Belonging
I heard Daughtry on Sirius today.
There are many things wrong with Sirius. First and foremost, the reception problem. Secondly, the insane jive element. With all the cliches of radio. All the stuff Lee Abrams has excised from XM. But I’ve come to find out that Sirius sounds better than XM. And that Sirius plays the hits.
Let me be clear here. The repetition could drive you crazy. You hear an obscurity, then you hear it again the very next day. But, if you tune in Sirius, you hear all the records you read about, that people talk about, the singles, the emphasis tracks, you feel like you belong. I’ve been listening to XM for five years and I feel like I’m alone, in a club with my friends who work there at most. But nowhere do I go and speak of what I hear on the stations. And that’s creepy.
Sure, we all found cliques in our first grade class. But the first music clique I remember was Cousin Brucie, on WABC. Not that my radio listening began there, I started with baseball, but the announcers, although doing a good job, didn’t know we were all in it together, didn’t know that I wanted to be a member of something. Cousin Brucie made me a member. Hell, I was a member of WABC.
Some people listened to Murray the K. Others to BMR, i.e. B. Mitchell Reed. But I didn’t go to 1010 WINS, or WMCA…I parked my ears right there at WABC… Because those guys were my friends. And I could discuss the countdown with my school buddies on Wednesday morning.
And that’s what MTV was, a club. Back when they used to play videos. We even watched shit we wanted no part of, like Wham! Because it was on our channel.
But now terrestrial radio is not programmed for humans. The deejays speak like no one I know, and the records spun are determined by computer. There’s no belonging.
And there’s no belonging on MTV either, certainly not VH1. I might slow down on the freeway to look at the wreck, but I don’t want to get out and participate. But I believe it’s human nature to get out and participate, to be part of a community, and that’s why MySpace and Facebook, all the Web 2.0 sites, are thriving. Because humans don’t want to be alone, they want to belong, they want to be part of something!
I felt a part of Warner Brothers Records. I even mailed away to be put on the list for "Circular", their little trade magazine. I knew who Mo and Joe were, even Stan Cornyn. I was interested in everything the label had to sell. And I was turned on to acts by their twofer "Loss Leaders" series, for a grand total of a buck a record
CBS was not quite the same thing. And MCA was the Music Cemetery of America. Acts signed to Warner to be members of the club. There’s no club anymore. Except maybe Jimmy Iovine’s fan club. But is Jimmy like Mo, living in the shadow of the artist? Or does Jimmy want to be out front, rich, a star too?
Do you follow the younger generation? The most important thing is to be a member of the group. Look at their sports competitions. It doesn’t matter who wins, just that everybody had a good time. Baby boomers? They need to triumph, be adored. But rising above leaves you outside, away from the fun.
We need to bring people inside. We need to make them feel like they belong.
The labels fucked up big time by suing their customers. Sure, they were right, their wares were being stolen, but there were other ways to address this issue. Like selling the music the way people wanted it, a lot for a little, the ability to taste and graze. But this was anathema to late century label philosophy, of dictation. We decide what you want to hear, we package it with nine other crappy tracks and make you pay a fortune for it. And you wonder why people hate the labels.
And the concert business too. You want to go see the act but you can’t get a ticket. But if you’re rich, or connected, you can get a ticket. And then you find out a high percentage of the tickets never went on sale. Feel like you belong? You feel like you don’t even matter, that you’ve been completely squeezed out. You say fuck you, and you stop going to shows.
Fan clubs? In most cases, just fees for better ticket access. There’s no belonging involved, the extra content isn’t even worth looking at once. But Dave Matthews gives his members worthwhile additional content and truly good seats, at reasonable prices. How come he can do it, but other acts can’t? Because they don’t want to. They don’t respect the consumer, they just want to get paid. They think they’re in business with LiveNation, but LiveNation is just a conduit, to the fan.
It’s like a hit single. Almost no one belongs to the Rihanna posse, not in any prodigious number. It’s about the single, there’s nothing to dig your talons into, nothing to marinate in. We stared at the album covers because of the complete collection of tunes, what the act was saying! And that doesn’t mean you can’t believe in an endless series of singles, that music has to be sold as albums, just that there has to be some underlying meaning, it can’t be about clothing and endorsements, because those don’t connect with the fan… No fan has ever been offered any sponsorship.
I’m listening to more and more Sirius. For moments like today, when I realize Daughtry really isn’t that bad. He’s not like a typical American Idol. I want to feel a part of the American fabric, this great country of ours. In the future, will we have a plethora of mass appeal acts, that everybody enjoys and pays attention to? I doubt it. But the niches…they won’t be that tiny. They’ll grow because people want to be a part of the scene. That’s why all those hipsters want you to pay attention to Vampire Weekend, so you’ll realize how hip they are, so you’ll be part of their scene! But the mainstream doesn’t want to be hipsters. But the mainstream wants its own acts. Which don’t have to be bland, but do have to be honest. A fan must have the desire to meet the act, and talk to him or her, about what he or she feels. That’s the bond. The act must provide enough material for the fan to speak with other fans about, the songs must be deep enough that there’s something to say about them on the message board. We want to be hooked, it’s human nature to be hooked. No one wants to be on a desert island alone. The Net has blown up because it made it easy for others to connect, to discuss, get a date. Focus on building acts people can believe in, that they want to belong to. The money will flow, that’s what dedication delivers. Being a fan is like having a hobby, you’ll spend unlimited amounts on your hobby. But only if you believe in it.
