Life Is Hard
That’s the name of the second cut on the new Bob Dylan album. I just listened to it. I downloaded the package after finding a link on a music blog.
I won’t say I was horrified, but I no longer had an urge to listen to the rest of the album.
When I was growing up, you saved your money for music. If you were a fan, you spent ALL your money on music. And you could afford very little. I’d go to Korvette’s in Trumbull, CT and visit the albums I planned to buy. Sometimes I never purchased them, new releases bumped old records from the queue.
But those records I did buy? I played the shit out of them. To the point where I know not only the music, but the skips and scratches. I expect to hear that skip in Jackson Browne’s "Rock Me On The Water" every time the track comes over the radio, or comes up in my iTunes library. You might have told me to replace my vinyl record, I’d have told you I COULDN’T AFFORD TO!
Not that I didn’t treat my vinyl well… But sometimes the records came defective. Shit, a couple of stores told me not to buy there anymore, after returning so much crap product. And I was known, because I bought so many records, unlike the casual listener who only bought an album a year.
But now it’s completely different, I can listen to every cut ever released, for free. On Spotify. In the U.S., we’ve also got Napster and Rhapsody, and a ton of streaming online. So the urge to HEAR something, it can be satisfied so easily.
Don’t you remember going to a friend’s house and seeing an album you never heard and having your eyes light up? Sliding it from the stack and insisting it be played immediately? That doesn’t happen anymore, there’s no urgency, you can hear everything, right away. Oftentimes before the rights holders even want you to.
Speaking of the rights holders, they want to jet us back to the old days. When we had a limited amount of money and could afford very little music. For the life of me, I don’t know how they’re going to achieve this. All their strategies haven’t worked so far. Are you going to shoot downloaders and make albums a $1000 apiece? Will they blow up hard drives if they’re copied?
No, we must face the new reality.
And new isn’t so special anymore. Good is special. Great is truly amazing, incredible, what we’re looking for. We don’t want to waste time with anything that doesn’t grab us. Don’t lament those who don’t want to give albums a chance, playing them nine or ten times, just ask yourself if you want to be forced to watch only what’s on CBS, NBC and ABC, enduring the commercials to boot. It’s incredibly painful, you’d scream to be released.
This is the mentality of the consumer today. He doesn’t care about your marketing plan, how the act looks, just whether the music impacts him, almost immediately. DON’T ARGUE WITH THIS!
If only Springsteen had put a track as good as "Born To Run" on his new LP.
If only U2 had included "I Will Follow" on their latest opus.
THEN, people would pay attention. Those tracks grabbed you immediately. You wanted to hear more. You bought the album. You played it BECAUSE YOU PAID FOR IT! Ergo, the album renaissance. A whole eco-system developed based on the album. That’s been obliterated.
You’ve got to make me want to check you out. That’s an incredibly hard thing to accomplish. You can’t bang me over the head, you can’t even tell me about your chart position. Did you see that great photo online today, about the Rick Ross signing
That’s a Top Ten album, and seemingly NO ONE CARES!
When I do check you out, you’ve got to grab me immediately. And keep me satiated to the point where I join your fan club, not literally, but to the point where I’m INTERESTED IN EVERYTHING YOU DO!
Crossing this threshold is almost impossible. This is what is flummoxing the major labels. People want the single and nothing more, they don’t believe anything more IS WORTH ANYTHING!
You’ve got to find people who want more. And the focus is on the wanting, not the people. Don’t cut shallow, a ton of people who want a little, but a few people who want A LOT! Who are WILLING to give your music a chance.
This is reality. Argue all you want, protest, but a musical act is more like Procter & Gamble than the Beatles these days. You’ve got to give it your best shot from the very beginning.
