“Same Old Song: Private Equity Is Destroying Our Music Ecosystem”:

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How could the “New York Times” print such horsesh*t?

This is my favorite e-mail of the week:

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Subject: Fees

I read the post you found about concert fees a while back. I was surprised and enlightened. So I scaled back my hate and disgust and decided to be a good citizen and accept the realities of the modern concert world.

However….

I went to buy a ticket to see Jon Anderson with the Band Geeks ( I was a big Yes fan, and surprisingly the videos look decent). I found a $35 balcony ticket at the Paramount in Denver. Good venue, not a bad seat.

Well, when I went to check out, they added $22 to my $35 ticket. Yes, that’s 63% of the ticket price for fees.

Hate and disgust has returned. And, I will live with memories of Jon and Yes. They can have 100% of my zero dollars.

Tom Newsom

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Sound reasonable, right?

OF COUSE NOT, IT’S INSANE!

Do you really expect that you can go to see Jon Anderson in concert for a flat $35? Been to Five Guys recently? It’s going to cost you nearly twenty five bucks for a cheeseburger, fries and a shake. If you eat really slowly, maybe it’ll take you a half hour to consume all that. But you should be able to see Jon Anderson, with a backing group and sound and lights for ninety minutes and it should only cost you ten dollars more?

I mean I wrote about all this, and this person, who is not the only one who e-mails me this nonsense, can’t get it through their head that without the fees, there is no show! That most of, if not all of the face price goes to the act, but the act does play in a building, there is a ticketing service and if the promoter makes no money Jon Anderson can’t play anywhere! Sure, the ticket price should be all-in, one final price, and Live Nation has said it is in favor of this. Who’s against it? The acts! They want you to think that tickets are cheap and if it weren’t for Ticketmaster you’d be paying a lot less.

Hogwash. The acts are guilty, once again.

And if I hear from one more manager complaining this isn’t true…

Sure, when you come up you have little leverage, but as you ascend the ladder and can draw more people the power shifts. And don’t forget, sans acts, the promoter has no business at all.

But as much as I hammer this, people refuse to believe it.

So this nitwit, who the “New York Times” didn’t properly vet, asserts that the problem with music today is private equity.

Let’s be clear, it’s not the major labels who are selling to private equity, but individual rights holders! They may be famous, but they own those rights. To songs, to royalty streams… If you think this affects the new production of music, you have no idea how many songs are added to Spotify EVERY DAY!

Now it could be that the old music is better than the new music. Or that in today’s cluttered, overwhelming society, it’s hard to break a hit. And that’s worth investigating. But NO! This outsider prick, just like the hoi polloi complaining about ticket prices, believes the system is rigged. Someone must be at fault, there must be an enemy responsible.

Like Biden and inflation. It’s all his fault, don’t you know! And gas prices too!

Talk about personal responsibility, isn’t there a responsibility to divine the truth?

And if the “Times” can’t get it right about music, it brings into question whether it can get it right about the more important topics, like the election, the wars in Ukraine and Gaza… Sure, this article is an opinion piece, but you don’t get into the “Times” by accident, it must have resonated with someone with power at the paper.

And then you’ve got the closing canard about musicians not getting paid enough in the streaming era, two grandstanding politicians introducing a bill to raise remuneration.

That’s right… Mercedes-Benzes are too expensive, let’s let everyone buy one for twenty grand. I’m here, I drive, I’m entitled.

I mean you wake up one day and you call yourself an artist and you’re entitled to make a living? THAT DOESN’T WORK IN ANY VERTICAL! You can go to three years of law school, owe hundreds of thousands of dollars and not be able to get a job. But some wanker who watches stars on TV thinks they’re entitled to a living playing music.

Not to mention if you are any good, there are so many more ways to monetize than in the pre-internet era. And you can make your record cheaply with a computer and reach your fans for free online, even distribute on streaming services for a de minimis cost, but Spotify is the enemy? How about the public, that hasn’t embraced your song!

As for other media… Some of the biggest streaming shows are not new, but catalog. Let’s blame Netflix for that! But in truth, Netflix is making a ton of new programming. But someone has to be at fault.

Well, the old stuff got great distribution in an old world and it’s hard to break new stuff, but not impossible. Look at “Squid Game.” Ever seen anything like it? When’s the last time you heard a new song that was equally different and worth your attention?

But some wannabe Drake or Taylor Swift deserves attention and a living? I mean come on.

As for private equity and songs… So this guy doesn’t want a free market economy. He wants to tell all those writers/performers who slaved for decades that they are not entitled to the fruits of their labor.

I sold you my car, I see you put stickers on the back, you’re ruining the highway driving experience. You sold it, you’ve got no rights! Or, you could make this a condition of the sale. But if someone pays, in many cases overpays, for your vehicle do you think you’re entitled to have control over it?

So Primary Wave is doing an excellent job of maximizing their investment. This is anathema? Talk about backwards thinking. Someone does a good job promoting music and they’re the enemy? One might ask what Primary Wave is doing that its competitors are not. And Primary Wave paid for those songs, it’s not entitled to a return on its investment?

And Spotify, the so-called enemy… It gives the lion’s share of its revenue to rights holders, the business doesn’t scale, i.e. the larger it grows the more royalties it must pay, it struggles to make a profit yet the fact that some new musicians are struggling means they must pay them? From what pile of money? And the aforementioned Drake and Swift, uber-popular, must donate some of their earnings to self-declared wannabe artists? Why? You don’t see the tech billionaires doing this. They may choose to give away some money, but they’re under no obligation.

So what we’ve got here is an article that speaks to one’s emotions, facts be damned.

Isn’t this what this same newspaper says about Trump supporters? But why should we listen to the “Times” about Trump when it gets it so wrong about music, a minor cog in the system.

Yes, the “Times” sacrifices credibility when it prints dreck like this.

Meanwhile, everybody actually in the music business knows this is crap, part of the endless spew by the public, the press and the politicians that can’t be combatted, no matter how many times they’re confronted with the truth.

So the music business gives up explaining itself not only to the public, but to the media.

The “Times” wouldn’t print an article about the negative effects of robotic surgery, the business losers… And when it’s an important subject, they have fact-checkers and there are levels of review, close scrutiny, but that damn music business… It’s an easy target and the readers will love it!

Speaking of readers, now Tom Newsom is going to come to my house and beat me up. I shouldn’t shed any light on the truth, for my own safety if nothing else. Like all the sheep supporting Trump no matter what in Congress. They’re afraid of losing their job, even their life.

So everybody goes with the flow, let’s inaccuracies slip by, because the team is everything, irrelevant of whether it’s right or wrong.

Yup, truth and justice, it’s the American Way.

Maybe in Scandinavia, but not here in the good old U.S.

(Yup, I’m a commie socialist. But I’ve been to Scandinavia… In Denmark college is free, contrast that with John Oliver’s exposé on student debt last night. Oh, that’s right, I don’t want to pay for your mistakes. But it’s more complicated than that, but you don’t want to listen, because it must be their fault and people have got to clean up their own messes. But don’t we live in a society? I mean everybody should be entitled to food and shelter, never mind an education. But to make a living as a musician? NO!)