what happened from episode to episode, it's a more rewarding experience.
But you can't convince the suits. With history in the entertainment business. Who were disrupted by Silicon Valley to begin with. You need outside vision. And as Clayton Christensen detailed, you have to disrupt yourself. Where is the disruption in Max? it doesn't even roll off the tongue. Worst case scenario, they could have called it HBOD. Like SiriusXM. People could use all the letters or just the first three, but why get rid of the essence of the brand?
Insane.
--
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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Monday, 10 April 2023
Maame
https://amzn.to/40YbSFY
This is a "Read With Jenna" book. And usually that means I won't read it. I don't have anything against Jenna, but she usually recommends middle of the road stuff that will satiate her audience yet is anything but literary fiction.
It had to go back to the library, so I dove in on my Southwest flight, and I was ripping right along but when I was sitting in DIA waiting for my van I told myself I had to stop reading it. It was just too lowbrow, too predictable. Inexperienced woman leaves home and goes on dates and yada yada yada...aren't there a zillion books like this?
Well, the twist is the protagonist is Ghanian, however she grew up in London. She is Black in a White world. And aware of it. And she's also taking care of her dad who has Parkinson's.
I mean this was chick lit. And life is too short and I have too much other stuff I want to read.
But then a couple of plot points didn't turn out the way I thought they would and suddenly, the book got heavy, and there was all this discussion of introversion. And the counselor says:
"I believe in two dominant introvert types. Those who have always enjoyed their own company and those who have grown to prefer it because they weren't given much of a choice."
I used to be more outgoing. Then about thirty years ago, the script flipped. Maybe it was being a writer, if someone made contact I'd listen to their stories, hungry for any kind of connection. I got to the point where I couldn't even tell my own story. If you're around me and I'm blathering know that I'm in a good mood, relaxed, but usually I'm asking questions, trying to make the other person feel comfortable so I'll feel comfortable.
"Maame" got totally into this.
And then the main character cracks and lets her feelings fly, tells her mother the truth, what she feels inside. This is exactly what happened to me. I was going to the shrink and I was listening to my mother and she was pushing me and...I laid it on her. She was shocked. It was a breakthrough for me. But rust never sleeps and my mother started needling me again and I had to push back and after I went to college I couldn't tell my mother my truth because she'd twist it and use it against me. All this stuff about my mother...she's dead and gone, and I don't want you to think I'm haunted by her, because to a great degree her death set me free, but when I read about the mother/daughter relationship in "Maame," it resonated.
So last night I stayed up until one finishing "Maame." And that's not late for me, but I adjust my hours when I go skiing. Not that you can go out too early right now, because the snow freezes overnight and you have to wait for it to soften up. And my goal was to finish the book before my Kindle died, I forgot to bring the charging cord, but I was also invested. That's the great thing about a book, it hooks you, you're in a private universe. And in "Maame" that happens about halfway through.
So the last thing I thought I was going to do was recommend "Maame." I was determined to finish it, because completion not only builds character, it pays dividends. You never know where the book is going to go. Just like you never know what will happen when you walk out the front door. But too many people are set in their ways, and it's risk that makes life worth living, it's all about the unexpected. Especially as you get older and you've seen the trick, when you're no longer working for work's sake, when you've retired because you're exhausted and hate your job or you're working because you love it so much. You still have to push when you age, don't become complacent.
But the point being this book made a big impression on me. And unlike Jenna and so many of the book group leaders, I don't like to recommend books on a schedule, I only want to recommend books that are worth your time.
So... I wish we had a male equivalent of Oprah and even Jenna. But everybody thinks men only want to read nonfiction, are interested in what Bill Gates and Obama read. I mean why? Gates is a techie with huge blind spots and Obama is better, but this is not his passion, recommending books. And in truth men are seeking stories, fiction, just as much as women, but it's hard to get them to partake, to read. They think they're too busy. And you do have to make time for books, but they're oftentimes more rewarding than your priorities, like watching the game.
But if you can suffer the predictable chick lit first half to be hooked by the deep, meaningful second half, I recommend "Maame." It'll have you thinking, about your relationship with your family. About obligation. Those who feel they need to show up and those who believe they're free and don't have to.
I just wanted to tell you about this book, because it left a lasting impression. Too many books are page-turners, and when you're done there's nothing left, you followed the plot, but you're not personally affected.
"Maame" affected me. And it might affect you too.
Give it a try.
--
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--
Listen to the podcast:
-iHeart: https://ihr.fm/2Gi5PFj
-Apple: https://apple.co/2ndmpvp
--
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This is a "Read With Jenna" book. And usually that means I won't read it. I don't have anything against Jenna, but she usually recommends middle of the road stuff that will satiate her audience yet is anything but literary fiction.
It had to go back to the library, so I dove in on my Southwest flight, and I was ripping right along but when I was sitting in DIA waiting for my van I told myself I had to stop reading it. It was just too lowbrow, too predictable. Inexperienced woman leaves home and goes on dates and yada yada yada...aren't there a zillion books like this?
Well, the twist is the protagonist is Ghanian, however she grew up in London. She is Black in a White world. And aware of it. And she's also taking care of her dad who has Parkinson's.
I mean this was chick lit. And life is too short and I have too much other stuff I want to read.
But then a couple of plot points didn't turn out the way I thought they would and suddenly, the book got heavy, and there was all this discussion of introversion. And the counselor says:
"I believe in two dominant introvert types. Those who have always enjoyed their own company and those who have grown to prefer it because they weren't given much of a choice."
I used to be more outgoing. Then about thirty years ago, the script flipped. Maybe it was being a writer, if someone made contact I'd listen to their stories, hungry for any kind of connection. I got to the point where I couldn't even tell my own story. If you're around me and I'm blathering know that I'm in a good mood, relaxed, but usually I'm asking questions, trying to make the other person feel comfortable so I'll feel comfortable.
"Maame" got totally into this.
And then the main character cracks and lets her feelings fly, tells her mother the truth, what she feels inside. This is exactly what happened to me. I was going to the shrink and I was listening to my mother and she was pushing me and...I laid it on her. She was shocked. It was a breakthrough for me. But rust never sleeps and my mother started needling me again and I had to push back and after I went to college I couldn't tell my mother my truth because she'd twist it and use it against me. All this stuff about my mother...she's dead and gone, and I don't want you to think I'm haunted by her, because to a great degree her death set me free, but when I read about the mother/daughter relationship in "Maame," it resonated.
So last night I stayed up until one finishing "Maame." And that's not late for me, but I adjust my hours when I go skiing. Not that you can go out too early right now, because the snow freezes overnight and you have to wait for it to soften up. And my goal was to finish the book before my Kindle died, I forgot to bring the charging cord, but I was also invested. That's the great thing about a book, it hooks you, you're in a private universe. And in "Maame" that happens about halfway through.
So the last thing I thought I was going to do was recommend "Maame." I was determined to finish it, because completion not only builds character, it pays dividends. You never know where the book is going to go. Just like you never know what will happen when you walk out the front door. But too many people are set in their ways, and it's risk that makes life worth living, it's all about the unexpected. Especially as you get older and you've seen the trick, when you're no longer working for work's sake, when you've retired because you're exhausted and hate your job or you're working because you love it so much. You still have to push when you age, don't become complacent.
But the point being this book made a big impression on me. And unlike Jenna and so many of the book group leaders, I don't like to recommend books on a schedule, I only want to recommend books that are worth your time.
So... I wish we had a male equivalent of Oprah and even Jenna. But everybody thinks men only want to read nonfiction, are interested in what Bill Gates and Obama read. I mean why? Gates is a techie with huge blind spots and Obama is better, but this is not his passion, recommending books. And in truth men are seeking stories, fiction, just as much as women, but it's hard to get them to partake, to read. They think they're too busy. And you do have to make time for books, but they're oftentimes more rewarding than your priorities, like watching the game.
But if you can suffer the predictable chick lit first half to be hooked by the deep, meaningful second half, I recommend "Maame." It'll have you thinking, about your relationship with your family. About obligation. Those who feel they need to show up and those who believe they're free and don't have to.
I just wanted to tell you about this book, because it left a lasting impression. Too many books are page-turners, and when you're done there's nothing left, you followed the plot, but you're not personally affected.
"Maame" affected me. And it might affect you too.
Give it a try.
--
Visit the archive: http://lefsetz.com/wordpress/
--
Listen to the podcast:
-iHeart: https://ihr.fm/2Gi5PFj
-Apple: https://apple.co/2ndmpvp
--
http://www.twitter.com/lefsetz
--
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Sunday, 9 April 2023
Sleep Songs Addendum
And the winner is... "Sleep Walk," by Santo & Johnny!
My inbox is inundated with readers proffering this sleep song. Never thought of it, couldn't even tell you who performed it, but obviously I'm out of the loop.
I was also reminded that I failed to include the Spotify link for the sleep playlist, so here it is: https://spoti.fi/3nW1QGP
And another sleep song everybody wrote in to remind me of was Jackson Browne's "Sleep's Dark and Silent Gate" from Jackson Browne's 1976 album, "The Pretender." I was stunned to find out that "Sleep's Dark and Silent Gate" only has 1,055,792 streams on Spotify. For comparison, "Sleep Walk" has 83,506,841. Not that Jackson doesn't have cuts with more streams, "Doctor My Eyes" and "Running on Empty" are in triple digit millions. But those were "hits." The non-hits, which Jackson is famous for, are fading away.
Let's start with Browne's 2021 album "Downhill from Everywhere," for which he did a ton of promotion...print, TV, podcast, online... Even the single, "Cleveland Heart," doesn't have a million streams. Only one cut on that album has gone into seven figures, "A Little Soon to Say," with 2,273,064. Then again, I'm one of the few that didn't rave about "Downhill from Everywhere."
The previous LP, 2014's "Standing in the Breach," actually has two songs with two million streams, two with one million, and "The Long Way Around" has 8,861,517.
None of the songs on 2008's "Time the Conqueror" even break a million, as a matter of fact, none break five hundred thousand, the biggest, the opening cut, has 387,211.
None of the tracks on 2002's "The Naked Ride Home" breaks a million. My favorite song on the LP, track 5, "Never Stop," only has 188,295.
"Never Stop" has an adult perspective as opposed to the teenage dreck that dominates the airwaves, it's about Jackson's long term relationship. It's positive, do people only cotton to negative stuff? And it's slow, but there's a groove. If you're a JB fan hang in there, because about three-quarters of the way through the number it completely changes, it's a surprise, and it talks about surprise:
"Remember when you look into my eyes
I'm the one who took you by surprise
The time has come and gone and come back 'round again
And I'm still here to take you by surprise my friend"
That's how it is. Have you been reading the obits for John Lydon's wife, Nora Foster? She didn't like Johnny Rotten at first, but he grew on her. That's how it is with so many relationships, they don't work on the surface, but women are intrigued by personality more than looks, and if you evidence more than a shiny outfit and car you've got a chance, as long as you stay with it.
Check out that Nora Foster obit. It's pretty interesting: https://nyti.ms/3GwjS9b (That's a free link, by the way.)
But also if you're a Jackson fan listen to "Never Stop":
Spotify: https://spoti.fi/40ThoKd
YouTube: https://bit.ly/3KLn2YY
Now you've to listen to "Never Stop" like it's the seventies, when you'd buy an album and play it over and over again until it revealed itself to you. Don't listen for five seconds expecting a hit, but if you let it play a couple of times through it might get under your skin, it did mine.
1996's "Looking East" only has one cut over a million, "The Barricades of Heaven," which Jackson regularly plays live.
1993's "I'm Alive," Jackson's comeback album, where he goes back to the early sound that made him famous, has two cuts in the millions.
But every cut on 1977's "Running on Empty" is in the millions, the last two 40 and 64 million to be exact.
But Jackson's best album, a classic, which everyone should own as a companion to Joni Mitchell's "Blue," 1974's "Late for the Sky"...two cuts don't even break a million. "For a Dancer," the ultimate funeral song, only has 1,940,788.
Now, in truth, the older demo tends to subscribe to Apple Music or Amazon as opposed to Spotify. But they also don't tend to stream much, certainly not over and over. So what I'm saying is that although these piss-poor numbers may be strengthened a bit when the entire streaming universe is considered, in truth some of Jackson Browne's greatest work is in danger of falling off the map, potentially to be rediscovered, but I doubt it. But believe me, if today's generation listened to "Late for the Sky," they'd set aside both Phoebe Bridgers and Taylor Swift. Then again, Jackson is not as good a self-promoter as those two. But couldn't somebody promote the classics of yore for younger generations to discover? I mean you don't have to buy them to hear them, you can even listen for free on YouTube. Then again, the record business, especially today's record business, is focused on the new. But much of classic rock was inspired by Robert Johnson and the Delta blues players.
These tracks could take younger generations by surprise.
But as for classic acts making new music... It has to satiate them, because it has almost no impact in the marketplace. Sure, some physical copies are sold, but most are not listened to that much, to the point where if you play new music live the audience gets up and goes to the bathroom.
Then again, the old acts could learn that today it's about the track, not the album. The album is too much. It's only for the act and hard core fans at best. If that's enough, more power to you. But if you're expecting a market reaction, you need a track that's a one listen smash, like "Running on Empty."
And having skied so hard today, it was the last day of the season for Blue Sky Basin and we had to go off piste and ski the bumps, I forgot to include the final words of "Never Stop":
"Show me your eyes, tell me again
Where you want to go
Now the night is glowing beneath your skin
And when you smile I'm the richest man I know"
You may be aged, but that does not mean you have to give up. Everywhere I go in L.A. my contemporaries are stunned I still ski. It's too dangerous for them, but they're the ones missing out, because skiing is like sex, you can only get that hit by doing it. And you need to do it, because there will come a time when you can't. You might be physically compromised, you might even die.
But while you're still here...
It's the little moments that resonate, not the possessions and not even the trips, etc., the "experiences." It's that laugh you share with your significant other, that feeling you get when you look into their eyes. You're old enough to know that's what life is truly about. We look to our artists to point this out. In "Never Stop" Jackson Browne does.
--
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--
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-iHeart: https://ihr.fm/2Gi5PFj
-Apple: https://apple.co/2ndmpvp
--
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My inbox is inundated with readers proffering this sleep song. Never thought of it, couldn't even tell you who performed it, but obviously I'm out of the loop.
I was also reminded that I failed to include the Spotify link for the sleep playlist, so here it is: https://spoti.fi/3nW1QGP
And another sleep song everybody wrote in to remind me of was Jackson Browne's "Sleep's Dark and Silent Gate" from Jackson Browne's 1976 album, "The Pretender." I was stunned to find out that "Sleep's Dark and Silent Gate" only has 1,055,792 streams on Spotify. For comparison, "Sleep Walk" has 83,506,841. Not that Jackson doesn't have cuts with more streams, "Doctor My Eyes" and "Running on Empty" are in triple digit millions. But those were "hits." The non-hits, which Jackson is famous for, are fading away.
Let's start with Browne's 2021 album "Downhill from Everywhere," for which he did a ton of promotion...print, TV, podcast, online... Even the single, "Cleveland Heart," doesn't have a million streams. Only one cut on that album has gone into seven figures, "A Little Soon to Say," with 2,273,064. Then again, I'm one of the few that didn't rave about "Downhill from Everywhere."
The previous LP, 2014's "Standing in the Breach," actually has two songs with two million streams, two with one million, and "The Long Way Around" has 8,861,517.
None of the songs on 2008's "Time the Conqueror" even break a million, as a matter of fact, none break five hundred thousand, the biggest, the opening cut, has 387,211.
None of the tracks on 2002's "The Naked Ride Home" breaks a million. My favorite song on the LP, track 5, "Never Stop," only has 188,295.
"Never Stop" has an adult perspective as opposed to the teenage dreck that dominates the airwaves, it's about Jackson's long term relationship. It's positive, do people only cotton to negative stuff? And it's slow, but there's a groove. If you're a JB fan hang in there, because about three-quarters of the way through the number it completely changes, it's a surprise, and it talks about surprise:
"Remember when you look into my eyes
I'm the one who took you by surprise
The time has come and gone and come back 'round again
And I'm still here to take you by surprise my friend"
That's how it is. Have you been reading the obits for John Lydon's wife, Nora Foster? She didn't like Johnny Rotten at first, but he grew on her. That's how it is with so many relationships, they don't work on the surface, but women are intrigued by personality more than looks, and if you evidence more than a shiny outfit and car you've got a chance, as long as you stay with it.
Check out that Nora Foster obit. It's pretty interesting: https://nyti.ms/3GwjS9b (That's a free link, by the way.)
But also if you're a Jackson fan listen to "Never Stop":
Spotify: https://spoti.fi/40ThoKd
YouTube: https://bit.ly/3KLn2YY
Now you've to listen to "Never Stop" like it's the seventies, when you'd buy an album and play it over and over again until it revealed itself to you. Don't listen for five seconds expecting a hit, but if you let it play a couple of times through it might get under your skin, it did mine.
1996's "Looking East" only has one cut over a million, "The Barricades of Heaven," which Jackson regularly plays live.
1993's "I'm Alive," Jackson's comeback album, where he goes back to the early sound that made him famous, has two cuts in the millions.
But every cut on 1977's "Running on Empty" is in the millions, the last two 40 and 64 million to be exact.
But Jackson's best album, a classic, which everyone should own as a companion to Joni Mitchell's "Blue," 1974's "Late for the Sky"...two cuts don't even break a million. "For a Dancer," the ultimate funeral song, only has 1,940,788.
Now, in truth, the older demo tends to subscribe to Apple Music or Amazon as opposed to Spotify. But they also don't tend to stream much, certainly not over and over. So what I'm saying is that although these piss-poor numbers may be strengthened a bit when the entire streaming universe is considered, in truth some of Jackson Browne's greatest work is in danger of falling off the map, potentially to be rediscovered, but I doubt it. But believe me, if today's generation listened to "Late for the Sky," they'd set aside both Phoebe Bridgers and Taylor Swift. Then again, Jackson is not as good a self-promoter as those two. But couldn't somebody promote the classics of yore for younger generations to discover? I mean you don't have to buy them to hear them, you can even listen for free on YouTube. Then again, the record business, especially today's record business, is focused on the new. But much of classic rock was inspired by Robert Johnson and the Delta blues players.
These tracks could take younger generations by surprise.
But as for classic acts making new music... It has to satiate them, because it has almost no impact in the marketplace. Sure, some physical copies are sold, but most are not listened to that much, to the point where if you play new music live the audience gets up and goes to the bathroom.
Then again, the old acts could learn that today it's about the track, not the album. The album is too much. It's only for the act and hard core fans at best. If that's enough, more power to you. But if you're expecting a market reaction, you need a track that's a one listen smash, like "Running on Empty."
And having skied so hard today, it was the last day of the season for Blue Sky Basin and we had to go off piste and ski the bumps, I forgot to include the final words of "Never Stop":
"Show me your eyes, tell me again
Where you want to go
Now the night is glowing beneath your skin
And when you smile I'm the richest man I know"
You may be aged, but that does not mean you have to give up. Everywhere I go in L.A. my contemporaries are stunned I still ski. It's too dangerous for them, but they're the ones missing out, because skiing is like sex, you can only get that hit by doing it. And you need to do it, because there will come a time when you can't. You might be physically compromised, you might even die.
But while you're still here...
It's the little moments that resonate, not the possessions and not even the trips, etc., the "experiences." It's that laugh you share with your significant other, that feeling you get when you look into their eyes. You're old enough to know that's what life is truly about. We look to our artists to point this out. In "Never Stop" Jackson Browne does.
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