If I see one more article about Malcolm Gladwell and his book "Outliers" I’m not gonna buy it.

I know, seems like a 180, but that’s the risk you take when you promote your band, beating the target audience over the head to such a degree that fans abandon you, worse, say negative shit about you.

This is how publicity directors insure they don’t lose their jobs.  By showing their bosses a number, how many mentions they’ve gotten.  Doesn’t matter if it helps the project, insures the longevity of the project, it’s all about a raw quantification at the outset.

Read any articles about Metallica’s new album recently?  How about Lil’ Wayne’s?  At least Metallica’s on tour, they’re getting some concert reviews, but most acts are not of their stature, the newspaper doesn’t care.  And if you don’t go on the road, it’s like you dropped a rock in a lake, ripples move outward, and then calm returns.

The question is how can you get your project to live on?  How can you achieve legs?  You don’t do this by saturation publicity at the outset.  This just alienates your core, which spreads the word.  If you think the casual user counts, then you’re probably working at the major labels, entities that have ridden this philosophy to the ground.

Not everybody liked the Dead.  But their model wasn’t so much free music as an ongoing percolation in the marketplace.  They toured regularly, you could bring your friends.  Developing bands are on the road all the time.  Superstars flog one album ad infinitum and then disappear.  Or, return again and again with the same damn show.  People might come back if you charged a fair price and played different material.  But you don’t.

1. Don’t tell everybody.  Tell somebody.  Today’s publicity is like hearing high school gossip on "Entertainment Tonight".  Huh?  I thought that was just between you and me!
2. Try to get stories for the life of the project.  Hold back, see if you’ve got traction, work that traction.
3. Many albums have entered SoundScan at number one and dropped before selling tonnage.  Whereas others have started at the bottom and gone multiplatinum.  As for superstars…  Shit, I hate Beyonce because I have to keep reading about her and her damn movie "Cadillac Records".  That won’t be a good flick, because there hasn’t been a good movie in eons, Hollywood is only interested in the money.  But what if Beyonce did a cover of a soul classic, maybe "Nowhere To Run", and gave it away free on the Net and told none of the usual suspects?  Word would spread like wildfire.  Fans would be e-mailing everybody they know, owning the project themselves, feeling part of it.  Who can feel part of the process when the media oligarchs are jamming it down our collective throats.
4. If people can’t own it, can’t believe in it, can’t talk about it and spread the word, you’ve got no legs.  And legs are where the money is.

Read anything about the Buffett book recently?  "Entourage"?  Everything’s front-loaded.  Not knowing how to truly reach and sustain its audience’s interest, the hypesters just throw it all against the wall at once.  And if there are no legs, they just shrug.  It wasn’t their fault.  But it was!

It was hard to get a story in the pre-Internet era.  Now, you can always find a blogger to flog your project.  Worse, no story is local.  The "New York Times", "Wall Street Journal", "Time" and "Newsweek", never mind the YouTube clips of TV shows, all exist next to each other online, side by side.  What you end up with is a deluge.  And you know what happens when you’ve got a deluge?  People drown!

That’s what it feels like when you’re subjected to the endless repetitious hype.  You use every effort to swim to shore and connect with what you know and truly trust, which is not the flavor of the moment.