Don’t make an album. And whatever you do, don’t send it to me! I don’t have time. And neither does anybody else. Except for your hard core fan base. Assuming you’ve got one. And they might not even be interested either.

The album was a moneymaker. Let’s string together 10 or 12 tracks so we can charge more. That’s why the labels’ enabling of iTunes/Amazon/Wal-Mart to sell singles is a death wish. You get one-tenth the money! It would be like buying a car wheel by wheel. Worse. Being able to buy a car for $1000. Manufacturers want to load your automobile up with gadgets, so you’ll pay a high price, so they can make a lot of money! Labels can’t pay their bills at a buck a track.

And maybe you can’t either. Which is why you need a career.

How do you garner new fans? By selling them sixty minutes of music? No, through the single! One track!

Sure, the Beatles turned the paradigm upside down and made the album an art form unto itself, releasing "Rubber Soul" in the U.S. with no singles whatsoever. But that was forty years ago. Today albums are endless productions, over sixty minutes long, that everyone gave up listening to prior to the Napsterization of the music business, back in the nineties, when they realized albums only had one good track. They had to purchase the album to get it, but no more. Furthermore, how many of those nineties acts have careers today? Turns out it was only about the single!

Heritage acts. Classic acts. Cut one great single! That you can do your best to work. Shit, give it away for free… As an inspiration to buy a concert ticket, where the true money is. Why spend all that money and time to cut an album that almost no one’s going to hear?

Come on, when your favorite old classic act has a new album do you buy it? No, not unless you’re the diehard of diehards. And even those people don’t expect it to be good, since the act hasn’t cut anything great in decades. But what if Styx put out only one track. You’d check out that track. Hell, if I got e-mail telling me Styx had one great track, I’d check it out, even though I’m not a big fan of the band.

Everybody’s got time for one track… If they hear it’s good. Sample fifteen seconds? Sure… If you say so. But as soon as you tell me about ten tracks and you want an hour of my time, I’m out of here. Most albums take days to devour, to fully understand, to get…and I’ve got much better things to do with my time, and so does the rest of your potential audience.

The album is a circle jerk, perpetuated by so called "artists". Do you really have that much to say? Does it really all tie together? Do I need to hear it all at once? No, you just believe you’re the new Beatles and you’re important and you’re entitled. But you’re not! You’re competing for mind share with not only the greatest musical hits of history, all at one’s fingertips online, on one’s iPod, but 500 cable channels, video games… Make it easy for me. Just give me one steaming single. That I can’t deny!

When we heard "I Want To Hold Your Hand", we didn’t put our fingers to our chins and say…wonder what the album’s gonna sound like! We did buy an album because we were infatuated with the sound, and were rewarded…but we were still jerked off by not only Dave Clark Five albums, but early Stones records too. And Animals albums. And Gary Lewis & the Playboy albums. Shit, the album really didn’t gain traction until "Sgt. Pepper", and now everybody believes they’ve got a "Sgt. Pepper" in them. Wrong!

I’m not saying you’ve got to create a Clive Davis hit. Rote, by numbers, just like everything else. But it must grab the listener. Maybe because it’s so damn different, but there must be instant magic. So maybe you can have instant karma, and become an instant success, so people will want more!

But you don’t give them ten more tracks… You give them a dribbling of killers. So they end up becoming fans of the act, not the track.

Everything you know is wrong. The train has jumped the track. The slate has been wiped clean. The old era is over. The Internet and iPod have changed everything. Now you’re only one of thousands of tracks. You’ve got to make it into a listener’s pantheon, or be deleted. How good are you?

New bands… One track only. Maybe you’ll get radio play, good luck. But even so, if it’s that good, people will trade it. And, if you get no traction, you can go back to the drawing board at a much lower price. In the old wave system, you cut an unsuccessful album and you’re over. Today, have a stiff single and you go back to the studio!

I know, I know, you don’t like it! You want to be like the bands of yore. Maybe you are a band of yore. But no one’s paying attention! They just don’t care!

We’re constantly trolling for great stuff. We say no, no, no and then yes! There’s not an issue of scarcity, there’s tons of music out there. And we haven’t got time for all of it. Face that fact. Can you earn our time? It’s precious. Start by asking only for a little. If we like what we hear, we’ll give you more. Continue to spoon-feed us, let us become addicted, we want to become addicted. To something good!

Maybe if you can get the record company to give you a big advance, or Wal-Mart to cut you a guaranteed check, then you should make an album. But then it’s about money, not success. You’re just interested in pocketing the dough. If you’re interested in having a career, don’t spend six months or a year in the studio working up ten tracks, cut one and give it away on your Website!

Even the hippest haven’t gotten this memo. I like a small slice of what Trent does. If he’d only put out one track, and the buzz was good, I’d have checked it out. A whole album? I pass. I’d rather spend my time listening to satellite radio, playing only singles, trying to find good new stuff.

The buzz is everything. It’s why "Iron Man" is a hit and "Speed Racer" will be a dud. Create something great and let the Net minions spread the word. But they can’t spread the word on something that takes an hour to digest. It’s kind of like when someone tells me to check out a movie online, or sends me more than one track or a CD, I don’t bother at all! I figure this person’s got no respect for my time, no understanding of the marketplace, thinks their shit is so great that they’re entitled to attention. You’ve got to earn attention. You’ve got to beg for a minute of our time. You’ve got to create something so good we want to give you our time!

It is important to study history, so one does not repeat the same mistakes. Don’t Guy Oseary, Arthur Fogel and Madge herself remember U2’s PopMart tour? The biggest, baddest band in the world, one beloved by Gen-X’ers everywhere (the true Gen-X, in its forties now, the one from Douglas Coupland’s novel), books stadiums and…DOESN’T SELL OUT!

Maybe the record was rushed to completion. Or maybe the fan base was aging and didn’t want to sit that far away.

Shit, stadium shows are for youngsters, and YOUNGSTERS DON’T WANT TO SEE MADONNA! Especially not at these prices.

Why take this risk? Either she plays to empty seats or you’ve got to give tickets away. In this Internet era, do you think everyone’s not going to KNOW?

They call it ARENA ROCK. Not Arena POP, or Arena DANCE! Blow it up even bigger, and IT’S GOT TO BE ROCK! It’s got to be big and ballsy, anthemic. Madonna might have brass balls, but her music DOES NOT! Rock has historically been the guarantee in arenas. It’s the ONLY guarantee in stadia. Why go against this? Why try to reinvent the wheel? Why take the risk?

To prove that Madonna is the biggest, baddest act on the planet.

Well, that’s certainly questionable, but that’s what she needs. For her ego.

Shit, even the Eagles don’t play stadiums. And they own the biggest selling album of ALL TIME! Their audience doesn’t want to go. And sit that far away. Do you really think fortysomething women, driving minivans, still carpooling their kids, want to get all dressed up to sit in the upper deck and eat hot dogs? Watching a miniature Madonna down below?

No fucking way. At least not until she admits she’s a has-been.

Oh, the album may be running up the chart, but people don’t want to hear "Hard Candy" live. Just like they didn’t want to hear Page Plant’s new material when those two toured. They eventually eviscerated almost all of it from their set and focused on Zeppelin tunes. The steady stream of people to the bathrooms and concessions made them feel less like superstars and more like…wannabes?

Madonna refuses to believe her time has passed, that she’s a has-been. Everybody inside knows she won’t go out with a greatest hits show. But that’s what you need to sell stadiums, that’s what you need to get oldsters to leave home and spend a fortune.

Maybe once. Maybe they’ll come to the train-wreck once. But they’ll stay home after that. And there’s no talk of this being Madonna’s RETIREMENT tour.

Who’s advising her? Madonna’s such an egomaniac, she won’t hire a real manager, someone familiar with the game of choosing the right building, of scaling, of ticket counts. She thinks it’s all about TV and radio, that they drive people into a frenzy where they HAVE to go to the show. Uh-uh. That was the eighties, the nineties, but not today’s music world. Money is made on the road. And the show’s got to be about the audience, not the performer. At least if you want people to come back at these inflated prices. You’ve got to DELIVER!

Maybe she’ll change the set list to drive ticket sales.

But you know the show can’t be good… SHE CAN BARELY SING!

She makes a deal with Live Nation and the stock she gets immediately tanks by half. She decides to play venues way too large for her. She needs the aforementioned Irving Azoff. But she won’t listen to him. Because Madonna knows EVERYTHING!

No one knows everything. Not even me. But I’ve got a feeling, this tour is a mistake.

As "Hits" continues to chronicle the downfall of the Warner Music Group, one must ask if major labels are even the story anymore.

So Warner’s numbers tanked. It’s not like this is a surprise. After all, CD sales have been going down, down, down for years, unrelentingly. Hell, Warner’s market share improved recently, and the numbers still went down. That begs the question, is a lot of a little even relevant?

We can dissect EMI and Sony BMG all day long, chronicling their problems. EMI has essentially turned into Chrysler, another private equity boondoggle by someone ignorant in the sphere who has now downsized the company beyond recognition. Sony BMG has got a street guy, Charlie Walk at Epic, who can promote but isn’t that good at signing, and a guru who’s never been successful running a label, even though he’s tried, Rick Rubin. Give BMG credit for bringing in a successful cheapskate, Barry Weiss. But it’s not like Jive’s been doing Backstreet Boys numbers recently. And there’s not a ton of innovation, just running on Timberlake fumes. That brings us to the big kahuna, Universal.

Universal has a dual strategy, diversification and get a check. It’s not like they’ve abandoned their traditional business, but even though they’ve got the largest market share, their sales are tanking too. So, they bought BMG’s publishing assets. And Sanctuary, giving them a tiny toehold in management. As for the company’s digital strategy, it’s not about vision, it’s about holding up innovators for payment. They’ll make a deal with anybody if you cut them a big enough check. There’s no real planning for the digital future, more extracting lunch money, protection cash from those who want to start new businesses. The deals are heinous, but you need their catalog to start.

Irving Azoff does not need Universal’s catalog to start.

Funnily enough, as we contemplate the marginalization of Clive Davis, the era he presided over has already died. Clive was about record company power. That’s been the mantra of the last fifteen years, if not two decades. The record company controls the act. Tells it what to record and if it will release. The record company is the tyrant, your nemesis. But now, through the efforts of Irving Azoff, the act is king once again. May not feel so, you don’t see Mo Ostin presiding over Warner Brothers, but that’s the way it is.

Irving is the best protector of talent in the rock era. He even eclipses Colonel Tom Parker. Parker made a lot of decisions based on self-interest, like not allowing Elvis to tour Europe for fear his own illegal alien status would be revealed. Irving likes money, he likes to win, but he does this by going to the mat for the artist. What Henley wants, he gets. And not only Henley, but Christina Aguilera. Even Jewel. You take a meeting with Irving, and he closes you. And he’s no patsy, if he thinks you’re your own worst enemy, that you’re not taking your business seriously, he fires you! Like J. Lo.

But it’s not only Irving, there’s Howard. Howard is the king of Live Nation. It’s his acts that fill those dying sheds. And LN pays dearly for them. Jimmy Buffett takes 110% of the gross. And Def Leppard has been the surprise success of the sheds.

But it’s not only Howard… There’s a cornucopia, a veritable plethora of managers over at Frontline. And they come with acts!

The big story this week wasn’t Warner’s anemic numbers, but Azoff’s formation of AGP, with Paul Geary and Jared Paul.

There’s something happening here, and it’s starting to become very clear. Irving Azoff has built a talent powerhouse. More powerful than any label. Which concert promoters are beholden to.

I’m not saying that an indie manager can’t make it. Can’t make good deals with promoters. I’m just saying that Irving has achieved critical mass. He has reached his goal. He dictates the terms. Others listen to him.

And his style benefits him. Those who don’t know him are aware of his reputation for lack of veracity. For tantrums. But what they don’t know is he’s charming. That he charms his supposed enemies as well as friends. That he gives off the vibe of everyone being in it together… At least until there are problems.

How big is Azoff’s power?

He sold interests to both Warner and TicketMaster… Neutralizing both, telling them they can ride his coattails into the future. Their businesses might be challenged, but they’ve got him in their corner, he’ll help them.

If you think Irving helps anybody but himself and his clients…

Then there’s the theoretical AEG/TicketMaster/Cablevision lockup. That’s Irving play. Assembling a challenger to LiveNation.

The question is, having amassed so much power, having done what Jeff Kwatinetz and Terry McBride were unable to do, despite all their bloviating in the press, what does Irving do next?

He’s got his own record company. The infrastructure built to sell Buffett albums and the relationship with Wal-Mart. He’ll use a major’s money to develop, but that’s it…

He’s smart enough not to go into competition with promoters. He built Universal Concerts and AEG, he knows the pitfalls, but Irving was bad as an owner. Remember Giant? Irving does best extracting money from others!

So what’s the play? Is it just managing this talent, or leveraging it in some way?

Eventually he’ll sell Frontline. Because someone will be stupid enough to write him a check, and he’s getting older every minute, and no one lives forever. But what now? What’s next?

It’s Irving’s world, we just play in it.

You could start your band from scratch, trying to build relationships in the industry, or make a deal with Irving and he’ll get you on all the awards shows, like Christina Aguilera. Or get you a gig on a TV show, like Jewel with "Nashville Star". Irving’s like the labels used to be… Too many people owe him. He’s got a symbiotic relationship with them. An ongoing relationship.

Can you get enough personal attention?

Certainly if you’re Henley. And no one works the phones like Irving. But if you want to call someone about your girlfriend, Irving’s not the one. Oh, he can speak that language, he just doesn’t have the time anymore.

So what’s your choice? Making a deal with Toyota or Volvo? Volvos are good cars, but Toyota gives you critical mass. R&D can be spread over many units. There are resources.

Stop watching the major labels. Start watching Irving. He controls the future of the music business. At least for now.

I spent some time listening to Sirius Left Of Center, channel 26. It’s much better than XM’s Ethel. I know, because I tried to continue to listen to Sirius at home, via my boom box, but the signal kept dropping out and I had to fire up Ethel. I was excited by Left Of Center, Ethel left me cold, made me hate all this music, maybe music in general. But what I heard on Left Of Center, if not inspiring, was at least intriguing.

I heard a buried treasure by Pearl Jam that almost had me reevaluating the band. And a good track by the Kills. Made me want to listen to the new My Morning Jacket album someone sent me, based on the song I heard, maybe it’s finally their time. But the track that truly caught my ear, that kept me listening to the station, was Santogold’s "L.E.S. Artistes".

Used to be I had to know every act, what they sounded like. But today there are just too many. And too many fall into the category of indie/white boy rock that makes me laugh when I listen to it

Stuff White People Like

So, these acts slide by me, I hear the names, but have no idea what the music sounds like. I assume the music sucks, because experimentation has told me so. But Santogold does not.

"L.E.S. Artistes" is kind of like Duffy’s "Mercy"…not a complete song. A riff, missing another crucial element. But like with the ultimately superior "Mercy", what is there grabs you, like a song from Rick Carroll’s KROQ.

Remember hearing ska music for the first time? Not the original stuff or the O.C. flavor, but the English version, from the turn of the decade, the seventies into the eighties? "L.E.S. Artistes" has got the same feel. It sounds like the artist means it. You pay attention from the very first note. It seems to exist outside the mainstream, the system. It seems to be played in a dark room, that both disorients and enraptures you. It’s hip, unlike what’s on Top Forty radio.

There’s a somewhat anthemic chorus… But what gets you is the vibe, the immediacy.

But, unlike decades ago, I’ve got no illusion Santogold’s other music is as good as "L.E.S. Artistes". I don’t expect a "Mirror In The Bathroom" on the same album as the English Beat’s cover of "Tears Of A Clown". I don’t expect her album to be as playable as the Specials’. Not because of what’s in the track, but because of the scene. All we usually get is the track, with no additional depth. And a listen to the other Santogold emphasis track, "Creator", proves the point, it leaves me cold.

But check out "L.E.S. Artistes". It’s got the urgency of a revolution. Like those involved don’t give a shit about anybody else, like they’re creating their own scene. You’re drawn in.

This is fresher than Duffy. This is not country, with the same instrumentation just different lyrics, this doesn’t sound quite like anything that’s come before. And that’s exactly why it registers. Risk is being taken!

Santogold - L.E.S. Artistes

(Don’t watch the video, except for an instant, to catch what Santogold looks like. Great music is made to be listened to, not seen. The visual cheapens the effect. Crank it up and listen.)