VINYL

If one more print publication, on its way to extinction, killed by the Internet, does another story about the vinyl renaissance, I’m going to EXPLODE!

Vinyl sounds better than CDs. I’m with you on this. Some people are buying albums for their artwork, others as fan totems, still others are actually listening to them. BUT MOST PEOPLE DON’T GIVE A SHIT!

If you’re an indie retailer and you’ve been fucked by the major labels and you can now make a profit on vinyl, which can’t be replicated on the Internet, can’t be digitized, I’M HAPPY FOR YOU! But people want convenience. In a format that’s relatively indestructible. A portable item that’s either unbreakable or easily replaced.

Do we need a new, higher quality audio format? A new standard? YES! BUT VINYL ISN’T IT!

WAL-MART

It’s about the fucking price. Enough already.
You get three discs for $11.88? That’s quite the value proposition. Old Journey, new Journey and video Journey. And do most people care? NO! What, they sold 100,000 in a country of 300 million?

I’m happy for Neal Schon, that somebody cares. But they don’t really give a shit about your new music, they just want the classics. Maybe, if you’re lucky, they’ll spin the new disc… But not enough people own this new product to drive your concert business, where the real profits are.

As for the vaunted promotional value of Wal-Mart deals… HORSESHIT! Most people are not paying attention. This is not 1965, when we were limited to three networks and young people were thrilled to get junk mail, ANY MAIL!

Albums at Wal-Mart are impulse buys. You’re there, you’ve heard of the act, THEY’RE CHEAP!

But these albums are like trees falling in a forest… THEY MAKE NO SOUND! Other than for the people who buy them, listen to them once and then go back to their greatest hits on their iPods… (Come on, do you really believe the new Journey material IS ANY GOOD??)

FAME

Has got nothing to do with being a musician. Shit, if Nicole Richie and Kim Kardashian are famous…doesn’t that show you THERE’S NO TALENT INVOLVED?!

Celebrityhood/fame is a new art form. You create a train-wreck, and TMZ and PerezHilton and the inane TV shows report on your exploits. Just like these no talents can’t sell a record (Paris Hilton anyone?), real talents’ careers are not enhanced by entering the gossip fray. It’s about laughing at these idiots. And if you’re a musician and someone is laughing at you, your so-called career is going to be VERY brief!

So learn how to play… Create a fan base. Thank your lucky star you have fans. And THANK GOD you’re not famous in the world at large, then you’re just fodder, grist for the mill, you’re here today, gone tomorrow.

360 DEALS

Irrelevant. The major labels don’t have enough infrastructure to pull them off!

It doesn’t matter that Rick Rubin was hired at Columbia. Doesn’t matter what Edgar Bronfman, Jr. has to say. Do you read press releases from Rambler? Have you purchased stock in Wham-O? Do you comb the newspaper looking for stories on transistor radios? DO YOU STILL LISTEN TO MUSIC ON CASSETTE?

The major labels squandered their power. It was based on control of distribution. Now anybody can make and distribute their music…have you heard of MySpace and Tunecore? The majors are consolidating their efforts in just a few acts… They don’t understand, the great mass, the minor acts, in aggregate, will end up with the vast majority of the pie. Just like in the TV business. Network share continues to slide… No one cable channel dominates, but all together, THEY DWARF THE NETWORKS!

So what did the TV networks do? THEY BOUGHT THE CABLE CHANNELS!

The only hope for the major labels in the future is to control ALL THE MUSIC! They’ve got to be in business with everybody, involved in every transaction, interested in the act that sells 1,000 copies. Providing services to EVERYBODY, and with this mass, controlling the market…

Look at Irving Azoff and Front Line… Does he sign one act? Or two? NO, 250! And then he leverages these!

Don’t listen to anything the major labels say, they’re on the way to extinction.

RADIO

Not about music. And the public knows it.

Do some people listen to the radio? Does it break some acts? OF COURSE! But every year fewer people tune in, and the only format that seems able to launch careers is Top Forty, and those acts are so whored out, so phony, as to have careers that barely register in years.

APPLE

Are you following the debate on Steve Jobs’ health? That’s how we used to analyze rock stars. Now, technologists are rock stars. Young kids don’t want to work in the music business, they go into tech, WHERE THEY’VE GOT A FUCKING CHANCE!

They’re respected in tech, for their coding skills, for their ability to suss out the young demo. Fat cats in the music business just put their boot heels into young ‘uns… They fire them so they can maintain their lifestyles.

Some young ‘un is going to come in and steal the majors’ lunch and they’ll end up as licensing houses, making money on their catalogs. But new business talent will not be fostered inside the system…especially not at the irrelevant labels.

As for Mr. Jobs… The iPhone transcends music. So you can bitch all you want about how he fucked the record business in the ass, but whereas an old iPod is only good for sound, the iPhone and iPod Touch don’t depend on music for their sales appeal…it’s an AFTERTHOUGHT!

Isn’t that brilliant… Steve Jobs doesn’t worry about the inane, insane record business, he doesn’t worry about licensing songs, he creates A NEW PARADIGM! A MOBILE COMPUTER!

God, what’s the new record label paradigm?

And did you notice he DROPPED THE PRICE OF THE iPHONE? (See Wal-Mart above.)

RAPINO/COHL

Brilliant job by Ethan Smith. All I’ve got to add is Cohl is about creating a mirage so he can lay the enterprise off on some ignorant fat cat. Whereas Rapino is aware of the credit crunch and is worried about running out of money before an ignorant fuck can be found.

This was a game of musical chairs… Starting with Sillerman. Live Nation is now stuck… Do you try to make the trains run on time or…throw the long ball? Do you side with Rapino or his old mentor Cohl?

I’m with Rapino on this one, since after signing Madonna, the company’s stock tanked by almost half. Seems that the money men are no longer so ignorant…

FESTIVALS

I’m not saying that the producers of Woodstock weren’t interested in profits, but that appears to be ALL today’s festival producers care about… Otherwise, why would they all book Jack Johnson?

Festivals, like acts, must have credibility, must have a core, that people can believe in… If the American granddaddy, Coachella, doesn’t come up with a killer indie lineup next year, it’s toast! What has Prince got to do with today’s white boy alternative music?

And I thought Bonnaroo was a jam band thing… Rather than continue to try to grow that, they book Metallica? Great band, but hippies hate metalheads. Sure, there’s some crossover…just like some fans of Ozzy Osbourne liked the Carpenters, but not much. The producers thought they were buying insurance.

Insurance is for pussies. Aren’t we angry when our own acts PLAY IT SAFE?

COLDPLAY

I’ve got to give Chris Martin credit, he’s doing his best to poke fun at both himself and his act. And he worked with Eno, that’s cool. But couldn’t he find A NEW ENO? A thirty year old Eno? That’s playing it a bit safe in my book. Anyway, my point here is…the media owns the act now, overpromoting it, chewing it up and spitting it out. Everybody knows there’s a new Coldplay album, we can’t avoid it, AND THAT’S WHY WE HATE COLDPLAY! Get in bed with the media, which beats a story to death, and you’re going to get backlash, no matter WHAT your music sounds like.

SCARLETT JOHANSSON

We used to save our excitement for TOM WAITS, not the people who COVERED Tom Waits! Where’s the NEW Tom Waits? That’s what I’m interested in, not the musical musings of an actress whose career is fading fast.

ZUNE

They even fuck up buying Yahoo… Do you really think they can get a music player right? KILL IT!

KINDLE

Lacks the elegance of an Apple created device, but don’t let that lull you into believing that digitization of books is never coming.

It’s about the STORY, not the delivery method. Just like great songs make it, are desirable, even if the production sucks. Whereas great production and lousy songs…leave you with a stiff.