Were terrible.

“Grammys Viewership Edges Out Last Year’s Record Low With Minor Gain”: https://bit.ly/3r3zw3V

And that’s putting a positive spin on it.

The story of the last two plus decades in the record business has been disruption. But the Grammy organization keeps on doing the same damn thing and expecting different results. A woman was brought in to run the place and the criticism was she wanted change too fast…if that doesn’t sound like a bunch of old men afraid of their cheese being moved I don’t know what does.

The record labels tried to hold back the future with lawsuits, while they extolled the quality of CDs. Then they said track sales were the future, halting the slide in revenue as a result of Steve Jobs’s proactive measure. And then Daniel Ek came along and saved the industry. Apple was famously against streaming and bought Beats to try and solve their problem, even though Beats Music was not of competitive quality and the software had to be rewritten and the execs had to be furloughed.

And at this late date there are people who want to resist all of the above. They want streaming halted when it saved the business! Someone always loses and someone always wins when change happens. The key is to get on board, to get ahead of change and ride the wave. Yelling at people to bring back the past never works.

So CBS thought it was inviolate. As did all the established Hollywood companies. Even the public resisted Netflix streaming. But Reed Hastings saw the future and executed and not only did the public play into his hand, but so did Hollywood. The studios didn’t wake up for years! They loved the license fees Netflix paid. And now they’ve all started streaming services, but Netflix has first mover advantage and is now the undisputed champion. Sure, the studios have their libraries, and that’s important, but Netflix has poured billions of dollars into new production, which drives the television industry as well as the music industry. Just like the rearguard labels wield their catalogs to make profitable deals with anybody in the tech space. If anything, these old companies want to hold back the future, but it comes anyway.

But there are legacy deals, like the one CBS has with the Grammys. And so inured to the CBS cash the Grammys are not preparing for the future whatsoever. Who is going to rescue the Grammys? Certainly not Harvey Mason Jr., who’s part of the club. Only outsiders can clean house and jet the organization into the future, but outsiders are not allowed to play in the entertainment industry, the established players do their best to keep them out. It’s a club and you’re not in it. And who would want to work with these wankers anyway, especially after the Deborah Dugan debacle.

Awards shows are dead. Come up with something different. I could give and have given multiple ideas, but the Grammy organization doesn’t listen.

As for the under 10 million people who saw this show…

We live in a country of 340 million. Less than 5% tuned into this show. Think about it, if you were a concert promoter and the act was booked in a stadium and they sold the number of tickets they would have in a theatre, would you book them again? As for the act, no one likes to play to empty seats. They lie and pull down the show and try to reinvent themselves, come up with something better. What does the Grammys come up with? More nominees! In some of these categories you can win the trophy with far less than half the vote, a quarter of the vote, are these the real winners anyway?

Which brings us to the bullseye. Most people don’t want the acts the Grammys, the recording industry, are purveying. Hell, Spotify told you, the rate of catalog streams is going up and up, which means the old music is more palatable than the new. Music used to drive the culture, now it’s a sideshow most people shrug their shoulders at and don’t bother to participate in. The business is moribund, being driven right off the cliff. Radio was disrupted by on demand online. And now even streaming services are being disrupted by TikTok. Notice nobody in the music industry came up with TikTok. Someone could have bought musical.ly, but it took the Chinese to purchase it and blow it up. The music industry has historically been anti use by the public. But the world has changed, remix culture is here.

And then there’s the dreaded variety show format with commercials. This is kind of like when they blast heavy metal as punishment in prisons. To watch the show is torture. Turns out almost nobody wants to.

So the recording industry pats its back and evidences that it’s completely out of touch. Last night’s Grammys were a disaster. The ship is heading right for the iceberg and they keep on partying. Believe me, if someone owned the Grammys heads would roll, but everybody’s sucking at the tit of the nonprofit organization and they want no change.

Historically it’s been a new musical sound that’s disrupted the old one. But that hasn’t happened in two decades. Maybe the labels have to be more proactive, more creative. Turns out most people don’t want what they’re selling. There’s a much bigger business trapped inside but no one sitting at the controls has any idea how to tap it. Music is a street business. And it’s all about the money. Which means the only smart people involved are hustlers, and outsiders are denigrated. That’s the criticism of Daniel Ek, he doesn’t play an instrument, he’s never made a record, he doesn’t understand…but that’s why he does understand! He started with a fresh slate, wiped off the detritus and built Spotify from the ground up. I’d tell you how hard it was but you won’t believe it, the same way you won’t believe vaccines work for Covid.

So what is gonna happen here?

NOTHING!

Clayton Christensen said the innovation starts cheap and imperfect but then gets better and trumps the established players. So his advice is to disrupt yourself. That that’s your only hope, otherwise someone will disrupt you. The VMAs disrupted the Grammys because MTV knew it was irrelevant who won, they were creating a show to be watched, and there was a spirit of irreverence as opposed to gravitas. Someone needs to throw the proverbial bomb into the Grammy building, metaphorical, of course. But in truth outsiders will create their own game with its own mores and triumph. It’ll look like it happened overnight, but one thing is for sure is it will happen, it’s just a matter of when. The Grammys need to disrupt themselves, they need new blood, and by that I don’t mean musicians with credits, but people familiar with how to change organizations. Nothing is forever, you either change or die.

The Grammys are on their way to death.