Nightlife

Last night I went to a gig and the opening act was bad. I don't mean terrible, completely unskilled, but if you asked someone to leave the house for this...they wouldn't. Oh, some people did. This was a club, holding a few hundred, and it was not full and this woman did her best to entrance the attendees, it's just that her material wasn't any good. She looked like a refugee from the seventies, bleached blonde hair and Ziggy Stardust silver suit, and she played angry, noisy music verging on punk, but unless you needed loud, angry noise... Oh, there were songs, but... I'm sitting there thinking about seeing Little Feat in the same venue. An underplay, not long after I'd moved to Los Angeles, it wasn't hard to get a ticket, I went with my new friend Danny from Star Sporting Goods. He was the hiking expert. Word was he lived alone in a single apartment, that he was the son of a single mother and... This wasn't who I'd been exposed to back on the east coast, but he was friendly and...I guess that's the difference between east and west. At least where I grew up. You were on the college track or you were headed for the dumps. Education was everything. Divorce was rare. I'm sitting in the balcony wondering what Danny is up to today and... One thing about getting older, you realize that you're never going to encounter these people again, they could even be dead. In addition, all the regrets you have, about misspeaking, behaving badly towards another, evaporate. I won't quite say you become comfortable in your own skin, but you realize there's a limited amount of time left and all the stuff you thought was going to happen never will. So I used to go to clubs on a regular basis. To see acts I was enamored of. To experience the latest hot thing once I moved to Los Angeles. You wanted to marinate in the sound, you wanted the visceral experience, and I'm sure there are still shows like that today, but the truth is unless an act is going to deliver a peak, ten on a ten scale or close, people just aren't going to come, with so many options at their fingertips at home. Now I ran into a few people I knew. And that was very satisfying. I guess I was convinced that my generation had moved on. It used to be a floating party. But everybody got older and the scene changed. The acts are on their umpteenth reunion tour if they're not retired or dead and pop and niche rock and hip-hop fill the rest of the dates. Especially at the summer venues, it's oldies on parade, and it's kind of creepy. But, going used to be everything. Now Will Page wrote a great article in the "Financial Times," unfortunately behind a paywall, but the headline tells you most of what you need to know: "The 'go big or stay home' economy reshaping live music - Consumers will spend multiples of an annual streaming subscription for three hours of music at a giant stadium": https://www.ft.com/content/3a2a3e6c-8fc9-47e7-bc88-3f3e64b65d21 This is not only in music, with the best accessed as easily as the mediocre, never mind the bad, people gravitate to the best. And they want it easy. Page makes the point that a stadium show is much more palatable than a festival. And there are a lot more stadium shows, but there are a lot more people. And the truth is you may not have even heard of many of these acts selling so many tickets. And speaking about articles behind paywalls, Ralph Simon sent me this, from the "Economist": "Forget the World Cup. Culture is becoming more fragmented - Farewell to the monoculture" https://www.economist.com/briefing/2026/06/11/forget-the-world-cup-culture-is-becoming-more-fragmented I was going to do a whole piece on this, might still do so, but the salient point is despite the world having access to everything, acts reaching every nook and cranny via streaming music, the market in each nation is dominated by local repertoire, more than ever before in the modern era. In the old days, there were universal stars, made by MTV and radio. You'd think that the best and the brightest would be able to get even bigger, because of world access, but the opposite has occurred. As streaming has grown, acts have had less success overseas. The days of U.S. and U.K. acts dominating worldwide are toast. And back on the nightlife tip, I read a review of the new book "Up All Night" in today's "Wall Street Journal": "'Up All Night' Review: The Life of the Party - Nightclubs have historically been places where different classes and communities mix it up on the dance floor": https://www.wsj.com/arts-culture/books/up-all-night-review-the-life-of-the-party-acdcafb8 https://apple.news/A91uqG14NStOfp8D8AT6NwQ I'm gonna quote from the article: "'The once habitual "big night out" has become an increasingly fringe activity,' Imogen Willetts writes in 'Up All Night,' her lively history of nightclubs through the ages. People are staying home, she says, because of bleak economics, dating apps, streaming services and the fear of being caught behaving badly on camera phones—all leading to a sharp decline in nightlife. "In the United Kingdom, three nightclubs close every week, Ms. Willetts tells us, while the New York City mayor’s office reported in 2019 that 30% to 40% of all 'nightlife owners didn’t expect to be in business in three years’ time.'" But all we keep reading in the U.K. press and in the halls of the music industry is that clubs are music's lifeblood and must be kept alive. But what if people don't want to go? In the old days, I'd see an act live and then have to tell everybody to go see them the next time around. As far as going to bars and hearing unsigned bands... I got over that not long after I was old enough to drink. The mediocrity and unfamiliarity made no sense to me, I'd rather sit at home and listen to records. As for hanging out and trying to meet people... Thank god for the internet, I wasted so much time looking for unfound action in venues in the old days. So if you're sitting at home, thinking of going out... You're not even going to check the listings, because you know if it was worth seeing, you'd have already heard about it. Things are different for name brand talent, but clubs are about up and coming talent. The headliner last night had fans, he had skill interacting with the audience honed from years on the road. But the interesting thing to me was the age of those in attendance. There might have been a few in their thirties, but most were older, older than the act itself! These were the people who grew up needing to go out, young people don't have that need. These were the people who know the heat of a live show. As far as younger generations... The truth is they've grown up in a pop culture, they view a concert ticket almost like a guarantee. If I pay this much you not only have to play the hits, you have to have production and... The music itself is not enough. So... I'd tell you I want to go out, but I'd like to tell you there are things I want to see. I want to hang with people. But it's not like I'm turning down invitations. Of course I get invited by PR people and managers and agents to go see their latest hype. But the odds of it being worth my while... I've got to get in my car, drive there, pay to park, wait for the act to come on when... I've already listened to the music online and it was far from overwhelming. As far as a show so dynamic that it must not be missed. I'd like to tell you that that's part of the hype, but really, it's all transparent... Please show up and help me make money, PLEASE! Forget that I'm reluctant to do this, the audience is even harder to motivate. For all the bluster about the success of the film business this summer, the bottom line is it's very few movies and all have gotten good reviews, there's a buzz. And then there are films like "Moana," dead on arrival. People will show up at the theatre the same way they'll show up at the stadium, for stars, but they won't show up for everybody. And both the movie and music businesses somehow believe they will. So if you want to charge people to see you... You must be so good that not only do attendees have a good time, but they need to tell everybody about your show. You can hone your chops, woodshed on YouTube, but not live. You're stepping right into the maelstrom, you've got to deliver. Now at least in the movie business, this summer's big successes are unforeseen Gen-Z hits. "Obsession" and "Backrooms" were new and different, never mind in the case of "Obsession" being really damn cheap, less than a million bucks to make. They weren't successful because of promotion, but word of mouth, there was a buzz. The music business used to specialize in this, and we did get Angine de Poitrine, and that's good, but not from the usual suspects, it was an indie project broken by noncom radio on YouTube. Furthermore, Angine de Poitrine is not Nirvana, it's truly niche, but where else are these acts that are different and generating so much buzz? It's not only the labels that are playing it safe, but the acts themselves. Last night's headliner, with good reviews but no help from a major label, never mind a manager, passionately spoke about the state of America, how we felt as individuals, it was alive and real in a way too much of the music world today is not. What do they say? Everything in politics is local? Well, the Democrats were so focused on Biden and then Harris that they missed the sentiment of the country, and these same people are now missing the Democratic Socialist uprising. And we've got a somnambulant, lemming Republican party paying fealty to Trump as he loses the hearts and minds of almost everyone in America. And the mainstream press is always behind the curve, the oldsters always find out last. In the old days, Bob Dylan sang: "Because something is happening here But you don't know what it is Do you, Mr. Jones?" Back then the street was important, but now the street lives online, on YouTube and social media, and traditional powers refuse to delve into this overwhelming world and try to figure out what is going on. Based on last night, based on statistics, I say good riddance to small clubs. First and foremost because the people don't want to go. Second, the talent purveyed isn't worth spending money for...but even worse, it's not worth spending time for. We are all limited, we have a million options, if it's not great, we are not interested. And this applies to everything. -- 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

Lots More Best Opening Track-SiriusXM This Week

Tune in July 18th to Faction Talk, channel 103, at 4 PM East, 1 PM West. If you miss the episode, you can hear it on demand on the SiriusXM app. Search: Lefsetz -- Visit the archive: http://lefsetz.com/wordpress/ -- Listen to the podcast: -iHeart: https://ihr.fm/2Gi5PFj -Apple: https://apple.co/2ndmpvp -- http://www.twitter.com/lefsetz -- If you would like to subscribe to the LefsetzLetter, http://www.lefsetz.com/lists/?p=subscribe&id=1 If you do not want to receive any more LefsetzLetters, http://lefsetz.com/lists/?p=unsubscribe&uid=0eecea7b60b461717065cbde887c8e25 To change your email address http://lefsetz.com/lists/?p=preferences&uid=0eecea7b60b461717065cbde887c8e25

Rick Beato Responds

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OcufTCr3RQs -- 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

Ideas

Are the heartbeat of America. This is why we triumph. People come up with concepts, products, they innovate... Never underestimate execution. Ideas are nothing without execution. But the idea comes first. The problem is America does its best to squeeze out the creativity of its populace. Via education. Teaching to the book. It did not used to be this way in the sixties. In the era of individuality school was not rote, projects were limit-testing. You were always pushed to come up with something new. Not anymore. Now life has gotten harder, as a result of income inequality. And therefore parents and children are focused on jobs. They don't want to fall behind. They want to make a good living. So they color within the lines to try and succeed. You know where they do this best? Japan. Education is very narrow. You listen to the teacher and grind for the test. Being creative, anything that can't be quantified? That's excised, close to completely. This is the heartbeat of the U.S. New ideas. Inventions. Creativity. It's our culture. Or it has been anyway. But unlike the let your freak flag fly individuality of the sixties, today it's all groupthink, getting along. Look at politics. You stick with the party, otherwise you're ostracized. Now when it comes to new ideas, starting companies from scratch... Most of them don't come from the highly educated, those who've gone to an Ivy League school and gotten an MBA... Once again, the creativity has been squeezed right out of them. The dirty little secret of an MBA today is it's mostly about building relationships, that will pay off down the road. As for learning something... Oftentimes you're studying old cases that will tell you how it was done, but breaking the rules, doing something new? You're trained within a bubble. Whereas those not restricted by this education start with a blank slate. They're true believers. They start their business and to hell with the usual suspects. Although historically, once a business reaches critical mass, they bring in the MBAs, the bean counters, and oftentimes the business falters, because there's no innovation. We see this in the major labels... They used to be run by entrepreneurs, who oftentimes started their own labels. Now most of the people there have never had skin in the game, have never put their own money on the line, where you can lose it or win big. That sharpens the senses. But if you're being paid a salary and reporting to the board and it's a public company... No wonder the labels are moribund. Mitch Miller was in control of A&R at Columbia Records, he hated rock, and therefore at first Columbia missed it. The old always hates the new. Now in the sixties, the old label heads realized they were out of touch and hired what came to be known as "house hippies." People without portfolio who were glued to the street. But now, the Boomers and Gen-X'ers who run these companies think they know better than the younger generations. Or they try to game the system. Once upon a time it was street teams, now it's leverage at DSPs and... Creativity? That's out the window. Even the acts themselves... It seems to be completely forgotten that the Beatles released the so-called "White Album" as a reaction to overdone album covers. This was a huge risk. Didn't the cover announce who you were, didn't good graphics help to sell an album? The Beatles were saying they weren't inured to the past, they were taking a risk. Where's the big risk today? Every company needs new ideas. Or it dies. Period. No corporation lasts forever. But when someone comes up with a new idea it's run by the brass, the numbers are calculated... And then the company usually says no. It's too big a risk. But all these companies were built on risk. As for new ideas... Live Nation... Got to give Michael Rapino props. Come up with a new idea and he says yes. He gives you the money. Everyone thinks that Live Nation wins because of the Ticketmaster monopoly. Now TM helps, but it's Live Nation which allows its employees to take risks. And this continues to pay dividends. Do all of them work out? If you're looking for a batting average of 1000%, don't even start. Wasn't it Live Nation that built a temporary stadium for Adele in Munich? I don't want to make this about Live Nation, but too many other companies in music are positively sclerotic. They're doing it little different from the way they always have. To much less success by the way. They're shooting for the moon with every release. If it can't be multi-platinum soon, they don't even invest, they believe the opportunity cost is too high. But in the old days, the Mo and Joe Warner Bros. would sign stuff that seemed completely left field. And some hit. That's how you do it. No one is doing it that way anymore. Yes, music is a mature business, but the music itself never is. This is why the charts are not populated by music school graduates. They can play the notes, but they can't come up with the IDEAS! We've got to foster creativity in our young, not beat it out of them. Hell, any time the youngsters start doing something new the oldsters do their best to shut it down. All the innovation happens on the internet, but parents keep saying their children should get off the damn phone! Of course there are perils in screen addiction. But no one ever focuses on the benefits of internet usage. China may eat our lunch in AI by doing it differently. It owns electric cars and if it weren't for tariffs, the Big Three would be decimated nearly overnight. All because the Chinese government invested in ideas. Gave incentives. So there were many electric car startups. What do we have in America? A shutting down of innovation. A cutting of research. Investment in fossil fuels. Stay down this path and America will become a second class country. Our nation was based on fluidity, the American Dream. You could be a poor nobody and become rich. But today the rich never want to lose their status. They want institutionalized wealth, which is detrimental to our society. Now a few weeks back I read this article that I can't get out of my head. It defines the issue: "Raising Cane's Grew From an Idea a College Professor Hated - No one believed in Todd Graves' vision for a restaurant at first. Raising Cane's is the third largest chicken chain in the US by sales and growing fast": https://apple.news/A451et58gSrirIZ1gdeASDg I learned all this from reading. Which sparks ideas. Try it. -- Visit the archive: http://lefsetz.com/wordpress/ -- Listen to the podcast: -iHeart: https://ihr.fm/2Gi5PFj -Apple: https://apple.co/2ndmpvp -- http://www.twitter.com/lefsetz -- If you would like to subscribe to the LefsetzLetter, http://www.lefsetz.com/lists/?p=subscribe&id=1 If you do not want to receive any more LefsetzLetters, http://lefsetz.com/lists/?p=unsubscribe&uid=0eecea7b60b461717065cbde887c8e25 To change your email address http://lefsetz.com/lists/?p=preferences&uid=0eecea7b60b461717065cbde887c8e25

The Public Wants New

And this is anathema to those locked into the limited product old school paradigm. Let's see... It's Saturday night and you want to go to a movie. You check what's available... People doing this were addicted to the movies, not any movie in particular, and the studios lost their trust, by playing to an ever shrinking slice of the population. Furthermore, these people now had options. Dining is oftentimes as satisfying, if not more, than a movie. And at home you've got the streaming services and... If you're remaking old product, more of the same, you're f*cked. The bleeding edge of culture is now online. If you want to know what is truly going on in America you look at the influencers. Oldsters hate this. The smartphone is the devil. But this is why we're experiencing upheaval in the Democratic party. Youngsters feel that they're living in the now, which is a completely different universe from what the elected oldsters and the DNC inhabit. So what do we know about the successful influencers? They put out a plethora of product. If you don't post every day, you're losing. Therefore, fans have a relationship with the influencer. Unlike a relationship with the movies. When it comes to Netflix... Customers have a relationship with Netflix, not any of its specific shows. They know if they want something to watch, they will be able to find something, furthermore, the Netflix algorithm will make it easy, serve it up. And in a world where it's hard to know what's truly happening... You're no longer dependent on following the press, knowing in advance, the Netflix homepage is the press, it is where you find out about things, and that's great for people. So... To make a film of a new concept from scratch is a very heavy lift. Coming up with the idea, executing... There's no built-in audience. And in most cases, the production either succeeds or it fails. There is no in-between. So the studios put out sequels. Ad infinitum. And there is an audience for that. A shrinking one. Because in a world where there are so many offerings, people have been there and done that, they don't want the same old, they want to be titillated with the new. As far as the second season of Netflix shows... The hard core cares, everybody else does not. Inherently the show has a smaller return audience. But people are not canceling their Netflix subscriptions, because they are addicted to the service. And people are addicted to HBO Max, but a lot fewer. And it's hard to grow that service, because there's limited product. Sure, there are hits dripped out week by week, but if it's Saturday night and you just want something to watch, you don't go to HBO and look around, you go to Netflix. So to survive, the movie business has to take chances. But they hate this. Budgeting is difficult. But what if costs are cheaper? However even if the movie costs less than $10 million, that does not mean marketing costs decrease. And what's worse, as stated above, people are no longer addicted to moviegoing. Used to be people would take a chance on something different. But not today. So what we end up with is cheaper movies that play on streaming services, where there is a built-in audience. And have you noticed that most of the Netflix product is new ideas? Many of these movies suck, but every once in a while they hit one into the stratosphere, like with "KPop Demon Hunters"... You need to come up to bat constantly, which the studios don't. And Netflix has a built-in audience. Which is why if movie theatres survive, it will only be for event pictures. So one thing about the online influencers... They have an identity, unlike too many bland pop stars, afraid to take a stand for fear of alienating a potential fan. The influencers know it's a great big world, that going for everybody is a fool's errand, you can make beaucoup bucks appealing to a niche. And in truth, everything is now a niche. Even Taylor Swift is a niche, even though the cloying press would like us to believe otherwise. The influencers don't move the ball with every post. But they do take chances, they have to do something new, because otherwise people will not come back. The bond of identity is not enough. You have to push and push and... This is what the music business has failed to understand. The music business believes it's about brand names, who front the productions of many songwriters, producers and mixers and... If the track sounds different from what has come before, and the odds are not high, people may be interested. But the track after the hit, if it's not different... People shrug. Don't blame the audience. The public is sharper than the suits. If you want to survive as a musical artist, you must constantly be changing it up, taking a risk. This was de rigueur in the late sixties and seventies, but now... You do what you do and you do it over and over again to usually an ever-decreasing audience. You hit and the odds of maintaining that peak... So labels and musicians have to come up to bat all the time. However, the purveyors must stop trying to be the movie business, polishing what they think the audience wants and then marketing it to death. No, cheap and easy and different. And in an era where no one seems to be able to break an act, you never know when something will hit, sometimes years later. But the music business is based on building stars. The belief is once you've made it, you've made it for all time, which is patently false. As for the aforementioned Taylor Swift... She started off in country, went pop with Max Martin and then switched to Jack Antonoff. She released quieter, personal albums during Covid... How come she gets it and so many of her brethren do not? Even the endless physical iterations. There's always innovation. The thrill of the new. Do not expect the public to stand still, do not expect people to eat what you serve them. You've got to titillate people, thrill them. And do it on a regular basis. This is much harder than doing it the old way. But this is the world we live in. -- 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

Lily Allen Scales Down

"Lily Allen Drops Most Arena Dates on U.S. Tour in Favor of Theater and Amphitheater Shows": https://variety.com/2026/music/news/lily-allen-drops-arena-dates-tour-theaters-1236810991/ Just how many Lily Allen fans are there anyway? What Lily Allen does best is publicity. She's got the press in the palm of her hand. She's not so outrageous that she's dismissed, yet unlike so many unthinking pop stars she does not come across as pure vanilla. So... This is what the press wants. Especially the English press. Clickbait. Now Lily Allen put out an album delineating her relationship with David Harbour, who has a high profile is based on his appearance in "Stranger Things." Therefore, there was inherent interest from both the public, because this is a smash of a TV show, and the media gossipmongers... But what we're selling here is music. Now in truth, Allen has never broken big in the U.S. She does have a presence in the U.K., and unlike most of her contemporaries she has not hit and faded away, every few years she manages some kind of comeback. Now if Mick Jagger made an album about his love life, naming names, or Keith Richards about his drug life, down and dirty and honest, believe me, the press would be all over it, and people would listen to the album to decode the clues. Give Allen credit, she knows how to strike a chord with the public. So you get some looky-loos, people who will listen to the music and check it out, but how many hard core fans has Allen truly got? This is not the seventies, concert tickets are not cheap. You don't go on a whim. You go if you're a hard core fan, unless the act is a superstar and you want to brag that you were in the building, part of the mania. So with a personal album like "West End Girl," the thinking public, those who want more than platitudes, pay attention and listen and go to the show as a badge of honor. Which they did, first time around. But then... There's all this scuttlebutt about Allen's show being only an hour and only the new album and her not talking to the audience and... In truth, paying so much, people expect ninety minutes of music. But the truth also is that the mania is over. The album came out nearly a year ago, it's hard to keep a stunt like this going in the public eye. And it is a stunt. A calculated stunt. Which Allen does incredibly well. But in a world where you can shoot someone in the morning and by the next day it's old news and the day after no one talks about it, you strike when the iron is hot, because the heat evaporates really quickly. Now if you're doing a greatest hits show it's different. But the truth is Allen doesn't have any greatest hits in America, never mind people who want to hear them. Now all those women, and it was mostly women, who went to the show on the first leg... They've been there, they've done that. To now go and see the same thing with 10,000 more people? That's no longer an intimate experience, do you really want to spend all that cash? And you know exactly what she's going to play and she's already played it and you've already seen it. So other than the hard core... Are there enough casual fans to support arena shows? Well all we have to do is go to Spotify. Where we find that "West End Girl" has no track with triple digit millions in a world where household names who play said arenas have BILLIONS! "Pussy Palace"...you know she loved titling the song that...has 40 million streams. Four others break 20 million. All the rest have less. And let's not forget, these are worldwide figures. Allen is a star in the U.K., and most of the streams were probably over there. But still...you've got this few streams and you expect to play arenas? Who ever thought this was a good idea is the same person who thought putting Post Malone in stadiums this summer was a slam dunk. Furthermore, for all the b.s. about overpriced tickets... Turns out, as insiders know, fans can just as easily choose not to go. Even worse, I don't think this show is really price dependent, there just aren't enough Lily Allen fans across the U.S. for her to play arenas. I'm glad she was honest, didn't come up with some cockamamie statement about health or costs or unions or... She owned that she couldn't sell the big buildings. And in the scaled down venues she's gonna play the fans will be satiated with this show. Which is fine. But, once again, do not equate press with fandom. These two have diverged significantly in the past fifteen years. Press doesn't reach most consumers and even if it does, readers shrug. Because they know it's hype, part of a machine. They have their ear to the ground, they know what's hot, they know if they want to go. In truth, the entertainment business is always one step behind the public. Movie studios thought that superhero movies were bulletproof. But all of a sudden, so many members of the public were burned out. If you've got something hot, milk it right away, don't delay. Because maintaining heat is nearly impossible in today's world. Now in the old days, the music meant enough that shows were not hit dependent. Today it's about...today. Sell as many tickets as you can right now, when the public is focused, because there might not be tomorrow. This is what happens when you live in the echo chamber, when you're so far up your own ass that you've got no idea what is truly going on with public sentiment. Ironically, I don't think this will hurt Allen's career a whit. Because she retains her identity, and there are a good number of people who are addicted to her antics and music. Just not as many as she and her handlers and the media thought there were. -- 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

Ashish Hemrajani-This Week's Podcast

Ashish Hemrajani is founder and CEO of BookMyShow, India's premier concert promotion company. This is a developing market with opportunity for all. If you want the skinny on touring in India, this is the place! https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/ashish-hemrajani/id1316200737?i=1000777043580 https://open.spotify.com/episode/0vQPyTQjEaNbYbm6dkIdZw?si=ZIhAKE1QT-Cys5x-po8Cnw https://www.iheart.com/podcast/1119-the-bob-lefsetz-podcast-30806836/episode/ashish-hemrajani-338977814 https://music.amazon.com/podcasts/9ff4fb19-54d4-41ae-ae7a-8a6f8d3dafa8/episodes/776a6c56-86dc-454d-838d-deeb3f1b5fa2/the-bob-lefsetz-podcast-ashish-hemrajani -- 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

Today's Cystoscopy

It knocked the sh*t out of me. Literally. As you might remember, after taking the steroid dosepak, I was supposed to return to UCLA hospital for a follow-up cystoscopy three months later. Today was the day. I haven't pissed blood since. So I was optimistic there would be no problem, but you never know. The body is made to deteriorate, no one here gets out alive, something's gonna get you. Now no matter how calm you feel, you never get a good night's sleep before procedures like this. Actually, I had a wild dream where this waiter in Vail sold me a jacket. It was $495. Really pretty cool. I was supposed to be having dinner with friends and family downstairs at Russell's, which doesn't even have a downstairs, but after sitting at the table silently I excused myself to go to the bathroom and when I was done, I took a seat at a two-top and this waiter came along and after sizing me up he left and returned with this jacket. Kinda hard to describe, it was fabric, not leather, something you'd wear at night, it had a lining, which was removable and...thinking about it afterward it reminded me of this Guess jacket I had back in the eighties. Anyway... I find it nearly impossible to shop for clothes. I question my taste and the ultimate fit but this guy sized me up perfectly! So I was excited when he said we should go downstairs for jeans, but they didn't have my size, and this guy wasn't going to sell me anything that wasn't exactly right. Turns out his name is Fred and really he runs a bookstore and he's not going to be back at the restaurant until Tuesday, when new threads are delivered, so I'm making a mental note to dream about him a week from now. The dream was a good diversion, you never know where this stuff comes from, what it means, and it kept me distracted while I showered and ate and then... I had to skedaddle for the hospital. I've learned to check the map app first, you never know where the traffic might be, and I was routed on Sepulveda instead of the 405, and it was crowded at first but I got there in time and after checking in, I had to provide a urine sample. I wondered if I had enough in me. This had occurred to me just before I left the house, and I tried to imbibe, but I just wasn't thirsty. Really, I was standing in the bathroom with the plastic cup and I felt that I would be unable to deliver, wondering if I eked out a few drops whether it would be enough, but eventually I got a flow going and returned to the waiting room. Where I didn't have to wait long until I was called inside by the football expert. I guess I always feel obligated to service people. I'm trying to work on this with my shrink. But I was stunned that this woman didn't remember our prior conversation, unlike the guy I ran into the hall after I peed, who had sent his Tudor watch in for repair, I wanted to ask him how it was doing. And after taking off my clothes, donning the robe but leaving it open in the back, the NFL expert came back in with another woman, and she told me how great this replacement was, and I casually said that I guess we'd talk about football another time. This stopped her in her tracks. She lamented handing me off. Rather than leaving, she wanted to get into it. Who was my team and..? I read enough news to fake it, but I was just trying to make her feel comfortable, so I let her go for her replacement who told me she had four jobs. You see I asked her what she did when she didn't work. She told me she loved to work! I asked if this was for the money, but no...it was the work itself. As for the four jobs... The two in the middle had to do with working at a charitable organization and the fourth was being a mother, she said she had four kids. I immediately wondered about supervision and behavior. But when I asked her about this she said there was no problem, you could tell she ran her household with an iron fist. And then she raised my gown, scrubbed my dick, placed it in a hole of fabric so it was akin to SNLs Dick in a Box, and I'm thinking how this is de rigueur, an unknown woman manhandling my penis. Well, she was gentle, and it wasn't sexy and it wasn't weird emotionally, but intellectually... You'd think they'd have a guy do this, but no... And then another woman came in! To inject me with the lidocaine! Yup, they fill up this big syringe and shoot it right up your dick. And if you think that's painful... Well, let's just say it's somewhere between uncomfortable and painful. Meanwhile, we're b.s.'ing... And I'm thinking how this is my socialization. I don't go to an office, I'm hearing from people all day long in e-mail and iMessage, but face to face? That has fallen off since Covid, for everybody. Then again, is this a problem, have I gotten too removed from society? And I'm thinking about it... If I get together with someone from the music business, they're going to sell me. It's the nature of the game. They're gonna promote what they're involved in. The worst are the managers, but if they're bothering to get together with you, they want something, it's just another move on the giant chessboard. And even if they're not promoting, they're building their network, it's ultimately transactional. This is not like hanging with your buds from school. I will say not everybody falls into this category. And the more successful people are the less this occurs, but... I'm sitting there thinking about how I'm chatting it up with all these people. I asked this third woman what she liked to do when she wasn't working and she immediately told me she loved to cook, that she'd gone to culinary school, but this paid better. After all, she was raising two kids...their father did not live in the house. The kids were thirteen and eighteen and... These conversations require navigation. You want to make sure you don't come across as special, better than them, so the eighteen year old... I'm not going to ask if she's going to college, because what if she isn't? That would come across as judgment. So I asked this woman what her eighteen year old daughter did all day. And after hearing about a McJob and hanging with her buds, this nurse revealed her daughter was going to Pierce in the fall. (That's a community college if you don't live in L.A. Unlike where I've lived before, many start at the community college and then fly up to UCLA or Cal State Northridge or San Luis Obispo...) And then she shoots the lidocaine up my dick, as we're talking about all this, like this is an everyday occurrence, like we're buds and this is not weird that she's addressing my penis. And then she leaves and tells me the doctor will be in soon. Soon? Time is going by and the second woman returns to check on me and I'm thinking of asking her to retrieve my phone. I'd heard the bell for a text. I was bored out of my mind and I was fearful of falling asleep. But I felt if I'd waited this long... And then the doctor arrived. Like a relief pitcher in the last innings. With a determined face, ready to address the problem. He was all business. There was no warmup, he immediately got the gun, pushed the tube up the canal and started shooting me up with water and retrieving urine... Now the first time this was done, it was uber-painful. But that was a different doctor. The last time, with this guy, it was much more gentle. But this time??? He's pumping out two giant tubes of urine. And it seems in order to do this he's got to inject enough water to force it out and to say I'm uncomfortable is an understatement. I mean I'm at almost a constant 9 on the pain scale. And every few seconds or so, he's injecting me with more water. And he's not stopping, this is going on and on. WHAT THE HELL IS HE LOOKING FOR! WHAT THE HELL IS HE SEEING? I've been around this block, when the M.D. spends a lot of time on the test, it's almost never a good thing. They're assessing the landscape and... I won't say I'm quite worried, but what's up? I mean the doctor is staring at the monitor. Last time he turned it so I could play along. But this time, he's concentrating... And I'm wondering what's going on as he keeps injecting water into me, like a knife to the groin. Can he not see what he's looking for? Is it that hazy inside of me? Is that why he's shooting me up with so much water as I'm starting to arch my back in pain? Finally, after poking around inside me way longer than he did the last time, he doesn't remove the catheter, but he does stop shooting in water, and tells me he doesn't see any cancer. WELL, THAT'S GOOD! And then he pokes around a bit more and reiterates this point and then pulls out... Now what? Medical issues when you're old are very different from when you're young. They're testing on a regular basis, you're constantly going back, it's like you're a Formula 1 car and you must be kept in tip-top shape for the rest of the race, knowing that what seems tiny can be the difference between winning and losing, life and death. But the M.D. is now getting it together to leave the room. Wait! So when is the next cystoscopy, do I have to come again? NO! I'm done! I get a clean bill of health. Then again, the doctor tells me that they're going to test the urine that they extracted from me and something could show up, but he was saying that almost as an afterthought. And I tell him I hope I don't see him again. And he tells me not here, i.e. the hospital. And he exits. And then woman number two, who is not a nurse, but is qualified to handle my dick, gives me all these paper towels... Well, maybe they weren't paper, they were thick and... There's a stack of wet ones and a stack of dry ones. She lays down a carpet of paper and tells me to squat and clean myself up and leave the detritus on the floor. And I'm thinking this is like taking a crap in a European bathroom. Or maybe having a baby standing up. And I'm washing and drying and my dick is hurting and... I've got to go to the bathroom. All that water they shoot up you, it's got to come out. But no one comes back to ask how I'm doing, so I walk into the hall in my gown where I'm promptly stopped and... This guy wants to know what I'm doing, I'm obviously breaking protocol. But I tell him I've got to pee and I scoot to the bathroom where I stand there and let free a stream of the most yellow urine you've ever seen. And then return to my room, change my clothes and then... Nothing. I mean isn't someone gonna come and lead me out? Isn't it breaking the rules to leave by myself? But after waiting for a while I decide to poke my head into the hall, I've seen so many people, odds are one of them is going to be passing by and I can ask them. But there's no one there. Eventually I stop someone new and put forth my dilemma, he tells me I can leave. And then I head back to the bathroom. Where I sit on the throne and I start to crap. Wait a minute, this makes no sense. I mean they didn't go up that end! But it's continuing on a regular basis, intermittently. I can tell I'm not done, but I'm getting anxious about taking up space, using the bathroom. I feel like I'm doing something wrong, sitting there for ten plus minutes. That someone is going to knock on the door and tell me to get the hell out. But then I'm thinking there aren't quite a plethora of bathrooms in the Clark Urology Center, but there's always a free one, so I sit there until... Now the nature of this is you don't leave pain-free. The tip of your dick... And you do have this urge to pee. And when I get back home I take an immediate pee and then... I get the urge to go #2 again. I mean I'm sitting on the toilet ultimately for about half an hour. And I'm still producing, however intermittently. Eventually I get up, and I'm so wasted. I mean I've had a lot of medical procedures. They can take a toll on your body. But this was minor when it comes to invasiveness and drugs, it was not surgery and other than the localized lidocaine, there was no anesthesia and... It's a beautiful day in the neighborhood. Unlike on the east coast sunny days in L.A. are usually cloud-free, as if we're living in "The Truman Show" or something. And although it's hot, it ain't really humid and... It's f*cking great to be alive! And for now, it's clear sailing. At least as it comes down to my bladder... As for my regular leukemia checkup, that's next week! -- 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

States Sue to Stop Paramount-Warner Bros. Merger

https://shorturl.at/F1xh8 I don't want the Ellisons and Bari Weiss in charge of CNN, I don't want Zaslav to get three-quarters of a billion in payment, but that does not mean this merger should be stopped. Funny how those in Hollywood are freaking out over this merger, I didn't hear them go ballistic when Disney purchased the assets of Fox. And the filmmaking division of Disney is such a minor part of the operation that the company no longer breaks out revenues separately. But no one fears the future as much as those in the creative industries. Tilly Norwood starring in a movie? Let me know how this is different from a Pixar production. As for AI in music...enough with the freak-out, at this late date we've lived through digital disruption again and again in the past two and a half decades and the end result is after a period of turmoil, caused to a great degree by the major labels' refusal to accept the future, suing not only distributors but their customers, the fans, to try and keep everybody in an overpriced CD for one good track world, revenues have returned as a result of streaming, sans all the costs of physical distribution. As for the book business, they did a good job, along with the federal government's antitrust division, in raising the price of e-books, going to the agency model, and the end result is not only have the sales of e-books been hampered, but the overall business is stagnant. Jeff Bezos was trying to build a business, growing the overall pot for books, and the publishers and writers didn't want to give a techie power and ended up shooting themselves in the foot. Then again, book publishing is a gnat on the ass of the music and movie industries. So we had consolidation in the music business, Universal has in excess of a 30% share. More than Paramount would have after the merger. Turns out the major label game doesn't have the power it once did. Which was based on distribution. Now anybody can get their music on streaming services essentially for free, competing with the big boys and girls. As a matter of fact, indie share keeps increasing! As for breaking new music... It's not only the indies who are having trouble here, but the majors themselves. Actually, a good case can be made that the majors are only interested in moonshots, leaving so many genres to indies. As far as you not getting paid what you feel you deserve, chances are you wouldn't have been able to play at all in the old world, never mind getting a deal, but getting your music in a retail shop, and good luck getting paid as an indie if you did! You can now make the music on your laptop, essentially for free, and you can promote it online for free. This is a disaster? Then again, everybody believes they're entitled to make a living in music. Furthermore, as a result of pure demand for a unique experience, concert ticket prices have gone into the stratosphere, far exceeding inflation. If you think you can set an artificially high price for concert tickets you're uninformed, no one is forcing people to go, and people want to go so badly that they'll pay a scalper much more than face value to attend. Has the landscape changed, are winners bigger and losers smaller? Absolutely, but this is not only in music. As a result of the flattening of distribution, the removal of friction, all music is available to all people at the same price in the same place and people gravitate to hits. Now what will the music landscape look like in the future? We're in a period of evolution, but one thing is for sure, by refusing to enter the future, the business only hurt itself. As for AI... Where's Frank Zappa when you need him? AI labels are akin to PMRC labels, only the acts of yore are the censors of today. AI is a tool. Rightsholders should be paid for the ingestion of works, one could argue that they should be able to refuse the ingestion of works, but that ship seems to have already sailed. As for the result... Demos are cheap, pros love this. As for fully AI productions, so far none has been a hit. Oh, ignore the headlines about manipulated projects where the company buys a de minimis number of tracks and the song goes to number one at the iTunes Store. That's like having the most productive horse at the Central Park Carriage Rides. Then again, misinformation, as well as disinformation, is a greater force than ever. This is a problem, but this does not mean we should return all power to the usual suspects of yore. As far as Bari Weiss at CBS... She installed Tony Dokoupil as anchor on the "CBS Evening News" and not only are ratings half of those on ABC, and nowhere close to those on NBC, they're shrinking to boot! This is what happens when people are in over their heads, when amateurs gain power, they end up destroying what they're in control of and leaving holes for new players. Can you say "60 Minutes"? As for news... There are more places than ever to get it. Who even watches the network TV news? And CBS got rid of its radio news division... It's shrinking, not growing. And if you tune in CNN you get constant arguments more than hard reporting of facts. As for the movie business... Despite the legacy press being fascinated with film, the big story in visual media today is the encroachment of YouTube in terms of viewing share. Even Netflix is freaked out. But YouTube is not like the movie business and not like Netflix. As a matter of fact, YouTube tried to do this and failed, green-lighting big budget productions to crickets and abandoning the business. No, YouTube is about user-generated content. Which is not what theatrical movies are, and is not what big outlet streaming is, but the public is cottoning to it. So the major challenge to movie theatres is not consolidation of studios, but the alternatives, both TV streaming and YouTube. Who says story needs to be produced for tens and sometimes hundreds of millions of dollars when you can shoot an entire flick in 4k on your iPhone. And two of the biggest movie hits of the summer were made by young YouTubers! So if there is consolidation of studios... There are fewer places for people to work. The Ellisons say they'll make 30 movies a year, but even if they don't... Workers don't understand, studios make what the market can hold. And theatre revenues keep going down. This is a declining business. Maybe it will survive for event pictures, but irrelevant of this merger theatres will close, there are just not enough desirable movies to keep them in business. So what is going to happen in visual entertainment? Indies will soar and continue to eat up market share. I mean look at Netflix itself. With no portfolio it became the biggest online streamer completely in plain sight. The studios were asleep, licensing their product as Netflix built a monolith. Should we sustain these studios at the expense of Netflix? I'm not in favor of that, and I'm sure you're not either. That's what you get when you try to live in the past. So maybe visual entertainment changes. Made by a plethora of indies on smaller budgets. Who says an actor or director should be entitled to so much per film? Look at recording budgets, they've fallen through the floor. As for the canard that with one fewer studio prices to theatres will be leveraged... First, there are still four major studios left, one more than in the music business, and this is an industry that is based on customer desire. This is not milk or shoes. It all depends on hits. Raise the prices on mediocre films and what happens? NO ONE GOES! Actually, these same people railing against this merger are the same ones who complain about RottenTomatoes... Talk about harming the consumer, they want everybody to spend their hard-earned bread to find out if a picture is good enough, wasting their time. You can research products on Amazon, all over the web, but movies are sacrosanct? So what we've got here is a bunch of both above the line and below the line professionals in Hollywood who believe they're entitled to continue to flourish at the same level of remuneration as they have in the past. Auto workers can lose their jobs, but not them. Why? Opportunity is rampant. Content is not king, distribution is. And on YouTube...DISTRIBUTION IS FREE! Where is the problem? You can build a new business using the new tools but that would require you to re-evaluate everything you know and get back into the trenches and do the hard work. This is almost laughable. Do I want everybody in Hollywood to be out of work? Of course not. But maintaining the old model would truly hurt the consumer. Seems the smarter and richer you are, the more educated you are, unless you're in tech, you're railing against the future, wanting everything to stay the same. Yet these same people are bitching about Trump and the MAGA movement wanting to return to a fictitious past. Where is it written that the cheese can't be moved, no one can ever lose a dollar. That certainly ain't America. So when you leave emotion out, you're left with the law. Yes, the Trump administration has rubber-stamped mergers that needed more investigation, but that does not mean they're wrong here. Remember the Biden administration? They prevented Amazon from purchasing Roomba, the maker of iRobot... Yeah, that'll show 'em, don't let the Seattle behemoth become any bigger! But the end result is Roomba went bankrupt and now the computerized floor cleaning business is owned by the Chinese. And then there was the blocking of the JetBlue/Spirit merger. Yup, American and United are too big already, let's not let there be any more consolidation of power! End result? Spirit went bankrupt, out of business, and Jet Blue is struggling. Why do Democrats always get it wrong on this stuff? They can see the issue, but not the future. If the Democrats had been in power, they would have prevented the merger of T-Mobile and Sprint...and the end result would have been Sprint going bankrupt! But got to keep consolidation from happening... Now creating a new telecom company would be a heavy lift. But making art and distributing it? God, the problem is that there's now too much of this stuff! And the movie studios are always on the back foot, innovation comes from elsewhere. As for the merged Paramount/Warner company controlling basic cable channels... They're worth little and every day they're worth less. What next, protecting the market for 78 RPM records? The future cannot be stopped. And every operation that has tried to do this has ended up behind the 8-ball. Never mind those who were oblivious to the future, like Kodak. Huge market share and then...essentially nothing. Not that I'm endorsing Trump's killing of alternative energy and his elimination of electric car subsidies. 20% of new autos in Europe are electric. And China is eating the lunch of the European carmakers in their home territory, because they were busy banking profits rather than being nimble and investing in the future. Yes, you can buy an electric VW in China today, but it's got fewer features and less efficient software. What's the market demand for that? Of course China subsidized battery and electric car development. But the U.S. used to be the leader on this, now funds for scientific discovery are being cut. Clowns to the left of me. Jokers to the right. Here I am stuck in the middle with you. -- Visit the archive: http://lefsetz.com/wordpress/ -- Listen to the podcast: -iHeart: https://ihr.fm/2Gi5PFj -Apple: https://apple.co/2ndmpvp -- http://www.twitter.com/lefsetz -- If you would like to subscribe to the LefsetzLetter, http://www.lefsetz.com/lists/?p=subscribe&id=1 If you do not want to receive any more LefsetzLetters, http://lefsetz.com/lists/?p=unsubscribe&uid=0eecea7b60b461717065cbde887c8e25 To change your email address http://lefsetz.com/lists/?p=preferences&uid=0eecea7b60b461717065cbde887c8e25

The Stones' New Album

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