Thomas told me you were thinking of coming down to the Sgt Pepper playback next week. I’m delighted. I read your post and love your passion.
I hope you realise the remix project came from Apple Corps, not Universal. I was initially against the idea, let’s face it, no one has ever mentioned that Sgt Pepper sounded bad. The difference with the way the Beatles work is that we’re very much behind closed doors. I book the time at Abbey Road, often under a different band name. It’s just myself and Sam Okell (engineer). We use a combination of old and new to mix and it’s only when we feel like we are doing something good that we play it for Paul and Ringo. It’s their call, it’s their music after all.
With the remix we realised that we were on to something good. Something that was missed in the original stereo, as Paul and Ringo told us and my dad had mentioned in the past, something that the mono had that had been taken away by the quick stereo mix that everyone knows.
But in essence this new mix isn’t for y4ou, or for me. It isn’t so the socks and sandals brigade can discuss the fade on Good Morning. It’s about kids putting on one of the greatest records of all time and realising the music is timeless, just there to be enjoyed. Sadly no kids are going to seek out the mono, the record the band mixed. So we made a stereo mix using the same care, attention and process that the band did 50 years ago.
Cynical marketing? I completely understand your point, but from those of us involved in the project all we are trying to do is celebrate the music.
I hope all is well with you and I hope to see you Tuesday.
Yes, you can get SMS, i.e. text messages, on your Mac (and iPad!) via your iPhone.
I heard from many people, and I applaud your diligence and your experience, it takes a village to use a device these days, especially since there’s essentially no tech help (unless you pay for AppleCare, which I do have on my two computers, but I find researching online usually gets me the answer faster, and the low-level people you first get connected to are for bozos, their questions are along the line of “Is it plugged in?,” but I must say, when you get kicked upstairs, the techs are incredible and on the case, they’ll work on the problem, they’ll call you back, and that’s what you’ve got Applecare for, other than the physical breakdown, for the answers to the unanswerable, to you anyway, although oftentimes when you’re flummoxed you find out it’s a glitch.)
ANYWAY, you can get both iMessages and SMS on your computer.
Many people don’t know this (although all the people who e-mailed me do!)
And if you read the following tech note, easily digestible with color, from Apple, it will explain it all.
Scroll down to: “Set up SMS and MMS messaging” to enable the SMS forwarding feature.
In other words, I don’t want you to get overwhelmed by a whole page of information, not that it’s incomprehensible, but today with tech when it works it works and we oftentimes don’t like to mess with it.
But ANYWAY, based on my conversations out in the field, it appears that many people do not have the iMessage/text-forwarding feature enabled on their Macs, and once they do, they’ll enter a state of nirvana.
It’s a pain in the ass to type lengthy messages on a device.
But on a regular keyboard?
I’m always astounding people by sending lengthy replies to their iMessages, they’re wowed by how fast I can type, but what they don’t know is that I’m doing it on a full-sized keyboard connected to a computer, not on my iPhone!
Chris Zarou told me he was planning something special.
Taylor Swift is no longer number one. All that hype, that blast making us pay attention, has been eclipsed by a record that’s been in the marketplace since May, given a jolt of jet fuel at the VMAs.
You see we are in the second decade of the twenty first century. Virality on its own doesn’t happen, you need a push. Being great is not good enough, sad to say, there’s just too much clutter in the marketplace.
But you do need to be great.
Now Logic has paid his dues for years.
But nothing blew him up big before this.
That’s one thing you have to know, what you believe will be your one big break usually isn’t.
Only in this case it is.
Which is why it’s key to do multiple things, so you can get lucky.
Hell, the VMAs haven’t mattered since the 2000s went into double digits. A marketing exercise. And then this guy from Maryland cuts through the salesmanship with sincerity, and goes straight to the top of the chart.
And the only chart that matters is Spotify’s, BECAUSE IT’S INSTANT!
That’s where hits live or die. Sales are an interesting metric, but you never know if someone is truly listening. You could sell a bunch of product and find out no one wants to see you. But when people stream your song endlessly, you know there’s passion, there’s demand.
So the song is about suicide. But it’s not a cheap shot, like so much in this world, pulling on heartstrings for dough. “1-800-273-8255” is sincere.
And it’s slowly climbing the radio charts.
Illustrating how messed up radio is. Controlled and slow-moving. What kind of bizarre world do we live in where the most immediate medium is last? Wanna know what’s happening six months ago? Tune in terrestrial radio. The songs have already peaked amongst the cognoscenti, by time it’s on radio all you’ve got is the looky-loos, the casual observers, and that’s not where the money is. And terrestrial is so much about money that it’s lost touch with its customers. Imagine if the charts were fluid and immediate. If hits were gone within two months, six weeks, if they played what people were listening to, then it would still be doomed, but have a fighting chance.
But radio was eclipsed by MTV.
And now the public is in charge. Has been since 1999, and Napster.
And what have we learned?
The music industry always has to catch up with the public, otherwise it’s doomed. Like the movie industry bitching about RottenTomatoes. Let me see, get rid of that site and kids are not gonna text each other at the first screening, saying what’s a hit and a dud? We live in an era of data.
And that’s where Logic’s song is winning.
It’s not about the immediate splash, but continuity, staying power.
Which is why you don’t frontload, you wait for your moment.
As I said, this song came out in May. But it wasn’t a hit until the VMAs.
And that TV slot was not accidental. It was completely planned. That’s what a manager does, that’s the power of a label, you can’t underestimate either, we’ve been hearing for far too long that the majors are history, hogwash!
We live in an era of marketing, it’s the only way to cut through the clutter.
But we get jaded, we don’t want to see the same old movie, literally, with sequels and reboots, we want to see something new. And when we do, we embrace it and tell everybody about it.
This is important, this shows you how the world now works.
That the old farts are in the rearview mirror. Bitching about the tech breakthroughs and the new sound.
No, “1-800-273-8255” is fully listenable, almost subtle in an era where most believe you have to beat people over the head.
When you stand for something, when you have a universal message, oftentimes by making it so personal, you triumph.
No one made Logic do this.
And we’re totally ready for it.
The VMA performance that pushed the track over the top:
The track on Spotify with 1,452,609 daily plays and a cume of 197,336,911:
Oh, that’s right, they once did, they called it the iPOD SHUFFLE!
Price and convenience, those are the keys today, along with usability.
Next week Apple is going to announce new phones, they’re going to be close to a thousand bucks. That’s why I buy AppleCare, I don’t want to think about breaking my device, repairing the screen, I pay a hundred bucks for peace of mind. Because my iPhone 7 is the most important asset I own, the one I use most, and I don’t want to lay out a grand if I destroy it.
But $89?
That’s a good price point. Like carrying a Walkman instead of your stereo. Something portable that you don’t have to worry about.
This is why Apple Music is doomed to being a second-class citizen. Jimmy Iovine is so busy saving the music business that he hasn’t realized the business has been saved without him, because free Spotify streamers upgrade to premium users at a high rate.
And the Mighty only works with Premium.
You see you can incentivize people to upgrade. Just like Spotify is killing music on YouTube. It’s not CONVENIENT!
Furthermore, the Mighty illustrates an issue that many potential users can’t get through their head. You don’t need a signal to hear your music, you don’t have to incur data charges, if your device has juice, you’re good to go.
And the Mighty bridges the headphone gap for Luddites. In that it illustrates that if you want portability, you want your headphones to be Bluetooth. Because a wire is a pain in the ass. Kudos to Apple for getting rid of the headphone jack, the company doesn’t do everything wrong, but in this case the public needs to be educated, I know so many people who didn’t upgrade to a 7 because of the headphone issue, not knowing there’s a dongle, that you can use your wired headphones, not knowing they’re going to go Bluetooth, it’s just a matter of when.
And having said all this, YOU MUST BUY AN iPHONE!
Because that’s what everybody else has.
And I’m not talking about being a sheep here, I’m talking about features, first and foremost I’m talking about iMESSAGE!
It synchs with your computer, as do phone calls (assuming you’re on a Mac). So when I’m in front of my laptop or desktop, I get my texts. But not if someone’s on a Samsung or a competing device. I may not see your text for hours. Happened to me this week. Someone was offering me a gig, and I didn’t see it, not until I picked up my handset, hours later.
SMS/text uses the traditional cell network.
iMessage is sent via data. So, it works via the cell network, but also via wifi.
The music business runs on Apple. Samsung gave everybody free phones but most switched back. Because you don’t want to be out of the loop. It’s kind of like cars, the exterior may be shiny and cool, but it’s the inside that counts.
So a Mighty is a gift. An ultimately disposable item.
And it burnishes Spotify’s image.
And demonstrates that hardware is not completely dead.
