The Stones' New Album

Today you're selling streams, not physical product, and they're doing a piss-poor job of it. There are two issues in today's music business: attention and friction. The Stones have the attention element down pretty well, but they're flummoxed by friction, how are they going to get people to actually listen to "Foreign Tongues"? Now the hype used to be a set-up for sales. And with physical product as an overweighted part of the chart equation, maybe the Stones can eke out a number one, before the album crashes into the troposphere. But that's a circle jerk. You get press attention, but that press doesn't generate many streams, just ask Paul McCartney. But as good a job as McCartney did promoting "The Boys of Dungeon Lane," the Stones' press campaign is of a scorched-earth variety we haven't seen for a classic rock act since the days of Tom Petty's last studio album, and maybe Steely Dan's comeback 25 years ago. You remember that comeback, wherein Donald revealed the story of "Rikki Don't Lose That Number" and... That was a quarter century ago. The Dan wen ton late night TV. You were exposed to the music. Today? I mean an interview in the "New York Times" is key if you want to sell tickets, but streams? I don't think it has much of an effect. Now let me be clear, unlike a lot of old acts, the Stones are all over TikTok. However, most of the clips are interview segments. I searched earlier and found there was a live gig in London a few nights back where the Stones played... Oldies. Is this a good way to sell new music? I can't see how. Once again, it's about streams, not sales. And the dirty little secret is the Stones sold poorly anyway. They were in your face, but albums might have gone platinum, diamond records were for others. Richard Branson signed the Stones to a rich deal at Virgin so he could sell the company, the buyers not aware of how poor their sales actually were. So, I wouldn't expect sales to be great this time around. In an era where sales mean so much less. The first thing they needed was a single. Now let me be clear, I'm not forcing you to have one, but if you want your attention campaign to ignite you must have a track that is a one listen smash. So far, I haven't heard one on "Foreign Tongues." Which is fine, but sans said hit, how are you going to get the masses involved? You're not! It's not only the Stones, everybody faces this question, even some of the younger stars, how are you going to get people to actually listen to the music? By using online platforms to expose them to it. The Stones clips shouldn't be conversations with Zane Lowe or the "Times," they should be one or more members sitting in the studio explaining how they wrote this song, how they came up with it, how they built it. Then people would be forced to listen to the new music, assuming they cared, and many do. Talking about music, isn't that like dancing about architecture? Now if there is a single, a one listen smash, every clip should focus on that one track. I mean come on, you expect the audience to immediately grasp an entire album? I don't care who you are, that's a heavy lift. Bash me over the head with the track again and again, you're your own radio station today. The biggest mistake the Stones made was not going on Rick Beato's show. Beato is not subject to the algorithm, his fans are dedicated. They tune in just for him. And Beato specializes in the music itself, how it was created. That's the kind of information that needs to be spread if you want people to actually stream a song. Go DEEPER! Otherwise, it's all a wank. I mean this could be the last time, so the fact that the Stones seem to be revealing that which they held back previously... I mean how do you hype the next album? After you've shot your wad? And one thing is for sure, we know the hype campaign is not working. Morgan Wallen or Taylor Swift drop a new album and it dominates the Spotify Top 50 immediately. But the Stones are nowhere to be found on that chart, whether it be the U.S. or the U.K. Now if the Stones really care about this new music... They'll promote it for longer than this week. Want to promote it? Create mania. Starting live. Show up and open for acts. For Olivia Rodrigo. For Morgan Wallen (after all, country is the new rock and roll). Play only the new album, and if you think that will bore people, play only four songs. Once again, you should be hyping the new stuff. Such that when people shoot YouTube videos, that's what people will see and that's what they'll hear! As far as social media... The oldsters are on Facebook and Instagram, the youngsters are on TikTok. Focus accordingly. But in truth, it's youngsters who keep a band alive. How do you reach them? WITH A HISTORY LESSON! Who knows more about the blues? The Stones should have clips tracing their new material to the Delta blues, or whatever roots they've got. Thread the needle, don't exist in a vacuum. And you must focus on the MUSIC! All the interviews online, they're talking about Mick's personality, whether we know the real him. About his physical condition and dancing. What has that got to do with the music? Once again, it might sell tickets, but they're not going on the road. Now tomorrow, the media genuflecting to the Stones, up the band's ass, will be on to something else. That's the way the news business works. Once again, you've got to promote yourself. And the Stones should do this by appearing to be outsiders. And stunting. Stunts? It's so easy. Forget the inane press party in London, the Stones should have worked up two numbers for the Sphere. Either appeared on a dark night or during the afternoon. After all, it's the STONES! And the new music would be helped by the visuals. Right now the Stones look like aged grandpas with their edges shorn off deigning to talk to us plebes for a week until they go back to their mansions. Rock, especially the Stones, is supposed to be rough and savage, to the gut, it's something you feel more than talk about. Where is it in this hype campaign, where is something new? An AI video? Not a bad idea, but it's not really pushing the envelope to blow our minds. And it doesn't require repeat viewings. For that, the music must hook you immediately! I mean if the Stones don't care about whether anybody listens to their new music, fine. But that's not the way they're approaching it, this isn't a stealth operation like the U2 EPs. And speaking of U2, the new track "Street of Dreams" starts off quietly, but if you stick with it it revs up and becomes hooky, in a way "Beautiful Day" did back in the day. I might sound like a heretic, but they should just chop off the first thirty seconds of "Street of Dreams," especially in an era where most people only give new material a few seconds anyway. I won't say "Street of Dreams" breaks new ground, but after that first half a minute when the music plays out you'll find yourself nodding your head, a fan will be satiated, will want to hear the track again. Bono is a student of the business. He knew he needed something hooky and easy, just like he did with the aforementioned comeback single, "Beautiful Day." So far I haven't heard an equivalent track on "Foreign Tongues." Then again, I haven't listened to the whole thing. How are the Stones gonna get me to listen to the whole thing? Not by blabbing about their past career ad infinitum to talking heads, but by actually playing the new music and dissecting it. I mean this is a band that was built on riffs. Couldn't they have gone back into the studio and just written one that closed people? Wasn't there anybody involved who could tell them they just didn't have that one track, and if they wanted more than attention, if they wanted people to actually listen more than once, they needed it? Focus on the music first. The story is irrelevant unless it relates to the music itself. You're selling repeat listens and longevity, that's the streaming game. Focus there first. The Stones seem to have it reversed, they want attention on the band itself for a week and then... Exactly what? -- 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 -- If you would like to subscribe to the LefsetzLetter, http://www.lefsetz.com/lists/?p=subscribe&id=1 If you do not want to receive any more LefsetzLetters, http://lefsetz.com/lists/?p=unsubscribe&uid=0eecea7b60b461717065cbde887c8e25 To change your email address http://lefsetz.com/lists/?p=preferences&uid=0eecea7b60b461717065cbde887c8e25

Last (For Now) Favorite Solo Song From A Band Member-SiriusXM This Week

Tune in July 11th 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 -- 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 -- If you would like to subscribe to the LefsetzLetter, http://www.lefsetz.com/lists/?p=subscribe&id=1 If you do not want to receive any more LefsetzLetters, http://lefsetz.com/lists/?p=unsubscribe&uid=0eecea7b60b461717065cbde887c8e25 To change your email address http://lefsetz.com/lists/?p=preferences&uid=0eecea7b60b461717065cbde887c8e25

Aging

The number no longer makes sense. Forget lying to others about your age, can you lie to yourself? It was really our grandparents who were the last generation to get old and accept it. It was a natural stage of life. As for our parents, they were flummoxed. The sixties were unfathomable, some got on the bandwagon but most stayed on the sidelines. And then everything their children augured for, believed in, became de facto. The end of the war, casual clothing, music everywhere. I don't know when your parents started to wear jeans, but I was shocked when my dad showed up in a pair in the late seventies, prior to that, he didn't own any. And it's not so much that we had a good run, but that the run is over. As Solters calls them, the "civilians" are all retired. And those still in this business are running things, or got squeezed out. You can hire youngsters with more passion for fewer bucks. We stopped going to the movies, now we cotton to streaming TV. After all, they don't even make movies for us anymore. We remember the last true heyday, the seventies, which contained the birth of the blockbuster, but began truly in the late sixties with "Bonnie and Clyde" and "The Graduate," but ended in 1979 with "Kramer vs. Kramer." Imagine a film like that getting greenlit today! Never mind the younger generations get divorced less than us. Then again, it's a class thing, the less wealthy and educated often don't get married at all! We still go to see our favorite bands live. Not like the younger generations... For them it's a gathering, an event, the music is almost secondary, it certainly doesn't strike their soul the way ours did. We want to remember those days. But we don't recall video games, and as far as tech... If our generation even knows how to do more than surf the web and text, they decry it. Social media is the devil. Why won't those damn kids get off the lawn! And while they're at it, get off the phone too! But our kids played all those video games and they survived. What makes us think that Gen-Z won't survive the smartphone? But really, it's the feeling that the world is passing you by. I don't know about you, but over the past couple of weeks, the tsunami of Trump traffic just doesn't hit me the same way anymore. I just don't get worked up about it as much. I know some people cheer on the Orange "Genius," but they're not friends of mine. Yup, I'm a college graduate, a member of the so-called "elite," I believe in facts and truth and I laugh when someone whips out a conspiracy theory. And the funny thing about being over seventy is you stop correcting people. You realize it's not worth it. You can send them the report that the government quashed, about the benefits of the Covid vaccine, but this is how people feel powerful, with their own ideas and viewpoints, they're sick of everybody getting rich and being powerful other than themselves. I mean there are many costs of the plethora of billionaires. Sure, everybody would like to be rich, but they know that most of these guys, and almost all of them are guys, pay few taxes, think their sh*t doesn't stink and... That's another thing about getting older, you no longer have any heroes. You've realized everybody is human. I guess when someone my age starts testifying about believing in certain musicians... You mean the one with the plastic surgery, who hasn't had a hit in eons? I mean give Bob Dylan credit, he's doing it his way. But giving him hosannas for his shows is literally the Emperor's New Clothes. But those are fighting words. Because Boomers have so little to believe in that that which they do they'll defend to their death, their icons can't be questioned. So yes, some Boomers wear blinders and are delusional, and this is hard for me to handle. They're still trying to impress. How could they not know no one cares what kind of car you drive, where you went on vacation? You reach seventy and society is no longer fluid, it's set. If you've got a bunch of bucks, feel free to spend them, but don't tell me that makes you better than me. But the rat race, society, you reach seventy and you feel strangely estranged. There are those alta kachers who won't give up their jobs in D.C. Are they that delusional, do they think that's what their life is about, their title? I mean they're not accomplishing much. No one is as hollow at the core as a politician. But there's so much info coming down the pike. Is the feeling of being overwhelmed the nature of life in the twenty first century or is this a particular side effect of being old? I mean you used to be able to be comprehensive, see all of the movies, know the hit records, now that seems impossible, and you wonder why you'd want to anyway. Meanwhile, the media are like that Who song, meet the new hype, same as the old hype. We literally can't be fooled again. If something is truly great and it sustains, we'll find out about it, we don't need to be teased and foaming at the mouth in anticipation. So some of us are self-satisfied, some in a good way. They own their own home, they've got grandchildren, they're living day by day. While they're not going to the doctor. And then there are others who just can't let go of the mores. Is this a function of being a Baby Boomer, or is it just a consequence of getting old? And no one will admit all this. Everybody thinks they're as hip and up to date as ever. But unlike when they were young, they pooh-pooh the new rather than embrace it. And the younger generations want us to move on down the line and we refuse to. We won't leave politics, and not only that, we'll denigrate those with youth, they just haven't lived long enough to understand! Isn't that what they told us, isn't that why we got the voting age lowered to eighteen? I mean if you're old enough to go to war, you're old enough to vote. And the whole world changed and we're frustrated when people don't know it or acknowledge it. We couldn't beat the North Vietnamese and now we see how Ukraine is standing up to Russia with drone warfare and the machine is busy telling everybody that we're the biggest and baddest while we're running out of ammunition, having spent so much cash to build Patriot missiles to blow drones out of the sky in the Middle East. And we didn't exactly declare victory when we left Vietnam, but there's no way to portray the fracas in Iran as anything but a loss. And as bad as we perceive the religious government in Iran to be, so many did come out this past week to mourn their lost leader. Begging the question what we know. Never mind the shifting image of the United States. Back in the seventies, when we all went to Europe on cheap flights and used our Eurail passes, we had to defend our nation, the locals wanted to chide us for Vietnam. I don't even hear about college students doing that today, and how many Americans even have passports? We've been sold a bill of goods, that America is the tippity top in every vertical, when this is patently untrue. Socialism is pretty damn good in Scandinavia. Free college? Our national hero St. Reagan changed the California college system from nearly free to expensive. Then again, California is now in the doghouse, a national punching bag. What can you do but throw your hands in the air? So you can try and go on like it's the same as it ever was, or you can own your age and get freaked out and try to adjust, even though no one ever talks about this. Yup, you can get riled up about the issues of the day, from Meta to AI to...they're endless. Or you can see that your time on the planet is limited and take an alternative path. But there's no context. We used to all be in it together, of one mind, leaning on each other. Now we're all in our own private Idaho not admitting that we feel lost and don't know what to do. And believe me, we know so much of what we see going on is B.S. But we used to care, we used to believe in change, now we see it all as cyclical, we'll vote, but don't ask us to believe. After all, the game is rigged. That's one thing we've all learned. But we're trying to pull the wool over the eyes of younger generations who know this. Telling them to let us continue to rule, that we know what is going on. But the truth is we've lost the passion. We just don't want our power usurped. -- 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 -- If you would like to subscribe to the LefsetzLetter, http://www.lefsetz.com/lists/?p=subscribe&id=1 If you do not want to receive any more LefsetzLetters, http://lefsetz.com/lists/?p=unsubscribe&uid=0eecea7b60b461717065cbde887c8e25 To change your email address http://lefsetz.com/lists/?p=preferences&uid=0eecea7b60b461717065cbde887c8e25

Neflix Second Season Slump

"Why Netflix Is Suffering From a Perpetual Sophomore Slump - Analysis - Long season breaks, increased competition and confusing release schedules have led to shows seeing big ratings declines between seasons. But does Netflix care?" https://www.yahoo.com/entertainment/tv/articles/why-netflix-suffering-perpetual-sophomore-130000516.html When was the last time you saw a second season as good as the first? Hell, if you watched the first season of "The Four Seasons" there was no reason to watch the second. I mean if you like this kind of show...but there was nothing special, it was kind of like the endless "Sex and the City" reboots. And we have this same problem in music. WHAT? Let's start with today's "New York" magazine's Vulture post: "The Best Albums of the Year So Far - 2026's highlights reach across geographic borders and musical traditions": https://apple.news/A9SoI2Qy5RMq-EJNH5TloaQ https://shorturl.at/MsxRv I must ask you, how many of these albums have you actually heard of, never mind actually heard? I mean who is spending all this time combing through all this dreck to find this stuff that has no mainstream traction, never mind probably not deserving of it? There are no trusted filters. Except for personal word of mouth and recommenders on TikTok. Whoa! You say... This means you probably watch HBO. If you read the article at the top of this screed you'll see that HBO's shows have less of a fall-off than Netflix's. But that's because HBO has so many fewer shows! HBO has a creme de la creme policy. Which worked in the days of pay cable, but now... Oldsters love HBO, they've had the habit since "The Sopranos," maybe "Larry Sanders." But youngsters? Youngsters need new. Period. Now think about this. Think of meme culture. What do we know about it? It's one and done! That lady with the mask. Even the guy skateboarding to Fleetwood Mac... They never have another hit. As for those who sustain on social media and YouTube, they do their best not to repeat themselves, they're always pushing the envelope, trying for something new... It's a dog eat dog world and even the successful people burn out but if you create a bond with viewers and keep pushing the envelope, you can build an audience and sustain. As soon as you stop producing on a regular basis, you're toast. You've got to be in the customer's face on a regular basis, and it better not be repeats. How much innovative stuff do we hear in the Spotify Top 50? Most sounds like what came before. It's not must-hear listening. Kinda like NBC no longer has Must See TV on Thursday nights, times change, and you've go to change with them. So you have an act with a written by committee hit, is there any real loyalty to the act as opposed to the song? Furthermore, what are the odds of getting something innovative from these same people in the future? Low. This is why the Beatles are the Beatles and other than the Stones, the rest of the British Invasion faded. People had seen the movie. They got caught up in the mania for a while, but then... The Beatles kept changing, from love songs to personal dramas... Did Gerry & the Pacemakers write "Norwegian Wood"? Billy J. Kramer and the Dakotas? True artists innovate. Commerce is just that, about the money. So, how many Netflix hits are worth watching a second season? "Ozark" definitely. Recently, "The Diplomat," and that's just about at its limit, no matter how good Keri Russell is, the plot has now become fantastical. We are watching "Scott & Bailey." An old British police show. And at the end of the second season I've realized what makes the show great is not the crimes, the conventional plot, but the behaviors of the characters, their relationships, the scrapes they get into. I continue to watch to see what happens to them. As for murder? Seen a couple and you've seen them all. Which of course brings us to "Law & Order"... But that's old paradigm too. Do not conflate the old with the new. The fact that oldsters will tolerate a week to week drip does not mean that youngsters will. They've been brought up in an on demand culture where they need it immediately. So if you want to have a career in music, you just can't keep doing the same thing. How many acts are changing from album to album today, demanding attention? So the original fan base, to the degree it exists, diminishes, and no one new comes on, there's no buzz, they've been there and done that. Think of Top 40 in the sixties. Or FM rock in the late sixties into the seventies. And the first decade of MTV... You had to listen/watch, you never knew what you'd encounter, and whatever you did would become the bedrock of culture. Speaking of culture, no one could predict Culture Club after the corporate rock of the seventies. The public was surprised, titillated, they wanted more. As for "Stranger Things" and "Squid Game"... You saw one season, you needed no more. I stopped there. I got it. More of the same, in a world where there are so many options? This is the mind-set of the younger generations. There's limited time and they want to use it to the best of their benefit. Whereas Boomers were brought up in the three network world where you had ads and reruns in the summer... Offerings were limited. Now offerings are unlimited! So people have trouble finding returning shows on Netflix and oftentimes they're not worth their while. So they don't watch. Maybe Netflix could get away with making less product, but the great thing about Netflix is you never know what you'll get next. I know what I'll get next on "The Pitt"... It's a circle jerk for fans of "ER." 75% of viewers of "The Pitt" are over thirty. They're old school viewers. And if you study TV, you know the big issue is YouTube, which keeps gobbling up overall screen time. And almost all of that is short term viewing. Does that mean youngsters want short term viewing? No, they have an appetite for that, but what they want is quality. And if it ain't great, they move on. In other words, especially in the record industry, the usual suspects, the gatekeepers, the platforms, have little control. There were all these hosannas about the new McCartney album. Not one person ever e-mailed me about it. Streams are anemic. We've been there and done that. Some people are interested, most people are not. I don't want to make this about McCartney, but the album went to #1 in the U.S. and U.K. and seems to have no cultural impact. That's fine if you don't expect much, but... It's just like a second season of a Netflix series. Why do I have to watch the second if I've seen the first? As for "brands"... They’re declining in value, look at superhero movies. No, it's about content, quality, resonating with the audience. Which is why "Obsession" could be such a surprising hit. The YouTube audience already knew the director, they wanted to see what he'd come up with. And if he repeats himself in the future... But movies are the smallest market in terms of the amount of product. Then comes TV and then comes music. How do you get people's attention? Turns out hype doesn't work. So what does? Word of mouth. And to get word of mouth you must have fans. And those fans have to spread the word. Think about that Netflix show "Nobody Wants This," everybody I know was talking about it. But one episode of the second season was enough and if it ever came up in conversation thereafter everybody said how bad it was. Too many in power are operating under the old paradigm. Build the brand and milk it. As if when people love it once, they'll be forever stuck to it. But music and TV are not toothpaste. People think about the music they listen to and the TV they watch. I research before I spend time on a series... That's how much I don't want to waste my time! As for the good reviews of the second iterations of series... Like critics aren't up their own a**es. The train has already left the station. Stop seeing it as a crisis and get into the mind-set of the younger generation. We see this in all walks of life. The youngsters are digitally native and the oldsters can't stop crapping on the way they're living their lives. But the bottom line is what's going on on their smartphone is tailored to them, that's what the vaunted TikTok algorithm is all about. Youngsters are living in the moment, they know how fast culture moves, they do their best to ride the serpent. Oldsters? They'll tell you to listen to an entire album and render an opinion when the truth is youngsters will press play and if it doesn't resonate with them immediately, they're done, oftentimes forever! Now if multiple friends tell them to go back... Yes, we are living in a Tower of Babel society. But don't deny it. What happens next? Is there consolidation, are their anointed projects, or is it every person in their own niche and happy about it. I will say if you truly want to sustain, satisfy the niche, not the general public, because if the niche is happy, they'll tell other people about it, and even if they don't, you've got a hard core. Remember when you didn't have to tour to be successful? How you could make the record at home and it would go big, like Owl City's "Fireflies"? It's just the opposite today. If you want to have a career, if you want to sustain, play live. Stay in the trenches and hone your chops. Because the number of acts that can draw paying customers live is limited, not like the unlimited offerings on Spotify, never mind the seemingly unlimited offerings on Netflix. There are not a thousand bands playing in your town tonight. Maybe just a handful. And if they're good, you'll tell people about them. I know there are fewer places to play. I'm just saying that the script has flipped. This is the best way to get started and to maintain, building a live audience. Because if your success is based on recordings, once the audience has seen the movie, you'd better be able to top what you've already done, and that's difficult. So a lot of the analysis of this decline of Netflix's sophomore seasons of their popular series is being delivered by those inured to the old system. They want negative news about Netflix the same way musicians want negative news about Spotify. They want to return to a past that is never coming back. Get in the shoes of younger generations and deliver great. There's very little great out there. But if you're truly innovative and great, people will find you. Might take a while, but over time you'll be building a career. Remember when an act broke and you went back and bought all the records in their catalog? Today there is no catalog and if there is it's all the same. And, once again, identity is paramount. Warts and all. Be vulnerable. The audience is hungry. Can you deliver what people want? And what is it that they want? That's your job. -- 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 -- If you would like to subscribe to the LefsetzLetter, http://www.lefsetz.com/lists/?p=subscribe&id=1 If you do not want to receive any more LefsetzLetters, http://lefsetz.com/lists/?p=unsubscribe&uid=0eecea7b60b461717065cbde887c8e25 To change your email address http://lefsetz.com/lists/?p=preferences&uid=0eecea7b60b461717065cbde887c8e25

The Atlantic Lizzo Story

"HOW LIZZO BECAME ONE OF POP CULTURE’S GREAT FLOPS - The singer is experiencing a new form of downward mobility—and she’s not alone." https://www.theatlantic.com/culture/2026/07/music-flop-era/687785/?gift=z4iyOc-jH6hIY60qnBHAeC7Mr-2Q4_OvRZnQnftUxM8&utm_source=copy-link&utm_medium=social&utm_campaign=share https://apple.news/Azih2aV8mT8adYQrTNHW5KA How many hard core fans does Lizzo have anyway? But what really interests me is the virality of this story. Despite being owned by Laurene Powell Jobs, "The Atlantic" has been fighting for attention for years, seemingly in an echo chamber, its reach and impact seem to be limited to the cognoscenti. Furthermore, there's a limit to free views of its articles online. Yet they write about music, and the internets are a-buzzin'. Then again, people love negative music news. The last few days we've been inundated with that Kalshi story: "Spotify Confirms Streaming Fraud After Kalshi Trader Cries Foul - One of Kalshi’s most prominent traders tells WIRED he’s swearing off Spotify-related markets until the issue is resolved." https://www.wired.com/story/spotify-streaming-manipulation-prediction-markets-polymarket-kalshi/ https://apple.news/Aw23U-mYtRsW7j6Q7tJpjAQ But the bottom line is the problem surfaced and Spotify took action. That's what keeps happening, the problems are addressed. Bad actors take action, get greedy and then the truth outs and the malfeasance is eradicated. Then again, no one likes a level playing field. Which is alluded to in this "Atlantic" article, how Taylor Swift sold multiple physical iterations of her last album to goose chart numbers. Now if you ask me, I'd say that the Lizzo backlash based on the lawsuit caused the drastic diminishment of the success of her new music. People love to pile up on a woman. Especially one who is up front and is unafraid of evidencing a strong personality. The accusations hit hard in an era where body-shaming and sexual harassment are up front issues, and of course the fact that Lizzo herself is a large woman... The truth is irrelevant in this case. This wouldn't be the case if Lizzo had more hard core fans. But the problem today is record companies conflate song success with career success. Then again, this has been the nature of pop music forever. It's only when the Beatles ushered in album rock and Jimi Hendrix and the rest of the album artists broke through on FM that the paradigm was different. People were truly fans of the band. Of course the music was important, but they were invested in the entire oeuvre of the act. Hits were just the cherry on top. Just ask Led Zeppelin. But then MTV came in as video Top 40 and the slow build album game was too slow for major record companies, never mind how few videos MTV actually played. And if they played them, the acts were internationally famous instantly. We learned that the faster you're rocketed into space the sooner you fall, but at this late date most people have forgotten the classic rock world which built this industry into a modern monolith and have focused once again on hit singles. But at least if you had a hit in the past people gave your follow-up a chance. Radio would play anything new by someone with previous success, at least long enough for stations to determine whether these new songs were embraced by listeners. But radio no longer has that power. And for all the ink about the Spotify Top 50, people are not fans of all the acts on that list, just a few here and there. There are not fans of the Spotify Top 50 like there were of the Top 40 stations of the sixties, never mind MTV. But labels are doubling-down. They're signing fewer artists in fewer genres hoping for moonshots. But the game has changed, no one has universal purchase. Everybody is niche. So the new release has an inherently smaller potential audience and you need more singles and doubles, because homers and grand slams are truly rare. Now with the disintermediation of the album on streaming services it has become harder to make listeners fans of more than the hit, because that's all they have to listen to, they don't have to endure an album side. But really, how much of the rest of the album is worth listening to? True fans always want to hear more, and if they like it they'll listen. But today, people are fans of music in general more than any specific act. This article laments the decline of hip-hop and its replacement by Bruno Mars and Olivia Dean. Well, Mars is an established star, but more interestingly, Dean appeals to a broader swath of the public than most of the Spotify Top 50. I could say the music business is up its own ass. Making more of the same while most people shrug and don't care. As for going to see music live... The game has changed there too. In the classic rock era you went to hear more than the hit, and you went every year to hear the new album. And production was limited. Now shows are akin to MTV videos, a lot can be on hard drive. It's like going to the theatre more than going to a concert. So you overpay for this experiencer infrequently. The desire to go to a bar to see an up and coming act... Now there is a club business of acts based more on the entirety of their output than any specific track, but it's even harder to spread the word on them, maybe over years they can grow, but maybe they can't, and the question is whether they deserve mass attention to begin with. Now in truth Lizzo and the rest of the Spotify Top 50 are competing with online influencers. And doing a bad job of it. Online influencers know that the identity is as important as the clip, if not more. People are showing up for the person who is purveying. Look at Rick Beato, he's a good example. But forget music, all the TikTokkers... They have identities, they have a relationship with the public and they're putting out a plethora of material. Sure, from time immemorial people have been fixated on stars, it completes their identity. But don't confuse this with Beatlemania, where the music came first. Just because a fan base is vocal, don't think that it's broad. So, to solve this problem, labels need to sign a broader palate of music and focus on the identity of the act. In other words, build career artists. But the three majors are public companies, they're not indies, they need profits now. And the indies, sans catalogs, have a hard time competing. Even the Rolling Stones are trying to goose attention, piggybacking on the mania of the World Cup: "Rolling Stones - Streaming World Cup": https://world-cup.rollingstones.com What I found most interesting here is I hadn't heard about this, I stumbled upon it. I mean if you don't even hear about the marketing stunt...forget about its potential impact. That's how desperate people are to get their new music noticed. But most people are just waiting for the hits to surface. That hard core attention to new releases... There are too many and too many are unpalatable. People are waiting for word of mouth, or the wisdom of the crowd, to reach them. In the late sixties to early seventies, the true classic rock era, hits were just icing on the cake. If a track crossed over to AM it goosed everything, but you didn't need that, you didn't have labels clamoring for a hit single. Then again, once AOR became so popular and so profitable in the mid-seventies, labels tried to game the system with corporate rock, and they did the same with hair band ballads on MTV at the end of the eighties. Extreme has faded, never mind the rest of the fake balladeers. However, Guns N' Roses still play stadiums. Because in addition to the music, Axl Rose is positively insane, unpredictable and not beholden to anybody. The public senses this. There's a danger involved. They want to live closer to the flame. It's not pure entertainment, it's more than that, it's a zap to the soul, feeling alive. You can exercise to a Lizzo hit, but does it touch your soul, make your life worth living? That's what you need on a broad basis for the business to be healthy. We've figured out how to monetize the entire world with streaming, but the music itself is in the doldrums. Although you can't say this, because then it would cause people like Lizzo to freak out and blame anybody but herself. Not that this is about Lizzo anyway. Like the article says, there are always acts that have hits and fade away. But in truth, did they ever have careers? More than a couple of peaks, did they have a catalog of music that fans devoured from beginning to end? No. -- 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 -- If you would like to subscribe to the LefsetzLetter, http://www.lefsetz.com/lists/?p=subscribe&id=1 If you do not want to receive any more LefsetzLetters, http://lefsetz.com/lists/?p=unsubscribe&uid=0eecea7b60b461717065cbde887c8e25 To change your email address http://lefsetz.com/lists/?p=preferences&uid=0eecea7b60b461717065cbde887c8e25

Mailbag

From: chris stein Subject: Re: America 250 July 4 1976 is so utterly memorable for me. We were returning from an early 'out of town' Blondie gig in Philly. The trip back was laborious, returning a rented beat up station wagon, hauling gear etc. A long bus ride going downtown, we saw ships in the Hudson river. When we got back to the Bowery loft there was a really really large guy with pants around ankles taking a dump in our doorway. Beyond any metaphor. True story _____________________________________ From: Phil Subject: Re: Album Airplay/40-July 2, 1976 Heart "Dreamboat Annie" "I've got a half-speed mastered vinyl album of this recording, it's FANTASTIC, which is surprising, you wouldn't expect such clarity considering the people who made it and where they made it."   If it's the Nautilus cut you speak of, then I'm with you. This is the disc I always reach for when setting up a new cartridge on my turntable. Its big, fat sounds just test the limits accross a range of measures (frequency response, soundstage, dynamics, etc, etc). I was absolutely paralyzed the first time I spun it. Credit this, and lacquer cutter Jack Hunt for making me an audiophile constantly in search of that perfect pressing. And the occupants of the house never seem to mind hearing "Magic Man" over and over while I make my tweaks to the big rig :)  Phil Nazzaro _____________________________________ Subject: Comedy Is Hot - Subtronics Hi Bob, Big fan of your newsletter and podcast! Was surprised but psyched to see Subtronics mentioned in your "Comedy Is Hot" piece. Similar to Denis Arfa with Def Leppard, I just wanted to clarify the reason most likely for our mid-sized venue charting was Subtronics’ six sold out LA Shrines (Fred again.. is #1 with eight and our other client Crankdat is #3 with five). Subtronics is actually an arena act with triple Tacoma Domes (15k cap night), double Red Rocks (9.5k cap per night), triple Bill Grahams (8k cap per night), etc. annually, as well as performing to 80k+ people per weekend at Coachella (Sahara) and EDC Las Vegas (kineticFIELD) in 2026. Check out Subtronics' Coachella livestream performance for some context: https://youtu.be/aR3Q5QJTtnU?si=AYA9j2eBnKphLH8v Many thanks + keep fighting the good fight! Best, Eric _____________________________________ From: jim windolf Subject: dylan/beatles book Dear Bob, I was happy, and relieved, when I read your review of my book (“Where the Music Had to Go”). I’m a longtime reader and listener. Your interviews with Robin Green, Paul Carrack, Dwight Yoakam, Jerry Harrison, and Joel Bernstein are probably my favorite podcast episodes of all time. More than once I almost sent you a copy of my book — but I thought there was a decent chance you might fling it across the room. Very glad you found it on your own! yours, Jim Windolf _____________________________________ Re: The Acquired Podcast I just got my Masters in business at UT Austin.  First class they taught us about this podcast.  Matthew Leishman _____________________________________ Re: The Acquired Podcast "And tell ‘em Ben and David sent you!" Love reading you finally found Acquired! I teach entrepreneurship at the collegiate level and honestly - students need only listen to this show to understand so many of the fundamentals. Give last season’s final episode "10 Years of Acquired," a three way conversation with author Michael Lewis a listen. You’ll learn a ton about the host’s failures, lessons, and craft. That episode is a gift to creative people.  Tim Brunelle _____________________________________ Re: The Acquired Podcast Hey Bob - love the Acquired Podcast. Listen to the one on IKEA - some very dodgy beginnings!  Dean Dorrell _____________________________________ Re: The Acquired Podcast I’m hooked. The LVMH episode may actually be my favorite so far. It reinforced something I’ve long believed: music or product isn’t ultimately what people buy; they buy belonging. When it’s done right, they become signals of identity and membership. There’s a lot for our industry to learn from that in the superfan era. Also, the concept of scarcity which was later adapted by streetwear culture was institutionalized  by LVMH. It’s worth checking out, really incredible listen. Dan Goldberg _____________________________________ Re: The Acquired Podcast Glad you discovered Acquired Bob.  If you ever have time and interest in digging into over 10 years of archives, you’ll find a treasure trove that goes from tech to luxury to healthcare to retail to CPG to old world manufacturing all the way to F1… The best part is that they are real people, not celebs turned podcasters.  Ben and I have corresponded for a couple of years now, and I often provide inputs and connections for their research which they always appreciate and follow up on.  He and David are genuinely smart, good guys who are interested in their subject matter and help the rest of us get smarter from that standpoints of lessons learned, valuation analysis for investing, decision making frameworks to emulate, and the human elements that make great companies great and cause others to peter out and die.   Best, Mark S. Rangell _____________________________________ Re: The Acquired Podcast The Acquired guys are a testament to the beauty of deep research in the telling of a story.  You really get a sense of the characters, and a company's identity and it's lifeblood. From Bernie Eccelstone to Sol Price to Jim Simons (The Renaissance Technologies episode is a MUST listen if you manage your own investments, or if you have them managed) to the NFL to Coca Cola and Rolex... those episodes are also just so great - just as strong as the Costco piece, in my view.  Whatever the case, I'm glad you gave them a shout out Bob! They're doing things the right way. I've listened to this pod from early days, and it's nice watching them grow it, and grow their community, and take some of the lessons they learned from the work they did, and apply them to their podcast!  Jeff Richardson _____________________________________ Re: The Acquired Podcast I was hipped to them some time ago. Their podcasts can be lengthy. Costco is excellent. Here’s some I recommend: Starbucks, Coca-Cola, Trader Joe’s, Mars Inc. I tried listening to the Charlie Munger, but I found his aged voice difficult. I forwarded your blog to one of the Acquired guys. -Harold Bronson _____________________________________ Re: The Acquired Podcast I’ve been listening to Acquired for about 4-5 years. It’s an education.  The two hosts are terrific and their research is second to none.  Glad you found it.  Fred Raimondi _____________________________________ Re: The Acquired Podcast Ferrari (!), Costco, Ikea, F-1, Morris Chang (!), Vanguard, to name a few, are beyond fascinating.  Not to mention their reverence for Google, which gives so much insight to Silicon Valley. And the hosts proudly display their nerd bona fides with the overuse of “awesome” and “totally”  :) Glad you discovered it. Randy Ezratty _____________________________________ Re: The Acquired Podcast Bob, I love Acquired! Been listening for years…blasted through the new Disney episode. They did great episodes on CAA w/Ovitz!! and Taylor Swift. Other greats include Coke, trader joes, IKEA, Starbucks, Walmart and of course Berkshire  Eli Wener _____________________________________ Re: The Acquired Podcast Hey Bob- I was turned on to this podcast a few weeks ago. My first listen was the episode about Rolex. I'm not a watch guy at all (usually wearing either an Apple Watch or a bare wrist), but it was absolutely fascinating. Rich Madow _____________________________________ Re: The Acquired Podcast I love this pod . . . I got hooked listening to the one about the NFL.  Fascinating. Vickie Strate _____________________________________ Re: The Acquired Podcast So far I've gotten through the episodes on Costco, Disney and Rolex. All brilliant. More interesting than 90% of what passes for fiction these days. Just like London Falling. To quote the Lizard King, people are strange. Best David Vawter _____________________________________ Re: The Acquired Podcast I listened to the Formula 1 episode a couple weeks ago. After that I just had to read The Formula. Highly recommend it.  Enjoy. Steve Waxman _____________________________________ Re: The Acquired Podcast The Rolex Episode is fascinating! Enjoy  Best regards, Lorne Burnett Chairman and CEO Burnac Produce Ltd. _____________________________________ Re: The Acquired Podcast I did a double take when I received your newsletter discussing the Acquired Podcast. I was happy to see you giving it some kudos. I agree, it is great. The Formula 1 episode, especially, was top notch. It was my introduction to the podcast - and I've since gone back and listened to some of the "catalogue," if you will. I'm looking forward to catching up on The Walt Disney Co. episode. Best Regards,  J.R. Rees _____________________________________ Re: The Acquired Podcast Yes! My neighbor turned me on to this last winter. Mentioned the Novo Nordisk episode, which tells the amazing story of that company and the development of insulin, and ultimately, Ozempic.  Sounds dry. It’s not. It’s action-packed. The 2 hosts are highly engaging.  I’m a little smarter after each highly entertaining episode. Vicky Germaise _____________________________________ Re: The Acquired Podcast I’ve been listening for a couple years. It’s my favorite podcast. In fact, your podcast and acquired are the only two podcasts I listen to anymore. Try the Trader Joe’s one, it’s fantastic. Joel Goldman  _____________________________________ Re: Jon Anderson & the Band Geeks in Thousand Oaks It’s actually stunning to me how great Jon still sounds. After hearing too many of his contemporaries struggle, the man is timeless.  This was Jon’s third time playing the area with Band Geeks, and I’ve been fortunate enough to attend them all. The first time was excellent, and they’ve only gotten better.  The album they released, True, is also solid, and the longer track they played, Once Upon a Dream, would have been right at home in the Yes 70’s catalog.  I’m not sure 13 year old me attending my first Yes show in the 70’s could have imagined all of still gathering to do this again 50 years later (and Chris, Alan and Peter Banks are are sorely missed), but how lucky we are that ‘our people’ can still experience Yes music live.   Aaron Weinstein _____________________________________ Re: Jon Anderson & the Band Geeks in Thousand Oaks I’m seeing them tonight in San Jose and after reading this, I'm more excited than ever. Particularly given how often you trash aging musicians falling back on yesteryear. This is the closest I’ve seen you come to a rave review in recent memory. Just found my ticket from February 22,1972. I had just turned 16. The Yes Album had been out for about a year and they announced that they were coming to my home town of Princeton, NJ. I bicycled over to the lobby of McCarter Theater and purchased the entire second row of the center orchestra, and I went to the show with all of my best friends. The tickets were $4.00. On the back of my ticket I wrote “YES, All time #1.” I carried my SLR camera into the theater without a hassle and took pictures with no interference, that I developed in the dark room at my house. Those were the days! Scott Kauffman _____________________________________ Re: Jon Anderson & the Band Geeks in Thousand Oaks I am a huge YES fan, and for me, “And You and I” was a pivotal song that crashed into my world when I was 18 years old and literally set the foundations of the life of creativity I chose to live. After reading the comments from everyone on your first email on this, I watched that performance tonight on YouTube with Jon and the Band Geeks, and lick-to-lick, note-for-note, it was absolutely astonishing to see. I was never able to see the original lineup, so the cool thing here is, the Band Geeks are playing it as it was recorded, whereas YES always embellished live from what I can tell from the rare video footage I have seen online. I did see the 90125 tour and aside from being meltingly loud (particularly on the bottom end) and incredibly well performed, it was cool for me because Jon was there. Same situation here tonight, the tears that rolled down my cheeks when I was 18 and heard "And You and I “ from the 33 LP on a massive system at full tilt volume sitting on the floor in a separate room by myself from the party my GF took me to also ran down my cheeks again tonight. I cannot believe Jon is 82, he sounds absolutely pristine with his vocals and intensely pure belief of his musings. Goes to show you what singing in that era actually meant for the vocalists without any auto-tune and the like, pure vocal talent par excellence. It’s extraordinary to see the 60’s and 70’s so accessibly alive in this era (of what exactly?) through such an expertly performing lineup of true players that totally nail it! And how much fun is Jon having, I mean seriously man, imagine how awesome for him this must be considering how much of the creative force he has always been in YES. It’s stunning man! Thank you so much for sharing!! Sacha Spindler _____________________________________ Re: Jon Anderson & the Band Geeks in Thousand Oaks I promoted one of Jon’s solo shows in early 2000.  It was a very special performance for me as a major Yes freak One highlight was Jon grabbing a mop after sound check to clean up the stage.  He claimed the glitter on his guitar was to blame so it was on him to make it right. Needless to say my stage manager was horrified and tried to take the mop. Jon was not having it and proceeded to mop. What a wonderful guy. There is no Yes without him Best Regards, Steve Gietka SMG Entertainment LLC _____________________________________ Re: Jon Anderson & the Band Geeks in Thousand Oaks Hi Bob, So good to see the overwhelming positive responses to Jon and the Band Geeks. It was my honor  to book their first date together as Jon Anderson  & the Band Geeks, April 23, 2023 at The Space at Westbury on Long Island. Most notable is that they had never played together live before our date. Not only had they never played together, they had never actually met each other in person until the rehearsals. They had communicated only virtually.   So I gave them the venue for two days prior to meet and rehearse. It was exciting to be at that first rehearsal, and when Jon heard the bands opening notes I watched the smile spread across his lips and take his whole face with it.  He just could not stop smiling. They nailed every note, effect, sound and mood of the music.  For my ears Jon's voice is the sound of Yes. Of course every one of the past members of Yes are amazing players, but having heard most of the incarnations, I believe this is the best Yes not only on the scene today, but in many years. A year later (and after having a number of dates  under their belts) I had them headline the Great South Bay Music Festival, ... they were perfect! If you are a Yes fan, you do not want to miss this show! Jim Faith _____________________________________ Re: Jon Anderson & the Band Geeks in Thousand Oaks I've been saying this for ages.  Do we go to the symphony to see Beethoven? No. He's been gone for a long time.  We go because we want to see an amazing composition performed live. And THAT'S the way I view these incarnations of the Prog bands. Call them Tribute bands...whatever.  We go because the COMPOSITIONS are the stars, and we want to hear them performed.  It's that simple. Of course we can listen to an album but it's just not the same.  And as long as the performers have the chops and intent of the original composition you're going to see something special. Live performances of amazing compositions come with their own brand of magic.  Fred Raimondi _____________________________________ Re: Jon Anderson & the Band Geeks in Thousand Oaks Thanks for the memory Bob. I saw them in 2000 with the classic lineup. At that time it seemed we were reminiscing. A lot of older guys like myself. The only difference from your show was our warm up band was Dream Theater. There were kids there with their dads. There were younger people there to see Dream Theater. So, it was interesting to watch the difference in the crowd. There were two guys behind me that stood the whole time for Dream Theater. There were fans there for Dream Theater but, they were outnumbered by Yes fans. The lead singer of Dream Theater was trying to get the Yes fans into them and wasn't haven't much luck. He stomped over to our side (right side 10th row not far off center) and glowered at me like get up what's wrong with you! Now, they were good and talented but they wanted to show off their virtuosity to the detriment of the song. The difference in the energy when Yes came out was night and day! Like your show there was a lot standing and singing along. At that time I thought it was amazing that Jon still had his voice. That sound just washes over you and it feels soo good. The interaction between the band was really fun to watch. Being on Wakeman's side I could see his face when he turned to our side and he would make faces at us. Squire was a blast as well. When he hit some deep notes he would get the biggest grin. Then Jon, the front man par excellence! All of us old guys were in our element. We showed the kids where greatness lay and we weren't too old to rock and roll!   One more thing. In 1973 I bought a Yes shirt at Budget Tape & Records. It just had the multi colored logo on it. People thought it was comment not a band! They would say to what... After Roundabout that changed. It took a few years for people in my area to get it. Thanks again for a great memory.  Russ Wilson _____________________________________ Re: Jon Anderson & the Band Geeks in Thousand Oaks Thanks for the nice words about Jon and our show in Thousand Oaks. Hope to see you there at a show, I've missed the ones you have been to that I've done. Cheers, mate. Thanks for spreading the word. Danny Zelisko _____________________________________ From: Jeff Laufer Subject: Fw: Comedy Is Hot Dear Bob Comedy is the new Rock and Roll.. Anthony Jeselnik, Jeff Ross, Dave Chappelle and more are the new Jagger, Prince, Lennon..et al.. They speak the truth. They spill their guts and they make us laugh. The world needs laughter. To take a date for an evening of comedy can cost about$100. To take a date to see Taylor Swift is $1000. Comedy is more economical. There’s no bullsh*t… I’m now in my 5th year of doing comedy and I’m still light years away from fame. If I’m lucky to get a paid gig I’ll make around $50 and I’ll have to drive to Oxnard or further. The promoter may comp we with a meal and a beer. This is the course I chose to take. I’m having the time of my life.. Instead of hangin’ at the Troubadour, Whisky or the Rainbow you’ll see me at The Improv, The Comedy Store or the Laugh Factory. Attending open mics you’ll see a slew of delusional misfits hoping they’ll get discovered. Most are not funny but they are giving it a go spilling their guts.  I’ll attend 4 to 6  open mics a week. You sign up and hope you’ll get picked to perform  for about 2 or 3 minutes in front of a booker or as I like to refer to them as “gate keepers”. If they like you can come back next and they will put you up. You are not guaranteed a slot with national touring comics. Often times at mics you have to pay $5 just to go up. Frequently there are house rules.. you must be “clean”.., I find it funny that black comics can say the “N” word while if a white comic says it they are expelled. I’m 73 years old and it’s a world I’m still allowed to play in. I’ve made some great new friends while my record friends are dying off. I’m going to stick at it till I can no longer do it. Jeff Laufer dba Barney Kugel -- 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 -- If you would like to subscribe to the LefsetzLetter, http://www.lefsetz.com/lists/?p=subscribe&id=1 If you do not want to receive any more LefsetzLetters, http://lefsetz.com/lists/?p=unsubscribe&uid=0eecea7b60b461717065cbde887c8e25 To change your email address http://lefsetz.com/lists/?p=preferences&uid=0eecea7b60b461717065cbde887c8e25

Whistler

https://shorturl.at/sCAbP I thought I just ate too much crap. Holidays are free days. When I throw off the reins and eat whatever I want. Potato chips especially. Felice buys those Kettle Sea Salt ones. Actually, they're always in our house. She has amazing self-control. She can eat just a few, and she does this every day. Me? If I start, I don't stop until I'm satiated. Although I knew we were going to Gregg and Monica's later, so I held back, and then they had the same chips there! Along with some tortilla chips, which now outsell potato chips, did you know that? Kind of amazing, like Modelo being the best-selling beer in America. Funny how people hate so many ethnicities, but they LOVE their food. And there was some fried chicken and bowtie pasta, something else I avoid except on special occasions. And I was satiated, but full to the brim, when the pie and ice cream was served. Oh, what the hell. It's a holiday, right? And I'm sitting there watching the fireworks... The San Fernando Valley might be the best place in America to view them, because all across its expanse people are setting them off for hours. Actually, the highlight was a set of drones creating a picture of the American flag over Burbank. And we're sitting there discussing the state of our nation and then... Suddenly I didn't feel so well. We had to leave. And when we got home I prayed to the porcelain goddess. And drank some Sprite (the sugar free kind, it's almost as good as the real thing, although the 7-Up version tastes better), since it's supposed to settle your stomach, and then I got into bed where I started to shiver and shake, cold as f*ck, trying to gear myself up to throw off the covers and put on some clothes, which I ultimately did, but still unable to sleep I got up, went into the living room and cracked Ann Patchett's latest, "Whistler." I guess I'm wary of someone whom everybody loves. You can't find a single person to say anything negative about Patchett, and women start to rhapsodize about "Bel Canto"... Furthermore, she owns her own bookstore in Nashville, and every Friday on TikTok she talks about books, saying "If you haven't read this book, it's new to you." That endeared me to her. Because if you're not hip to a record, people castigate you, but Ann is saying right up front that it's all right to be out of the loop. The first of her books I read, "State of Wonder," I didn't get. I don't mean it was bad, but Patchett's books always get great reviews, and this was not satisfying. There was plenty of plot, something lacking in too many well-reviewed books, but somehow it didn't hook me. And I've read better out in the wilderness writings. Then again, that's the thing about Patchett. She's not hoity-toity, I wouldn't exactly say she's middlebrow, but she's not lowbrow and not highbrow. As in she's not playing to the reader and she's not trying to impress the reader either. Meaning her books are very readable, they tend to cut like butter. And I found "The Dutch House" to be great. Loved the concept. People move and change, but the house they grew up in remains the same, containing all your memories. "Tom Lake" had less gravitas, but the summer setting and the summer stock theatre, the light feel resonated with me. The disconnection into your own world. So I was going to read Patchett's latest, "Whistler." But first I dove into "John of John." This is author Douglas Stuart's third book. The debut, "Shuggie Bain," was a sensation. The follow-up, "Young Mungo," was not as well-received, but "John of John" has gotten great reviews, however... One of the main themes of "Shuggie Bain"... Let's just say homosexuality played a big part. And when "John of John" started the same way... Now I know this makes me look homophobic, so I'll double down. When a highly reviewed book is set in Africa or India... I've learned to be hesitant. Oh, I've read a number of these books, and they've been great, but so many I've started and just haven't been able to get into. Maybe it's because I can't relate. Then again, I'm always wondering if reviewers are bending over backwards to be inclusive. And what women want is not always what I want. A lot of description and...women seem to tolerate a lot of stuff I won't. Not that you can say any of this out loud. I'm caught between the left and the right. Then again, can I say that trans women should not be allowed in women's sports? Oh, there are some where their strength makes no difference. As for said strength, you have to start taking hormones before you're a teen for there to be a level playing field, and science isn't even so sure about that. But that's a litmus test. You're either with us or against us. You're either an enlightened Democrat or you're a backward, heinous Republican. Of course Trump and his cronies have tilted the scales far in the wrong direction, but on many issues you can't even have a discussion on the left. So there you have it. I'm biased. But I'm reading "John of John," and so much is in Gaelic. And it wasn't so easy to read, and my eyes were rolling into the back of my head, so I decided to crack "Whistler," which I just got. Now if it had just been an issue of too much food, I'd feel fine today, two days later. But I'm still not on an even keel. So rather than go into the salt mines, I laid on the couch and finished "Whistler." I'd like to say I enjoyed the last half of the book as much as the first, but... This is a small story. But almost all of us are living small lives. And those living big lives are oftentimes so busy impressing this upon us that it seems they lose the intimacy of every day activities where no one but your immediate circle is paying attention, knows your stories. And these stories are what glue us together. I grew up in a house of five in a split level and in retrospect, I feel like I lived through a war. Daphne never has kids and this is one of the reasons, her upbringing. I wonder if that played into my decision too. I guess I wanted to escape the paradigm. But her younger sister Leda goes the other way, she has children and she becomes a therapist. And at this point, therapy is seen as kind of a joke, kind of like rehab. Cross a line and they send you to jail for a while and then you return supposedly fixed. There's no focus on what you learn there. But therapy when done right.... Most people are putting up a front, they're afraid if there's a crack in the facade they'll be judged. But beneath the surface... And there's a lot beneath the surface in "Whistler," as there is in all family stories. And oftentimes you're not exposed to the details until decades later, when you're an adult. So what we've got here is a story of seemingly well-adjusted adults who've coped with a lot of what seems routine today, but really is not. Like the fallout of divorce. Now Daphne opines that their mother's remarriage and subsequent birthing of two boys makes her more independent. But the girls she teaches in school... The emotional cost of divorce is understated and underrepresented. And actually, there's a gay theme in "Whistler" too. Which enhanced the story as opposed to detracted from it. Didn't bother me in the least. But I'm through trying to prove I'm not homophobic, at least in my reading habits. So if you pick up the book you'll find the picture of a horse on the cover. This is Whistler. I don't think I'm giving too much away. But Whistler's appearance, and the story surrounding him, is the weakest part of the book. You could say it was integral, but it was in his story that the book dragged the most. So if you’re a fan of Patchett, dive right in. If you're looking for a summer beach read that is not lightweight drivel, that has some substance, this is better than the overplotted tomes. "Dutch House" and "Tom Lake" were better, but "Whistler" is worth reading. https://www.tiktok.com/@parnassusbooksnashville/video/7640140575315987742 -- 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 -- If you would like to subscribe to the LefsetzLetter, http://www.lefsetz.com/lists/?p=subscribe&id=1 If you do not want to receive any more LefsetzLetters, http://lefsetz.com/lists/?p=unsubscribe&uid=0eecea7b60b461717065cbde887c8e25 To change your email address http://lefsetz.com/lists/?p=preferences&uid=0eecea7b60b461717065cbde887c8e25

The Acquired Podcast

https://www.acquired.fm I'd never heard of it. Then again, doing a bit of research I found it was blown up by the "Wall Street Journal," and I read that pretty comprehensively. Then again, I might not have found the headline appealing: "The Smartest People in the Room Are All Listening to the Same Podcast - How did Acquired become the business world’s favorite show?" https://www.wsj.com/business/media/acquired-podcast-tech-business-history-strategy-90e73603 You see I never went to business school. Where I went to college they didn't even have business classes. Business was taboo, at least until you graduated. But now business is the most exciting vertical out there, it trumps music, movies, television... Just look at the AI story. Now my eyes roll into the back of my head when I hear business school speak. As soon as someone tells me they're writing up a business plan, I'm out. I run on emotion. Does something feel good. If it does, if you're willing to dedicate all your time to it, it will be a success. Sure, vision is important, but execution trumps idea every day of the week. I used to judge people for being out of the loop. But that paradigm died with the internet. There's so much available that no one can be comprehensive. Not that people still don't put you down for not knowing about something. I laugh when this happens. This is how people feel superior, and I know how much they don't know. Actually, that's part of getting older, in my late teens and early twenties I knew EVERYTHING! I've been learning how much I don't know ever since. So I found out about the Acquired podcast in e-mail. I'd written about going to Costco and numerous subscribers told me about it. Which indicated to me it was worth checking out. Everything is word of mouth these days, marketing dollars are most often wasted, but even so, unless it's a trusted source, you have to hear the same story more than once to dive in. And I did, and I did. And... Now going back to the top. The two guys who do this podcast are not exactly nobodies from nowhere, but unlike the brand extensions of today's celebrities, they started from zero. With 500 downloads of their first podcast. Now they get in excess of 500,000 per episode and they make millions. They started in 2015. A ten year overnight success. With a who's who of listeners, everybody from Daniel Ek to Eddy Cue. So many would like ear time with those two, but the way you achieve this is by doing something unique in a spectacular fashion. The more successful you are, the less time you have. You can separate the wheat from the chaff. Which is why you can't get the music exec to listen to your demo, not without a story. They need to hear about you from someone else, they need to see numbers, because their time has been wasted so much in the past. And in a supposed attention deficit society, where we keep hearing people have short attention spans, the Acquired podcast goes on for HOURS! And that's one of the great things about it. Unlike too many other podcasts, the hosts are not injecting their personalities. Too often you tune into a conversation between buddies, laughing, talking about what they did over the weekend, and you feel left out. You feel included listening to the Acquired podcast. It seems like a secret society. Unlike too many influencers and wannabe musicians they're not constantly dunning listeners to subscribe and spread the word. When you do this you can't be taken seriously. Either your work stands for itself or... Turns out the Costco podcast is legendary, and it's two hours and fifty three minutes long! That's what people want, a deep dive. They have all the time for that which they deem truly interesting. You may denigrate youngsters for swiping quickly online, but if their attention spans are so short, how come they have streaming marathons, watching hours of "Friends" and other series? But I don't expect the mainstream to glom on to Acquired, because it's not sexy in the usual ways. It's not visual, based on beautiful people. It focuses on people who paid their dues, usually after a boatload of education. The general public doesn't want to hear this. They want it all, and they want it NOW! So as much as I knew about Costco... I learned a ton more. I knew about Sol Price. I even knew about the legendary Fedco. But what I did not know is when Fedco refused to do business with Sol that Price started a company called FedMart! Which was a juggernaut, and that's why we have WalMart and Kmart... They were trying to trade off the success of Sol's FedMart! And the history is deep, and there's all this info about margins... Costco caps its average margin at 11%. Never charges more than 14% to !5% on any item. It's all about the relationship with the customer. Who is incredibly loyal. Bands should listen to this podcast. Everybody talks about the Grateful Dead, but they did it by accident, only in retrospect does it look like a plan for success. Where everybody here took risk, but only after having experience and knowing what they were trying to achieve. And I'd tell you more about the Costco podcast, but I listened it to a week ago and I don't want to get anything wrong. Last night I just finished the Formula 1 podcast. It was four and a half hours long, and I could have listened to another four and a half, not a single lick was boring. Now I'm always wary of reporters, as opposed to those who've lived a subject, when the newspaper calls, beware. Most of the time I'm busy informing the writer of the industry. However these two guys who do the Acquired podcast go VERY deep. If you grew up in the vertical maybe you can quibble, but they know they're starting from zero, but they're fans of the story, they want to know more and more. Now of course there are multi-episode podcasts on one subject that last as long, however... This is old school, it's the same problem HBO and Apple have. They think they're increasing audience by doing this. They couldn't be more wrong. People want it all and they want it now. They want to go deep, they want to marinate, they want to bond with the project and then tell everybody about it. You can be early and own a show that's dropped all at once. You can watch the latest Netflix production when it drops on Friday and then boast about having seen it, you're a number one fan, you're hard core. But by time "White Lotus" drips out its episodes weeks later everybody's on the same plane, in a world where we're all looking for status. Acquired is a club. A pretty large one, but nowhere near as big as those who rule the Spotify Top 50. However, Acquired has a better batting average than the Spotify Top 50. They don't whiff. And they do it all themselves, except for the addition of an editor. This is what the internet affords, the electronic tools, you can do it and distribute it and if it's great, people will find it. Eventually. Eleven years, that's how long ago Acquired was started. Imagine telling a musician they've got to wait eleven years to reach critical mass. But that's the new game. You start off the radar screen, you refine your act in public and when you finally get it right you gain hard core fans that spread the word. That's your business plan, period. People want something more quantified, with success much earlier in the game. But almost everything that rises instantly falls just about as fast, that's what MTV taught us. Acquired is the sh*t. Check it out, it's not flashy, but once you start listening, you cannot stop. -- 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 -- If you would like to subscribe to the LefsetzLetter, http://www.lefsetz.com/lists/?p=subscribe&id=1 If you do not want to receive any more LefsetzLetters, http://lefsetz.com/lists/?p=unsubscribe&uid=0eecea7b60b461717065cbde887c8e25 To change your email address http://lefsetz.com/lists/?p=preferences&uid=0eecea7b60b461717065cbde887c8e25

Still More Favorite Solo Song From A Band Member-SiriusXM This Week

Tune in July 4th 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 -- 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 -- If you would like to subscribe to the LefsetzLetter, http://www.lefsetz.com/lists/?p=subscribe&id=1 If you do not want to receive any more LefsetzLetters, http://lefsetz.com/lists/?p=unsubscribe&uid=0eecea7b60b461717065cbde887c8e25 To change your email address http://lefsetz.com/lists/?p=preferences&uid=0eecea7b60b461717065cbde887c8e25

Album Airplay/40-July 2, 1976

https://open.spotify.com/playlist/1rqrVFhJSyrKqPHUlknvAh?si=1811da63db184ba7 1. Steve Miller "Fly Like an Eagle" He hadn't put out an album in nearly three years and by this point no one was waiting, it appeared he'd fallen off the radar screen. After 1973's smash "The Joker," all we got was crickets. "Fly Like an Eagle" was different from what came before, short songs all radio friendly. It is this album and 1977's "Book of Dreams" that have sold tickets for Miller ever since. The initial radio track was "Take the Money and Run," which immediately hooked the listener. It had an upbeat sound foreign to today's depressed era. We get hedonism today, but very little optimism. From there the label went to "Rock'n Me" to the title track and it was truly astounding, Miller had come back with a vengeance, truly bigger than ever. 2. Steely Dan "The Royal Scam" Steely Dan had an up and down career commercially. The initial LP was an instant smash, as a result of the singles "Do It Again" and "Reelin' in the Years." Despite being the favorite of the cognoscenti, the follow-up "Countdown to Ecstasy" had no hit singles and not much commercial impact. But then came "Pretzel Logic," which had "Rikki Don't Lose That Number," which was ubiquitous, this sleeker, more jazz-oriented Dan was bigger than ever. However, 1975's "Katy Lied" failed to produce a hit single and is talked about very little these days, but I love that album. I know every lick of 1976's "The Royal Scam" because I drove from Utah to Connecticut with it in the Blaupunkt, along with five other brand new albums. At this late date "Kid Charlemagne" is well-known, but back then not so much. My favorite cut on the album is "Don't Take Me Alive": "I'm a bookkeeper's son I don't want to hurt no one Well I crossed my old man back in Oregon Don't take me alive" A bookkeeper is anything but a desperado, and with a specific state mentioned, the story becomes 3-D. Of course, this is the album with "Everything You Did," where the desperadoes themselves are mentioned: "Turn up the Eagles the neighbors are listening" 3. Jeff Beck "Wired" Jeff was riding high after the surprise success of "Blow By Blow, "Wired" was not as good, yet Beck still had relevance, but more on the turntable than the radio, I'm surprised by this high chart position, I don't remember hearing this stuff on the radio. 4. James Taylor "In the Pocket" The second collaboration with Lenny Waronker and Russ Titelman, "In the Pocket" was a little less upbeat. But there are some amazing tracks. I used to point everyone to "Shower the People" all these years later, it was a hit, but ultimately it was deep and truthful, it was this insight we wanted from our artists: "Once you tell somebody The way that you feel You can feel it beginning to ease I think it's true what they say About the squeaky wheel Always getting the grease" But the true height of the album comes on the second side, the trilogy of "Captain Jim's Drunken Dream" to "Don't Be Sad 'Cause Your Sun Is Down" to "Nothing Like a Hundred Miles" "There's nothing like a hundred miles between me and trouble in my mind" Ain't that the truth. Then again, used to be when you drove that distance you were truly disconnected, not anymore. But the piece-de-resistance is: "Up here I'm a whisky bum but down there I'm a king" You're a king in one place, but it doesn't mean anything when you take the fish out of water. 5. Chicago "X" Really? By this point they were really a Top 40 band. Where they had a presence with Peter Cetera's "If You Leave Me Now." The days of the hard-charging debut were gone, the edges had been shorn off. 6. Carly Simon "Another Passenger" It had her version of the Doobie Brothers "It Keep You Runnin'," and "Radio & Records" was the Bible, but I never heard this album on the coasts, where I lived. 7. Marshall Tucker Band "Long Hard Ride" They'd moved in a more country direction, but they still had a presence on AOR. 8. Aerosmith "Rocks" They were truly back in the saddle, with a monster album that followed up "Toys in the Attic." From there it was downhill until the Geffen days. 9. Gordon Lightfoot "Summertime Dream" This is the one with "The Wreck of the Edmund Fitzgerald," but despite his folk pedigree, by this point AOR rocked harder and Gord was seen as a Top 40 act, where he had some big successes. 10. Wings "At the Speed of Sound" The worst of the three, the trilogy from "Band on the Run" to "Venus and Mars" to this. "Venus and Mars" is unduly overlooked, it might be lighter than "Band on the Run," but it's a great summer album, I love it. All the attention was on "Silly Love Songs," but it was the album tracks that make this LP. "Beware My Love" and "Time to Hide and "Warm and Beautiful." McCartney had peaks, but he has never been consistently this good since. 11. Firefall "Firefall" They had their moment, but if you weren't there, you don't know, never mind remember. 12. "Southside Johnny" "I Don't Want to Go Home. Springsteen had broken through and he tried to pull Southside Johnny over the transom, however... It was really a good bar band, a really good bar band, but that was it. This was the debut, the title track especially is very good, but with all the hype and the ultimate disappointment, despite more albums, the general public moved on from Southside Johnny. 13. Rolling Stones "Black and Blue" I don't think you could get away with that title today, never mind the bondage billboard. This was a hodgepodge, trying out different replacements for Mick Taylor before they settled on Ronnie Wood and surprised everybody with 1978's "Some Girls." I never liked the single "Fool to Cry," but there are two great tracks on this album, "Memory Motel" has been resurrected as a result of the live duet with Dave Matthews, but "Hand of Fate" still has not gotten the recognition it deserves. 14. Grateful Dead "Steal Your Face" The last LP on the band's own label, it was neither a gigantic seller nor a big radio presence, despite this high chart number. Then again, it had just been released on June 26th. 15. Blue Oyster Cult "Agents of Fortune" This is the one with "(Don't Fear) The Reaper," but in truth, it was all downhill from the debut, which was MARVELOUS! 16. Doobie Brothers "Takin It to the Streets" This was the first LP with Michael McDonald, and although good, it was a complete change from what had come before. Tom Johnston was barely on it, and then left the group. The band soldiered on and then surprised everybody by resurfacing with "Minute by Minute" two albums later, in 1978 17. Boz Scaggs "Silk Degrees" To say this was unexpected... You have no idea how big this album was unless you were conscious back then. It was the favorite of women, they bought it and played it in their apartments and...you heard it everywhere. One can argue it's so good because of David Paich's songwriting chops. Expectations were high for the follow-up, "Down Two Then Left," however...sans Paich, it just didn't hit the mark, and Boz never reached anywhere near these heights again. But for a moment there... 18. George Benson "Breezin'" This is when he gained mainstream success, you can attribute the subsequent infiltration of soft jazz to this album, even though Benson had cred, a lot of dreck followed him. With this album, George became a household name. 19. Thin Lizzy "Jailbreak" This is the one with "The Boys Are Back in Town." And after that they dropped off the radio and never returned. 20. Todd Rundgren "Faithful" The first side proved Rundgren's chops as a producer, player and engineer, but side two of the LP, the one with the originals, was the heart of the album. "Love of the Common Man" and "The Verb 'To Love'" are excellent. 21. Peter Frampton "Frampton Comes Alive!" He'd already come alive on AOR, the summer of '76 is when he penetrated Top 40. 22. Heart "Dreamboat Annie" Unknown act on an unknown label produced by an unknown producer in Vancouver, far from the beaten track. But all you had to do was hear it. Kinda like "More Than a Feeling" later in the year. This album had actually come out in 1975, but it was still being played. The one-two punch of "Crazy on You" to "Magic Man"...who were these people! They had a soft side, but really they were straight ahead rockers, overnight they were part of the firmament. I've got a half-speed mastered vinyl album of this recording, it's FANTASTIC, which is surprising, you wouldn't expect such clarity considering the people who made it and where they made it. 23. Andy Pratt "Resolution" I bought it, but really it was about the 1973 Columbia debut with "Avenging Annie," he never reached those heights again, either in quality or sales. He came from a rich family... 24. Jethro Tull "Too Old to Rock 'n' Roll: Too Young to Die" After the blues-influenced debut with Mick Abrahams the audience loved Tull, but the critics never did. Even at this late date, the act was getting airplay, especially with the title track of this LP, but they'd burned out the audience with "A Passion Play," which was a redo of the concept of the previous breakthrough "Thick as a Brick," but not as good. You can only stunt once, do not repeat yourself. And then, in 1987, an album that whose tracks were picked by focus group, was all over the airwaves. It was "Crest of a Knave" that won the metal Grammy everybody thought Metallica deserved. Ian Anderson didn't even go to the ceremony, but somehow he's been tarred by the inanity of the Grammy voters. I mean it wasn't his fault. Tull still gets no respect, but it deserves it. But the same critics who pooh-poohed the band refuse to induct it into the Rock Hall. Wankers... 25. Spirit "Farther Along" The band had broken in two, and despite a good track here and there, neither the latter-day Spirit nor Jo Jo Gunne really had any commerciality. Once again, as is the case with a lot of the unsuccessful records in this chart, this album had just been released, and stations were giving it some spins before they dropped it. 26. Jay Ferguson "All Alone in the End Zone" Did you know he became a soundtrack composer when the hits dried up? Jo Jo Gunne had broken up. This album was not highly anticipated and it did not sell. No one foresaw the success of "Thunder Island" the following year. 27. City Boy "City Boy" The act had some success in the U.K., got some reviews over here, I actually bought it, but it's the backstory that makes this album interesting. Clive Calder, Ralph Simon and Mutt Lange left South Africa where they'd been cutting soundalike records and dropping them before their official releases to come to London and play in the big leagues. Produced by Mutt, this was the beginning of the juggernaut, not that anybody knew it back then. 28. Billy Joel "Turnstiles" It had come out in May, and if you think Billy meant much on rock radio after "Piano Man," you're misinformed or delusional. He did get some airplay with "The Entertainer," and "Los Angelenos" from the second Columbia LP, but by the time of this third, Billy was making his bones on the road. It wasn’t until he hooked up with Phil Ramone on the following year's "The Stranger" that he became the Billy Joel revered today. "Turnstiles" suffers from Billy's production and less than crystal clear engineering...the sound may not be right, but there are some FANTASTIC songs on this. This is the LP with "New York State of Mind," which may be a standard now, but was not a single back then. And it also has "Summer, Highland Falls" and "Miami 2017 (Seen the Lights Go Out on Broadway," and I'd say I'd have liked to have seen Billy rerecord "Turnstiles" with Ramone, but in reality he did, on 1981's "Songs in the Attic." There they truly come alive, it's Billy's best work. 29. Santana "Amigos" It was over, sans the original band most people were not paying attention. 30. Tubes "Young and Rich" A grave disappointment after their Al Kooper-produced debut the previous year, but it does include "Don't Touch Me There." 31. Charlie Daniels "Saddle Tramp" This was back when he was still a rocker, before "The Devil Went Down to Georgia" and the turn to country. He'd had "The South's Gonna Do It" from two albums before, from "Fire on the Mountain," but I don't remember this album having any presence on rock radio. 32. Jerry Jeff Walker "It's a Good Night for Singin'" I think even Jerry Jeff would be surprised he's this high on the chart. 33. Fleetwood Mac "Fleetwood Mac" Other than the Frampton album, this is the biggest LP on the chart. But it took a long time to percolate in the marketplace, yet despite being released nearly a year and a half earlier, this music was still regularly played on the radio. 34. Ben Sidran "Free in America" Clive Davis had actually given him a major label deal. But Clive couldn't make Ben a household name. 35. Harry Nilsson "...That's the Way It Is" The way it was was Harry had blown out his voice on 1974's "Pussy Cats" and although that album sold on his name... Once bitten, twice shy. 36. Bob Marley & the Wailers "Rastaman Vibration" He didn't live up to the hype, true Jamaican reggae had not gone mainstream. Johnny Nash and Paul Simon had hits, but Bob Marley was not a household name. But he ultimately became one, with the release of "Live" in the U.S. "One good thing about music When it hits, you feel no pain" 37. Leon & Mary Russell "Wedding Album" Leon had seemed to lose the plot, we read about him, but we didn't listen to him. 38. Chris Hillman "Slippin' Away" I bought this album, other than Andy Somers, I don't know anybody else who did. It's actually pretty good! 39. Toot & the Maytals "Reggae Got Soul" I did hear the title track on the radio, but Toots never really broke big up here. 40. Sons of Champlin "Circle Filled with Love" All you've got to know is this album came out on Ariola America, after the band was on Capitol and Columbia. Bill had his greatest success with Chicago. https://www.worldradiohistory.com/Archive-All-Music/Archive-RandR/1970s/1976/RR-1976-07-02.pdf -- 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 -- If you would like to subscribe to the LefsetzLetter, http://www.lefsetz.com/lists/?p=subscribe&id=1 If you do not want to receive any more LefsetzLetters, http://lefsetz.com/lists/?p=unsubscribe&uid=0eecea7b60b461717065cbde887c8e25 To change your email address http://lefsetz.com/lists/?p=preferences&uid=0eecea7b60b461717065cbde887c8e25

The NeXT Book

"Steve Jobs in Exile: The Untold Story of NeXT and the Remaking of an American Visionary": https://shorturl.at/WlVgS This is a painful read, at least until NeXT pivots to WebObjects and revenue starts coming in. Yes, this book chronicles Steve Jobs's time in the wilderness, in between his two stints at Apple. And it hasn't been documented to this degree before, not really ever. We know NeXT failed and was ultimately rescued by Apple, but... Everything you've heard about Steve Jobs is evidenced here. He demands absolute loyalty and even that is not enough to keep you safe from his wrath. But it's even worse, he's delusional! Not only promising impossibilities, but categorically unable to see the landscape. Known as a visionary, he's got very little vision here. One can debate whether there was a need for the NeXT computer, a $3000 workstation for universities, but it ended up costing more than 10k. Even worse, by time it hit the market, much of its innovation had already been adopted by competitors. But Jobs refuses seemingly every olive branch. He won't sell to the government... They don't usually write books like this. Nonfiction is either about winners or utter tragedies, and this is neither. I mean yes, Jobs comes back to Apple at the end, but that's a sliver of the overall book. Which is not hard to read. But you will be stunned how it all happened so long ago. Hardware has been superseded by software. Unless you were paying attention back then, does anybody remember Gil Amelio? Even John Sculley? And that's another point the author makes, how this history is not well-documented, so many people who were there have passed and so much has been thrown out/destroyed, even legal documents. So the author, Geoffrey Cain, deserves kudos. There have been tons of books about Apple and Steve Jobs, but none about NeXT. And the truth is you'll learn a lot more lessons reading this book of failure than the ones of triumph. Then again, Jobs admits he needed that failure to evolve into the person he became. A big turning point is when he has kids. He suddenly gets it. His priorities change, a little. He can see that his employees need time off. He mellows. So... Ultimately this is a very good business book, but who is going to read it? I cracked it because I'm one of the Apple faithful, I wanted to fill out my mental history. But even I had a hard time continuing at times, because Jobs keeps shooting himself in the foot. So if you devour everything Apple, I recommend this book. I only wish wannabe business people would read it. But it's almost too depressing to get through. But when you see a guy f*ck up this bad... It teaches you how not to behave. And it also teaches you that people can change. But some do not. However, the lore is true, when the prodigal son returns to Apple he's been wizened by his losses. He's mellowed just enough to get along with people. Furthermore, he's learned lessons about the computer world, which continues to evolve. He re-evaluated his priorities. This is something you rarely see today, whether it be in business or in government, people questioning their actions and behavior. Everybody doubles down, trying to win via intimidation. But it didn't work for Steve Jobs, and he had a lot of tools in his belt. He was smart, he was there at the beginning of the computer revolution, but even he couldn't see where it was going. Oh, he saw a few things, but those were not enough to save NeXT. People will read the Walter Isaacson book, but you'll learn more about Steve Jobs in this book. Assuming you care. And even Jobs says this. That today's tech is built on the foundation of yesterday's, and those who created yesterday's are forgotten. But Steve had a run. And if you were there, it was mesmerizing, and fulfilling. But what was he doing before he made the turn? How bad did it have to get for him to see the light? This book tells you. -- 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 -- If you would like to subscribe to the LefsetzLetter, http://www.lefsetz.com/lists/?p=subscribe&id=1 If you do not want to receive any more LefsetzLetters, http://lefsetz.com/lists/?p=unsubscribe&uid=0eecea7b60b461717065cbde887c8e25 To change your email address http://lefsetz.com/lists/?p=preferences&uid=0eecea7b60b461717065cbde887c8e25