I don’t have the time.

And neither do you.

That’s what your unwanted e-mails are, solicitations.

According to the Oxford Dictionary:

"solicit: ask for or try to obtain (something) from someone"

Yes, you want something from me.  Believe me, you wouldn’t be e-mailing me if I didn’t have an audience.  You want me to write about your project/service/artist so that you can be more successful.  What’s in it for me?  Good question!

I’m willing to admit your product could be fantastic.  But I just don’t have enough time to filter through the junk.  And I have great suspicion for someone who’s promoting with self-interest.  That’s why I beat up Ian Rogers’ tweets today.  I love Ian on a one-to-one basis, that’s one of the reasons I follow him on Twitter.  But he’s trying to build a business, and he’s employing Twitter to do this.  To the point where he’s lost all credibility when it comes to music.  Because he won’t say something’s bad.  Won’t delineate when a project is a Topspin one or not.

In other words, if you’re selling, I’m not buying.

That’s the consumer revolt against advertising.

If I want a new car, a new pair of skis, a new computer, I’ll pore over websites for hours.  I want this information.  I can consume it at my leisure, without being bombarded.  If you ask me for my e-mail address, I won’t give it or will give you a false one. Because I don’t want more input.  I’ve got too much already!

I just opened my cable bill.  $187.  And I turn on my TV a few times a month!  It’s there for when I hear about something, I’m then able to check it out/record it.  As for mindlessly surfing from channel to channel…why would I do this?  There’s enough on demand to satiate two lifetimes.  I don’t want to waste time separating the wheat from the chaff.  I want someone else to do that for me.

Those movie preview issues in "Entertainment Weekly", even the "New York Times"?  I don’t read them.  I wait to hear from trusted sources whether the film is good or not.  Why waste time with hype?

I look at what records are being reviewed in mainstream publications, but only to see who broke through the filter, who got ink, because when it comes to music, there’s not a single newspaper I trust.

But I trust Mike Marrone.

He e-mailed me about a Too Much Joy track.  I checked it out on Rhapsody.

I’ve got Rhapsody, Napster and Spotify along with the free services at Lala, MySpace, YouTube, artists’ websites and RapidShare.  I’m not lacking for music, I’m more interested in knowing what to play!

This is so different from the days of yore.  When I had limited cash and played the albums I bought to death.  I had to, there were no other sources of music, other than radio, which although good, I didn’t control.  Now, I hear about great tracks from a million artists.  Who’s got time to listen to a seventy minute CD?  It’s going to have to be really fucking good.  Every single track has to rivet me in order for me to keep listening.  You’ve got to bat 1000, or I’ve moved on.

And so has everybody else.  That’s the iTunes cherry-picking mentality.

You may not like it, but it’s real.

I’ve got trusted sources.  I depend on those.  TV advertising escapes me, I wait for multiple friends to say something is great before I check it out.  Like "Modern Family".  People with no vested interest e-mailed me saying it was great.  Still, I’ve only watched a few minutes.

How do you penetrate the force field?

By creating something great.  Not good, great.  We no longer have time for good.

And then you seed it with your trusted sources.  Your friends, your relatives.  And, if it’s truly great, they’ll turn on someone not related to you, with no vested interest, who might ultimately even reach me.

In other words, if you’re selling it, I’m not interested.

They say GM cars are great, just look at the advertising!

But "Consumer Reports" says they suck.  There was a report just yesterday that they’ve got shitty resale value.  I’m not interested in the sheen, but the substance.

CR is my go-to guide for automobile reliability.  I may not trust them with car greatness, but they’ll tell me if cars last.

Greatness?  I’ll go with "Automobile".

So, to reach me, you’ve got to start off by earning my trust.

Maybe I don’t know you, but I know your lawyer and like him.

Maybe we shared a car ride once and I liked the music you played on your iPod.

But just because you’ve e-mailed me twenty times with good information on tech doesn’t mean I trust your music recommendations.

We’re looking for filters.  In a world of 500 TV channels and endless websites we want trusted sources to tell us what’s good, to make sense of things.  And that’s who is going to make all the money in the future.

That’s the Google secret.  Prior to Google, you rarely got what you were looking for via a search engine.  You had to tweak the search terms, use quotation marks.  I thought Google was a joke, a search engine for newbies until I just heard too much about it and tried it. Now I’m sold.  I don’t need Bing.  And that’s Microsoft’s problem.  A new search engine would have to be a quantum leap beyond Google to interest me.  I’ve got my search problem solved.

I don’t have a definitive new music filter.  Satellite radio used to be it, but then they switched sides, to the purveyors, to the advertisers, to the consultants, anywhere but the listener.

The blogs have too much self-interest.  They love everything in a genre or are about hating everything that’s not in that genre.  I can like alt.country and a great pop song.  But where’s the blog that tells me honestly about both?

And it’s about taste.  Which is different from raw data.

So, you’re frustrated, you can’t break through.

I hate to burst your bubble, but all those people you hate, at the top of the pyramid, they didn’t get there easily.  They got a million doors shut in their face.  They wasted a ton of time.  But were tenacious and made it.  And since they might have never ever gotten a great unsolicited recording, they’re playing the odds, they’re waiting to hear about you from someone they trust.

Use the intermediaries.  Know it’s about credibility.  And decide whether you want to play in the old world or the new.  Who gives a shit if Jimmy Iovine pays attention if you don’t want to be on a major label?  Who gives a shit if I miss how great you are if you build your own audience?

Face up to reality.  Don’t be sour grapes.