Trailer: https://rb.gy/dpkx73
They would never make this show in America.
And most viewers wouldn't get through the first episode, never mind click to see it again.
"The Responder" is dark. There are no characters you can identify with, root for. If you want an uplifting show, "The Responder" is not for you. If you see TV series as entertainment, "The Responder" is not for you. But if you view television as an art form, if you want to be enmeshed in a world that may be foreign, but truthful, if you like to be engrossed in a show sans interruptions...
You might love "The Responder."
I won't say "The Responder" is populated by losers. But most of its characters are struggling.
Marco, with his substandard intelligence. He knows he's not the sharpest tool in the shed. He's just trying to survive, making one bad judgment after another.
As for Casey...
She's a drug addict. Not to be trusted. We like the "Intervention" model, middle class denizen goes down the wrong path and is brought back to reality by loved ones and does their best to fly straight. But what if you were brought up in a group home? What if you've never known your father, never mind who he is, and your mother has mental health problems and...
You end up doing what is right for you, even if it's wrong. The immediate is more important than the long term. Your life is a constant whiplash from one bad scene to another.
Living on the bottom. It's glorified if you're an artist. Don't believe it for a minute. I've done it. All you can think about is money, survival. And let me tell you, desperate people do desperate things. Don't be surprised if a desperate person steals from you, double-crosses you, because when survival is everything...you are no longer a member of the middle class with traditional ethics.
The star of "The Responder" is Martin Freeman, as Chris Carson. A grizzled cop working the night shift, who is seen as a knobhead by the entire force and can never make it to daytime.
And being a cop means...you compromise. You don't take every offender in to be booked. You make judgments. You're not innocent, then again the legal system is not efficient, rendering the proper result in every instance.
But Chris has a good heart. He doesn't want to see drug addicts assassinated. He wants a modicum of peace. But can you have a good heart if you're policing the streets?
Chris is no longer sure what is right and what is wrong. And believes that by being bottled up he is protecting his family, whereas in truth his wife feels isolated and has a wandering eye and...
Petty jealousies. People out to get you. That's in "The Responder."
And seeing your betrothed with another person... Have you experienced this? It's mind-bending. It's done about as well in "The Responder" as I've ever seen.
And then there's Rachel. A cop who can't see the crime inside her own home. One of the best parts of the series is when her boyfriend Steve won't come pick her up because he's deeply involved in playing Xbox. You see people on TV being reasonable all day long, but that's not the way it really is.
What you've got here is the people no one ever talks about. The underclass going nowhere. And those who have to interact with them.
Everybody's got to live somewhere, you should see some of the sh*tholes these people reside in. While abodes get larger and larger in the U.S...we have a huge homeless problem. All these people, they're making more and more of them, how are they going to eat, where are they going to live?
You probably don't want to ask yourself these questions. You're probably looking for escape.
"The Responder" is not an escape, it's an assault. A world you become entangled in that creeps you out and makes your skin crawl. And this is not some high concept horror film, this is real life.
"The Responder" has a 100/78 rating on RottenTomatoes. I'm interested in anything that gets a 100 in the Critics rating, assuming enough critics have weighed in, in this case twenty two. As for the Audience rating...I can't see 100% of people loving this show. Then again, isn't it the shows most people dislike that ring your bell so loudly?
"The Responder" is set in Scotland. Turn on subtitles to catch the dialogue. And the second season is not quite as good as the first, the concepts are a bit repetitive. But just when you think you have things figured out, believing the plot, the solution, the way forward, is obvious, it is not. And it's not the unforeseen twist of a mystery novel, but the way life works out, not according to plan.
Now chances are almost nobody reading this is going to watch "The Responder," because first and foremost you've got to pay for it, it's on BritBox. But you can watch the first episode with your Amazon Prime subscription, and you can get a BritBox free trial, but of those who dip their toes into this series, most won't even make it through the first episode.
This is gritty television. It has been nominated for and won awards in the U.K.
But this is not HBO. Which makes you feel good about being upper middle class, no matter how "edgy" the production is. "The Responder" is nearly a challenge. Are you willing to go into a world of people who don't really matter with a story that doesn't really matter and experience how many in this world live?
Then "The Responder" is for you.
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Saturday, 27 July 2024
Friday, 26 July 2024
Is Rock Dead?-SiriusXM This Week
Tune in Saturday July 26th to Faction Talk, channel 103, at 4 PM East, 1 PM West.
Phone #: 844-686-5863
Twitter: @lefsetz
If you miss the episode, you can hear it on demand on the SiriusXM app. Search: Lefsetz
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Thursday, 25 July 2024
The Solo In Do It Again
Spotify: https://shorturl.at/SYiCV
YouTube: https://t.ly/kC_Na
1
The cognoscenti believe "Countdown to Ecstasy" is the best Steely Dan album. I love "My Old School," really enjoy "King of the World," but I am not really enamored of "Bodhisattva" and I like "Your Gold Teeth II" better than "Your Gold Teeth."
And I didn't even buy "Countdown to Ecstasy" until years after it was released.
The first Steely Dan album I purchased was "Pretzel Logic," which I had to return to the Record Club of America because there was so much surface noise. I thought it was ABC, their pressings were legendarily substandard, but only decades later did I discover that the Record Club of America could sell albums so cheaply with no commitment because they pressed them themselves.
"Pretzel Logic" is only 33 minutes and 52 seconds long, and that was even short back in 1974, when it came out. It was a surprise that "Rikki Don't Lose That Number" was such a big hit, since nothing on "Countdown to Ecstasy" broke through. Steely Dan didn't sound like anything else. One could classify them as one hit wonders, maybe two. They came out of nowhere, were on a crappy label and broke on AM instead of FM. Yes, we learned the derivation of the band's name, but we didn't expect to hear much more.
And then came "Rikki." Which was all over the radio during the early summer of '74. And I love "Rikki," but "Any Major Dude Will Tell You" felt so personal. And "Barrytown."
To the point where I purchased "Katy Lied" when it came out. I loved that album. Played it in the Blaupunkt as I drove cross-country.
"Bad sneakers and a piña colada my friend stomping on the avenue by Radio City..."
It was all rushed out as one line.
And, once again, there was no hit on a Steely Dan album, but they'd made their bones, they'd earned their success, not that they were dominant on FM radio.
The real breakthrough was "Aja," proving the point that the public has no idea what it is looking for and something completely different can stand out and triumph.
It was the reverse of "Can't Buy a Thrill." All the action was on FM, when FM ruled, when tracks on the format were ubiquitous, cultural signposts, known by everybody.
But before that came "The Royal Scam," which I learned every note of as I drove from Salt Lake City to Connecticut listening to the cassette. I loved the line about turning up the Eagles because the neighbors were listening, but my absolute favorite was a track no one ever talked about, which is "Don't Take Me Alive."
"I'm a bookkeeper's son
I don't want to hurt no one"
Dark. And personal. The opposite of today's hit records. He's a nobody, a nerd, soft, not the boasting winner of today's musical landscape.
And it was more than three years until "Aja" was followed up by "Gaucho," which had no hit singles and was released in a changing landscape. Disco was demolished, corporate rock ruled, "Breakfast in America" and "The Wall" were the two biggest albums and "Gaucho" appeared out of step, which is part of what made it so great. It lived in its own universe. And it had those two great songs with those phenomenal lyrics.
"Hey nineteen
No we can't dance together
No we can't talk at all"
There was a new generation, labeled "X," could a boomer relate?
Which is what stuns me about people who date those decades younger than themselves today. There isn't the cultural common ground. They don't remember the TV shows and the records and...
The other famous lines were:
"Tonight when I chase the dragon
The water may change to cherry wine
And the silver will turn to gold
Time out of mind"
Ultimately it was revealed that chasing the dragon was about doing heroin which seemed unfathomable the same way we didn't believe the Beatles were on drugs. Steely Dan was two middle class guys, really?
And every one of these Steely Dan albums is great, but for a long time my favorite was the initial one, the debut, "Can't Buy a Thrill."
2
My sister owned it. And I borrowed it when I finally moved to L.A. permanently and bought the stereo of my dreams. And the song I loved, my favorite on the album, was one I never saw in print, one no one talked about, "Brooklyn (Owes the Charmer Under Me)."
"A tower room at Eden Roc
His golf at noon for free
Brooklyn owes the charmer under me"
The Eden Roc hotel was the apotheosis of the first wave of Miami, I knew that, but as far as Brooklyn owing the charmer...good luck on interpreting that.
But the change, the melody, the vocal...
I was hooked.
And that vocal was by David Palmer, not Donald Fagen.
As was "Dirty Work," which might be the most famous song on the whole album.
But the hits were sung by Fagen.
"Do It Again" paved the way for "Reelin' in the Years," which was played more where I lived, your mileage may differ.
And the only reason I knew "Do It Again" was because my '63 Chevy only had an AM radio. And the track was dark, when too many were bright and sunny.
And when I went to Nick's dorm room I always put it on. That used to be a thing, you'd go to a friend's abode and play the records you loved that they owned and you didn't.
And yesterday "Do It Again" came up in rotation on Spotify. How many times have I heard this? I debated fast-forwarding through it, just to see what the algorithm would present next, but I would be home nearly instantly and how much longer was I going to listen anyway. And when I opened the front door, I heard the solo.
3
Who played what? Good luck on that. Well, the internet helps with that. Not the liner notes. There is no credit for "Do It Again." But if you do research, you find out it was Denny Dias. Forgotten in the history of Steely Dan.
People talk about Larry Carlton's solos. Skunk Baxter joined the Doobie Brothers when Walter and Donald fired the original band. Dias...he ultimately became a computer programmer. I mean how good was he?
Very good, it turns out.
Research told me that not only did Dias cut the solo, he did it on an electric sitar, purchased used for $50 by Pip Williams, working with Bloodstone at the same time at the Village Recorder. You can read the complete story here: https://shorturl.at/dG2xJ
And Dias didn't use it again, it was one and done on "Do It Again."
And there are so many famous gunslingers, especially from the sixties and seventies, and Dias is never mentioned. And the style of the solos...
Doesn't sound like this.
On the album track, Donald doesn't even start to sing until after a minute intro. Needless to say this was cut for the single. As was the later organ solo. And that Yamaha YC-30 organ gives "Do It Again" that dark feeling. This was back when getting sounds in the studio was key. Before everything was produced for earbuds at low resolution.
Speaking of which, be sure to play "Do It Again" in Ultra HD on the platform of your choice, it may be over fifty years old. but it sounds like it was recorded yesterday.
So Denny starts his solo at 2:38. And it's not like he's showing off, it doesn't stick out from the track, it's baked in, you know the sound, the licks, but they're part of the wash until they're not.
What exactly is happening here? This is not the rhythm of the meat and potatoes seventies FM rock, it's not what the English bluesmeisters were delivering. It's mellifluous, yet choppy. As if Dias is whacking at a tree at double speed, swinging independent of what is happening in the rest of the track, yet fitting right in. This is not something you can dance to, move to, but your brain is following along, on a unique trip.
And it's just part of a record.
4
Now if it were the old days... Well, if it were the old days you wouldn't even be reading this, the internet, never mind e-mail, didn't exist. But you'd drop the disc on the platter of your Dual, your B.I.C., hopefully not your Garrard, maybe your Technics, possibly AR or even a Thorens turntable, crank the volume on your receiver and this sound would come out of the big speakers and...
You know exactly what I'm talking about. Sounds would reveal themselves. We lived to get inside these records. But despite all this, Denny Dias's solo in "Do It Again" didn't really reach me until yesterday.
Actually, it was Dias who got the band together, via an ad in the "Village Voice" looking for a bassist and keyboard player, writing that they "must have jazz chops and no hang-ups."
And Walter and Donald drove out to Hicksville and merged with Dias's band and...
The rest is history.
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--
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-iHeart: https://ihr.fm/2Gi5PFj
-Apple: https://apple.co/2ndmpvp
--
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YouTube: https://t.ly/kC_Na
1
The cognoscenti believe "Countdown to Ecstasy" is the best Steely Dan album. I love "My Old School," really enjoy "King of the World," but I am not really enamored of "Bodhisattva" and I like "Your Gold Teeth II" better than "Your Gold Teeth."
And I didn't even buy "Countdown to Ecstasy" until years after it was released.
The first Steely Dan album I purchased was "Pretzel Logic," which I had to return to the Record Club of America because there was so much surface noise. I thought it was ABC, their pressings were legendarily substandard, but only decades later did I discover that the Record Club of America could sell albums so cheaply with no commitment because they pressed them themselves.
"Pretzel Logic" is only 33 minutes and 52 seconds long, and that was even short back in 1974, when it came out. It was a surprise that "Rikki Don't Lose That Number" was such a big hit, since nothing on "Countdown to Ecstasy" broke through. Steely Dan didn't sound like anything else. One could classify them as one hit wonders, maybe two. They came out of nowhere, were on a crappy label and broke on AM instead of FM. Yes, we learned the derivation of the band's name, but we didn't expect to hear much more.
And then came "Rikki." Which was all over the radio during the early summer of '74. And I love "Rikki," but "Any Major Dude Will Tell You" felt so personal. And "Barrytown."
To the point where I purchased "Katy Lied" when it came out. I loved that album. Played it in the Blaupunkt as I drove cross-country.
"Bad sneakers and a piña colada my friend stomping on the avenue by Radio City..."
It was all rushed out as one line.
And, once again, there was no hit on a Steely Dan album, but they'd made their bones, they'd earned their success, not that they were dominant on FM radio.
The real breakthrough was "Aja," proving the point that the public has no idea what it is looking for and something completely different can stand out and triumph.
It was the reverse of "Can't Buy a Thrill." All the action was on FM, when FM ruled, when tracks on the format were ubiquitous, cultural signposts, known by everybody.
But before that came "The Royal Scam," which I learned every note of as I drove from Salt Lake City to Connecticut listening to the cassette. I loved the line about turning up the Eagles because the neighbors were listening, but my absolute favorite was a track no one ever talked about, which is "Don't Take Me Alive."
"I'm a bookkeeper's son
I don't want to hurt no one"
Dark. And personal. The opposite of today's hit records. He's a nobody, a nerd, soft, not the boasting winner of today's musical landscape.
And it was more than three years until "Aja" was followed up by "Gaucho," which had no hit singles and was released in a changing landscape. Disco was demolished, corporate rock ruled, "Breakfast in America" and "The Wall" were the two biggest albums and "Gaucho" appeared out of step, which is part of what made it so great. It lived in its own universe. And it had those two great songs with those phenomenal lyrics.
"Hey nineteen
No we can't dance together
No we can't talk at all"
There was a new generation, labeled "X," could a boomer relate?
Which is what stuns me about people who date those decades younger than themselves today. There isn't the cultural common ground. They don't remember the TV shows and the records and...
The other famous lines were:
"Tonight when I chase the dragon
The water may change to cherry wine
And the silver will turn to gold
Time out of mind"
Ultimately it was revealed that chasing the dragon was about doing heroin which seemed unfathomable the same way we didn't believe the Beatles were on drugs. Steely Dan was two middle class guys, really?
And every one of these Steely Dan albums is great, but for a long time my favorite was the initial one, the debut, "Can't Buy a Thrill."
2
My sister owned it. And I borrowed it when I finally moved to L.A. permanently and bought the stereo of my dreams. And the song I loved, my favorite on the album, was one I never saw in print, one no one talked about, "Brooklyn (Owes the Charmer Under Me)."
"A tower room at Eden Roc
His golf at noon for free
Brooklyn owes the charmer under me"
The Eden Roc hotel was the apotheosis of the first wave of Miami, I knew that, but as far as Brooklyn owing the charmer...good luck on interpreting that.
But the change, the melody, the vocal...
I was hooked.
And that vocal was by David Palmer, not Donald Fagen.
As was "Dirty Work," which might be the most famous song on the whole album.
But the hits were sung by Fagen.
"Do It Again" paved the way for "Reelin' in the Years," which was played more where I lived, your mileage may differ.
And the only reason I knew "Do It Again" was because my '63 Chevy only had an AM radio. And the track was dark, when too many were bright and sunny.
And when I went to Nick's dorm room I always put it on. That used to be a thing, you'd go to a friend's abode and play the records you loved that they owned and you didn't.
And yesterday "Do It Again" came up in rotation on Spotify. How many times have I heard this? I debated fast-forwarding through it, just to see what the algorithm would present next, but I would be home nearly instantly and how much longer was I going to listen anyway. And when I opened the front door, I heard the solo.
3
Who played what? Good luck on that. Well, the internet helps with that. Not the liner notes. There is no credit for "Do It Again." But if you do research, you find out it was Denny Dias. Forgotten in the history of Steely Dan.
People talk about Larry Carlton's solos. Skunk Baxter joined the Doobie Brothers when Walter and Donald fired the original band. Dias...he ultimately became a computer programmer. I mean how good was he?
Very good, it turns out.
Research told me that not only did Dias cut the solo, he did it on an electric sitar, purchased used for $50 by Pip Williams, working with Bloodstone at the same time at the Village Recorder. You can read the complete story here: https://shorturl.at/dG2xJ
And Dias didn't use it again, it was one and done on "Do It Again."
And there are so many famous gunslingers, especially from the sixties and seventies, and Dias is never mentioned. And the style of the solos...
Doesn't sound like this.
On the album track, Donald doesn't even start to sing until after a minute intro. Needless to say this was cut for the single. As was the later organ solo. And that Yamaha YC-30 organ gives "Do It Again" that dark feeling. This was back when getting sounds in the studio was key. Before everything was produced for earbuds at low resolution.
Speaking of which, be sure to play "Do It Again" in Ultra HD on the platform of your choice, it may be over fifty years old. but it sounds like it was recorded yesterday.
So Denny starts his solo at 2:38. And it's not like he's showing off, it doesn't stick out from the track, it's baked in, you know the sound, the licks, but they're part of the wash until they're not.
What exactly is happening here? This is not the rhythm of the meat and potatoes seventies FM rock, it's not what the English bluesmeisters were delivering. It's mellifluous, yet choppy. As if Dias is whacking at a tree at double speed, swinging independent of what is happening in the rest of the track, yet fitting right in. This is not something you can dance to, move to, but your brain is following along, on a unique trip.
And it's just part of a record.
4
Now if it were the old days... Well, if it were the old days you wouldn't even be reading this, the internet, never mind e-mail, didn't exist. But you'd drop the disc on the platter of your Dual, your B.I.C., hopefully not your Garrard, maybe your Technics, possibly AR or even a Thorens turntable, crank the volume on your receiver and this sound would come out of the big speakers and...
You know exactly what I'm talking about. Sounds would reveal themselves. We lived to get inside these records. But despite all this, Denny Dias's solo in "Do It Again" didn't really reach me until yesterday.
Actually, it was Dias who got the band together, via an ad in the "Village Voice" looking for a bassist and keyboard player, writing that they "must have jazz chops and no hang-ups."
And Walter and Donald drove out to Hicksville and merged with Dias's band and...
The rest is history.
--
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--
Listen to the podcast:
-iHeart: https://ihr.fm/2Gi5PFj
-Apple: https://apple.co/2ndmpvp
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Don Gehman-This Week's Podcast
Don Gehman has produced records for everybody from Stephen Stills to John Mellencamp to R.E.M. to Bruce Hornsby to Tracy Chapman to Hootie and the Blowfish. This is his story from Pennsylvania and Clair Brothers, to Florida and Criteria, to name producer. Quite a journey!
https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/don-gehman/id1316200737?i=1000663309969
https://open.spotify.com/episode/0QOxKUDtc8RXj4rLiUtqn4?si=Wmc7LoaOTtmk3m-ElZeecg
https://www.iheart.com/podcast/1119-the-bob-lefsetz-podcast-30806836/episode/don-gehman-199126326/
https://music.amazon.com/podcasts/9ff4fb19-54d4-41ae-ae7a-8a6f8d3dafa8/episodes/3dce7ce5-c100-4f8f-bf82-46aa4a9deadb/the-bob-lefsetz-podcast-don-gehman
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Listen to the podcast:
-iHeart: https://ihr.fm/2Gi5PFj
-Apple: https://apple.co/2ndmpvp
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https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/don-gehman/id1316200737?i=1000663309969
https://open.spotify.com/episode/0QOxKUDtc8RXj4rLiUtqn4?si=Wmc7LoaOTtmk3m-ElZeecg
https://www.iheart.com/podcast/1119-the-bob-lefsetz-podcast-30806836/episode/don-gehman-199126326/
https://music.amazon.com/podcasts/9ff4fb19-54d4-41ae-ae7a-8a6f8d3dafa8/episodes/3dce7ce5-c100-4f8f-bf82-46aa4a9deadb/the-bob-lefsetz-podcast-don-gehman
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Wednesday, 24 July 2024
Never Been Any Reason
Spotify: https://rb.gy/3ocfrw
YouTube: https://rb.gy/idggbx
1
"For you to think about me."
Meat and potatoes rock and roll flourished in the midwest, in the south, had a presence in the west but was pooh-poohed in the northeast. "Free Bird" caught on in New York after it broke elsewhere. I don't remember ever hearing Foghat on FM, nor did anybody own the records, even though I got hooked on the band hearing "Boogie Motel" and "Stone Blue" on FM when I moved to Los Angeles.
One of the reasons meat and potatoes rock gets a bad rep is the lyrics. Simple. Misogynistic. Anything but vulnerable.
But when I heard "Never Been Any Reason" on Spotify today...
I started with "Rocky Mountain High," I had a hankering to hear it. And from there the instant radio station slipped into "Listen to the Music" and then "Foreplay/Long Time," not that I saw the John Denver cut being aligned with the latter, but in truth we could be fans of all sounds back in the day. Today everything is available online, just a click away, but despite all the hoopla about the grazing of the youngsters it seems people end up in their silos.
Now I've heard "Never Been Any Reason" more as an oldie than when it was originally released in 1975. And it got a boost from its inclusion in "Dazed and Confused," back in 1993, seems just like yesterday. Teen exploitation films are no longer a thing, at least at the multiplex, they can appear on streaming outlets, but they used to be a ritual. First and foremost with the B pictures of the sixties and seventies, and even through "American Pie" in the nineties. Then again, are today's kids optimistic? Can they ignore the realities of climate change, income inequality and financial hardship? By time the seventies rolled around, politics was in the background, especially after Nixon was gone and Vietnam wound down. There was a level of hedonism boomers hadn't seen previously, the seriousness of the sixties was history, we were luxuriating in our achievements.
We had weed, whites and wine, and things were pretty good.
The concert business was built in the sixties and matured in the seventies. The sound was finally good, you expected it. And shows were not exotic, they were a ritual, you went on a regular basis, they were affordable. And the touring artists could live quite well on the income.
So you banged your head. Let go. Felt alive. Untroubled.
Of course this wasn't completely true, but the music got you through.
2
"Have you ever been lonely, do you have any fun"
One thing about the over-criticized internet, it has brought the lonely together, you can go online and find your tribe. It seems like the only people testifying about the ills of the internet are those who had/have no problem functioning in regular society, going to prom, getting laid, being a member of the group. But that leaves plenty of people out. And for this group the internet has been a godsend. The fact that money and looks aren't everything online aids those who don't ring the bell regarding these criteria. Sure, there are social media influencers parading their assets, then again Mr. Beast didn't make it on looks. Nerds rule the internet and the cool people of yore don't like this.
So who is this person the singer is asking these questions of? It sounds like the underdog. But it's not. She's his heart's desire, she's the winner.
"Did you see any action
Did you make any friends
Would you like some affection
Before I leave again"
Typical macho rock star a*shole, right? I mean listen to the music, it's energetic, breezy, but in reality it's a cover-up.
"I've been walking behind you
Since you've been able to see
There's never been any reason
For you to think about me"
They grew up in the same neighborhood. She never took him seriously. He's got a crush. Girls talk about their crushes all the time, they share this information, plot strategies of connection. But boys...they josh and jive and rate the girls, it's all posturing, truth is never revealed, because you don't want to look weak. Your crush is secret. And if it comes out oftentimes you're an object of ridicule.
"Would you be my companion
Is there even a chance"
You know, go on the road, to live the rock and roll lifestyle, getting high, getting laid, getting paid. But if this is so, why do so many of these male stars get married so soon? For every Gene Simmons there are scores of stars who went on the road and came home and married their local sweetheart before leaving town again. You see the road is lonely. Sure, there's sex, not for everyone, despite the legend, but human beings crave connection, intimacy, and the road is antithetical to this.
"You've been talking in circles
Since I've been able to cry
There's never been any reason
For ever telling me why"
The lyrics are not clear, they don't make complete sense, but that's de rigueur for rock and roll. On one hand he's longing in isolation, but you can also argue that they've had intimate relations. In any event, whatever has happened, or not, she's not giving him what he wants. She's elusive.
We've all been there. Even if there are moments of connection you're never quite sure whether they're into you. You can't read the situation, and you can't get any answers.
She's so fine.
"Woman with the sweet lovin', better than a white line"
But he's holding the short end of the stick, if he's holding it at all.
So he postures.
"There's never been any reason
For me to think about you"
But he can't hold that position.
"Save my life, I'm going down for the last time"
3
There's a vulnerability in "Never Give Any Reason" that I didn't catch until today.
And the truth is so many of the meat and potatoes rock tracks have unperceived depth.
But as the decades wore on...
MTV became about posturing, by the new wave of English bands.
And then Nirvana brought on the era of alienation. There'd always been alienation in rock, but this was the ethos of Kurt Cobain and the rest of the Seattle sound and then...
Hip-hop was all about posturing. Bragging.
Rock lost its way.
Pop gained inroads unseen since the sixties. Mariah Carey. The divas. The center of the universe moved from rock and roll to a blend of pop and hip-hop, and rock has never recovered.
Sure, we had Coldplay, but that band has a core of wimpiness, there's no edge. And Dave Matthews is not about edge. And Radiohead is its own spacey thing, and more of a cult than mainstream.
And all those acts broke before the old paradigm evaporated. They were boosted by music television and terrestrial radio. And once that died...
So did rock and roll.
Today's rock and roll is anti-internet. It's far from vulnerable. It's the uber-alienated playing for the uber-alienated. The rock audience used to be mainstream, but today's "Active Rock" appeals to the downtrodden, the blue collar, the left out. It's a bubble. It doesn't stream. It doesn't sync. It's a narrow construct. As for mainstream rock and roll...
It's dead.
--
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--
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-Apple: https://apple.co/2ndmpvp
--
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1
"For you to think about me."
Meat and potatoes rock and roll flourished in the midwest, in the south, had a presence in the west but was pooh-poohed in the northeast. "Free Bird" caught on in New York after it broke elsewhere. I don't remember ever hearing Foghat on FM, nor did anybody own the records, even though I got hooked on the band hearing "Boogie Motel" and "Stone Blue" on FM when I moved to Los Angeles.
One of the reasons meat and potatoes rock gets a bad rep is the lyrics. Simple. Misogynistic. Anything but vulnerable.
But when I heard "Never Been Any Reason" on Spotify today...
I started with "Rocky Mountain High," I had a hankering to hear it. And from there the instant radio station slipped into "Listen to the Music" and then "Foreplay/Long Time," not that I saw the John Denver cut being aligned with the latter, but in truth we could be fans of all sounds back in the day. Today everything is available online, just a click away, but despite all the hoopla about the grazing of the youngsters it seems people end up in their silos.
Now I've heard "Never Been Any Reason" more as an oldie than when it was originally released in 1975. And it got a boost from its inclusion in "Dazed and Confused," back in 1993, seems just like yesterday. Teen exploitation films are no longer a thing, at least at the multiplex, they can appear on streaming outlets, but they used to be a ritual. First and foremost with the B pictures of the sixties and seventies, and even through "American Pie" in the nineties. Then again, are today's kids optimistic? Can they ignore the realities of climate change, income inequality and financial hardship? By time the seventies rolled around, politics was in the background, especially after Nixon was gone and Vietnam wound down. There was a level of hedonism boomers hadn't seen previously, the seriousness of the sixties was history, we were luxuriating in our achievements.
We had weed, whites and wine, and things were pretty good.
The concert business was built in the sixties and matured in the seventies. The sound was finally good, you expected it. And shows were not exotic, they were a ritual, you went on a regular basis, they were affordable. And the touring artists could live quite well on the income.
So you banged your head. Let go. Felt alive. Untroubled.
Of course this wasn't completely true, but the music got you through.
2
"Have you ever been lonely, do you have any fun"
One thing about the over-criticized internet, it has brought the lonely together, you can go online and find your tribe. It seems like the only people testifying about the ills of the internet are those who had/have no problem functioning in regular society, going to prom, getting laid, being a member of the group. But that leaves plenty of people out. And for this group the internet has been a godsend. The fact that money and looks aren't everything online aids those who don't ring the bell regarding these criteria. Sure, there are social media influencers parading their assets, then again Mr. Beast didn't make it on looks. Nerds rule the internet and the cool people of yore don't like this.
So who is this person the singer is asking these questions of? It sounds like the underdog. But it's not. She's his heart's desire, she's the winner.
"Did you see any action
Did you make any friends
Would you like some affection
Before I leave again"
Typical macho rock star a*shole, right? I mean listen to the music, it's energetic, breezy, but in reality it's a cover-up.
"I've been walking behind you
Since you've been able to see
There's never been any reason
For you to think about me"
They grew up in the same neighborhood. She never took him seriously. He's got a crush. Girls talk about their crushes all the time, they share this information, plot strategies of connection. But boys...they josh and jive and rate the girls, it's all posturing, truth is never revealed, because you don't want to look weak. Your crush is secret. And if it comes out oftentimes you're an object of ridicule.
"Would you be my companion
Is there even a chance"
You know, go on the road, to live the rock and roll lifestyle, getting high, getting laid, getting paid. But if this is so, why do so many of these male stars get married so soon? For every Gene Simmons there are scores of stars who went on the road and came home and married their local sweetheart before leaving town again. You see the road is lonely. Sure, there's sex, not for everyone, despite the legend, but human beings crave connection, intimacy, and the road is antithetical to this.
"You've been talking in circles
Since I've been able to cry
There's never been any reason
For ever telling me why"
The lyrics are not clear, they don't make complete sense, but that's de rigueur for rock and roll. On one hand he's longing in isolation, but you can also argue that they've had intimate relations. In any event, whatever has happened, or not, she's not giving him what he wants. She's elusive.
We've all been there. Even if there are moments of connection you're never quite sure whether they're into you. You can't read the situation, and you can't get any answers.
She's so fine.
"Woman with the sweet lovin', better than a white line"
But he's holding the short end of the stick, if he's holding it at all.
So he postures.
"There's never been any reason
For me to think about you"
But he can't hold that position.
"Save my life, I'm going down for the last time"
3
There's a vulnerability in "Never Give Any Reason" that I didn't catch until today.
And the truth is so many of the meat and potatoes rock tracks have unperceived depth.
But as the decades wore on...
MTV became about posturing, by the new wave of English bands.
And then Nirvana brought on the era of alienation. There'd always been alienation in rock, but this was the ethos of Kurt Cobain and the rest of the Seattle sound and then...
Hip-hop was all about posturing. Bragging.
Rock lost its way.
Pop gained inroads unseen since the sixties. Mariah Carey. The divas. The center of the universe moved from rock and roll to a blend of pop and hip-hop, and rock has never recovered.
Sure, we had Coldplay, but that band has a core of wimpiness, there's no edge. And Dave Matthews is not about edge. And Radiohead is its own spacey thing, and more of a cult than mainstream.
And all those acts broke before the old paradigm evaporated. They were boosted by music television and terrestrial radio. And once that died...
So did rock and roll.
Today's rock and roll is anti-internet. It's far from vulnerable. It's the uber-alienated playing for the uber-alienated. The rock audience used to be mainstream, but today's "Active Rock" appeals to the downtrodden, the blue collar, the left out. It's a bubble. It doesn't stream. It doesn't sync. It's a narrow construct. As for mainstream rock and roll...
It's dead.
--
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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Tuesday, 23 July 2024
Twitter/X
This is what unregulated free speech looks like.
Unusable.
What did we lose with Steve Jobs? Simple user interfaces, a reduction in complication, leaving the past behind to go into the future. And with the loss of Twitter, we've given up instant news.
Used to be if you had a question about what was happening, the weather, a car accident, anything of the moment, you went on Twitter, where you would almost always find an explanation. But those days are through. Because the people posting these updates have left the platform.
You may not use Twitter, you may deplore Twitter, but the people who deliver your news, even opinion on the news, have historically been addicted to Twitter. That was where you went to find out information and take the temperature of a situation. It was an incredible resource.
That platform is gone.
And there is no replacement, and probably never will be. Apple eliminated USB-A on their Pro laptops in 2016. More than half a decade later, they released the Mac Studio with USB-A along with the now standard USB-C. How standard is USB-C? They even have it in automobiles, a slow moving industry if there ever was one. And all the new smartphones are USB-C, thanks to the European Union. But someone at Apple was afraid of angering pro consumers, who are on the bleeding edge. Jobs was all about perfecting the found item and then continuing to improve it. The first iPod had a moveable wheel, on the second one the wheel didn't move, it was touch sensitive, and more usable. Jobs was a stickler for getting it right.
That is not Elon Musk. If anything, Elon is a visionary, and that has been undercut too... How responsible for Tesla was he really?
As for Twitter...
He took a household name brand and changed it to something that does not roll off the tongue, to the point that most people still call X Twitter.
And then he kept on adding new features that confused what the platform was even about. Maybe he's trying to grow it into something bigger, but the problem is he lost a great deal of the user base along the way.
Now the two main ways to use Twitter are to follow individuals or have the algorithm render a feed by itself.
Unfortunately, many of the good posters have left Twitter. So if you go by following individuals, there's less there than ever before. And if you go by the algorithmic feed...
You're inundated with conspiracy theories, falsehoods, and a distinct right wing bias.
Meaning left wing people have abandoned the platform, making it less robust.
And the right wing people...
If Twitter is where you get your news, you have a totally skewed vision of the world, oftentimes, many times, inaccurate.
But even worse there's the attitude. Sure, social media is laden with hate, but usually it's a reaction to what someone has posted. Now the initial posts themselves are hate-filled. The attitude employed is one of holier-than-thou bullies. Mostly male. If you wanted to make sure a Democrat got elected for President you wouldn't send money to Kamala, you'd go into business with dating apps, and get all these bros laid. They're reactionary, angry, oftentimes detached from society. All they have is each other, egging them on.
And then there are conspiracy theorists like Laura Loomer. Who soon after the debate said Biden had a medical event on an airplane and we should be waiting with bated breath for the report, and when that didn't come that proved the point, right?
And for the last couple of days, Elon Musk has been saying his child died as a result of transitioning genders. Sh*t happens, anything can be true. So I checked the Google News... Nothing. The kid didn't die. Not at all. As a matter of fact, the kid will have nothing to do with their father, but unless you did research, you wouldn't know this.
And then there are the people trying to appear balanced so they can convince you of their heinous viewpoints.
And this is all a result of the lack of content moderation, of at least creating an algorithm that stops feeding this looney stuff to those who don't want to see it.
Free speech... Elon Musk doesn't even understand the meaning of the term. A private enterprise can restrict speech all it wants. And we can debate whether falsehoods should be removed from platforms, but the solution is not to throw out the regulators all together.
So now Twitter/X is completely untrustworthy. How did this "free speech" benefit society? It didn't, it hurt society.
We do not want a free for all.
You've got to obey the speed limit. You've got to have a license to drive. You can't drive the wrong way on a freeway. As for the vaunted "freedom" the right wing talks about...if it doesn't hurt anybody and you do it in your own home it should be all right, right? NO! They want to be able to say and do whatever they want to and restrict what you can say or do. Furthermore, if they don't like what you're saying they're going to drown it out in tweets, just like an individual is wary of suing a corporation for fear the company will bury them in paper and bleed them dry.
Do I expect a Twitter replacement to take hold?
No, because no one cares that much and there's not enough money in it. Threads is a C- level product, not in terms of raw usability, but its algorithm feeds stuff you like from Instagram, even though most people use the two platforms for completely different reasons. And although some lefties have defected to Threads, there are not enough people on the service to waste the time to go on it.
But it all comes down to one man. Elon Musk. Mark Zuckerberg...
Musk isn't supporting Trump out of the goodness of his heart, he doesn't believe in most of what Trump says, he just wants favorable business regulations. After Musk committed to Trump, the latter stopped excoriating electric cars. Not that anybody spewing hate and bile on X is aware of this. These are the same people who lost all that money on GameStop. They think they're changing the world, but they're not even playing in the real world.
So there's no Twitter replacement. There's nowhere to go for instant news. Apple News+ has a delay. Alexa's delay can be a whole day. Instantaneous? Out the window.
This is akin to music. The lead singer leaves, a band breaks up, and you can't fill that hole. If you want Led Zeppelin, that's the only place you can get it, there's been a few imitations, Kingdom Come and Greta Van Fleet, but even Greta moved on from that sound, if for no other reason than the backlash.
So we move forward and lose something in the process.
We can buy products online from Amazon, get them delivered overnight, but good luck finding what you want as a result of the ads. Never mind the ads you now see on Amazon Prime Video. Is there a single person who would get an Amazon logo tattoo? I can't imagine it. But you want the products. With Twitter/X, the true believers have left. Most of the rightwing blowhards weren't even on the platform before Musk bought it.
And whenever anybody criticizes Twitter/X, Musk blows back. Talk about a thin skin, this guy is responsible for so much internet hate but when the tables are turned on him he cries and wants to leave the game. As for his companies' exit from California... This is the guy who wanted Tesla employees to work on the line in the heyday of Covid. This is the guy who has created noise pollution in Texas. This is a guy who wants to live in his own world with his own rules. Fine for him, as long as it doesn't affect the rest of us, but it does!
I've about given up on MSNBC. The endless cheerleading is ridiculous. The Democrats are always right and the Republicans are always wrong. It's not as bad as FOX, but the end result with both is you end up with a skewed view.
And the further result of all this Balkanization is that fewer and fewer people actually know what is going on, and the way they deal with their ignorance is to pledge fealty to the team. And if you're not on their team, if you step outside the lines, if you question the orthodoxy, you're the target of extreme derision, and this happens on both the left and the right.
And the right now owns so much of the internet. They were behind at first, still depending on talk radio, but it's the right that has taken over the platforms, skewing reality. As for the left... It's not organized and it would rather just react and hate on the right.
Used to be when I had a moment, when I wanted to know what was going on, I'd pull up Twitter. Now I do so less and when I do I find it unsatisfying and I wince.
TikTok? That's a different thing. That's not for up to the minute news.
Instagram? Still users falsely parading, saying that you're better than us. The definition of curvy on Instagram is anorexic, talk about a skewed reality.
And if you speak out you're a hater. And every platform is a pejorative. "New York Times"? Untrustworthy. And you get that from the far left as well as the right. And you know why these people usually take this position? BECAUSE THEY FEEL POWERLESS!
That's why the bros are on Twitter/X, it's the only place they have power. And that's why the wealthy left wingers reject western medicine, because they don't want to be subjected to anybody else's judgment.
Last week both the "Wall Street Journal" and the "New York Times" printed stories about studies that say the unvaccinated have greater odds of getting long Covid. But we're still debating the efficacy of vaccines.
And you've got Joe Rogan, who is a full-time rumor machine. I'd like to send that guy to college, have him learn something, have to deal with those of other opinions and wrestle with the concepts. Joe's bros are such sycophants that Joe's convinced he's right when so often he's wrong, right on the face.
It's one thing to ask questions, it's another thing to support conspiracies. And if I'm focusing a lot on the right it's because in many cases the left has been somnambulant, in a bubble, thinking if your heart is in the right place others' will be too. Hogwash.
My life without Twitter is less rich, I've lost something, that I cherished. All in the name of Elon Musk's radical free speech.
IT'S INANE AND INSANE!
--
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--
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--
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Unusable.
What did we lose with Steve Jobs? Simple user interfaces, a reduction in complication, leaving the past behind to go into the future. And with the loss of Twitter, we've given up instant news.
Used to be if you had a question about what was happening, the weather, a car accident, anything of the moment, you went on Twitter, where you would almost always find an explanation. But those days are through. Because the people posting these updates have left the platform.
You may not use Twitter, you may deplore Twitter, but the people who deliver your news, even opinion on the news, have historically been addicted to Twitter. That was where you went to find out information and take the temperature of a situation. It was an incredible resource.
That platform is gone.
And there is no replacement, and probably never will be. Apple eliminated USB-A on their Pro laptops in 2016. More than half a decade later, they released the Mac Studio with USB-A along with the now standard USB-C. How standard is USB-C? They even have it in automobiles, a slow moving industry if there ever was one. And all the new smartphones are USB-C, thanks to the European Union. But someone at Apple was afraid of angering pro consumers, who are on the bleeding edge. Jobs was all about perfecting the found item and then continuing to improve it. The first iPod had a moveable wheel, on the second one the wheel didn't move, it was touch sensitive, and more usable. Jobs was a stickler for getting it right.
That is not Elon Musk. If anything, Elon is a visionary, and that has been undercut too... How responsible for Tesla was he really?
As for Twitter...
He took a household name brand and changed it to something that does not roll off the tongue, to the point that most people still call X Twitter.
And then he kept on adding new features that confused what the platform was even about. Maybe he's trying to grow it into something bigger, but the problem is he lost a great deal of the user base along the way.
Now the two main ways to use Twitter are to follow individuals or have the algorithm render a feed by itself.
Unfortunately, many of the good posters have left Twitter. So if you go by following individuals, there's less there than ever before. And if you go by the algorithmic feed...
You're inundated with conspiracy theories, falsehoods, and a distinct right wing bias.
Meaning left wing people have abandoned the platform, making it less robust.
And the right wing people...
If Twitter is where you get your news, you have a totally skewed vision of the world, oftentimes, many times, inaccurate.
But even worse there's the attitude. Sure, social media is laden with hate, but usually it's a reaction to what someone has posted. Now the initial posts themselves are hate-filled. The attitude employed is one of holier-than-thou bullies. Mostly male. If you wanted to make sure a Democrat got elected for President you wouldn't send money to Kamala, you'd go into business with dating apps, and get all these bros laid. They're reactionary, angry, oftentimes detached from society. All they have is each other, egging them on.
And then there are conspiracy theorists like Laura Loomer. Who soon after the debate said Biden had a medical event on an airplane and we should be waiting with bated breath for the report, and when that didn't come that proved the point, right?
And for the last couple of days, Elon Musk has been saying his child died as a result of transitioning genders. Sh*t happens, anything can be true. So I checked the Google News... Nothing. The kid didn't die. Not at all. As a matter of fact, the kid will have nothing to do with their father, but unless you did research, you wouldn't know this.
And then there are the people trying to appear balanced so they can convince you of their heinous viewpoints.
And this is all a result of the lack of content moderation, of at least creating an algorithm that stops feeding this looney stuff to those who don't want to see it.
Free speech... Elon Musk doesn't even understand the meaning of the term. A private enterprise can restrict speech all it wants. And we can debate whether falsehoods should be removed from platforms, but the solution is not to throw out the regulators all together.
So now Twitter/X is completely untrustworthy. How did this "free speech" benefit society? It didn't, it hurt society.
We do not want a free for all.
You've got to obey the speed limit. You've got to have a license to drive. You can't drive the wrong way on a freeway. As for the vaunted "freedom" the right wing talks about...if it doesn't hurt anybody and you do it in your own home it should be all right, right? NO! They want to be able to say and do whatever they want to and restrict what you can say or do. Furthermore, if they don't like what you're saying they're going to drown it out in tweets, just like an individual is wary of suing a corporation for fear the company will bury them in paper and bleed them dry.
Do I expect a Twitter replacement to take hold?
No, because no one cares that much and there's not enough money in it. Threads is a C- level product, not in terms of raw usability, but its algorithm feeds stuff you like from Instagram, even though most people use the two platforms for completely different reasons. And although some lefties have defected to Threads, there are not enough people on the service to waste the time to go on it.
But it all comes down to one man. Elon Musk. Mark Zuckerberg...
Musk isn't supporting Trump out of the goodness of his heart, he doesn't believe in most of what Trump says, he just wants favorable business regulations. After Musk committed to Trump, the latter stopped excoriating electric cars. Not that anybody spewing hate and bile on X is aware of this. These are the same people who lost all that money on GameStop. They think they're changing the world, but they're not even playing in the real world.
So there's no Twitter replacement. There's nowhere to go for instant news. Apple News+ has a delay. Alexa's delay can be a whole day. Instantaneous? Out the window.
This is akin to music. The lead singer leaves, a band breaks up, and you can't fill that hole. If you want Led Zeppelin, that's the only place you can get it, there's been a few imitations, Kingdom Come and Greta Van Fleet, but even Greta moved on from that sound, if for no other reason than the backlash.
So we move forward and lose something in the process.
We can buy products online from Amazon, get them delivered overnight, but good luck finding what you want as a result of the ads. Never mind the ads you now see on Amazon Prime Video. Is there a single person who would get an Amazon logo tattoo? I can't imagine it. But you want the products. With Twitter/X, the true believers have left. Most of the rightwing blowhards weren't even on the platform before Musk bought it.
And whenever anybody criticizes Twitter/X, Musk blows back. Talk about a thin skin, this guy is responsible for so much internet hate but when the tables are turned on him he cries and wants to leave the game. As for his companies' exit from California... This is the guy who wanted Tesla employees to work on the line in the heyday of Covid. This is the guy who has created noise pollution in Texas. This is a guy who wants to live in his own world with his own rules. Fine for him, as long as it doesn't affect the rest of us, but it does!
I've about given up on MSNBC. The endless cheerleading is ridiculous. The Democrats are always right and the Republicans are always wrong. It's not as bad as FOX, but the end result with both is you end up with a skewed view.
And the further result of all this Balkanization is that fewer and fewer people actually know what is going on, and the way they deal with their ignorance is to pledge fealty to the team. And if you're not on their team, if you step outside the lines, if you question the orthodoxy, you're the target of extreme derision, and this happens on both the left and the right.
And the right now owns so much of the internet. They were behind at first, still depending on talk radio, but it's the right that has taken over the platforms, skewing reality. As for the left... It's not organized and it would rather just react and hate on the right.
Used to be when I had a moment, when I wanted to know what was going on, I'd pull up Twitter. Now I do so less and when I do I find it unsatisfying and I wince.
TikTok? That's a different thing. That's not for up to the minute news.
Instagram? Still users falsely parading, saying that you're better than us. The definition of curvy on Instagram is anorexic, talk about a skewed reality.
And if you speak out you're a hater. And every platform is a pejorative. "New York Times"? Untrustworthy. And you get that from the far left as well as the right. And you know why these people usually take this position? BECAUSE THEY FEEL POWERLESS!
That's why the bros are on Twitter/X, it's the only place they have power. And that's why the wealthy left wingers reject western medicine, because they don't want to be subjected to anybody else's judgment.
Last week both the "Wall Street Journal" and the "New York Times" printed stories about studies that say the unvaccinated have greater odds of getting long Covid. But we're still debating the efficacy of vaccines.
And you've got Joe Rogan, who is a full-time rumor machine. I'd like to send that guy to college, have him learn something, have to deal with those of other opinions and wrestle with the concepts. Joe's bros are such sycophants that Joe's convinced he's right when so often he's wrong, right on the face.
It's one thing to ask questions, it's another thing to support conspiracies. And if I'm focusing a lot on the right it's because in many cases the left has been somnambulant, in a bubble, thinking if your heart is in the right place others' will be too. Hogwash.
My life without Twitter is less rich, I've lost something, that I cherished. All in the name of Elon Musk's radical free speech.
IT'S INANE AND INSANE!
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Distribution Is King
"This Summer's Sleeper TV Hit: 'Your Honor' - Once again, a show with little following has become hugely popular once it starts streaming on Netflix."
Free link: https://shorturl.at/KW6W0
It's the same show, the only difference is it's on Netflix, not Showtime.
That's the power of the Netflix homepage, that's the power of the Netflix algorithm.
And it's not like it's a new show.
How many records fit the same bill? How many records have surfaced as hits long after their initial release date?
Happens on a regular basis, but via streaming television and TikTok, not via conventional music streaming sites like Spotify, et al.
That's right, it's been in excess of a decade and the music business still hasn't figured out how to expose the best music to the most people.
It used to be easy. Just get it on terrestrial radio. And if it worked on one station, you could leverage that to more, and ultimately might have a hit, known by all. Today even our hits aren't known by all, but that's another issue.
The streaming services must break records. That is their role, whether they are aware of it or not, because this will contribute to the health of the business, there will be more subscribers, more streams, more gigs...hits help the industry at large.
But all the streaming platforms are doing is putting out a plethora of playlists. Replicating the internet model, one in which there is plenty, but you can't separate the good from the bad. If you're listening to a playlist and not skipping incessantly you're either brain dead or not really listening. Furthermore, Spotify statistics tell us the most active listeners don't even listen to playlists, they pick and choose what they want to listen to. The goal is to reach these active listeners and have them spread the word. Instead, streaming platforms are focusing on the least active listeners with playlists.
And the problem with the Spotify Top 50 is never have the hits meant less, had less penetration. All the excitement is in the separate genres, where the creators are not constricted by the hit paradigm. How do we boost these tracks, of which there are many?
Well, you can wait for a sync or a spontaneous TikTok usage, but that leaves you with almost no control, it's not an efficient method of getting the best music to the most people.
Of course, taste is subjective, but we need a focus on many fewer cuts.
Spotify needs a track of the week. Featured on its homepage, blasted to every subscriber. Or a track in five different genres every week. Or one track of the week and one sleeper, a surprise, not in the Top 50 mold.
In other words, we've got to build excitement in music.
The film business had success building excitement last summer with Barbenheimer, when was the last time we saw the equivalent thing in music? And don't say Taylor Swift, because as large as her success is, and it is large, it's pretty narrow. How do we get the populace at large excited about a track? And I don't think it's one of Swift's, but there are plenty out there.
This is how people consume music these days, streaming. Vinyl gets all the press, but it's a de minimis part of the business. The tail that isn't even wagging the dog, it's a feel good story easy for the media to latch on to. And as far as the weekly charts... They only mean something to the people on them and their associates. They're not representative of what the public at large is listening to, if they're listening at all.
We need to go back to the seventies, on steroids. When Warner Brothers signed a ton of acts, stayed with them and promoted them via their two-disc "Loss Leaders." If it was on Warner, it was worth checking out.
We don't have that ethos in the business today. Instead we've got remakes, no different from "Twisters." There's a business there, but the real excitement is in the brand new, and all we're promoting to the public is me-too.
Can't the industry focus on a track a week, to its benefit?
I'll make it simple, easy. There are four slots in a month, and they rotate amongst the three major label groups and the indies, each one gets a pick.
No... The majors would promote dreck, the obvious stuff.
The above formula would work, but we need a tastemaker, a connoisseur, to choose the tracks that are exposed.
And then everybody can talk and write about these tracks.
And maybe have an online rating like in the old days of radio, picking the track of the month and then the track of the year, building excitement!
In England they've got the Christmas #1, in America we've got nothing.
There is innovation in music, but it's too far off the radar screen, it's not getting exposure, this could be fixed but no one wants to, everyone's resting on their laurels.
All we hear is the majors can't break a new act, no one has come up with a solution.
But it's easy.
The streaming track of the week. Have you heard it? I did, I thought it was great or it sucks or...conversation will be engendered.
But it all depends on exposure, distribution. That's where hits are made.
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Free link: https://shorturl.at/KW6W0
It's the same show, the only difference is it's on Netflix, not Showtime.
That's the power of the Netflix homepage, that's the power of the Netflix algorithm.
And it's not like it's a new show.
How many records fit the same bill? How many records have surfaced as hits long after their initial release date?
Happens on a regular basis, but via streaming television and TikTok, not via conventional music streaming sites like Spotify, et al.
That's right, it's been in excess of a decade and the music business still hasn't figured out how to expose the best music to the most people.
It used to be easy. Just get it on terrestrial radio. And if it worked on one station, you could leverage that to more, and ultimately might have a hit, known by all. Today even our hits aren't known by all, but that's another issue.
The streaming services must break records. That is their role, whether they are aware of it or not, because this will contribute to the health of the business, there will be more subscribers, more streams, more gigs...hits help the industry at large.
But all the streaming platforms are doing is putting out a plethora of playlists. Replicating the internet model, one in which there is plenty, but you can't separate the good from the bad. If you're listening to a playlist and not skipping incessantly you're either brain dead or not really listening. Furthermore, Spotify statistics tell us the most active listeners don't even listen to playlists, they pick and choose what they want to listen to. The goal is to reach these active listeners and have them spread the word. Instead, streaming platforms are focusing on the least active listeners with playlists.
And the problem with the Spotify Top 50 is never have the hits meant less, had less penetration. All the excitement is in the separate genres, where the creators are not constricted by the hit paradigm. How do we boost these tracks, of which there are many?
Well, you can wait for a sync or a spontaneous TikTok usage, but that leaves you with almost no control, it's not an efficient method of getting the best music to the most people.
Of course, taste is subjective, but we need a focus on many fewer cuts.
Spotify needs a track of the week. Featured on its homepage, blasted to every subscriber. Or a track in five different genres every week. Or one track of the week and one sleeper, a surprise, not in the Top 50 mold.
In other words, we've got to build excitement in music.
The film business had success building excitement last summer with Barbenheimer, when was the last time we saw the equivalent thing in music? And don't say Taylor Swift, because as large as her success is, and it is large, it's pretty narrow. How do we get the populace at large excited about a track? And I don't think it's one of Swift's, but there are plenty out there.
This is how people consume music these days, streaming. Vinyl gets all the press, but it's a de minimis part of the business. The tail that isn't even wagging the dog, it's a feel good story easy for the media to latch on to. And as far as the weekly charts... They only mean something to the people on them and their associates. They're not representative of what the public at large is listening to, if they're listening at all.
We need to go back to the seventies, on steroids. When Warner Brothers signed a ton of acts, stayed with them and promoted them via their two-disc "Loss Leaders." If it was on Warner, it was worth checking out.
We don't have that ethos in the business today. Instead we've got remakes, no different from "Twisters." There's a business there, but the real excitement is in the brand new, and all we're promoting to the public is me-too.
Can't the industry focus on a track a week, to its benefit?
I'll make it simple, easy. There are four slots in a month, and they rotate amongst the three major label groups and the indies, each one gets a pick.
No... The majors would promote dreck, the obvious stuff.
The above formula would work, but we need a tastemaker, a connoisseur, to choose the tracks that are exposed.
And then everybody can talk and write about these tracks.
And maybe have an online rating like in the old days of radio, picking the track of the month and then the track of the year, building excitement!
In England they've got the Christmas #1, in America we've got nothing.
There is innovation in music, but it's too far off the radar screen, it's not getting exposure, this could be fixed but no one wants to, everyone's resting on their laurels.
All we hear is the majors can't break a new act, no one has come up with a solution.
But it's easy.
The streaming track of the week. Have you heard it? I did, I thought it was great or it sucks or...conversation will be engendered.
But it all depends on exposure, distribution. That's where hits are made.
--
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, 21 July 2024
No To Kamala
She has too much baggage.
That was the problem with Biden before the debate, before everybody realized he was too old, he had a record, and even though those on the left trumpeted it, those on the right have denigrated it and those who've been struggling don't believe they've been saved by Joe.
Yes, a poor case of public relations. Don't forget, Bill Clinton was sold by Hollywood, you remember "The Man From Hope"...where is the equivalent for Biden?
Nonexistent. Once again, Joe was and still is out of touch with the younger generations. The world lives online, it's only the ancient string-pullers who deny this, I'd say if you want to put a new candidate over the top you'd call Monte Lipman, whose Republic has dominated the charts for years and years. One hit is admirable. But to do it over and over again? That shows skill. And it wasn't Taylor Swift who kept her album atop the charts for twelve straight weeks, that was Monte and his team.
Yes, politics is show business. And Kamala Harris has never made a dent.
She ran poorly in 2020, didn't get a delegate. And for months people have been anxious that if Biden died in a second term Kamala would take over. So now they're going to give her the prize?
Shouldn't happen.
Harris's record? Not good. Don't argue with me, she's been painted negatively by the right, and that image has stuck. And it's not like she's warm and folksy like Clinton, or all=embracing like Obama, she's cold. Talk to show business titans... It's very hard to sell a cold talent, the first criterion is that they're warm.
And even the donors are pissed at Kamala, for the phone call at the end of last week. Let's see, you were for Joe before he pulled out, you were for Medicare For All before you changed your mind. The fact that you're Black...
Hasn't the left observed this movie for the past eight years, never mind the past couple? The DEI backlash has been extreme. The president of Harvard stepped down, was she the best person for the job?
We are going through a societal readjustment as I write this, to deny this is to have one's head in the sand. It's not that Kamala is Black that she shouldn't get the role, it's just that she's not that good a candidate. Don't qualifications matter?
As for not having enough time left... Hogwash. In France they turned on a dime. Britain held an election in a tiny period of time.
It's just that the old fogeys want to play by the old rules, which in this case don't even exist. They abhor change. Meanwhile, Silicon Valley has remade the world in the interim. Enough with the old pols. And Musk has an army of bros on his personal site and he has influence. He needs to be stopped. Can the mealy-mouthed Kamala Harris do this?
No way.
We need an attack dog. We need someone who can fight.
We need someone with no track record.
That's one of the main reasons Obama got elected, he had no history.
Quick, tell me about Gretchen Whitmer, or Josh Shapiro, or J.B. Pritzker... The average person has no idea who they are, and that's a GOOD THING!
But I'm fearful the same DNC that closed ranks around Biden, denying reality, is going to rally around Kamala Harris now. She was VP, so what. It's not like Trump feels an obligation to Pence.
Trump broke every rule in the book and still got elected in 2016. And came close in 2020 (not in the popular vote, that doesn't matter, but in the Electoral College, Biden squeaked through). Multiple marriages, infidelity, lying... None of this was terminal for the Trump campaign, and he's now got another bite at the apple. Meanwhile, the Democrats are inured to the past. GET OVER IT!
The best golfer was Black and the best rapper was white. Did they agitate against this? To make this an issue of color is to deny decades of MTV, never mind the ascension of hip-hop to the dominant force in America musically and culturally. Sure, there's a ton of racism in America, sure the evisceration of the Voting Rights Act is a travesty, but not everything can be seen through the lens of race.
This is about winning. Plain and simple. Is Kamala Harris the best candidate to beat Donald Trump?
The only people who believe this are the DNC and insiders paying fealty. The public already rejected Harris in 2020, she came across as phony. What has changed? SHE APPEARS WORSE!
This is all about perception, don't argue facts with me, this is the same reasoning that got Biden anointed for a second term. Perception is Kamala is a loser. This is who you want to go with?
Loyalty? You don't get to keep your job, you get passed over at the company, but your gig isn't the last stand for democracy.
There are no rules. A new candidate can get on all the ballots, get all the money and triumph.
But NO!
Look at Hollywood. The movie studios have been eclipsed by Netflix. Which has made the series the standard. And the Oscar ratings have tanked. It's like the DNC has denied the entire past decade, if not more. This is the gang that can't shoot straight. Take the gun out of their hands!
And enough with the Mafioso techniques. Where no one can break ranks. We want other candidates, we need other candidates, we want to see who can run best, who has charisma.
Crowdstrike brought down the world on Friday. They didn't say to disconnect your computer from the internet, they worked fast for a fix.
Technology moves at the speed of light, politics at the speed of molasses, why?
As for getting a Republican involved...
Sorkin and Romney... Mitt is seventy seven, how does this solve the problem? And how come they never tell Republicans to put Democrats in their administrations, to extend the olive branch, why is it always the Democrats' job?
Now if you get pulled from the game, or don't get to take the field to begin with, and you complain and cry, you're not seen as a team player. And the goal of the team is not harmony, but VICTORY!
Why are we protecting everybody's feelings? If Kamala is the best person for the job, let her be the candidate, but she needs to PROVE IT!
Why is the public always left out. The public has been saying Biden is too old to run again for years. The public got no other choices. And now they're not going to get a choice again, and you expect me to get excited about Kamala? Not going to happen.
Let us in on the process. You depend on us to vote and win. Why aren't we consulted?
We're halfway there. Now is not the time to punt.
Biden had to nominate Kamala, if for no other reason than to double-down on his pick of her for the 2020 ticket. His word ain't worth much. This is the guy who took three weeks to realize no one wanted him to continue to run except himself.
Stop the runaway train.
Only the Democrats would get Biden to pull out without a plan in place.
Imagine a CEO crossing the line, needing to be replaced, and taking three weeks to step down... The board wouldn't breathe a sigh of relief and then ask itself what to do next, it would have prepared for the change.
In other words, no one is in charge in the DNC. They had no plan and now we're going to default to the easiest choice?
Oh, come on. Happens all the time in business. The number two is passed over for the job when the number one retires. The board thinks someone else is better. The fact that the number two worked at the company for years, paid their dues, that doesn't matter!
But in politics, with no money involved, where everybody is worried about saving face...
How about all those elected Democrats who wouldn't come out publicly for Biden to step down. You're breathing a sigh of relief, but we remember, you're a sheep with no backbone.
Ever hear of doing what is right?
Having an open process to determine who is the new Democratic presidential candidate is what's right.
The future starts now.
We need a clean slate. We need hope. We need someone to believe in.
And if you think that's Kamala Harris...
You must owe her money.
--
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That was the problem with Biden before the debate, before everybody realized he was too old, he had a record, and even though those on the left trumpeted it, those on the right have denigrated it and those who've been struggling don't believe they've been saved by Joe.
Yes, a poor case of public relations. Don't forget, Bill Clinton was sold by Hollywood, you remember "The Man From Hope"...where is the equivalent for Biden?
Nonexistent. Once again, Joe was and still is out of touch with the younger generations. The world lives online, it's only the ancient string-pullers who deny this, I'd say if you want to put a new candidate over the top you'd call Monte Lipman, whose Republic has dominated the charts for years and years. One hit is admirable. But to do it over and over again? That shows skill. And it wasn't Taylor Swift who kept her album atop the charts for twelve straight weeks, that was Monte and his team.
Yes, politics is show business. And Kamala Harris has never made a dent.
She ran poorly in 2020, didn't get a delegate. And for months people have been anxious that if Biden died in a second term Kamala would take over. So now they're going to give her the prize?
Shouldn't happen.
Harris's record? Not good. Don't argue with me, she's been painted negatively by the right, and that image has stuck. And it's not like she's warm and folksy like Clinton, or all=embracing like Obama, she's cold. Talk to show business titans... It's very hard to sell a cold talent, the first criterion is that they're warm.
And even the donors are pissed at Kamala, for the phone call at the end of last week. Let's see, you were for Joe before he pulled out, you were for Medicare For All before you changed your mind. The fact that you're Black...
Hasn't the left observed this movie for the past eight years, never mind the past couple? The DEI backlash has been extreme. The president of Harvard stepped down, was she the best person for the job?
We are going through a societal readjustment as I write this, to deny this is to have one's head in the sand. It's not that Kamala is Black that she shouldn't get the role, it's just that she's not that good a candidate. Don't qualifications matter?
As for not having enough time left... Hogwash. In France they turned on a dime. Britain held an election in a tiny period of time.
It's just that the old fogeys want to play by the old rules, which in this case don't even exist. They abhor change. Meanwhile, Silicon Valley has remade the world in the interim. Enough with the old pols. And Musk has an army of bros on his personal site and he has influence. He needs to be stopped. Can the mealy-mouthed Kamala Harris do this?
No way.
We need an attack dog. We need someone who can fight.
We need someone with no track record.
That's one of the main reasons Obama got elected, he had no history.
Quick, tell me about Gretchen Whitmer, or Josh Shapiro, or J.B. Pritzker... The average person has no idea who they are, and that's a GOOD THING!
But I'm fearful the same DNC that closed ranks around Biden, denying reality, is going to rally around Kamala Harris now. She was VP, so what. It's not like Trump feels an obligation to Pence.
Trump broke every rule in the book and still got elected in 2016. And came close in 2020 (not in the popular vote, that doesn't matter, but in the Electoral College, Biden squeaked through). Multiple marriages, infidelity, lying... None of this was terminal for the Trump campaign, and he's now got another bite at the apple. Meanwhile, the Democrats are inured to the past. GET OVER IT!
The best golfer was Black and the best rapper was white. Did they agitate against this? To make this an issue of color is to deny decades of MTV, never mind the ascension of hip-hop to the dominant force in America musically and culturally. Sure, there's a ton of racism in America, sure the evisceration of the Voting Rights Act is a travesty, but not everything can be seen through the lens of race.
This is about winning. Plain and simple. Is Kamala Harris the best candidate to beat Donald Trump?
The only people who believe this are the DNC and insiders paying fealty. The public already rejected Harris in 2020, she came across as phony. What has changed? SHE APPEARS WORSE!
This is all about perception, don't argue facts with me, this is the same reasoning that got Biden anointed for a second term. Perception is Kamala is a loser. This is who you want to go with?
Loyalty? You don't get to keep your job, you get passed over at the company, but your gig isn't the last stand for democracy.
There are no rules. A new candidate can get on all the ballots, get all the money and triumph.
But NO!
Look at Hollywood. The movie studios have been eclipsed by Netflix. Which has made the series the standard. And the Oscar ratings have tanked. It's like the DNC has denied the entire past decade, if not more. This is the gang that can't shoot straight. Take the gun out of their hands!
And enough with the Mafioso techniques. Where no one can break ranks. We want other candidates, we need other candidates, we want to see who can run best, who has charisma.
Crowdstrike brought down the world on Friday. They didn't say to disconnect your computer from the internet, they worked fast for a fix.
Technology moves at the speed of light, politics at the speed of molasses, why?
As for getting a Republican involved...
Sorkin and Romney... Mitt is seventy seven, how does this solve the problem? And how come they never tell Republicans to put Democrats in their administrations, to extend the olive branch, why is it always the Democrats' job?
Now if you get pulled from the game, or don't get to take the field to begin with, and you complain and cry, you're not seen as a team player. And the goal of the team is not harmony, but VICTORY!
Why are we protecting everybody's feelings? If Kamala is the best person for the job, let her be the candidate, but she needs to PROVE IT!
Why is the public always left out. The public has been saying Biden is too old to run again for years. The public got no other choices. And now they're not going to get a choice again, and you expect me to get excited about Kamala? Not going to happen.
Let us in on the process. You depend on us to vote and win. Why aren't we consulted?
We're halfway there. Now is not the time to punt.
Biden had to nominate Kamala, if for no other reason than to double-down on his pick of her for the 2020 ticket. His word ain't worth much. This is the guy who took three weeks to realize no one wanted him to continue to run except himself.
Stop the runaway train.
Only the Democrats would get Biden to pull out without a plan in place.
Imagine a CEO crossing the line, needing to be replaced, and taking three weeks to step down... The board wouldn't breathe a sigh of relief and then ask itself what to do next, it would have prepared for the change.
In other words, no one is in charge in the DNC. They had no plan and now we're going to default to the easiest choice?
Oh, come on. Happens all the time in business. The number two is passed over for the job when the number one retires. The board thinks someone else is better. The fact that the number two worked at the company for years, paid their dues, that doesn't matter!
But in politics, with no money involved, where everybody is worried about saving face...
How about all those elected Democrats who wouldn't come out publicly for Biden to step down. You're breathing a sigh of relief, but we remember, you're a sheep with no backbone.
Ever hear of doing what is right?
Having an open process to determine who is the new Democratic presidential candidate is what's right.
The future starts now.
We need a clean slate. We need hope. We need someone to believe in.
And if you think that's Kamala Harris...
You must owe her money.
--
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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