Playlists, the new mixtapes. Go ahead ladies! @maryjblige @kerrywashington @TherealTaraji http://t.co/cctGZAhwuP https://t.co/VTnkmeEr4E

— Apple Music (@AppleMusic) September 21, 2015

In one minute Apple did more for the cause of streaming than Spotify has provided in half a decade. This is the buzz we’re looking for, the antidote to the crybaby musicians who keep bitching they can’t get paid.

Know how you get paid? By convincing people to pay for something! And Spotify has done a bad job of this. I won’t say marketing is everything, but it helps, especially when the message is muddled.

Music is happiness. You want that, right?

And music is cool. And when it gets inside of you it makes you do all kinds of crazy stuff, like dance to Phil Collins and get up the courage to ask for a date and supersede your personal best in an athletic endeavor.

We want more of that, right?

Finally, someone is cutting through the b.s. and illustrating the advantages of streaming services as opposed to the disadvantages. In one fell swoop Apple has changed the dialogue.

There were music players before the iPod and there were streaming services before Apple Music. But they were all startups, with startup mentalities, coming from behind, converting users one by one. Whereas winners play for all the marbles.

If only Apple Music were free.

Well, it is for ninety days, but for most people that window is about to close.

Imagine if Apple Music continued with freemium. Oh, the musicians would complain but the public would be enticed to check it out. But just as some are closing the door on their trial subscriptions, others are coming in, and there will be no dialogue. It’s as if MTV subscriptions expired back in ’81.

Come on people…

Only one streaming service is gonna win. Just read Robert Reich in today’s “Times” if you doubt me, he seems to know more about the internet than those under twenty, never mind everybody working in the music business.

And Apple Music, unlike the iPod, is incredibly flawed. It’s confusing, it just doesn’t work. As for beta products that are improved, that’s Microsoft’s paradigm, not Apple’s. People expect Apple Music to work out of the box, but it doesn’t.

But streaming has already won and playlists are the new radio.

It’s what’s happening now.

And in one fell swoop Apple got the message out to the world. Kind of like Prince showed his skills at the Super Bowl. Apple rose to the occasion. We thought they’d lost their advertising cool with the death of Steve Jobs, but they’ve still got it. And now everybody’s talking about it. Started on Twitter and gravitated to the web and the story might not have legs, but it had an impact.

Then again, you can stream the clip for free online forevermore, whereas in music acts want to keep their wares behind bars.

I’m happy about all this, are you?

P.S. “Instant Boyfriend Mixtape Service”… Apple has a sense of humor, something sorely lacking in the music business today. What kind of bizarre world do we live in where a corporation is filling in for Frank Zappa?

Robert Reich – “Big Tech Has Become Way Too Powerful”