“Take Me Out” by Atomic Tom LIVE on NYC subway
Who cares?
You know how you know something’s fake? When you get e-mailed about it ad infinitum from the moment of its genesis.
They used to call it viral video. Did you ever get a virus and get deathly ill in a DAY? OF COURSE NOT! Viruses sneak up on you, you’re infected and don’t know it, you start to feel worse, then suddenly, it’s clear, you’re fucked up. Same deal with viral video. It takes a while to develop. If something explodes in a day, it’s fake, it’s being worked, it’s a publicity stunt. Or it’s news. Or it’s completely irrelevant.
Why does everybody still think old school works? That getting everybody to notice you once means you will last forever?
How about those bozos who stopped the freeway. They think Top Forty rules. Yes, if your desire is to be known by the most people instantly, sign with a major label, work with Dr. Luke, be like everybody else and get on the radio so people who don’t really care about music can know about you and the rest of us can read about you tangentially and never hear your music and instantly forget about you.
It’s the sixties all over again. Top Forty radio is vapid, with the lasting effect of a lollipop, and real music takes forever to get traction, but lasts when it does. Taio Cruz… That’s a catchy single. Do you really expect Taio to have a career, to matter five years from now, five MINUTES?
When you shove something down our throat, you only incite our gag reflex. But since you suck so bad no one cares or you’re giving it one last shot before you go to college, you do it old school, the twentieth century way, when the last I checked, we’re living in the twenty first century.
Do you know that band on the freeway’s music? God, I already forgot their name. Them stopping and playing on the 101 is just like you e-mailing me an MP3. YOU PISS ME OFF! I’ve got to wait all that time to download it before I delete it. How dare you take up space in my inbox! I’m going to work, and traffic is horrendous, and I’ve got to be exposed to your stupid stunt?
Have you read the research? Most YouTube videos have a lifespan of a day. So, if you’re planning to have a career on Tuesday and then give up and be an EMT on Wednesday, go for it, pull a stunt. Otherwise, you have to do it the hard way, you’ve got to make great music.
You can’t listen to a song at double speed. You can’t fast-forward and get it. That’s the magic of music. In a new world, it’s positively old school. It takes time and dedication in a world where both are at a premium. You’ve got to make it worthwhile for us to spend three and a half minutes with your track. That may not sound like a lot of time, but if people can’t resist texting while they’re driving to the grocery store, even though it’s illegal, do you think you can force them to sit through your whole damn song?
I didn’t sit through the whole damn clip linked above. Because the song didn’t hook me. What’s worse, it looked exactly like what it was, Brooklyn hipsters trying to goose their career, accelerate themselves into the mainstream. But I thought the point of being from Brooklyn was to be outside the game, to be hip and ahead of the game, to wait until the public catches up with you!
That’s how it works with all the greats. Bob Dylan wasn’t successful with his first album and Capitol wouldn’t even put out the initial Beatles LP in America. It takes time to find your niche and time for people to find you. And even though in the modern world you can theoretically reach people instantly, it takes longer and longer to reach everybody, because everybody’s got a shit detector, and they don’t want to waste their time, and they’re waiting until their trusted filters all say you’re good.
None of my trusted filters e-mailed me about this band. The fact that inane Websites that have to fill up their pages with something wrote about it is irrelevant. It’s like a turntable hit, no one cares.
Maybe if they played a hit song on their iPhones, or used the devices’ tracking abilities to find their supposedly stolen stuff, I’d care. But now I’m just glad their stuff was pilfered, so I don’t have to listen to these third-rate bards play music, so they can go back to school and be professionals and contribute to society.
Oh, don’t get your knickers in a twist, I don’t really feel that way, but I am angry that my inbox was filled up all day yesterday and today with people associated with this truly mediocre product telling me it was an amazing story, that it’s now got 200,000 views. It’s not the number of views, it’s the number of fans! It’s the number of people who will take the time out to listen to all your material, go to the show and tell their friends about it. Stunts are just that. And they mean ever less in this era where everybody’s looking for an edge and nobody’s got the time to waste.
