There’s no money in the damn record anyway. So why was Van Halen’s "Tattoo" pulled from Spotify in the U.S. (and not in the U.K?)

I’m sick and tired of these acts putting money first. Refusing to be on the bleeding edge but insisting on pulling up the rear, screaming, kicking and crying all the way that they just can’t make the kind of money they used to. Meanwhile, they kick us in the balls by charging in excess of a hundred dollars for a concert ticket, have you seen the Van Halen ticket prices? $162 bucks a ticket? Hell, you already did the reunion show, isn’t this one supposed to be for the fans?

Everyone complains they can’t get rich. Black Keys are not on Spotify, nor is Adele. Because they need to get all that cash. If these acts were in a burning building they wouldn’t turn around and save their coworkers, they’d rush out, putting chairs under doors so no one could impede their descent.

Just because you’re old doesn’t mean you’ve got to be antiquated, doesn’t mean you can’t enter the future. You make these damn records on computer, maybe we should make you go back to a studio with tape and an analog board and have you spend hundreds of thousands of dollars. NO RECORDING AT HOME KIDS!

And magnetic tape is in short supply because the future arrived. But not in business. Buy that damn disc. Oh, now they want you to buy the MP3, even though they kicked and screamed about downloads for almost a decade.

And now everybody’s against streaming services. Which pay seventy percent of their revenues plus to rights holders anyway. And it’s the future, just like you can now find Led Zeppelin and the Beatles on iTunes, it won’t be long before everybody’s on Spotify.

And stop complaining about money. Shit, without your fans you’re NOTHING! And if you think these fans aren’t stealing and streaming on YouTube where you don’t get paid at all…

You’re so damn stupid. Finally, someone gets ahead of the public, which we’ve been waiting for for a decade, and you want to pull them back into the past. If your bank was robbed in the old west you’d have gotten a giant megaphone and yelled for them to bring the cash back, instead of doing what they do in every western, form a posse AND CUT THEM OFF AT THE PASS!

That’s what Spotify does.

And it’s not only Spotify, that’s the winning service so far, but pick MOG or Rdio or Rhapsody, I don’t care. They’re the future.

As for ownership… You might be able to play your vinyl records today, but if you think you’ll be able to play MP3s even a decade from now, you haven’t tried to open up a Windows 3.0 file in XP, never mind Vista or Windows 7. Instant obsolescence baby, which is why it’s all about access instead of ownership.

What kind of messed up, screwed up country do we live in where the acts, who are supposed to lead, are far behind? That’s what blew up music decades ago, the acts led. Now everybody’s whored out to the corporation and bitching and moaning that they just can’t get paid, that they just can’t get rich.

The longer you insist on people buying tracks, the longer you leave even more money on the table. Recordings have lost half of their income, the way out is to get everybody to subscribe to a streaming service, which they will do, just like they bought mobile phones, because they’re so damn great. Push people into the future, where they pay, don’t try to pull them back into the past.

If kids were running the music business it would look completely different.

But the oldsters on their iPads and iPhones are writing checks and are afraid of the Internet.

Utterly ridiculous.

P.S. If everything’s on Spotify that’s where everybody goes! It makes finding and listening to music that much easier, and isn’t that what it’s all about, connecting with the fan? But no, you’d rather hide behind samples on iTunes, not knowing that people can listen for free on YouTube AND MOST PEOPLE JUST DON’T CARE! Most people have got no idea your record came out, but if everybody’s got a streaming service, they’re tuned in, they keep checking for new stuff, IT’S GOOD FOR ALL OF US!