What kind of crazy fucked up world do we live in where the editorial page of the "Wall Street Journal" is hipper than Gene Simmons?

I don’t read the editorial page of the WSJ. It’s against my religion. I get the physical paper, I subscribe to the Website, but I refuse to read the right wing rantings of the ideologues who compose this stuff. But now we live in the Internet age. And if anything is written worth reading, it’s forwarded to me. And I’m going to pass it on to you. Remember, this works if you do something idiotic, like Mr. Simmons, and excoriate your fans and lament that we don’t still live in the seventies, when someone actually believed you were cool. No tree falls silently on the Internet.

The WSJ isn’t much different from the record labels. The owners were so out of touch, so removed from modern publishing reality, that they had to sell the paper to Rupert Murdoch. Maybe if the Bancrofts had paid attention, they would have hired some help who would have made the Website free. Because to lock up the information is economic death. Ask the "New York Times", which just made its site completely free, after charging for select content. End result of building a wall? Not enough money generated and the marginalization of its columnists. Thomas Friedman, Maureen Dowd and Paul Krugman went from national players setting the agenda to Howard Stern.

Yup, remember Howard? Unless you’re a Sirius subscriber, you’ve probably forgotten him. Hope he likes his money, because he no longer means anything in the national debate.

Do you want to mean something in the music business? Then you’ve got to own up to twenty first century realities. Like it’s almost impossible to be heard.

Check the Eagles radio statistics. If you think radio is driving sales of "Long Road Out Of Eden", you must be listening to the ghettoized stations that are mildly spinning "How Long". You wonder why the music business is in trouble? In the seventies radio would have spun ALL of the album (well, the early seventies). There would have been excitement, hysteria. But unless you own the double-pack, you’ve never heard "Long Road Out Of Eden"’s title track, its centerpiece. And that’s fucked up.

But the Eagles are getting paid. How come Gene Simmons can’t figure out how to get paid? He says he can’t make new music because there’s no business left. But Prince and the Eagles figured out new models, they’re not complaining.

Then again, Gene’s been telling us how smart he is for years. And if you ever saw him on "Politically Incorrect", you know he’s out of touch and doesn’t wrestle with concepts that well. As for his A&E show, aren’t his KIDS the smart ones? Without them, the show would be CANCELED!

Meanwhile, I’ve got a bone to pick with Messrs. Henley and Frey, et al. Why didn’t you release your deluxe package simultaneously with the conventional double-pack? All you’re doing is pissing off the hard core. They would have bought the deluxe package, but not now, they don’t want two copies of the album, only one.

So what have we learned?

1. That the media, so far behind the Napster curve, has finally caught up. Probably because now their business model is threatened. The old days of the RIAA speaking to an ignorant press, which repeats what the lobby’s brass says, are done. Actually, mainstream press seems to be anti-RIAA. So, the record business has lost the war with not only the consumers, but the fourth estate. The only people left on their side are those they pay, like Congressmen.
2. Irving Azoff is smarter than Gene Simmons. Smarter than Doc McGhee too. Old wave management is dead. If you’re not Web-savvy, if you’re not up on new trends, if you don’t realize we live in a changing world, you’re going to be left behind. Gene, why are you crying? You’d be LUCKY if college students were trading your shit. That’s how you stay in business! Instead, you’re left with a dwindling fan base of old farts. Thank god they love you so much…

3. The Eagles are a conundrum. They put out what might end up being the best-selling record of the year, yet Don Henley goes on record that it’s not perfect. What a contrast to the boasting of Fitty and Kanye. Three decades later, they’ve still got dedicated fans, who are interested in what they’ve got to say. Is anybody interested in what Peter Frampton has to say? Peter’s career was killed by his manager, Dee Anthony. Who appealed to the teenyboppers who boosted sales of "Frampton Comes Alive". After "I’m In You", the hard core that supported Peter from Humble Pie through "Wind Of Change" abandoned him. Career management is not going for every last buck on the table. Then again, the release of the deluxe package by the Eagles would seem to indicate this. But this appears to be the very last Eagles album ever, so there’s less of a downside.

4. Radio does sell records, but there’s not a direct correlation with sales or careers. The people who buy your records are your customers, not radio PD’s. Radio hasn’t sold "Long Road Out Of Eden", "Hotel California" and "Peaceful Easy Feeling" have. Kiss the butt of your fan, not the program director, never mind the deejay. Radio could recapture the listener base by reinvesting in itself, by airing fewer commercials and a broader swath of material. But the stations are too addicted to the income, to their shareholders, they don’t want to take any risks, they don’t want to change a thing. But this doesn’t align with consumer consciousness. The public wants new, innovative music. It’s harder to sell than the old stuff, but the upside is much greater. What did Bob Dylan say? "He not busy being born is busy dying"? That’s the mantra for media today. If you’re not questioning everything you do, if you’re not willing to take a risk, you’re going to be left behind.

"Desperados_"
November 19, 2007; Page A18

One of the most popular rock bands of all time has finally managed to offend — not for its songs, but for how it sells them. There’s a lesson here in technology, new business models, and hidebound "progressives."

The first new album from the Eagles in over a decade, "Long Road Out of Eden," has already sold more than a million copies, hitting Billboard’s #1 in its first week. It’s the kind of blockbuster that used to pay Christmas bonuses at the big record companies, only this album wasn’t produced by a big record company. The Eagles released it themselves and are selling it exclusively through Wal-Mart.

This isn’t going down well in certain elite precincts. Music blogs accused the group of selling out, while a review in Rolling Stone opined that there is an "inevitable contradiction in buying a record that attacks corporate greed . . . from a superchain with a bleak record on employee rights and health care." A piece in the Boston Herald noted that "The deal will make the Eagles richer. But it could cost them cool points (if the aging rockers have any left)."

So how can Don Henley, an environmentalist who wrote a song mocking Ronald Reagan, embrace a middle-American retail colossus out of favor with enlightened opinion? How can the #1 album not be available in New York City, where politicians have blocked Wal-Mart from opening even a single store? "You would have thought we did a deal with the devil," Mr. Henley says. "People have been crying out for a new paradigm. So we did something new."

That something turns out to be good business. In cutting out the record company, the band cut itself in for a bigger share of the per-album profits. While it might have expected fewer sales from restricted availability, that doesn’t seem to be happening. Wal-Mart’s retail price of under $12 for the two-disc album has allowed smaller retailers to stock up on the album at Wal-Mart and then resell them with a markup.

The Eagles aren’t the first to try new ways to sell a record. Garth Brooks signed an exclusive deal in 2005 with Wal-Mart and has sold millions of records. Beyonce has released an exclusive DVD through the store. Joni Mitchell and Paul McCartney are selling their music through Starbucks. Billy Joel’s daughter, Alexa Ray, is trying to establish her own music career by doing an exclusive with Target.

These and others are evidence that Napster and its filesharing successors weren’t the death of the music business but a smart bomb that forced the creation of new delivery models. Apple’s iTunes is the most famous. But the Web has allowed thousands of bands to find new audiences, and even create global niche brands. Thanks to the Internet, a Norwegian metal band named Enslaved has been able to fill small town bars and auditoriums in the U.S.

Alas, some rockers sound like old fogies complaining that nothing is as good as it used to be. KISS’s Gene Simmons says he can’t be bothered to go into the studio anymore because the business model that made him rich no longer works. As he told Reuters recently, he blames filesharing: "Every little college kid, every freshly-scrubbed little kid’s face should have been sued off the face of the earth. They should have taken their houses and cars and nipped it right there."

We believe in property rights as much as anyone, but when technology is changing, businesses have to change too — and that includes the business of music. So let’s applaud Mr. Henley, Glenn Frey, Joe Walsh and the other Eagles for some creative capitalism, however politically incorrect.

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB119543609764897537.html