We could handle Jeff Bezos as a nerd…

It’s one thing to get a divorce, it’s quite another to get involved with the wife of your good friend. That’s a bad look, but even worse is HIS look and his now wife’s look!

If there’s anyone who likes Lauren Sánchez, they must be related to her. Her image is that of a social climber who has employed plastic surgery to achieve an image that is far from normal, one could even say far from human!

Prior to his involvement with Sánchez, Bezos was seen as an entrepreneurial mastermind, building a behemoth out of whole cloth, starting as a bookstore and then becoming the everything store. And Amazon became indispensable. Of course there was backlash against some of its business practices, but it’s just like Apple…no one can hurt the monolith, it’s just too desirable.

However, unlike Walmart, Amazon has done absolutely nothing to improve its image. Walmart has done a good job over the last twenty years of demonstrating warmth and fuzziness, almost becoming your friend (after already having eviscerated downtowns across America, but people have a short memory). Amazon has done no such thing. There’s no humanizing image campaign, and this has only contributed to negative public perception. You don’t want to work for Amazon unless you have to. The company believes that if you just get your products sooner that you’ll overlook what it took for you to get them, i.e. the working conditions in the warehouse, the independent contractors delivering the products…

But at this point, few know that Amazon’s reins have been handed to Andy Jassy, who got the gig by creating AWS (Amazon Web Services), which generates the lion’s share of the company’s profits with a lean staff…a truly digital business. No, Jeff Bezos is still the face of Amazon, and he’s still the largest individual shareholder.

Now when I was growing up, if you were rich you didn’t advertise it. And many who’ve inherited wealth still don’t. But those who made it on their own… They grew up middle class, they believe they EARNED IT! And most are completely out of touch. Whether it be Sergey Brin lobbying against wealth taxes or Elon Musk and his white power posts… You went to school with nerds…they were socially awkward. At this late date they may be rich, even run the world, but those building blocks of social experience and personality, they’re still lacking them. And they’re constantly pontificating, and at this point their pro-business, rightward shift is out of touch with their customers.

Believe me, there is an affordability crisis. And even if you don’t accept that, you will acknowledge that there’s huge income inequality. And it’s no longer the era of “Lifestyles of the Rich and Famous,” which aired from 1984-1995, and they even stopped making MTV’s “Cribs.” Furthermore, the public now knows the entertainers are not that rich. If they were, why would they keep trying to sell us stuff with their brand extensions? And almost none of them are rich enough to own a private jet. But the techies?

But it gets even worse for Jeff Bezos. Because he’s appeared to lose his mind. He seems nearly brainless, having exchanged his values for Sánchez’s. Suddenly he’s working out, sporting muscles and wearing a cowboy hat? A cowboy hat is a hard image to pull off if you’re not literally on the range, as for working out…who exactly are you?

And now you’re spending your dough frivolously, on a $50 million wedding and a yacht and now you don’t look that different from the rest of the oligarchs and don’t you know the entire world is looking down on these people?

Not Bezos…

Never have the rich and powerful been more out of touch with the hoi polloi. It’s not only the tech titans, but the politicians. They’re thirty years behind when it comes to tech, some probably still have AOL e-mail addresses. And the commentator class isn’t much better, denigrating all things tech on a regular basis…decrying social media and bitching that no one calls anymore, they only text. How come there was a generation gap when they were growing up, between them and their parents, and there can’t be one now? We live in such a changed world and it’s not only Republicans who want to go back to a fantasy past that wasn’t so good to begin with, but the Democratic commentariat too. Do you remember having to write down directions to everywhere you were going? Not having the world at your fingertips? You can’t give up the bad without the good…

So there’s a bifurcation in society, between the old and young, and also the rich and the poor. And in both cases, the “winners” have contempt for the losers. The old and rich think they’re better than the rest of us, and we’re sick of them lording it over us, in many cases ignorantly.

This ain’t left wing poppycock. Just look at Trump’s approval ratings. People don’t want all that money spent on overseas wars, they want to be able to work at a job that pays the bills, but most of what’s on offer are underpaying service jobs, oftentimes without benefits.

And don’t confuse yesteryear to today when it comes to fashion. Yes, there were VH1 Fashion Awards from 1995-2002, but…that was the heady nineties and the hangover thereafter. Those were good times, people could focus on frivolous.

But then even fashion changed. Now it’s cheap and affordable to all. The prices of Chinese clothing are drastically low, you can buy it, wear it once and then discard it. And we can talk about the ecological costs of this, but today fashion is what you build from cheap items and then demonstrate not only live, but online. Haute couture? Who exactly is that for?

But this is the way it always works. No one pulls back, they drive the enterprise to the precipice and…

Do you remember when MacKenzie Scott defended her husband? Probably not, but today she’s seen as America’s number one philanthropist. She sees no need for people to have billions of dollars, she’s giving it away. She’s the anti-Brin. And she wants no publicity for it. No awards, no gala… She’s just doing the right thing. How could she get it so right and her ex-husband get it so wrong?

MacKenzie Scott didn’t lose track of her middle class values, she wasn’t convinced her riches made her better than the rest of us, she believes we’re all in it together, that we live in a society and need to take care of each other.

Now we’ve been down this road of philanthropy before, with the Sacklers. Whoever it was at the Met who decided it would be good to get in bed with the Bezos couple should be fired. They’ve been hanging with the rich and famous so long, believing it’s all about money, that they’ve lost touch with the regular public. As for Anna Wintour… The only people who think she’s an icon are those who are in her orbit. She is perceived to be the devil. And when even the richest women change their hairstyle, she does not, because she doesn’t have to, she’s another one who believes they’re bigger than us, the little people.

So, would you want to be aligned with all this?

Well, chances are you couldn’t afford a ticket and weren’t invited because of your celebrity status. But this verges on tone-deaf. They’d have been better off just selling tickets and having no gala. But NO! These rich f*ckers want to parade, need to parade, like the Bezos twins.

You want to win in today’s society? Align with the public if you’re an artist or selling something to the public. You want to appear a member of the crowd, not above it. Nobody forgets any faux pas anymore, because it’s right there blinking at us on the web.

You’ve got to be moral, making appropriate choices.

How come entertainers can’t see this? That by becoming mini-corporations they’re becoming the enemy. Hanging with the billionaires for the crumbs of their largesse. Even being seen extravagantly spending their own wealth. That’s bad for your image, assuming you even have one.

The Kardashians may be rich, but their TV show first aired back in 2007, nearly twenty years ago. They established the paradigm of mindless image, but if you think that dominates forever… They were the progenitors, what makes you think that lane is still open?

Changes in society are subtle and then overwhelming. Trends end and purveyors are left holding the bag. You can sell out an arena and then you can barely sell a ticket and it’s rarely predictable, somehow the audience knows and you do not.

The audience knows so much.

Come on, Tesla sales went down after Musk and DOGE…

You think you can lord it over the public with impunity?

You can’t.

Now is the time to evidence values, to focus on your credibility, your ability to say no, to leave some money on the table, to lead with your work as opposed to hype.

Don’t expect media to tell you this…talk with your friends, then you’ll know what is going on.

The people run this country, and the people are pissed.

Beware.

This Dominic Fike song from 2018 is only 1:38 long.

All the focus is on how this eight year old number suddenly gained traction on social media, blasting “Babydoll” to the top of the Spotify chart both globally and in the U.S.

If you do research, you cannot figure out why. Everybody says they’re going to explain it, even Fike himself in an interview, but you listen and ultimately realize no one knows. In a digitized world where we keep hearing that AI is about to eclipse humanity, somehow this ancient number found its way to the top through people, one by one. AI can’t create this virality, only people can. And at this point, AI can’t tell you what caused the trend either, it’s organic.

And it’s the labels’ worst nightmare. Because they’re not in control. For all the hype about the manipulation of social media to break Geese… When you dig down deep, the posts that were made were so generic that sans substance, nothing would have happened.

Then again, one can say that artists are out of touch with the public. I’m less concerned with wannabes using TikTok success to get signed than the reverse, established acts making TikTok friendly songs!

If one listens to “Babydoll,” one can see why it would be good source material for a clip. It’s hypnotic and repetitive. And the title, and its use in the song, fits perfectly in this narcissistic world, where you advertise your wares online, trying to illustrate how great and desirable you are.

The script has been flipped. The person in the video is the star, not the artist that made the music! Today’s hits are fungible, fodder for the public to mix and match. 

Looked at through the lens of musicologists, all those denigrating modern music, “Babydoll” is nearly laughable, there’s not much there. Bridge? Where is that confounded bridge! But maybe that’s the wrong way to look at modern culture. We live in a topsy-turvy world, where the PUBLIC is the star, not those making the music itself.

If the acts were so damn great, the audience wouldn’t spend so much time shooting selfies at the show, they’d be riveted to what’s on stage. But they’re not. Sure, they want to be able to tell everybody they were there, TO BURNISH THEIR OWN IMAGE, to gain bragging rights!

And “Babydoll” is so damn short… It doesn’t need to be any longer, it’s all there in a minute and a half.

With CDs containing 80 minutes of music, everybody stretched out, added more tunes that went on infinitely. But we live in a bite-sized world. I’m not saying people have a short attention span, because they don’t, biology hasn’t changed, but if you want them to binge, to dedicate a ton of time, you have to be consistently great, and almost none of these albums are, never mind many being so long, even a hundred minutes!

How long does it really take you to get your message across?

Do you need a thirty second intro? A stretched-out solo? Are you just doing it that way because that’s how everybody else has been doing it?

My favorite song under two minutes is the Box Tops’ “The Letter,” which clocks in at a blistering 1:52, with all the changes and magical moments absent from “Babydoll.” Then again, “The Letter” is forever, “Babydoll” is momentary trash, like so much of the Spotify Top 50.

Listening to “The Letter” you’ll be stunned it’s under two minutes. Because it’s got a magical intro, lasting a large three seconds. And then there’s Alex Chilton’s vocal, rough and meaningful, intense in a way his work with Big Star was not. And there’s a bridge…which does not lead into a chorus. And there’s a message. Do you find all this in modern music? OF COURSE NOT! Certainly not from people making sub two minute records.

And we don’t live in the old world, which too many young acts can’t accept. An under two minute song pays the same amount per stream as something far longer.

Listeners want to be grabbed right away. They don’t want to hear you masturbate, building an opus that is substandard.

Writing camps. Artists. They need to change their goals. They need to make their music shorter! Excise all the extensions that came along with FM/album rock over FIFTY YEARS AGO! (Well, maybe if you could write “Free Bird”…but even Skynyrd couldn’t replicate that.)

This is not so hard, it’s just that when you leave out the superfluous extras, you must focus on the core elements.

Why should a record not demand attention, hook the listener instantly?

And if there’s a story, however compact the record, it lends itself to social media videos.

Ultimately this is a win-win. It’s a paradigm change, that has already happened, but the industry, and the prognosticators and the press, have not acknowledged it. We want it shorter, we want it instant, we want it comprehensible so the public can chop it up, use it… You don’t want someone trying to find the hook in an eight minute song, you want to deliver the OBVIOUS hook(s) right away.

“The Letter” is infectious, one listen is enough to want, to NEED, to play it ad infinitum. And in today’s money-focused world, a short hit song rains down money…KACHING!

Don’t think you’re still living in the old world. It’s a totally new marketplace. There’s no wall between public and performer. You’re equals, in it together. Think about serving the audience, giving them something that they can use to express THEMSELVES!

That’s what I’d do.

Tune in Saturday May 2nd to Faction Talk, channel 103, at 4 PM East, 1 PM West.

Phone #: 844-686-5863

If you miss the episode, you can hear it on demand on the SiriusXM app. Search: Lefsetz

KID ROCK – FREEDOM 250 TOUR

He hasn’t had a hit in eons.

Even for the show tonight, at the Dos Equis Pavilion, it’s a sea of blue dots on the Ticketmaster app. I’d put it at around 30% unsold.

Now it is an amphitheatre, with its attendant bonus charges…i.e. drinks/food/merch/parking, and it is run by Live Nation (but owned by the city of Dallas), so that means Live Nation may be able to eke out a profit. However…

Odds are not good.

But I will say, at amphitheatres, you must not overlook sponsorship deals/fees. The promoter guarantees a certain number of shows per year, upon which the sponsor makes his deal. So every show does not have to make a profit, the sponsorship fees can make up the difference.

But these are piss poor numbers.

But Kid Rock is a right wing icon you say…

Welcome to the modern era, where big time press is detached from the street. Kid Rock is in the national news on a consistent basis, more than almost everybody in the Spotify Top 50. His house is being buzzed in a flyby by the military, he’s going on an Apache helicopter with Pete Hegseth… But press doesn’t sell tickets. Yes, press might help with awareness, although most of that comes online on other sites, but it doesn’t get people excited to go. You either want to go or you don’t.

Yet half of nation is red, or close to it. But is that a reason to go to the show? This isn’t a political rally, it’s a concert…with some political verbiage.

But it’s not only the press that’s out of touch, it’s Kid Rock himself.

There’s unlimited money/adulation/perks from Republican insiders if you’re a right wing entertainer, because there are so few of them. Rock is in a bubble, he too has lost touch with the street.

And he hasn’t had a bonafide hit since 2008.

This ain’t the Eagles… “Peaceful Easy Feeling” may be forever, but “Bawitdaba”?

Live by the hit, die by the hit. Which is why so many of today’s Spotify Top 50 will be unable to sell many tickets when their chart numbers decline. But it’s even worse, the music doesn’t mean the same thing in the culture.

And don’t confuse Kid Rock with metal. Metal has a bedrock audience based on alienation, being the other, that no other mainstream music possesses. So hits are not as important, and the length of time since your last hit is not  as important.

POST MALONE/JELLY ROLL

Rocker goes country!

That’s not a new paradigm, but the difference is Post Malone does a good job of selling it live and on record, he delivers.

But the truth is before he switched genres all his numbers were going in the wrong direction, he hadn’t had recording success in eons.

But it feels like Post Malone is a superstar, because that’s the way the press treats him (assuming you’re paying attention to the press).

So Post’s previous audience, do they really want to go to this stadium show? It’s not their kind of music…or they fear the set list won’t be their kind of music.

As for the new audience, the country audience, Post does not have a string of country hits, he’s not fully accepted in Nashville.

So who wants to overpay for a stadium show?

Not many!

A stadium show is less about the music and more about a celebration. You just want to be there, feel the vibe. But this requires hard core fans. And if Post has any, that number is not large, and then you have the switching genre issue above.

As for Jelly Roll, who is also on the bill… He’s been everywhere, and has been very likable in interviews, but he’s still a novice act, without a string of hits. I don’t think sales have been hurt by his use of the n-word, but it’s head-scratching how his multiple use of this word has not hurt him in the way Morgan Wallen’s one utterance has.

So what we’ve got here is a sea of blue dots. There’s no way this show is making money, as a matter of fact, they just canceled a concert in Waco… He says it’s to finish new music, what a laugh. No one wants to buy tickets!

Well, some people do. But there are fixed costs and an advance and… I don’t know how much dough they’re guaranteeing Post, but there’s no way in hell they make money on so many of these shows. Deals are predicated on the promoter giving almost all of the face value of the ticket to the act and making their profit on the ancillaries, i.e. food and drink/merch and ticket fees. But for these shows, there are already tickets on sale for below face value!

And that’s the reason I’m writing this screed. We can debate all day long whether Live Nation guaranteed concerts with Ticketmaster deals, or the lack thereof if there was no deal, but there is this canard that if the two are just broken up, ticket prices will plummet. That they’re artificially high and the public is getting screwed.

But the truth is no one puts a gun to a person’s head and tells them they must buy a ticket, that’s a personal choice. And until the on sale, there’s no guarantee the ticket sales will be good. It’s a bet. With a lot on the line, all the startup/production costs for the act, the guarantee by the promoter to the act, it’s a crapshoot. And for every high demand show with tickets resold at exorbitant prices online, we’ve got this tour, where they’re offering student discounts and… In other words, the prices are going DOWN!

It’s all the law of supply and demand. Prices can come down as well as go up. And when they’re up, that means demand outstrips supply… How come nobody not in the business can’t understand this?