Detroit

If Honda wants to start making Civics instead of Pilots, demand for small cars increasing in the wake of rising gasoline prices, they change a few arms on the robots and in a matter of hours, presto/change-o, finished Civics start rolling off the line.Â If Ford wants to change production to a different model it takes MONTHS!

So, should we bail out Ford and its Detroit homie GM?

I’ll leave that to the economists.Â Maybe it’s just not the time to put that many people out of work.Â But one thing’s for certain, fewer people want American cars.Â Which cost a fortune to make, have inferior quality to imports and last for a shorter period of time.Â To drive an American car is to evidence you haven’t gotten the memo.Â It’s like seeing someone on an airplane spinning CDs in a Sony Discman…Â Where have they been?Â Have they not heard of the iPod?

The lumbering moves of the major labels will not save them because they are not producing what the public wants, they’re employing a business model that does not work.Â No amount of suing customers is going to cover this up.Â As for protecting jobs…Â Maybe if the heads of the corporations weren’t overpaying themselves so dearly.

Detroit depended on the SUV.Â Major labels depended on Mariah Carey, who was built for a system that exposed product on MTV and Top Forty radio to a captive audience with few alternative media choices.Â To try and sell a ubiquitous twit today is like selling Corvairs, it’s just not going to happen.

Today’s reality is lasting product made for a price that reaches a niche.Â Having 360 deals with the new Mariah Carey is not going to address this.Â Mariah doesn’t even move two million copies of an album anymore, what are the chances for a newbie?Â What did Billy Preston sing?Â Nothing from nothing leaves nothing?

The traditional major label business model is done, history, finito.

First and foremost, the salary structure has to change.Â Salaries must be small and further remuneration, whether it be in stock or cash, has to be based on performance. If you do a good job, you get paid big bucks.Â No one’s bitching about how much money Steve Jobs gets, but what Lyor Cohen is paid is obscene.

Second, the music must contain some element of the zeitgeist, it can’t be cookie-cutter, but unique.Â The old Mo Ostin Warner Brothers business model is back in play. Sign a breadth of material, make it and promote it cheaply, you never know what’s going to break through.

For eons, Detroit has been preoccupied with looks, not what’s under the hood.Â Same deal in the major label world.Â It’s just that today, people would rather have a boxy Toyota than a flashy Chrysler.Â Because the first obligation of an automobile is to run!Â Hopefully forever.Â You don’t see many Vegas or Cutlasses on the road, but there are plenty of Corollas.Â That’s what people want in music.Â Something with SUBSTANCE!

Which is sold by word of mouth.

No one wanted a Japanese car.Â But then the risk-takers started testifying, Datsun made the 510.Â Years passed and GM was killing Oldsmobile and Toyota was establishing Lexus.

Quality.Â GM may claim that that’s their mark, but if it’s ever been so, it hasn’t been in my lifetime.Â I now own a Japanese car.Â NOTHING goes wrong.Â NOTHING!Â After 30 years in BMWs, I’m gonna have a hard time going back.Â Driving to the dealer to get raped for shit that shouldn’t go wrong in ANY car.

But at least BMWs drive well.Â There’s no excitement in anything out of Detroit other than the Corvette and the new Mustang.Â And not everybody wants performance…

Cars are transportation!Â You LISTEN to music.Â What the act looks like is less important than what they SOUND like!Â Who gives a shit if the act is ugly if they can record "Satisfaction" or "Crazy"?Â What kind of fucked up world do we live in where Paris Hilton gets a record deal?Â What kind of fucked up world do we live in where records are written by committee by the usual hacks?

You succeed by BREAKING the rules.Â That’s why Audi is on such a tear.Â Have you looked at their automobiles recently (and unlike Detroit autos, Audis don’t only LOOK good.)

So maybe the government will prop up Detroit.Â But it won’t last.Â Like Crabby Appleton, Ford, GM and Chrysler are rotten to the core.Â Hell, Daimler-Benz just wrote down the value of its Chrysler stock to ZERO!Â What part of this does our government not understand?

No matter how much money we give Detroit, it won’t turn a Malibu into a Mercedes.Â Hybrids are the rage…Â When built by TOYOTA!

And what’s up with a hybrid Escalade?Â That’s like David Archuleta singing Jeff Tweedy songs.Â It doesn’t compute.Â It’s the worst of both worlds and no one is interested.

Honda never fell into the Detroit trap.Â It didn’t focus on giving the public more, but what was right.Â Unlike BMW, it didn’t ever migrate into the eight cylinder realm.Â So when the oil crisis hit, Honda’s sales actually went UP!Â And now BMW has had to lower its forecasts.

You’ve got to look to the future.Â And I see no vision at major labels.Â They need different acts recording different material at a different price point.Â The records shouldn’t be made for radio, but the Internet.Â Return on investment should be predicated on the third, fourth or fifth album, not the first.Â If a band can’t play live, it shouldn’t be signed.Â A record should not need to be worked, it needs to be so good that it’s EMBRACED!Â If you have to convince someone to like a song you’re in the wrong business.Â My nephew doesn’t CONVINCE people to buy Lexuses, they already want them.Â Because everybody who owns one TESTIFIES!

You don’t want to spend thirty grand on a car that isn’t going to last.Â And a company that’s focused on short term revenue, on billing, is going to hit a wall.Â Detroit leased all those SUVs, but then they came back, worth less than their value on the books.

The old days are through.Â Gone.Â Kaput.Â I don’t want to hear one more major label weasel whimpering how he’s being fucked by the customer.Â The customer will give you all his money if you make something he WANTS!Â Even better, something he doesn’t realize has intrinsic value, that he’ll CONTINUE to like!Â These labels are running on catalog.Â Look to the geriatric stuff that’s moving, not today’s Top 40 radio playlists, to plot direction.Â Clive Davis’ catalog?Â No one wants that shit.Â Warner? Everything from Zeppelin to the Doors to Neil Young to…sells tonnage every year.

Stop trying to jam stuff down our throats.Â Stop asking for bailouts, stop complaining.Â Just make good music for an audience.Â Don’t model on selling MILLIONS, plot costs according to what’s reasonable, which in this day and age is very small.Â Know that low price, even free availability, helps build your act.Â Don’t put a drag on distribution systems, OPEN THEM UP!

If you want to survive, you’ve got to get down with the new realities.Â Detroit, despite warnings for decades, refused to do this.Â They just wanted to lease SUVs.Â Now it’s too late.Â They’re finished.Â If you can’t see the parallels to the major label world, you flunked the analogies section of the SATs.

By: bob | 2008/11/11 | Music Business | Trackback | Comments [RSS 2.0]

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What To Do About GM and How We Can Learn From It | The Better Service Blog

Pingback by What To Do About GM and How We Can Learn From It | The Better Service Blog | 2008/12/01 at 19:45:49

[…] having hundreds of car manufacturers, leading to increased competition and innovation.Â BobÂ had a post where he talked about the similarities between Detroit and the music […]

comment_type != "trackback" && $comment->comment_type != "pingback" && !ereg("", $comment->comment_content) && !ereg("", $comment->comment_content)) { ?>

Lefsetz v. Detroit. | The Contrarian

Pingback by Lefsetz v. Detroit. | The Contrarian | 2008/12/16 at 08:53:03

[…] with "Neil Young is a scumbag"), but the entry that grabbed me by the boo-boo was his tirade comparing U.S. automakers' woes to those of the major labels. Here's the money graf: […]

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Trackbacks & Pingbacks »»

What To Do About GM and How We Can Learn From It | The Better Service Blog

Pingback by What To Do About GM and How We Can Learn From It | The Better Service Blog | 2008/12/01 at 19:45:49

[…] having hundreds of car manufacturers, leading to increased competition and innovation.Â BobÂ had a post where he talked about the similarities between Detroit and the music […]

", $comment->comment_content) || ereg("", $comment->comment_content)) { ?>

Trackbacks & Pingbacks »»

Lefsetz v. Detroit. | The Contrarian

Pingback by Lefsetz v. Detroit. | The Contrarian | 2008/12/16 at 08:53:03

[…] with "Neil Young is a scumbag"), but the entry that grabbed me by the boo-boo was his tirade comparing U.S. automakers' woes to those of the major labels. Here's the money graf: […]

Detroit

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