Who the fuck cares?

This is like reporting some kid learned how to add in Afghanistan today.  Sure, a positive note in a sea of bad news, but isn’t that just the point, the plethora of bad news?

Did I miss a memo here?  Can Susan Boyle write great material?  And believe me, that’s the key.  Plenty of people with shitty voices can top the hit parade.  No, she covers the Stones classic "Wild Horses" and the Monkees classic "Daydream Believer". This album has the nutritional value of Froot Loops, and the lasting value of a Christmas album.  But at least Christmas comes once a year!  Performers don’t get another bite at the apple, their fifteen minutes of fame are up…and they’re truly up!

The press and industry fawning over this is hilarious.

We’ve got Steve Barnett testifying about everything from CDs to adult buyers to…

It’s train-wreck value!  Yes, it’s a story.  Not fully mentally-equipped unattractive stout woman has a much better than average voice and via TV drama, becomes a YouTube/worldwide sensation.

So, what do we do now?  Record amputees?  Those who’ve lost their larynxes and sing via voice boxes?  Even "Queen For A Day" ran its course on TV.  I don’t see this paradigm having any legs.

Because it’s always the same.  It starts with the material.

Sure, your looks, your image is important.

But if you get someone to buy something once, they’ll only buy again if they played the first album, if they think you’re good enough to see live.

How many people bought this album to prank their friends?

Hell, I didn’t se that statistic anywhere.  Wouldn’t you love to put this on at a holiday party and catch your buddies’ hipster reactions?  That’d be worth fifteen bucks.

As for the CD to digital ratio…  So now we’re gonna use Susan Boyle to illustrate that the physical format is not dead, that digital’s a joke?  While you’re at it, why don’t you deep six your cell phone and go back to a landline.  Better yet, trash your Mac and go back to a typewriter.

Is this good for the business?

Didn’t cause anything else to sell in quantity.  Not like when the Beatles broke and we got not only the Dave Clark Five, but Gerry & the Pacemakers, Herman’s Hermits, the Kinks and…

This is like the hula-hoop.  Fun for fifteen minutes and then forgotten.

Celine Dion may be an idiot, but at least she can sing.  And even she can’t sell a record anymore.

So, TV still sells shit.  What a concept!  Like we didn’t know this?  That you can still break acts on television?  But why not talk to A Flock of Seagulls or Haircut 100 or that "Rico Suave" guy and ask how long it lasts.  Yup, TV stars are like rockets.  They blast into the stratosphere, everybody’s attention is caught for fifteen minutes, and then they burn up or fall back to earth and everybody scatters.

The SuBo story is akin to the White House party crashers.  Interesting, but insignificant.

When is this business going to stop focusing on the irrelevant and deal with reality?

But reality is so ugly.  And we can slop our bullshit on ignorant writers who will believe what we’re telling them is truly a story.

Like anybody reads the newspaper for music business news.  At best, newspapers are good for war stories, truly broad-based citizen eruptions.  But the mainstream is clueless when it comes to culture, when it comes to expertise on niche.  But online, you can get in-depth analysis of tiddly-winks.  Because those with knowledge and passion are reporting for free!

Do I have a problem with Susan Boyle selling 700,000 albums last week?

Not whatsoever.

Can we analyze why she sold that quantity and Adam Lambert moved merely 200,000?  Sure.  Because Adam hasn’t got as good a backstory and he doesn’t have a ubiquitous hit, whereas Susan Boyle’s album IS NOT EVEN ABOUT THE MUSIC!

Furthermore, do we really want to get that excited about selling fewer than a million albums in a country of three hundred million?

Most people don’t care.

The question is how do we get most people to care.

Or how we get most people interested in music, so that when we add up all the niches we end up with a stratospheric number.

That comes down to quality and credibility.  Which Susan Boyle will NEVER possess.

NEXT!