13,197. In a country of 300 million.

That’s piss-poor. That shows you just can’t jam product down people’s throats anymore. The old game is dead. Good riddance.

But you say those sales still qualified Jeff’s album for #25 on the chart, which ain’t bad.

I’ll say, which way do you want to have it. Albums are dead, people would rather buy the single or stealing triumphs.

Or maybe people streamed the tracks on YouTube or Spotify and decided to pass.

That’s another thing that’s died. Buying on the come. The entertainment business is a carnival barker, enticing you to pay first before you see the man behind the curtain, who’s too often a disappointment. Now it’s try before you buy. People take the music out for a test spin, and unless it’s really damn good, they pass.

And if people aren’t buying albums, maybe we’re just not giving them what they want. Adele’s "21" is #2 on the chart after 25 weeks, she sold 80,018 copies in the last seven days for a cume of 3,061,539. That’s a good number in any era, and she’s still on the first single.

But for the sake of argument, let’s just say album sales have tanked. This just means you must take a more holistic approach to your career. You’ve got to make money in more arenas. You’ve got to have a career.

A career is developed over time, you create a bond with the artist, you want to see where he goes.

I’m interested in seeing what choices Jeff Bridges makes in films, but I could care less what he does in music. He’s never hooked me. The hype slid right off my back.

And we no longer know what the hook is. Oftentimes it’s a track, sometimes not even played on the radio. Sometimes it’s a gig, at a festival. Could be a video. Which is why you’ve got to be in the game to get lucky. You just can’t swoop down and steal all the eggs.

This change haunts the major labels. They can run a single up the chart but people still don’t want to see the act live, and that’s where the money is, sales are anemic.

And the Jonas Brothers and Miley Cyrus and Justin Bieber are fads. Only cool if you watch your budget and get out early, having made your money before investing too much in a nonexistent future.

It’s hard.

And music’s been easy for far too long. It’s been about people with relationships exploiting same. The head of the label hooks you up with songwriters and producers and gets your track on the radio and your album in the store, no one can compete. But now everybody can compete. And the public has choices.

Let me put this in perspective. 13,197 albums sold is not even $130,000 net to the label. They’re deep in the red. Better to spend little in the advent and chase success than blow your wad and be instantly forgotten, like most of the movies that opened last week.

Music is not the movies. Music is about repeatability. The focus is on the artist. If you concentrate on a weekend instead of a decade, you’re screwed.

The Jeff Bridges hype is over. There’s one last television hurrah, on "Austin City Limits", a stab at authenticity and credibility for an audience which wants its artists to prove it to them, who reject interlopers like Bridges.

And then it’s completely over.

No one wants to see him, no one wants to listen to his music. Kaput.

There was not a media outlet that did not cover this release. From "USA Today" to the "New York Times". TV.

But no one cared.

Let this be a lesson to you.

The Internet has leveled the playing field, there is justice in the world.