He was a nice guy.
And many of our musical heroes are not.
By time the Beatles hit... Neil Sedaka was in the rearview mirror. And if you were of a certain age, and I mean young, you were clueless as to his success, which peaked in 1962, with "Breaking Up Is Hard to Do."
I'd never heard of him. But he was the featured performer at the Concord Hotel when we stayed there in February 1965.
That wasn't the original plan. But our ski vacation in December had been rained out, and my parents didn't want to take that risk again. I whined, but they told me there was a ski area there that some friend of theirs said was more than adequate, actually good.
That didn't turn out to be the case. It was small, with two t-bars, and so flat that I could go down straight without turning, but this is not a story about skiing.
Now at this point the heyday of the Catskills is long gone. But there were full-service hotels, originally catering to Jews, with plentiful food and plentiful activities. You could order whatever you wanted in the dining room, the menu was just a starting point. And at night...
There was entertainment.
You sat at these long banquet tables, and the defining feature was these little mallets...
Well, imagine a ten inch stick with a wooden sphere the size of a golf ball at the end... This is what you used to applaud, rather than clap your hands, you banged the balls on the table. Really.
And my father couldn't help talking about the appearance of Neil Sedaka, who he called "sebaka," which he said was Russian for "dog." Was this true? There was no internet back then to check.
And I must say I went to the show reluctantly. I didn't need to see some sappy crooner. But what else was I going to do with the time.
But Neil was energetic, he sang his hits like they were just written yesterday. I can still see him on stage, and thereafter whenever I heard his songs on the radio I smiled, I felt a personal connection.
And there were two....
"I love, I love, I love my calendar girl"
But even better was "Breaking Up Is Hard to Do," a veritable masterpiece of composition, with changes that endeared themselves to you.
It's the bridge that seals the deal:
"They say that breaking up is hard to do
Now I know, I know that it's true
Don't say that this is the end
Instead of breaking up I wish that we were making up again"
It's like he stopped the song, looked aside and had a personal conversation with the object of his affection. And the way he squeezes all those words into the last line, it was delicious.
Now what followed, the Beatles, the British Invasion, was very different from today. There was melody and changes. Not quite the puppy love of what had come before, then again, the Liverpool Lads' first hit was "I Want to Hold Your Hand."
But the Beatles were revolutionary, and one of the reasons was that they wrote their own songs, unlike most of their immediate predecessors. Then again, unlike most of his contemporaries, Neil Sedaka wrote the songs he sang too, he was a cut above.
Now most of the pre-Beatle acts were wiped out. And it looked for a long while that Neil Sedaka was ancient history too. Carole King emerged from the background to become a piano player in James Taylor's band, and then a superstar as a solo act with the best-selling "Tapestry." But she was an anomaly, the Brill Building was in the rearview mirror.
And then...
Elton John is passionate about not only his music, but that of others. He's a student of the game, he's embedded in the scene, even as it changes.
Now Bruce Springsteen brought back Gary U.S. Bonds for a minute, who had a mild hit and then promptly returned to obscurity. But before that, Elton John signed Neil Sedaka to his Rocket Records and the result was two number one records. Neil was back! He was on all the music television shows of the era. He looked like he'd jetted right in from the fifties, he didn't glam up, he might wear a sweater, but basically he appeared the same as he ever was.
But that was good enough, because he was great.
I mean if you can sing, write and play....
But then Neil bit the hand that fed him. He thought Elton needed to pay him more money. And the resulting rift led him to leave the label and ultimately have no more hits.
And Neil regretted this. But such is the music business, you're almost always flying blind, you don't know whether your decisions are the proper ones. And in truth, musicians have been ripped-off from time immemorial. And in Sedaka's earlier era, this was truly prevalent. But let this be a lesson to you, to be willing to leave some money on the table. If you're greedy, oftentimes you're left out.
So Neil never had another hit, but... He'd made it again in the modern era, people knew who he was, he was never forgotten, he was part of the firmament. He wasn't just a feature in the Dead Sea Scrolls of the pre-Beatle era, he'd earned his rep, people knew who he was and knew his hits and...
Of course he wrote "Love Will Keep Us Together," a gigantic hit for Captain & Tennille in 1975 and...
The seventies were different from today. The power of music was paramount. We had AM hits and FM hits and the youth knew both.
Somewhere along the line, we lost the formula. Of course, music evolves, but melody, harmony and changes are forever. But too many acts are too hip for the room today.
But Neil could do all that, as well as croon with the best of them. Used to be you had to have a good voice to have a hit, to even get a chance to record, whereas today those with imperfect vocalizations believe they're entitled to number one records, or at least riches.
Our standards have been lowered. Everybody used to try to make it in music back in the day, but very few felt they deserved success. And those who broke through were icons.
Now Neil Sedaka lived to 86. Not a bad run. And he leaves behind all those records, but his personality, his vivacity, those have been extinguished. Neil was always smiling, always upbeat, he always had his head in the game. Sure, he believed in himself, you have to to make it. The stars are different from you and me. But Neil was both a star and human, on stage but relatable. Like us but not like us.
And his humanity and his truth shined through.
I guess I was a fan, but when I talked to him, when we did that podcast, I was truly won over. Sure, he was proud of his story, of his achievements, but he had no airs, he truly wanted to connect, which is the essence of a great song, you feel it in your heart, it resonates.
More legendary musicmakers are going to die soon. Many are in their eighties. But to a great degree, Neil Sedaka was sui generis. He was not of the rock era, but before. But then he triumphed when the longhairs were dominating the airwaves.
Like I said, Neil had a pretty good run, but his death left me queasy... Not quite like a family member passing, but something akin to that. It was kind of personal. Maybe because he was so alive.
And now he's dead.
But the tunes live on.
And that's the power of music.
--
Visit the archive: http://lefsetz.com/wordpress/
--
Listen to the podcast:
-iHeart: https://ihr.fm/2Gi5PFj
-Apple: https://apple.co/2ndmpvp
--
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Saturday, 28 February 2026
Friday, 27 February 2026
Dan Beck's Michael Jackson Book
"'You've Got Michael': Living Through HIStory": https://www.amazon.com/Youve-Got-Michael-Through-HIStory-ebook/dp/B0FMKKNR35
I wasn't going to read this book. I know enough about Michael. I love "Off the Wall," and "Thriller" is pretty good too, but as far as the ins and outs of his life... Next!
But then Dan Beck wrote me a personal e-mail...
This is what people don't understand...that it's the little things that count. Almost no one responds to a generic e-mail that's part of a blast. And then there are those that are only personalized using my name...
The problem is... Most PR outfits have the most junior people write and send this stuff. And not only is it not personalized, they've got no idea who I even am or what I do. Which is minorly offensive. I mean my time is worth something.
So, if you hire a PR person who sends blasts... They'll take your money, but it ain't worth much. It's the personal touch that matters.
So I was sent a book... People have no idea how much time I need to invest to read something or watch something or even listen to something. I'm essentially working for you, and why should I?
But when Dan sent me that personal note, I decided to crack the book, and it was completely different from what I thought it would be...
I expected hagiography focused on Michael. And there's plenty of Michael, but he doesn't always look good, yet what there really is is a deep dive into how the music business worked back in the last century, before the internet hit.
Now the funny thing is the mainstream media and the trade press still act like everything's the same. Focused on hits, pushed by the major labels, when in truth the major labels have never meant less, all three of them. And in truth, Primary Wave is a better label than the Big Three. It's got the creme de la creme of execs and they don't blow smoke. So if you're a legacy artist...
The majors have been hollowed out and don't release that much product anyway... All the action is in the indies, which is why Universal purchased Downtown. The majors don't know how to do this. They don't know how to start from scratch, they're just able to pick up stuff that's already successful by paying a lot for it and then adding their special sauce...which is exactly what? Terrestrial radio means less than ever before, even though they dedicate so much time and money to it, and TV, other than SNL and "CBS Sunday Morning," means nothing and... They really don't know how to do it.
But in the old days...THEY KNEW EXACTLY HOW TO DO IT!
And that's what this book is all about. And if you were there, you will remember, and also be weirded-out that it was such a long time ago, the execs who were titans are in their eighties and unknown by youngsters. The first decade of this century was all about digital disruption, but that problem was solved by Spotify and...
A side note here. My inbox is full of people pointing me to this article:
"The Death of Spotify: Why Streaming is Minutes Away From Being Obsolete"
I'm not even going to give you the link, I don't want you to waste your time, Google it if you're interested. It's all based on this interview Jimmy Iovine gave...
Iovine was a great record producer and a great label exec but he was a terrible technologist. Think of all his endeavors that failed before Beats... Does anybody remember Jimmy and Doug's Farm Club?
Instead of the above article I'd rather see one about how hard it is to make it, how almost no one can make a living in music, and that there are many avenues of revenue and if you're streamed on Spotify you're paid.
But people don't like that. They hate the big kahuna.
And then the article talks about how Spotify doesn't scale. Duh. Which is why they've entered into podcasts and books and...lo and behold, the company is making money and its valuation has gone way up. Ain't that the way of a failing company... NO!
But that's the modern music business. People would rather talk about anything but the music, because the music is hard. Someone must be at fault, someone must be standing in the way of you becoming rich and famous... And in truth there is one person, and it's YOU!
As for Spotify... We are at the end of the cycle. Spotify is on demand, there's nothing after on demand. And Spotify has the largest market share and is growing faster than its competitors, but that does not mean some ignoramus cannot pontificate on Substack...
Yes, I'm an equal opportunity offender. I think I've pissed off everybody at this point.
However, back to the book....
Dan Beck was a product manager. This is the first description of what a product manager does, and it's quite a lot! All the focus is on promotion and marketing, but when you read what Beck did...
As for the honchos above him... Beck says that unlike his predecessors, Dave Glew explained the economics to the troops. So they could understand how the company made money. And that's what record companies are, businesses, making cash...they are not museums, they don't want to invest in something with no commercial potential.
So Glew gives Beck Michael Jackson and...
MJ's career is faltering a bit after "Dangerous"... Quincy Jones kept Michael under control, sans Q Michael was a caricature of himself.
Michael was delusional, he wanted to sell a hundred million copies of HIStory! Truly!
And Michael keeps switching managers... And you see how these guys operate. Frank DiLeo knew the ropes and could set Michael straight. Sandy Gallin was elusive, his partner Jim Morey was hands-on with the nuts and bolts of touring and logistics, but the big picture thinking... Gallin was an enigma. And not always available.
On the other side you've got Mickey Schulhof, who promises Michael he's going to put his teaser for "HIStory" in all of Sony's Loews Theatres. And then after Michael delivers an execrable POS... Loews wants nothing to do with it. Ultimately, Beck employs Robert Kardashian's Movie Tunes as a workaround...
Yup, the names from the past keep popping up. Ron Alexenburg, who wooed Michael away from Motown, and ultimately decamped to start his own label with MCA, Infinity.
The business used to be one of musical chairs, unlike today. The players were constantly switching labels. Here today...at another company tomorrow. Now that's not the case, the labels are moribund, and not where the action is anyway. Want to be in the music business? Work in the live sector. That's where real acts are broken.
So Michael keeps calling Beck. The time is irrelevant.
And you can see that Beck is working around the clock... This is what the music business was like... If you weren't going to come in on Saturday, don't even think of coming in on Sunday. People sacrificed their entire lives... Sure, the money was good, but they wanted to be closer to the music.
And the MONEY! The amounts were STAGGERING! Sure, Michael blew millions...and it's fascinating to hear how video producers ran up budgets to line their pockets...but millions were in the offing. In the days of CDs... The billing could be incredible!
And Beck goes into distribution. And also how all the pieces fit together...recording, manufacturing, distribution... Timing was key.
Today physical product is just a way to rip off fans with another iteration of an album sold as a souvenir so the act's chart number will go up. Forget all the money saved on production and shipping, you don't need all those heads doing those jobs! Costs are lower than ever before, the money isn't raining down like it used to. But once upon a time...
Now if you worked in the music business in the eighties and nineties you will recognize yourself and the landscape. All the departments focused on releasing product that generated mountains of cash. And it wasn't only distribution people and the product manager and promotion, there was the publicity team and the video team and even the researcher/pollster. With so much money on the line they wanted to get it right, they needed to get it right for the entire enterprise to march forward.
If you were not around back then, you won't even recognize the business Dan Beck delineates.
As for Michael... Ultimately you can say that he was out of touch. He kept needing to top himself, and at some point that becomes impossible. And no one really wanted to say no to him. So he devolved into ever more ludicrous endeavors. And when confronted with the use of racial slurs in one of his songs he dug in his heels, angry that he could be misperceived, he couldn't even understand the public's reaction.
Beck is constantly trying to stop Michael from putting his foot in it. Michael comes up with more and more inane ideas that Beck knows the press will crucify him for and...it's nearly impossible to make Michael see the truth.
Beck says Michael was stubborn. He does his best to put Michael in the best light, talks about how charitable he was, how he lived up to his commitments, but ultimately it's just sad... Michael created the monster, he became Wacko Jacko.
Is this book for Michael Jackson fans? I guess if you're a completist who needs to know everything. But really, "You've Got Michael" is for those fascinated with the music business, the moving parts, how it used to work, the dedication of the employees who were bitten by the bug.
It was an entire generation...they heard the Beatles and they had to get closer. Music was everything.
One can say by the nineties the companies were being crushed from within... Innovation was low and money was everything and the funny thing is the people running these companies thought it would go on forever, they truly thought they were gods entitled to this lifestyle and all this money. They could not fathom that they were ripping off the public and that people would be enamored by Napster.
Remember when live albums were dribbled out after a number of hit studio records? Suddenly, all kinds of live recordings were available on Napster... And at this point, live recordings are something you see on YouTube, they have almost no commercial value.
And greatest hits albums are a thing of the past.
Yup, the goal was to get people to buy an overpriced CD...if there was even a single available, it was cut out when the song gained traction, forcing people to buy the album.
And the funny thing is many will be indignant re the above, they'll say that the CD wasn't overpriced, was a good value, and today's model is crap.
Cracks me up. Who are these people who believe that the wheel stops turning, that change doesn't happen. The bottom line is change is constant, and if you're not adjusting, you're left behind.
Which brings us full circle. The labels didn't know how to save themselves, couldn't save themselves, and then an outsider known as Daniel Ek saved their business. And that's the truth...lock, stock and barrel. Spotify saved the recording industry. Revenues returned, piracy was diminished to a de minimis level and what do "artists" say? SPOTIFY IS THE DEVIL!
Would you rather not be paid at all? Would you rather there be no central place where people can hear your music? And do you think major labels in the last century were handing out record deals to all those people posting thousand and thousands of tracks to streaming services each and every day?
You can't fight the b.s. People don't want to hear the truth. They're invested in their story, because if the system isn't stacked against them that means...they need to look in the mirror, and see that the problem is them.
But the problem must be illegal immigrants, or some other hogwash. The MAGA movement is as bad as the record labels in the Napster era. When it was all said and done, overpriced CDs were a thing of the past. But we've got an entire party based on bringing back coal. It would be laughable if it weren't so scary.
I'd say history is permanent, but Trump is doing a good job of rewriting that too.
Oh, don't get your knickers in a twist. If you've got blind faith in Trump you're as bad as the enablers who told Biden he could run and win in 2024.
But if you want to know the way the music business ran in the eighties and nineties, when MTV promoted tracks and acts around the world, generating heretofore unfathomable cash..."You've Got Michael" is the place to get the story. It's a bygone era, but when it was all going down... It was Camelot!
--
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
I wasn't going to read this book. I know enough about Michael. I love "Off the Wall," and "Thriller" is pretty good too, but as far as the ins and outs of his life... Next!
But then Dan Beck wrote me a personal e-mail...
This is what people don't understand...that it's the little things that count. Almost no one responds to a generic e-mail that's part of a blast. And then there are those that are only personalized using my name...
The problem is... Most PR outfits have the most junior people write and send this stuff. And not only is it not personalized, they've got no idea who I even am or what I do. Which is minorly offensive. I mean my time is worth something.
So, if you hire a PR person who sends blasts... They'll take your money, but it ain't worth much. It's the personal touch that matters.
So I was sent a book... People have no idea how much time I need to invest to read something or watch something or even listen to something. I'm essentially working for you, and why should I?
But when Dan sent me that personal note, I decided to crack the book, and it was completely different from what I thought it would be...
I expected hagiography focused on Michael. And there's plenty of Michael, but he doesn't always look good, yet what there really is is a deep dive into how the music business worked back in the last century, before the internet hit.
Now the funny thing is the mainstream media and the trade press still act like everything's the same. Focused on hits, pushed by the major labels, when in truth the major labels have never meant less, all three of them. And in truth, Primary Wave is a better label than the Big Three. It's got the creme de la creme of execs and they don't blow smoke. So if you're a legacy artist...
The majors have been hollowed out and don't release that much product anyway... All the action is in the indies, which is why Universal purchased Downtown. The majors don't know how to do this. They don't know how to start from scratch, they're just able to pick up stuff that's already successful by paying a lot for it and then adding their special sauce...which is exactly what? Terrestrial radio means less than ever before, even though they dedicate so much time and money to it, and TV, other than SNL and "CBS Sunday Morning," means nothing and... They really don't know how to do it.
But in the old days...THEY KNEW EXACTLY HOW TO DO IT!
And that's what this book is all about. And if you were there, you will remember, and also be weirded-out that it was such a long time ago, the execs who were titans are in their eighties and unknown by youngsters. The first decade of this century was all about digital disruption, but that problem was solved by Spotify and...
A side note here. My inbox is full of people pointing me to this article:
"The Death of Spotify: Why Streaming is Minutes Away From Being Obsolete"
I'm not even going to give you the link, I don't want you to waste your time, Google it if you're interested. It's all based on this interview Jimmy Iovine gave...
Iovine was a great record producer and a great label exec but he was a terrible technologist. Think of all his endeavors that failed before Beats... Does anybody remember Jimmy and Doug's Farm Club?
Instead of the above article I'd rather see one about how hard it is to make it, how almost no one can make a living in music, and that there are many avenues of revenue and if you're streamed on Spotify you're paid.
But people don't like that. They hate the big kahuna.
And then the article talks about how Spotify doesn't scale. Duh. Which is why they've entered into podcasts and books and...lo and behold, the company is making money and its valuation has gone way up. Ain't that the way of a failing company... NO!
But that's the modern music business. People would rather talk about anything but the music, because the music is hard. Someone must be at fault, someone must be standing in the way of you becoming rich and famous... And in truth there is one person, and it's YOU!
As for Spotify... We are at the end of the cycle. Spotify is on demand, there's nothing after on demand. And Spotify has the largest market share and is growing faster than its competitors, but that does not mean some ignoramus cannot pontificate on Substack...
Yes, I'm an equal opportunity offender. I think I've pissed off everybody at this point.
However, back to the book....
Dan Beck was a product manager. This is the first description of what a product manager does, and it's quite a lot! All the focus is on promotion and marketing, but when you read what Beck did...
As for the honchos above him... Beck says that unlike his predecessors, Dave Glew explained the economics to the troops. So they could understand how the company made money. And that's what record companies are, businesses, making cash...they are not museums, they don't want to invest in something with no commercial potential.
So Glew gives Beck Michael Jackson and...
MJ's career is faltering a bit after "Dangerous"... Quincy Jones kept Michael under control, sans Q Michael was a caricature of himself.
Michael was delusional, he wanted to sell a hundred million copies of HIStory! Truly!
And Michael keeps switching managers... And you see how these guys operate. Frank DiLeo knew the ropes and could set Michael straight. Sandy Gallin was elusive, his partner Jim Morey was hands-on with the nuts and bolts of touring and logistics, but the big picture thinking... Gallin was an enigma. And not always available.
On the other side you've got Mickey Schulhof, who promises Michael he's going to put his teaser for "HIStory" in all of Sony's Loews Theatres. And then after Michael delivers an execrable POS... Loews wants nothing to do with it. Ultimately, Beck employs Robert Kardashian's Movie Tunes as a workaround...
Yup, the names from the past keep popping up. Ron Alexenburg, who wooed Michael away from Motown, and ultimately decamped to start his own label with MCA, Infinity.
The business used to be one of musical chairs, unlike today. The players were constantly switching labels. Here today...at another company tomorrow. Now that's not the case, the labels are moribund, and not where the action is anyway. Want to be in the music business? Work in the live sector. That's where real acts are broken.
So Michael keeps calling Beck. The time is irrelevant.
And you can see that Beck is working around the clock... This is what the music business was like... If you weren't going to come in on Saturday, don't even think of coming in on Sunday. People sacrificed their entire lives... Sure, the money was good, but they wanted to be closer to the music.
And the MONEY! The amounts were STAGGERING! Sure, Michael blew millions...and it's fascinating to hear how video producers ran up budgets to line their pockets...but millions were in the offing. In the days of CDs... The billing could be incredible!
And Beck goes into distribution. And also how all the pieces fit together...recording, manufacturing, distribution... Timing was key.
Today physical product is just a way to rip off fans with another iteration of an album sold as a souvenir so the act's chart number will go up. Forget all the money saved on production and shipping, you don't need all those heads doing those jobs! Costs are lower than ever before, the money isn't raining down like it used to. But once upon a time...
Now if you worked in the music business in the eighties and nineties you will recognize yourself and the landscape. All the departments focused on releasing product that generated mountains of cash. And it wasn't only distribution people and the product manager and promotion, there was the publicity team and the video team and even the researcher/pollster. With so much money on the line they wanted to get it right, they needed to get it right for the entire enterprise to march forward.
If you were not around back then, you won't even recognize the business Dan Beck delineates.
As for Michael... Ultimately you can say that he was out of touch. He kept needing to top himself, and at some point that becomes impossible. And no one really wanted to say no to him. So he devolved into ever more ludicrous endeavors. And when confronted with the use of racial slurs in one of his songs he dug in his heels, angry that he could be misperceived, he couldn't even understand the public's reaction.
Beck is constantly trying to stop Michael from putting his foot in it. Michael comes up with more and more inane ideas that Beck knows the press will crucify him for and...it's nearly impossible to make Michael see the truth.
Beck says Michael was stubborn. He does his best to put Michael in the best light, talks about how charitable he was, how he lived up to his commitments, but ultimately it's just sad... Michael created the monster, he became Wacko Jacko.
Is this book for Michael Jackson fans? I guess if you're a completist who needs to know everything. But really, "You've Got Michael" is for those fascinated with the music business, the moving parts, how it used to work, the dedication of the employees who were bitten by the bug.
It was an entire generation...they heard the Beatles and they had to get closer. Music was everything.
One can say by the nineties the companies were being crushed from within... Innovation was low and money was everything and the funny thing is the people running these companies thought it would go on forever, they truly thought they were gods entitled to this lifestyle and all this money. They could not fathom that they were ripping off the public and that people would be enamored by Napster.
Remember when live albums were dribbled out after a number of hit studio records? Suddenly, all kinds of live recordings were available on Napster... And at this point, live recordings are something you see on YouTube, they have almost no commercial value.
And greatest hits albums are a thing of the past.
Yup, the goal was to get people to buy an overpriced CD...if there was even a single available, it was cut out when the song gained traction, forcing people to buy the album.
And the funny thing is many will be indignant re the above, they'll say that the CD wasn't overpriced, was a good value, and today's model is crap.
Cracks me up. Who are these people who believe that the wheel stops turning, that change doesn't happen. The bottom line is change is constant, and if you're not adjusting, you're left behind.
Which brings us full circle. The labels didn't know how to save themselves, couldn't save themselves, and then an outsider known as Daniel Ek saved their business. And that's the truth...lock, stock and barrel. Spotify saved the recording industry. Revenues returned, piracy was diminished to a de minimis level and what do "artists" say? SPOTIFY IS THE DEVIL!
Would you rather not be paid at all? Would you rather there be no central place where people can hear your music? And do you think major labels in the last century were handing out record deals to all those people posting thousand and thousands of tracks to streaming services each and every day?
You can't fight the b.s. People don't want to hear the truth. They're invested in their story, because if the system isn't stacked against them that means...they need to look in the mirror, and see that the problem is them.
But the problem must be illegal immigrants, or some other hogwash. The MAGA movement is as bad as the record labels in the Napster era. When it was all said and done, overpriced CDs were a thing of the past. But we've got an entire party based on bringing back coal. It would be laughable if it weren't so scary.
I'd say history is permanent, but Trump is doing a good job of rewriting that too.
Oh, don't get your knickers in a twist. If you've got blind faith in Trump you're as bad as the enablers who told Biden he could run and win in 2024.
But if you want to know the way the music business ran in the eighties and nineties, when MTV promoted tracks and acts around the world, generating heretofore unfathomable cash..."You've Got Michael" is the place to get the story. It's a bygone era, but when it was all going down... It was Camelot!
--
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
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More Phonk
Re: Must-Read Article
Hi Bob,
I've been a subscriber since I first started in the industry back in 2008. Long-time listener, first-time caller! It was a little surreal to see you reference the NYT write-up on Phonk, our label, Black 17, and one of our artists, Hensonn.
Yes, the vertical video play counts are outrageous. And yes, many of our artists have generated substantial wealth from their music. I want to give you a little more context -
We have over 1,500 frontline recording artists and have built organically a catalog comprising more than 25,000 tracks. Most of these artists are under 25, and roughly half are either Eastern European or South American—meaning much of this music is born amid political and socioeconomic conflict.
To your point, the music speaks for itself. It has to. Many of our artists prefer anonymity and aren't terribly social. Phonk is outsider music. And what the NYT article didn't elucidate is that Phonk has a rabid and deeply connected fanbase, not just a passive vertical video audience. The Spotify PHONK playlist has 11.4M followers. We collect revenue in 250 countries.
Black 17 was founded in 2015 in the Sony RED office. Tyler and Bryan were product managers fresh from the mailroom, Jake was in client services, and I was lower-mid-level finance (and not officially on the B17 team until years later). Safe to say we weren't especially pedigreed. We dreamed of being important in the office, part of the crew that would take top labels out for drinks with Alan Becker and Bob Morelli. The thesis was to imitate the distribution models David Macias and Missi Callazzo had mastered: find great artists en masse, ensure artists maintain ownership, and fight like hell for them. Black 17 cut its teeth on SoundCloud rap and then meme rap, learning the game. It was obvious that music tailor made for the current distribution channels had a greater chance of being heard, and social media was as important a distributor, if not more so, than the streamers. It was also obvious that transparency, a monthly royalty payment cadence, and not recouping superfluous marketing/promo expenses would earn strong word-of-mouth endorsement.
Fast forward to the present. We have an incredible team. INCREDIBLE TEAM! A band of outsiders uncompromising in achieving results, unburdened by title silos or corporate hierarchy limitations. We have no office. We spend 2% of net revenue on marketing. We are spread across North America, from Miami to Timmins, Ontario, from New York to Los Angeles. Our content creator is a Lithuanian expatriate living outside of Dublin whom we hired from a factory job. And his influence on the genre's visual aspects is unmatched.
We are still with Orchard/Sony (RED merged in 2017), and we are so grateful for their partnership. It's humbling and quite a thrill to be one of the labels the C-Suite and Alan Becker host for dinners. Full circle. Family. It's also fuel to push further.
Diplo was the first major artist outside of Phonk to give us a shot. It's been a great success. And while we won't abandon our roots, we are confident that our methodologies translate across genre, and we welcome the opportunity. As Tyler mentioned in the article, in the last 5 years we've paid out over $140M to artists, and we look forward to multiplying that number in the next 5.
We appreciate all you do Bob, and thank you for spreading awareness.
Cheers!
Boo White
Boo White
CFO
Black 17 Media
www.black17media.com
Hi Bob,
I've been a subscriber since I first started in the industry back in 2008. Long-time listener, first-time caller! It was a little surreal to see you reference the NYT write-up on Phonk, our label, Black 17, and one of our artists, Hensonn.
Yes, the vertical video play counts are outrageous. And yes, many of our artists have generated substantial wealth from their music. I want to give you a little more context -
We have over 1,500 frontline recording artists and have built organically a catalog comprising more than 25,000 tracks. Most of these artists are under 25, and roughly half are either Eastern European or South American—meaning much of this music is born amid political and socioeconomic conflict.
To your point, the music speaks for itself. It has to. Many of our artists prefer anonymity and aren't terribly social. Phonk is outsider music. And what the NYT article didn't elucidate is that Phonk has a rabid and deeply connected fanbase, not just a passive vertical video audience. The Spotify PHONK playlist has 11.4M followers. We collect revenue in 250 countries.
Black 17 was founded in 2015 in the Sony RED office. Tyler and Bryan were product managers fresh from the mailroom, Jake was in client services, and I was lower-mid-level finance (and not officially on the B17 team until years later). Safe to say we weren't especially pedigreed. We dreamed of being important in the office, part of the crew that would take top labels out for drinks with Alan Becker and Bob Morelli. The thesis was to imitate the distribution models David Macias and Missi Callazzo had mastered: find great artists en masse, ensure artists maintain ownership, and fight like hell for them. Black 17 cut its teeth on SoundCloud rap and then meme rap, learning the game. It was obvious that music tailor made for the current distribution channels had a greater chance of being heard, and social media was as important a distributor, if not more so, than the streamers. It was also obvious that transparency, a monthly royalty payment cadence, and not recouping superfluous marketing/promo expenses would earn strong word-of-mouth endorsement.
Fast forward to the present. We have an incredible team. INCREDIBLE TEAM! A band of outsiders uncompromising in achieving results, unburdened by title silos or corporate hierarchy limitations. We have no office. We spend 2% of net revenue on marketing. We are spread across North America, from Miami to Timmins, Ontario, from New York to Los Angeles. Our content creator is a Lithuanian expatriate living outside of Dublin whom we hired from a factory job. And his influence on the genre's visual aspects is unmatched.
We are still with Orchard/Sony (RED merged in 2017), and we are so grateful for their partnership. It's humbling and quite a thrill to be one of the labels the C-Suite and Alan Becker host for dinners. Full circle. Family. It's also fuel to push further.
Diplo was the first major artist outside of Phonk to give us a shot. It's been a great success. And while we won't abandon our roots, we are confident that our methodologies translate across genre, and we welcome the opportunity. As Tyler mentioned in the article, in the last 5 years we've paid out over $140M to artists, and we look forward to multiplying that number in the next 5.
We appreciate all you do Bob, and thank you for spreading awareness.
Cheers!
Boo White
Boo White
CFO
Black 17 Media
www.black17media.com
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Thursday, 26 February 2026
Joel Bernstein-This Week's Podcast
Photographer Joel Bernstein has tales that boggle the mind, like accidentally shooting the cover of Neil Young's "After the Gold Rush" as a high school student...you'll love his stories!
https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/joel-bernstein/id1316200737?i=1000751733399
https://open.spotify.com/episode/6CVynjJiJkSlsMNHuRQDz5?si=bd7jqwpNStm2IwDIYK2Lqg
https://www.iheart.com/podcast/1119-the-bob-lefsetz-podcast-30806836/episode/joel-bernstein-324905335?app=listen
https://music.amazon.com/podcasts/9ff4fb19-54d4-41ae-ae7a-8a6f8d3dafa8/episodes/3d8eb756-c4ee-4c46-bceb-b6ec17f9151a/the-bob-lefsetz-podcast-joel-bernstein
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https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/joel-bernstein/id1316200737?i=1000751733399
https://open.spotify.com/episode/6CVynjJiJkSlsMNHuRQDz5?si=bd7jqwpNStm2IwDIYK2Lqg
https://www.iheart.com/podcast/1119-the-bob-lefsetz-podcast-30806836/episode/joel-bernstein-324905335?app=listen
https://music.amazon.com/podcasts/9ff4fb19-54d4-41ae-ae7a-8a6f8d3dafa8/episodes/3d8eb756-c4ee-4c46-bceb-b6ec17f9151a/the-bob-lefsetz-podcast-joel-bernstein
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Wednesday, 25 February 2026
Everybody Hates The Rich
And they don't seem to know it.
We thought that the country was divided by right and left, Republican and Democrat, that hating and owning the libs was irreversible, that the country couldn't agree on anything. But this proved untrue, everybody hates the rich.
And the rich only found out about this as a result of the last election, where affordability became the defining issue. And it's not only Trump who is out of touch, who keeps telling us things are great, it was Biden before him, most of the political class, in thrall to the money, is spewing this hogwash, but even worse, they don't know how the average person lives.
Jeff Bezos and his plastic wife Lauren have been announced as Honorary Chairs of the Met Gala. Does anybody like these people? ANYBODY? No one is as out of touch with people's perception of him as Jeff Bezos. A nerd who is trying to convince us since he goes to the gym and wears cowboy hats that he is cool. And the two of them are adulterers to boot. And unlike the rich of the pre-tech era, these two keep parading their wealth and their consumption and... You'd be best off protesting the Met Gala completely, it's out of touch with the times. If I was a celeb I wouldn't go. Then again, no one can say no.
That's what we learned from the Epstein files.
It doesn't matter whether they get Trump, it doesn't matter who exactly falls, the truth has been revealed...it's a club, and you're not in it, as George Carlin said. But it's worse than that, it's a club that sucks up to money and gives its members a pass on heinous activities. It's like high school, but even worse, because of the money. Academics sucked up to Epstein for donations, letting his "girlfriend" into dental school... That's what colleges care about most, money. If you've got bucks, you can get in. Just ask Jared Kushner, whose father gave $2.5 million to Harvard and then his son was accepted.
Everybody wants to fly on the private jet. First and foremost they don't want to hang with you, the hoi polloi, the great unwashed, but they also like the smell of money, they want to hang with the rich and powerful. Meanwhile, Republicans in Congress say they're supporting the public but cave in to anything Trump wants and Democrats keep crying their hands are tied.
As for techies...
AI better work for Musk, because Tesla is a disaster. The sale of cars is down, down, down and it doesn't look like it's going to recover. As for self-driving, anybody paying attention knows his vehicles drive sans lidar, they rely only on cameras, which are far from perfect. The more we know about Musk the more we don't like him.
As for Zuckerberg, maybe his wife likes him, but he's hated as much as the Bezos couple, it's just that he doesn't parade his wealth as much.
And Bill Gates? Another philanderer apologizing for his contact with Epstein?
And then you've got the California wealth tax. We can debate its pluses and minuses, it's benefits and costs, but only Jensen Huang was able to say the right thing here, that he would pay it. The rest of the billionaires...they're all establishing residence outside the Golden State, because god forbid a fraction of their billions gets attached by the government.
There shouldn't be any billionaires.
"Lifestyles of the Rich and Famous" expired with the last century, Robin Leach is six feet under. But the press believes the public is still in thrall to those with money. And there's no illusion that entertainers play at the same level as billionaires. You just can't make that much money in music or movies...then again, techies can buy movie studios!
We keep hearing what they're doing with their billions, boys with their toys. Meanwhile, we go to the grocery store and buy nothing and it's $45.
And if you challenge the rich they keep saying they earned it, that without them the country wouldn't run. When the truth is each and every one of their companies relies on public consumption and the truth is the entire nation runs on public consumption.
It's hard to be brain dead today. After all, you're using your smartphone, you're on social media, you're exposed to these billionaires 24/7.
As for being inviolate...
Prince Andrew? His fall was as unforeseeable as a Black president.
Which means...another domino could fall.
As for Trump... We all know he was born with a silver spoon in his mouth, but more importantly he has lost all credibility, he's lied so much that when he talks about the economy and wealth there's not a soul who believes him, probably not even himself.
The resentment has been brewing and now the Epstein files have tipped the scale.
As for Republicans in Congress...they're on the wrong side of this issue. If you don't excoriate the offenders, you're going to pay a price. No one wants to see someone suck up and protect an offender like Epstein's "friends" were doing for him.
We can debate all day long Trump's policies, whether they're good or bad for the country...but one thing everybody agrees on, except for a tiny slice of wealthy people, is we're financially f*cked. We just can't get ahead. Trump ran on saying the game was rigged, and then he took advantage of it, lining his pockets, pardoning criminals and giving a pass to anyone who has money.
There's a fiction that the president has power, that the government has power, that the press has power, but the truth is immutable, THE PEOPLE HAVE THE POWER!
And they're pissed.
Our entire nation has bent to the whims of the wealthy. And our interests are secondary, if they're considered at all. And all we have in the news is horse race discussion about coming elections.
Seemingly everybody in power is missing the point. It is not business as usual. We were in thrall to tech for nearly thirty years, but the game of musical chairs has ended. There's not a new platform every day, and the titans are established. Meanwhile, they're building data centers everywhere, hogging up our electricity, on a trip to... Will AI pay off? Many say at this point it has not.
But they want us to fear it so we won't look at the real issues. And the bloviators of AI, people like Sam Altman, are hated by the public too. Our issues are more basic, like how to make ends meet. The average price of a new car is north of $50,000. The average person is priced out of this and that and...
When will it blow?
We can't seem to get everybody riled up about Trump's authoritarianism, but income inequality? That's something nearly everyone can relate to, that everyone is aware of. Meanwhile, the rich don't STFU, they keep parading their money and lifestyles as if we should respect and adore them.
This country is ready for a rupture. A reset. It's the rich who are tearing up the social fabric and the public is at a boil.
And just like Trump's election in 2016, the media has no idea what is going on. Because reporters want to hang with the rich and powerful just like the people in the Epstein files.
This cannot go on, it's just a matter of when it blows.
Hearts and minds... We couldn't beat the Vietcong, with all our money and power. Hearts and minds have turned off of politics, don't trust the words of the rich and powerful. All we need is a spark.
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We thought that the country was divided by right and left, Republican and Democrat, that hating and owning the libs was irreversible, that the country couldn't agree on anything. But this proved untrue, everybody hates the rich.
And the rich only found out about this as a result of the last election, where affordability became the defining issue. And it's not only Trump who is out of touch, who keeps telling us things are great, it was Biden before him, most of the political class, in thrall to the money, is spewing this hogwash, but even worse, they don't know how the average person lives.
Jeff Bezos and his plastic wife Lauren have been announced as Honorary Chairs of the Met Gala. Does anybody like these people? ANYBODY? No one is as out of touch with people's perception of him as Jeff Bezos. A nerd who is trying to convince us since he goes to the gym and wears cowboy hats that he is cool. And the two of them are adulterers to boot. And unlike the rich of the pre-tech era, these two keep parading their wealth and their consumption and... You'd be best off protesting the Met Gala completely, it's out of touch with the times. If I was a celeb I wouldn't go. Then again, no one can say no.
That's what we learned from the Epstein files.
It doesn't matter whether they get Trump, it doesn't matter who exactly falls, the truth has been revealed...it's a club, and you're not in it, as George Carlin said. But it's worse than that, it's a club that sucks up to money and gives its members a pass on heinous activities. It's like high school, but even worse, because of the money. Academics sucked up to Epstein for donations, letting his "girlfriend" into dental school... That's what colleges care about most, money. If you've got bucks, you can get in. Just ask Jared Kushner, whose father gave $2.5 million to Harvard and then his son was accepted.
Everybody wants to fly on the private jet. First and foremost they don't want to hang with you, the hoi polloi, the great unwashed, but they also like the smell of money, they want to hang with the rich and powerful. Meanwhile, Republicans in Congress say they're supporting the public but cave in to anything Trump wants and Democrats keep crying their hands are tied.
As for techies...
AI better work for Musk, because Tesla is a disaster. The sale of cars is down, down, down and it doesn't look like it's going to recover. As for self-driving, anybody paying attention knows his vehicles drive sans lidar, they rely only on cameras, which are far from perfect. The more we know about Musk the more we don't like him.
As for Zuckerberg, maybe his wife likes him, but he's hated as much as the Bezos couple, it's just that he doesn't parade his wealth as much.
And Bill Gates? Another philanderer apologizing for his contact with Epstein?
And then you've got the California wealth tax. We can debate its pluses and minuses, it's benefits and costs, but only Jensen Huang was able to say the right thing here, that he would pay it. The rest of the billionaires...they're all establishing residence outside the Golden State, because god forbid a fraction of their billions gets attached by the government.
There shouldn't be any billionaires.
"Lifestyles of the Rich and Famous" expired with the last century, Robin Leach is six feet under. But the press believes the public is still in thrall to those with money. And there's no illusion that entertainers play at the same level as billionaires. You just can't make that much money in music or movies...then again, techies can buy movie studios!
We keep hearing what they're doing with their billions, boys with their toys. Meanwhile, we go to the grocery store and buy nothing and it's $45.
And if you challenge the rich they keep saying they earned it, that without them the country wouldn't run. When the truth is each and every one of their companies relies on public consumption and the truth is the entire nation runs on public consumption.
It's hard to be brain dead today. After all, you're using your smartphone, you're on social media, you're exposed to these billionaires 24/7.
As for being inviolate...
Prince Andrew? His fall was as unforeseeable as a Black president.
Which means...another domino could fall.
As for Trump... We all know he was born with a silver spoon in his mouth, but more importantly he has lost all credibility, he's lied so much that when he talks about the economy and wealth there's not a soul who believes him, probably not even himself.
The resentment has been brewing and now the Epstein files have tipped the scale.
As for Republicans in Congress...they're on the wrong side of this issue. If you don't excoriate the offenders, you're going to pay a price. No one wants to see someone suck up and protect an offender like Epstein's "friends" were doing for him.
We can debate all day long Trump's policies, whether they're good or bad for the country...but one thing everybody agrees on, except for a tiny slice of wealthy people, is we're financially f*cked. We just can't get ahead. Trump ran on saying the game was rigged, and then he took advantage of it, lining his pockets, pardoning criminals and giving a pass to anyone who has money.
There's a fiction that the president has power, that the government has power, that the press has power, but the truth is immutable, THE PEOPLE HAVE THE POWER!
And they're pissed.
Our entire nation has bent to the whims of the wealthy. And our interests are secondary, if they're considered at all. And all we have in the news is horse race discussion about coming elections.
Seemingly everybody in power is missing the point. It is not business as usual. We were in thrall to tech for nearly thirty years, but the game of musical chairs has ended. There's not a new platform every day, and the titans are established. Meanwhile, they're building data centers everywhere, hogging up our electricity, on a trip to... Will AI pay off? Many say at this point it has not.
But they want us to fear it so we won't look at the real issues. And the bloviators of AI, people like Sam Altman, are hated by the public too. Our issues are more basic, like how to make ends meet. The average price of a new car is north of $50,000. The average person is priced out of this and that and...
When will it blow?
We can't seem to get everybody riled up about Trump's authoritarianism, but income inequality? That's something nearly everyone can relate to, that everyone is aware of. Meanwhile, the rich don't STFU, they keep parading their money and lifestyles as if we should respect and adore them.
This country is ready for a rupture. A reset. It's the rich who are tearing up the social fabric and the public is at a boil.
And just like Trump's election in 2016, the media has no idea what is going on. Because reporters want to hang with the rich and powerful just like the people in the Epstein files.
This cannot go on, it's just a matter of when it blows.
Hearts and minds... We couldn't beat the Vietcong, with all our money and power. Hearts and minds have turned off of politics, don't trust the words of the rich and powerful. All we need is a spark.
--
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Tuesday, 24 February 2026
E-Mail Of The Day
From: Caleb Keen
Re: Must-Read Article
Out of curiosity, I played the first song on your playlist through the studio monitors in my office. In seconds, my 8-year-old and 11-year-old daughters ran in and started dancing. I clicked to the second track. "Do you know this one too?" "Yes."Third track?" "Ummmm, yes - I know this one too."
I've never seen them react to music with such obvious delight. I'm an audio junkie with great hi-fi equipment, always keeping my ears open for new stuff. I wasn't aware this existed ten minutes ago, but it's already become my kids' favorite music somehow. Thanks for the tip!
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Re: Must-Read Article
Out of curiosity, I played the first song on your playlist through the studio monitors in my office. In seconds, my 8-year-old and 11-year-old daughters ran in and started dancing. I clicked to the second track. "Do you know this one too?" "Yes."Third track?" "Ummmm, yes - I know this one too."
I've never seen them react to music with such obvious delight. I'm an audio junkie with great hi-fi equipment, always keeping my ears open for new stuff. I wasn't aware this existed ten minutes ago, but it's already become my kids' favorite music somehow. Thanks for the tip!
--
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The Billy Preston Movie
"That's the Way God Planned It" trailer: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iFWU_475o0c
I thought he was a different guy.
What do I know about Billy Preston? He showed up in the studio and played with the Beatles and he had a few hits in the early seventies sporting a giant afro. He was always smiling, I thought he was a happy-go-lucky guy.
Turns out that was not the case.
Obviously I know a bit more, but that was my impression, of someone lighthearted, not tortured. But that's what Billy was.
A theme explored throughout the film is Billy's sexuality. Bottom line...he was gay. Oh, there are theories that when Kathy Silva left him for Sly Stone it turned him off women. But this film says that was not a romantic relationship.
And this film alludes to abuse early in Billy's life, but I had to go to Wikipedia for the details. Which says Preston was abused by the pianist of a touring company of "Amos 'n' Andy" and subsequently was abused by a pastor too.
Not that Billy ever talked about it. Other than to his last manager, Joyce Moore, who revealed these details.
Yes, you can watch this entire film and still not know who Billy Preston was...because he was internalized, didn't reveal his feelings seemingly to anyone. No one in this film can testify as to his inner monologue, his thoughts, and there are a lot of people talking.
That's what makes this documentary different from most. It wasn't done on the cheap. Today anybody can make a film, and oftentimes they do. Which ends up being opinion and whatever footage they can scrap together, because back in the sixties and seventies there were no home video cameras and film was expensive...
But there is a good amount of film of Billy. He was a prodigy. I don't remember "Rolling Stone" or the other rags saying this, then again did Billy get short shrift because he was Black? Although the white rockers were inspired by the Black delta bluesmen...it was a white business, very much so, Jimi Hendrix was an anomaly.
But there's footage here of Billy playing in church, on TV with Nat King Cole... This is not the traditional avenue of a white rocker, that's for sure. The white rockers were off the radar screen before they broke through, but Billy's talent was recognized right away, and he was exposed, he even made records, but they didn't penetrate the white market.
And Billy played in church. The conundrum here is Billy got his inspiration and community from the church which preached against homosexuality, and this film says many men in the choir were gay and...for all the progress we've made, the pendulum is swinging back, did you see they removed the Pride flag from the Stonewall Monument? They don't like people who don't look like them and act like them...ironically, it is the outsiders, those who are different, who provide so much of the entertainment for close-minded people.
Anyway, Billy goes on the road to England with Little Richard and he's just a teenager, fifteen or sixteen, I heard both in the movie. This is an age when kids are still in high school. And what you see on the road...
And the Beatles met Billy when they all played in Hamburg. Which is set up well in this flick, such that when he shows up in the studio it truly is just a friend dropping by, whereas previously it appeared Billy was an opportunist.
But the thing with Billy was... He could pick up a song on the fly, add a solo the first time through. The footage with the Beatles will jet you right back to the era, when everybody was still young, you're stunned they could come up with this stuff.
And Billy makes music for Apple and then George gets him a release and he signs with A&M and...
There's "Outa-Space," I loved that song. But there's also "Will It Go Round in Circles," which bugged me on the radio in my '63 Chevy all through the summer of '73, the convertible only having an AM radio. I just didn't like it, seemed a trifle, too simple.
Which is actually what Billy and his co-writer thought it was. But it became a hit.
Of course Billy wrote "You Are So Beautiful"...which became Dennis Wilson's signature song, when he sang it in concert there was a pathos, with his ultimately gruff voice, absent from the rest of the show.
And, of course, Joe Cocker had a hit with the number. And one of the absolute highlights of the film is when Joe and Patti Labelle perform "You Are So Beautiful" at the 50th anniversary concert at the Apollo. Your jaw will drop, it's akin to Aretha giving that tour-de-force performance at the Kennedy Center Honors. I had to do research... This concert was broadcast, but I never saw it. It's a time capsule...you'll be stunned that people so talented were walking the earth and performing.
And Billy's playing in the background...
Now Billy was tight with George Harrison, and that led him to Eric Claptoin, who put Billy in his band and then realized it was Billy's show...not because he hogged the spotlight, but because he was so damn good.
And you see that over and over and over again, you see what the Beatles saw. This guy would just sit down at the keys and what came out was exactly right, you couldn't have predicted it, but there it was.
And then Billy's peak is over.
We get great stories before that, from the studio engineer and his co-writer and his bass player...we normally don't get this peek into the lives of Black people, too many believe they're cartoons...but these guys are talking and they're just like you and me. (Oh, give me sh*t, you're better than me, you don't have a racist bone in your body, you don't see color...but it don't really happen that way at all, as Pete Townshend wrote.)
And Billy's got this best friend who gives the most insight.
And Billy steals the show at the Concert for George, but...
It eventually all runs out. That's what always happens, time passes you by.
Now unlike Nicky Hopkins, Billy had hits on his own, so he had money. But what are you going to do when you're famous but no longer hot?
Drugs. And alcohol.
Billy fell down the rabbit hole. Lost everything.
Now those of us who remember Billy, those of us who lived through his arc, forget these days when Billy was still on the planet, struggling.
He was the bandleader for David Brenner's ultimately failed TV show, but...
This is what we never see. Yes, "Behind the Music" revealed the downward spiral, and Billy ultimately went down too, but before that...you're famous but you will never reach the heights, get that level of adulation again. Where do you go from here? How do you make sense of life?
It's well-documented that Billy ultimately went to jail, but this film is just not a recitation of facts. It tries to get to the heart of the real Billy. And it goes further than any previous exploration, but to a degree Billy remains an enigma.
But it was a different time. We didn't know every move of everybody's life.
But like I said, this film illustrates how Billy was a prodigy, and acknowledged even by his hero, Ray Charles.
It's all here, the arc of Billy's life. And it's well done.
But exactly who Billy is...
He was a church boy who ultimately got into drugs? Was he just in that much pain? Could he not cope with falling from the mountaintop career-wise?
The gap-toothed smiling guy was just not the right person at the right time. He was so good he was undeniable, people wanted to work with him, he seemingly could do no wrong.
But the smile was oftentimes a cover.
This film isn't perfect, because I'm still not sure exactly who Billy Preston was. However...
This is a guy who deserves recognition, the accolades. This is a guy who was a household name whose name seems to have been forgotten. This film puts Billy Preston back in the firmament, claims his talent and achievements. And it's peopled with those who were there then, who knew the guy.
But did anybody really know Billy Preston?
Watch the movie and tell me what you think.
--
Visit the archive: http://lefsetz.com/wordpress/
--
Listen to the podcast:
-iHeart: https://ihr.fm/2Gi5PFj
-Apple: https://apple.co/2ndmpvp
--
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I thought he was a different guy.
What do I know about Billy Preston? He showed up in the studio and played with the Beatles and he had a few hits in the early seventies sporting a giant afro. He was always smiling, I thought he was a happy-go-lucky guy.
Turns out that was not the case.
Obviously I know a bit more, but that was my impression, of someone lighthearted, not tortured. But that's what Billy was.
A theme explored throughout the film is Billy's sexuality. Bottom line...he was gay. Oh, there are theories that when Kathy Silva left him for Sly Stone it turned him off women. But this film says that was not a romantic relationship.
And this film alludes to abuse early in Billy's life, but I had to go to Wikipedia for the details. Which says Preston was abused by the pianist of a touring company of "Amos 'n' Andy" and subsequently was abused by a pastor too.
Not that Billy ever talked about it. Other than to his last manager, Joyce Moore, who revealed these details.
Yes, you can watch this entire film and still not know who Billy Preston was...because he was internalized, didn't reveal his feelings seemingly to anyone. No one in this film can testify as to his inner monologue, his thoughts, and there are a lot of people talking.
That's what makes this documentary different from most. It wasn't done on the cheap. Today anybody can make a film, and oftentimes they do. Which ends up being opinion and whatever footage they can scrap together, because back in the sixties and seventies there were no home video cameras and film was expensive...
But there is a good amount of film of Billy. He was a prodigy. I don't remember "Rolling Stone" or the other rags saying this, then again did Billy get short shrift because he was Black? Although the white rockers were inspired by the Black delta bluesmen...it was a white business, very much so, Jimi Hendrix was an anomaly.
But there's footage here of Billy playing in church, on TV with Nat King Cole... This is not the traditional avenue of a white rocker, that's for sure. The white rockers were off the radar screen before they broke through, but Billy's talent was recognized right away, and he was exposed, he even made records, but they didn't penetrate the white market.
And Billy played in church. The conundrum here is Billy got his inspiration and community from the church which preached against homosexuality, and this film says many men in the choir were gay and...for all the progress we've made, the pendulum is swinging back, did you see they removed the Pride flag from the Stonewall Monument? They don't like people who don't look like them and act like them...ironically, it is the outsiders, those who are different, who provide so much of the entertainment for close-minded people.
Anyway, Billy goes on the road to England with Little Richard and he's just a teenager, fifteen or sixteen, I heard both in the movie. This is an age when kids are still in high school. And what you see on the road...
And the Beatles met Billy when they all played in Hamburg. Which is set up well in this flick, such that when he shows up in the studio it truly is just a friend dropping by, whereas previously it appeared Billy was an opportunist.
But the thing with Billy was... He could pick up a song on the fly, add a solo the first time through. The footage with the Beatles will jet you right back to the era, when everybody was still young, you're stunned they could come up with this stuff.
And Billy makes music for Apple and then George gets him a release and he signs with A&M and...
There's "Outa-Space," I loved that song. But there's also "Will It Go Round in Circles," which bugged me on the radio in my '63 Chevy all through the summer of '73, the convertible only having an AM radio. I just didn't like it, seemed a trifle, too simple.
Which is actually what Billy and his co-writer thought it was. But it became a hit.
Of course Billy wrote "You Are So Beautiful"...which became Dennis Wilson's signature song, when he sang it in concert there was a pathos, with his ultimately gruff voice, absent from the rest of the show.
And, of course, Joe Cocker had a hit with the number. And one of the absolute highlights of the film is when Joe and Patti Labelle perform "You Are So Beautiful" at the 50th anniversary concert at the Apollo. Your jaw will drop, it's akin to Aretha giving that tour-de-force performance at the Kennedy Center Honors. I had to do research... This concert was broadcast, but I never saw it. It's a time capsule...you'll be stunned that people so talented were walking the earth and performing.
And Billy's playing in the background...
Now Billy was tight with George Harrison, and that led him to Eric Claptoin, who put Billy in his band and then realized it was Billy's show...not because he hogged the spotlight, but because he was so damn good.
And you see that over and over and over again, you see what the Beatles saw. This guy would just sit down at the keys and what came out was exactly right, you couldn't have predicted it, but there it was.
And then Billy's peak is over.
We get great stories before that, from the studio engineer and his co-writer and his bass player...we normally don't get this peek into the lives of Black people, too many believe they're cartoons...but these guys are talking and they're just like you and me. (Oh, give me sh*t, you're better than me, you don't have a racist bone in your body, you don't see color...but it don't really happen that way at all, as Pete Townshend wrote.)
And Billy's got this best friend who gives the most insight.
And Billy steals the show at the Concert for George, but...
It eventually all runs out. That's what always happens, time passes you by.
Now unlike Nicky Hopkins, Billy had hits on his own, so he had money. But what are you going to do when you're famous but no longer hot?
Drugs. And alcohol.
Billy fell down the rabbit hole. Lost everything.
Now those of us who remember Billy, those of us who lived through his arc, forget these days when Billy was still on the planet, struggling.
He was the bandleader for David Brenner's ultimately failed TV show, but...
This is what we never see. Yes, "Behind the Music" revealed the downward spiral, and Billy ultimately went down too, but before that...you're famous but you will never reach the heights, get that level of adulation again. Where do you go from here? How do you make sense of life?
It's well-documented that Billy ultimately went to jail, but this film is just not a recitation of facts. It tries to get to the heart of the real Billy. And it goes further than any previous exploration, but to a degree Billy remains an enigma.
But it was a different time. We didn't know every move of everybody's life.
But like I said, this film illustrates how Billy was a prodigy, and acknowledged even by his hero, Ray Charles.
It's all here, the arc of Billy's life. And it's well done.
But exactly who Billy is...
He was a church boy who ultimately got into drugs? Was he just in that much pain? Could he not cope with falling from the mountaintop career-wise?
The gap-toothed smiling guy was just not the right person at the right time. He was so good he was undeniable, people wanted to work with him, he seemingly could do no wrong.
But the smile was oftentimes a cover.
This film isn't perfect, because I'm still not sure exactly who Billy Preston was. However...
This is a guy who deserves recognition, the accolades. This is a guy who was a household name whose name seems to have been forgotten. This film puts Billy Preston back in the firmament, claims his talent and achievements. And it's peopled with those who were there then, who knew the guy.
But did anybody really know Billy Preston?
Watch the movie and tell me what you think.
--
Visit the archive: http://lefsetz.com/wordpress/
--
Listen to the podcast:
-iHeart: https://ihr.fm/2Gi5PFj
-Apple: https://apple.co/2ndmpvp
--
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--
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Must-Read Article
"The Soundtrack of the Doomscroll Generation? It's Phonk. - YouTube Shorts and TikToks are often set to electronic dance music with rap roots that's become the unconscious hum of vertical video while making its creators rich."
Free link: https://www.nytimes.com/2026/02/23/arts/music/phonk-youtube-tiktok-music.html?unlocked_article_code=1.OlA.7QbZ.on5jgMtLH5jP&smid=url-share
In a world where people can't stop complaining about streaming payouts, where newbies keep saying the business is stacked against them, this is a revelation. These people you've never heard of are making seven figures creating music for social networks and...
They seem to have no problem making bread, and they don't have to play live to do it!
I listened to "Sahara," which is mentioned in the article, and I was stunned... I expected some sting that I hear over and over again on Instagram or TikTok, BUT I LIKED IT! Which stunned me, since I find so much of the Spotify Top 50 slides right off of me.
And the Spotify Top 50 acts are so busy being brands... This phonk music is like the music scene of yore, the music speaks for itself and the music is enough.
Note: I can't help myself, because if I write anything that doesn't comport with expectations, that doesn't feed the narrative, my readers go berserk. Ticketmaster and Spotify are the enemy... Anything that doesn't align with the music business paradigm of the pre-internet era is the enemy, to be dethroned. God, now we keep hearing about AI music... If you're afraid of AI music that just means you're not creative enough. Because AI cannot replicate feel, emotion...furthermore, it cannot push the envelope and create something new, something never done before... It can't create "Sgt. Pepper" based on only hearing "Meet the Beatles." And I say all this for those who have a knee-jerk reaction saying phonk isn't music, that the people who are making it aren't artists... No, this is the new world, this is like psychedelic music emerging in the era of AM Top 40. This is the future, not a jet back to the past, but something new and different (always influenced by the past, everything evolves from the past). If you're not excited by phonk and its popularity and money-generating ability then you're already in the rearview mirror. MAGA doesn't work in music. The past might have been great, but the only way the future will be better is if you create something new and different.
Meanwhile, I created an AI phonk playlist on Spotify. You should sample it... The styles vary, like the article says, there's now even Brazilian phonk.
This is very exciting... I haven't been this upbeat about music since...Spotify itself!
Spotify AI phonk playlist: "Phonk 2026": https://open.spotify.com/playlist/0RY84e9ls2m99iGVgqZWLV?si=2e8e390554684f66
Free link: https://www.nytimes.com/2026/02/23/arts/music/phonk-youtube-tiktok-music.html?unlocked_article_code=1.OlA.7QbZ.on5jgMtLH5jP&smid=url-share
In a world where people can't stop complaining about streaming payouts, where newbies keep saying the business is stacked against them, this is a revelation. These people you've never heard of are making seven figures creating music for social networks and...
They seem to have no problem making bread, and they don't have to play live to do it!
I listened to "Sahara," which is mentioned in the article, and I was stunned... I expected some sting that I hear over and over again on Instagram or TikTok, BUT I LIKED IT! Which stunned me, since I find so much of the Spotify Top 50 slides right off of me.
And the Spotify Top 50 acts are so busy being brands... This phonk music is like the music scene of yore, the music speaks for itself and the music is enough.
Note: I can't help myself, because if I write anything that doesn't comport with expectations, that doesn't feed the narrative, my readers go berserk. Ticketmaster and Spotify are the enemy... Anything that doesn't align with the music business paradigm of the pre-internet era is the enemy, to be dethroned. God, now we keep hearing about AI music... If you're afraid of AI music that just means you're not creative enough. Because AI cannot replicate feel, emotion...furthermore, it cannot push the envelope and create something new, something never done before... It can't create "Sgt. Pepper" based on only hearing "Meet the Beatles." And I say all this for those who have a knee-jerk reaction saying phonk isn't music, that the people who are making it aren't artists... No, this is the new world, this is like psychedelic music emerging in the era of AM Top 40. This is the future, not a jet back to the past, but something new and different (always influenced by the past, everything evolves from the past). If you're not excited by phonk and its popularity and money-generating ability then you're already in the rearview mirror. MAGA doesn't work in music. The past might have been great, but the only way the future will be better is if you create something new and different.
Meanwhile, I created an AI phonk playlist on Spotify. You should sample it... The styles vary, like the article says, there's now even Brazilian phonk.
This is very exciting... I haven't been this upbeat about music since...Spotify itself!
Spotify AI phonk playlist: "Phonk 2026": https://open.spotify.com/playlist/0RY84e9ls2m99iGVgqZWLV?si=2e8e390554684f66
--
Visit the archive: http://lefsetz.com/wordpress/
--
Listen to the podcast:
-iHeart: https://ihr.fm/2Gi5PFj
-Apple: https://apple.co/2ndmpvp
--
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Monday, 23 February 2026
Managing The Money
"Money talks and we're the living proof
There ain't no limit to what money can do"
"Money Talks"
The Kinks
The only reason Casey Wasserman hasn't lost his gig as the head of the L.A. Olympics in 2028 is there's no deep pocketed money involved. No single source with assets at risk. Unlike his talent agency. Which is majority-owned by Providence Equity Partners.
Don't mess with money. Never ever.
The music business used to be one of scrappy entrepreneurs. But that changed nearly sixty years ago when Warner purchased Atlantic and Elektra. There's been consolidation in the label sphere ever since. To the point where there are only three major labels left.
One is part of Sony.
Another is Warner...which hired Robert Kyncl to make the trains run on time and create growth. You see it's a public company, a pure music play, and the numbers haven't been good. Can Kyncl pull a rabbit out of the hat? So far he's been unable to, despite all the gobbledygook about AI and new avenues of revenue. It's basically a music company, and it depends on hits. And the truth is unlike in the past, there's only a limited amount of recorded music revenue available. As in despite all the hoopla about physical product, the truth is that almost all of the income from recordings at the three majors comes from streams, and unlike physical product, there's a finite amount of money to be generated. This is not like the era of physical product, where someone who hasn't bought a record all year will suddenly purchase a Whitney Houston or Fleetwood Mac album... No, the three majors are fighting for slices of a defined pie... Sure, there are areas of growth, increasing the size of the pie, subscriptions in relatively undeveloped territories, but if you're relying solely on revenue from consumption of recorded music...you'd better find another way to generate revenue.
Which is maybe a reason why Universal's stock has taken a nosedive, down by double digits. Lucian Grainge might know music, but does he know money?
That's why Michael Rapino is so successful over at Live Nation...he manages the investors, he does his best to keep the stock price up. Concerts may be sexy, but they're subsidiary to the money!
AEG is different because it's got one owner, it's private. Like the music companies of yore...
But all the talent agencies took huge investments, allowing their top brass to experience huge paydays, but now what... Look at the shenanigans/changes at WME...it's all driven by money as opposed to insight, the underlying assets.
As for Universal... The big story is activist investor Independent Franchise Partners has purchased a 3.01% interest in the stock... No one invests to lose money. People only invest to make money! They need a return on their cash. This is one of the reasons Merck lost control of Hipgnosis. When interest rates were low, the return on publishing assets looked good. But when the market recovered investors wanted a greater return on their money. Was Merck the guy to deliver this? No wonder Blackstone ended up owning the assets... They know better how to deliver a return... Talk is cheap, can you generate revenue, increase the asset value? That's all that money cares about.
Which is why when you're considering selling your publishing and/or royalty streams know that you might like the check, but have no illusion that you're pulling one over on the purchaser. This is their business, money. If they can't profit, they're not going to make the deal. Turns out publishing only increases in value in the digital age. So you may have a pile of cash today, but in the long run the purchaser will end up with the revenue and the asset, in the long run they'll end up with more money. This is their business, money, don't think you can beat them at it.
This is what happens in a mature business. An influx of money which allows entrepreneurs to cash out and ultimate control by that money. This is not the rough and tumble music business of yore, where the guy with the gold chain around his neck is the final word when it comes to your career...no, that same guy today is wearing a three piece suit and thinking about the people he has to serve more than you.
Just like Live Nation... No individual act has the power of the sponsors. The acts are just the grease for the "flywheel." Which is why Live Nation can pay so much/overpay for talent.
This myth of the all powerful entertainment executive is just that. It's from the past. The people running these enterprises today are all sold out to the money. And if not yet, they will eventually. Money has superseded music in the music business. Which may sound counterintuitive, but it's a fact. There are independent companies out there, and that's where all the innovation lies, however they're hobbled by the majors' ownership of catalogs representing nearly the entire history of recorded music, giving them all the leverage in negotiations.
As for Casey Wasserman... He was no match for the money. Wasserman was gallivanting around, in the news, but he was no match for Providence, a nearly faceless enterprise, most people in Hollywood have no idea who runs the fund. Providence was not going to let its asset go to zero. Do you think Casey Wasserman wanted to sell his agency? Of course not, Providence made him do it. Because it wanted to protect the asset. Sans talent, there's nothing left. Wasserman might have been a good front person, but everybody's replaceable.
And expect Wasserman to be booted from the Olympic committee too. It's just that politics works more slowly than money. But politics cares about money too, and the fear is that with Wasserman in charge, revenues will fall, so he's got to go.
One could say Wasserman was too big for his britches. Or he didn't know what he didn't know. You don't mess with money. And you keep your house clean. It's one thing if you're an act doing drugs, screwing up, the label which owns your contract might not like that, but it can survive without you. Then again, if you're a superstar, they're going to do everything to get you back on the right path. But if it's the entire asset... Was Providence going to sit by and watch all the talent leave? No, it had to stanch the bleeding... Wasserman was expendable, not the talent agency.
So if you want to live the rock and roll lifestyle of yore, drinking and drugging, getting laid, being in TMZ, be my guest. But if you want to play at a higher level, where the money is, you've got to keep your house clean, especially in today's world where there are cameras everywhere and so much information comes out. The Epstein files were just the straw that broke Wasserman's back... It was the womanizing detailed in the "Daily Mail" article before that that truly ignited the fire, the Epstein files just turned it into a conflagration.
Mind your p's and q's if you want to survive at the top level.
And know that if you take the money...you're serving the money, no matter what you think.
There ain't no limit to what money can do"
"Money Talks"
The Kinks
The only reason Casey Wasserman hasn't lost his gig as the head of the L.A. Olympics in 2028 is there's no deep pocketed money involved. No single source with assets at risk. Unlike his talent agency. Which is majority-owned by Providence Equity Partners.
Don't mess with money. Never ever.
The music business used to be one of scrappy entrepreneurs. But that changed nearly sixty years ago when Warner purchased Atlantic and Elektra. There's been consolidation in the label sphere ever since. To the point where there are only three major labels left.
One is part of Sony.
Another is Warner...which hired Robert Kyncl to make the trains run on time and create growth. You see it's a public company, a pure music play, and the numbers haven't been good. Can Kyncl pull a rabbit out of the hat? So far he's been unable to, despite all the gobbledygook about AI and new avenues of revenue. It's basically a music company, and it depends on hits. And the truth is unlike in the past, there's only a limited amount of recorded music revenue available. As in despite all the hoopla about physical product, the truth is that almost all of the income from recordings at the three majors comes from streams, and unlike physical product, there's a finite amount of money to be generated. This is not like the era of physical product, where someone who hasn't bought a record all year will suddenly purchase a Whitney Houston or Fleetwood Mac album... No, the three majors are fighting for slices of a defined pie... Sure, there are areas of growth, increasing the size of the pie, subscriptions in relatively undeveloped territories, but if you're relying solely on revenue from consumption of recorded music...you'd better find another way to generate revenue.
Which is maybe a reason why Universal's stock has taken a nosedive, down by double digits. Lucian Grainge might know music, but does he know money?
That's why Michael Rapino is so successful over at Live Nation...he manages the investors, he does his best to keep the stock price up. Concerts may be sexy, but they're subsidiary to the money!
AEG is different because it's got one owner, it's private. Like the music companies of yore...
But all the talent agencies took huge investments, allowing their top brass to experience huge paydays, but now what... Look at the shenanigans/changes at WME...it's all driven by money as opposed to insight, the underlying assets.
As for Universal... The big story is activist investor Independent Franchise Partners has purchased a 3.01% interest in the stock... No one invests to lose money. People only invest to make money! They need a return on their cash. This is one of the reasons Merck lost control of Hipgnosis. When interest rates were low, the return on publishing assets looked good. But when the market recovered investors wanted a greater return on their money. Was Merck the guy to deliver this? No wonder Blackstone ended up owning the assets... They know better how to deliver a return... Talk is cheap, can you generate revenue, increase the asset value? That's all that money cares about.
Which is why when you're considering selling your publishing and/or royalty streams know that you might like the check, but have no illusion that you're pulling one over on the purchaser. This is their business, money. If they can't profit, they're not going to make the deal. Turns out publishing only increases in value in the digital age. So you may have a pile of cash today, but in the long run the purchaser will end up with the revenue and the asset, in the long run they'll end up with more money. This is their business, money, don't think you can beat them at it.
This is what happens in a mature business. An influx of money which allows entrepreneurs to cash out and ultimate control by that money. This is not the rough and tumble music business of yore, where the guy with the gold chain around his neck is the final word when it comes to your career...no, that same guy today is wearing a three piece suit and thinking about the people he has to serve more than you.
Just like Live Nation... No individual act has the power of the sponsors. The acts are just the grease for the "flywheel." Which is why Live Nation can pay so much/overpay for talent.
This myth of the all powerful entertainment executive is just that. It's from the past. The people running these enterprises today are all sold out to the money. And if not yet, they will eventually. Money has superseded music in the music business. Which may sound counterintuitive, but it's a fact. There are independent companies out there, and that's where all the innovation lies, however they're hobbled by the majors' ownership of catalogs representing nearly the entire history of recorded music, giving them all the leverage in negotiations.
As for Casey Wasserman... He was no match for the money. Wasserman was gallivanting around, in the news, but he was no match for Providence, a nearly faceless enterprise, most people in Hollywood have no idea who runs the fund. Providence was not going to let its asset go to zero. Do you think Casey Wasserman wanted to sell his agency? Of course not, Providence made him do it. Because it wanted to protect the asset. Sans talent, there's nothing left. Wasserman might have been a good front person, but everybody's replaceable.
And expect Wasserman to be booted from the Olympic committee too. It's just that politics works more slowly than money. But politics cares about money too, and the fear is that with Wasserman in charge, revenues will fall, so he's got to go.
One could say Wasserman was too big for his britches. Or he didn't know what he didn't know. You don't mess with money. And you keep your house clean. It's one thing if you're an act doing drugs, screwing up, the label which owns your contract might not like that, but it can survive without you. Then again, if you're a superstar, they're going to do everything to get you back on the right path. But if it's the entire asset... Was Providence going to sit by and watch all the talent leave? No, it had to stanch the bleeding... Wasserman was expendable, not the talent agency.
So if you want to live the rock and roll lifestyle of yore, drinking and drugging, getting laid, being in TMZ, be my guest. But if you want to play at a higher level, where the money is, you've got to keep your house clean, especially in today's world where there are cameras everywhere and so much information comes out. The Epstein files were just the straw that broke Wasserman's back... It was the womanizing detailed in the "Daily Mail" article before that that truly ignited the fire, the Epstein files just turned it into a conflagration.
Mind your p's and q's if you want to survive at the top level.
And know that if you take the money...you're serving the money, no matter what you think.
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