BuzzAngle MidYear Report

In other words, Spotify, et al, beat YouTube, et al. There were 114,226,566,336 audio streams and 95,172,077,123 video streams. Last year there were 54,961,808,648 audio streams and 77,297,473,064 video streams. Audio streams increased by 107.8% and video streams by 23.1%.

But the music industry is still fighting the last war. Focusing on YouTube and the supposed “value gap” when the truth is consumers have moved on to Spotify and Apple Music…because of convenience, because of the social element, that’s where their friends are, because of playlists, because video is a lousy way to listen to music.

I’m not saying that What-A-Mole should not be eliminated, that one takedown notice shouldn’t be enough. I’m just saying that after nearly two decades the music industry and its adherents have not figured out the future, they’re still stuck in the past, somewhere they want to return to which we’ll never inhabit again.

Music on YouTube was a way station. A gap-filler. Spotify wouldn’t launch in the U.S. before all the major labels were on board, which they weren’t for years, as a result YouTube satisfied the demand. But music on YouTube will fade out. Forget about it. The goal of the music industry should be to get everybody paying for Spotify, Apple Music, et al. Instead, the musicians are bitching, saying what people want, Spotify, et al, is junk, and YouTube is the problem. Huh?

We need a free tier, on demand online access, to eviscerate that is to sign your death warrant. Some people will never pay, some are just casual users, don’t leave them out, make them into fans. And believe me, most acts want free on demand, the same way they all paid indie promotion fees in the last century. Without them, you’re nowhere.

But it turns out active users will pay for music. Because not only are they fans, they love the convenience! And if you don’t know that free Spotify is hobbled on the mobile handset, you haven’t used it. But that wouldn’t be new, most people pontificating have never gotten down into the pit to see what’s really going on. You can’t pick and choose on the handset. And the handset dominates, to focus on the desktop is to be left behind, like YouTube, which is a crummy music service on the mobile device.

This is how it always works. People will pay for utility, for convenience and features. Are you really gonna give up your Discover Weekly playlist? Are you really gonna give up being able to hear every track extant and share it easily with a co-subscriber? It’s about lock-in. YouTube has done a horrible, essentially a nonexistent job, with audio lock-in. So it is being passed by. Not hard to understand, since no one there seemed to understand music and be passionate about it.

But they are music believers at Spotify and Apple Music. And the listeners can FEEL this, they want to belong, and this is a good thing!

As for getting paid…

Let’s work on increasing the publisher’s share, which is tough, because it’s gonna come from the label’s share.

And let’s glorify these services, encourage everybody to sign up, not via exclusives on Tidal, but via functionality. Exclusives hurt growth, they cause anger, they muddy the waters, but then again, the music industry can’t get out of its own way, can’t do what’s right for the customer, it’s inured to fighting for an edge, an advantage, making short term money and forgoing the long.

So bitching about YouTube payments is like bitching about desktop computers. They’re both in the rearview mirror.

Don’t fight the last war, look to the future.

And the great thing about Spotify, et al, is even at this late date most people don’t know how they work, they don’t know you can sync tracks for offline use. There’s a lot of highway in front of us, let’s drive down it!

P.S. Scroll down in the report and you’ll see that pop wins. Don’t argue with the facts. The reason you’re not making as much is they don’t want what you’re recording.

P.P.S. Vinyl is for oldsters, for niche. Except for Adele and twenty one pilots, the top ten is dominated by the aged and the deceased. Investing in vinyl is like placing your future in the hands of septuagenarians. Vinyl is a gnat on the ass of streaming. It’s a souvenir. Sell it if you can, but don’t rely on it.

P.P.P.S. Rock is dying. It’s dwarfed by pop, hip-hop and R&B. Rock split into so many sub-genres, many of which are derivative, that it lost touch with the public. Wanna succeed in rock? First and foremost write a hit, something undeniable that crosses over. You don’t get to create a sixty minute album without hooks and expect to get paid beaucoup bucks in the streaming world. Now, more than ever, you lead with the hit.

I blame Reagan. And then Bill Clinton put a stake in the heart of the middle class, all in an effort to save his job.

The right wing intelligentsia lauded Reagan’s “accomplishments” to the point where they cannot be challenged. In a disinformation campaign they slapped highways and buildings with Reagan’s name, as if that would cement their hold on the public consciousness. And the left wing intelligentsia pointed to the economic run-up during Clinton’s reign as evidence of his “accomplishments.”

And in the process our country became bifurcated, the land of haves and have-nots.

And this has all come home to roost with the ascension of Donald Trump and Bernie Sanders.

Sanders has faded because Hillary was reasonable, whereas the Donald’s competitors were all paying fealty to an elite that had lost touch with the rank and file. However, Hillary’s beliefs are in question, which means that…

Trump could win in the end. Because he’s preaching revolution, whereas Clinton wants more of the same. And that same is not working for so many inhabitants of this great country of ours.

It’s not about immigration.

It’s about jobs. Give someone a good job, allow them to not only pay their bills, but prosper, and they’ll embrace change, because it’s working for them. But change hasn’t worked for the lower class, the middle class, for decades, so they’re ready to revolt.

And it’s laughable that Democrats are attacking Trump, they just don’t get it, the way to win is by appealing to Trump’s voters, his constituency, those ignored by the Republican party for far too long as it satiated fat cats, moneyed interests, while ignoring Joe Public.

But Bill Clinton played to these same movers and shakers. And the left wing intelligentsia stood by as unions were eviscerated, education funds were slashed and tax advantages were given to the rich and powerful. The Democrats were like Britain, or France, in the run-up to World War II… They could see what the Republicans were up to but they were reeling in the wake of Reagan and the Bushes, the right wing takeover of the debate on Fox News and talk radio, and wanted to cocoon as opposed to fight battles, losing all the while.

Germany and Italy were in dire straits after World War I. What did Hitler and Mussolini do? Give the public jobs! Building infrastructure, putting food on the plate and currency in the pocket. Obama refused to ask for more stimulus money, listening too long to Larry Summers, and the Republicans felt there should be pain, that you needed to earn success, knowing nothing about economics, talking about the imminent rise of interest rates when they fell and stayed low to the point where if you have money in the bank you’re falling behind.

Both parties lost touch with their constituencies. The little people, who make this country work.

Mark Zuckerberg does not make this country work. Neither does Lloyd Blankfein. You need people to not only do jobs, but to consume, to put money into the system, but in the veneration of the fat cats anybody working for a living wage is viewed as a chump, their only option of getting ahead being the lottery or reality TV.

And you wonder why our country is in trouble.

Hillary may lose to Trump because her message is unclear. Four more years of the same? That’s not what the disadvantaged want. As for Trump’s insane economic policies, trade barriers and the renegotiation of debts, speaking to the idiocy of these elements misses the point, he’s saying he’s gonna fix the problem, whereas the Democrats just say to be afraid of him. Huh?

Manufacturing isn’t coming back to America. Running to the left on this is missing the point. People need to be given jobs, retrained for today’s work force, earn a living wage.

And sure, some of Trump’s followers may decry the safety net, because they’re working so hard and are not sacrificing. You know who isn’t sacrificing? Wall Street. Hedge funders who pay capital gains rates on ordinary income. Trump’s followers do want Social Security, they do want health care, but they want to believe their interests are acknowledged, that they have a seat at the table, and right now they don’t.

Everybody’s making fun of them. Listen to the holier-than-thou left wing, from Hillary to the “New York Times” on down. Telling people they’re stupid for supporting Trump. But maybe they’re smart, maybe they’re sick and tired of being paid lip service when they end up with nothing.

The game is rigged. And when it is, you turn over the table. And that’s Trump’s play, not Hillary’s, and you wonder why he’s got traction. Who cares if George Will abandons the party, the party abandoned the voters years ago. And this happened on the left too, I’d like some of that Hillary speech money.

We’re going down a bad path folks. The people in Washington have achieved their goal, which is to have us fighting amongst ourselves and missing out on the real issues, the primary benefits. Whether it be online hate or anti-immigrant sentiment, the have-nots are hating those they have access to. Hell, you can’t even shake Justin Bieber’s hand after the concert anymore, reach and have influence on your Congressperson, those do-nothings earning a paycheck far in excess of what they deserve, with a Cadillac health plan to boot? Throw the bums out. That’s what the Trump defenders want. That’s what the Bernie followers desire. Instead, they’re told to lay down their arms and get in line… Who exactly does that appeal to?

America is all about opportunity, that’s the essence of its dream. And that opportunity has not only been squandered, it’s been decimated. Trump says he wants to make America great again and what his followers hear is a return to prosperity.

And you’re laughing at all of them.

When you’ve got nothing, you’ve got nothing to lose. Which is why the disadvantaged took the UK out of the EU and their across the ocean brethren are agitating for Trump.

A change has got to come.

What kind of bizarre world do we live in where you overpay for college, unable to discharge the debt in bankruptcy, solely to get in line for a job. That’s the dirty little secret of higher education, it’s not about learning, it’s about getting a leg up. And at the elite colleges making relationships, establishing a network that the rank and file can never penetrate.

So know two hundred plus years after the founding of our country we’ve hit a crossroads, it is not business as usual, we cannot secede from the world, we cannot go backward.

But we can come together, we can unlock the gates and let everybody in.

We can hug our brothers and sisters and lend them a hand.

The only way out of this is through unity.

And if Hillary wants to win, she’s got to start bringing people together.

Otherwise, the Democrats are going to discover the mob rules.

And they’re not in control of it.

Happy Holiday.

I love the sensibility!

I love that he’s a nerd, with a brain, but can’t help himself from being uncool. He’s a regular guy, albeit Indian, as opposed to the good-looking charismatic holier-than-thou personages we’re overwhelmed by and feel inferior to on TV and in movies. It’s like we don’t count, even though we’re on this planet, eating and pissing and making passes too. It’s like you’re either rich or good-looking, famous, or you don’t count. Or do you?

I only knew the name, Aziz Ansari, until I heard him on Howard Stern. Whereupon he told a story about hanging with a famous woman who ultimately ignored him, who didn’t respond to his outreach thereafter. Sound familiar? It certainly does to me.

And then he sold out Madison Square Garden.

But I still wasn’t paying attention until I was looking for something to watch on Netflix. I go by the reviews, not by the ones from the critics, but those of the people, I figure enough people see something you get a feel. Although I did try that Maria Bamford series first. Do you get that? I don’t. I loved Patton Oswalt’s character but she was so self-conscious and the plot was so convoluted that I decided not to continue.

That’s when I began with Aziz’s show, “Master Of None.”

It’s imperfect, not fully-baked, it’s a way station to something better. There’s your 10,000 hour rule right there, will the suits give you a chance to get better?

I looked him up on Wikipedia, saw he started at NYU. It’s amazing how long you have to do it to get noticed.

So there’s an Indian sensibility. A minority sensibility. Do you blow the whistle or ride the imperfections, the hate, to a better life? Do you suck it up or do the right thing? We’re all trying to get ahead, but we don’t want to sacrifice our identity, our beliefs, in the process.

And the show feels fully modern. With the texting and tech. Too often art lives in the past, but when we recognize the present we feel comfortable.

And the sexual adventures, shall I say MISADVENTURES, ring true too. Aziz is making an effort, but is so often failing. He’s flailing. Taking advice from fellow nerds. It’s the opposite of the Steve McQueen/Leonardo DiCaprio paradigm wherein women are falling all over the star. And when Aziz can’t get over the fact that Claire Danes, the restaurant critic, actually likes him, wants to be with him, and he keeps telling her he wants to savor the moment…it’s one of the most uncool moments in cinematic history. But it’s real.

Aziz gives hope to nerds everywhere. He’s not beautiful, not unattractive, just kind of…blah, normal, like you and me. He’s got to win on his personality, which he’s constantly shining. But that doesn’t always resonate.

And the show doesn’t always flow. But ideas are brought forth, and they resonate, and that makes you feel so good.

This is what happens when distributors give creators free rein. And it is all about distribution, the show would not be as successful on YouTube, never mind shortened to a Vine. Netflix gives you a platform, your odds of being seen are higher.

Nerds have inherited the earth because we have the tools, we can communicate, and we’re sick and tired of having the uneducated nitwits trounce us. You can’t make it Hollywood if you’re ugly or plain, unless you play ugly or plain, are the butt of the joke. But Aziz doesn’t want to be the butt of the joke.

And I know it’s the second decade of the twenty first century but “Master Of None” has got a seventies sensibility. After the revolution of the sixties. When we knew what happened and were adjusting, when we knew we couldn’t be famous. Whereas today there’s much more desperation, many more sharp elbows, the endless self-promotion is deafening.

“Master Of None” is small work. But it gets stuff right. And in today’s world where we’re all connected yet feel so lonely that’s a revelation.

Watch it!

Master Of None

These are the same analysts who predicted BlackBerry would survive and were surprised when it cratered overnight.

Yes, Steve Jobs built a behemoth. Yes, Apple has everybody’s credit card number. Yes, Jimmy Iovine built a headphone colossus.

BUT THAT DOES NOT MEAN APPLE MUSIC WILL WIN IN THE END!

Let’s start with the canard that there will be competition, that multiple services will carve up the streaming marketplace. Why believe this when Google owns seventy percent of search? When Amazon dominates? Facebook too? The story of the internet is community, we all go to one towering trustworthy portal and every other outlet fights for scraps. Gonna happen in streaming music too.

As for the vaunted 15 million subscribers… Ever think that’s the ceiling? That Apple marketed to all of its customers and most didn’t want it? Which is a fact. Sure, the number of subscribers will increase, but there’s no hockey stick in evidence, none.

Because Apple is not cool.

There, I said it. Bands fade, why can’t brands?

It’s not worth dropping by the Apple Store, there’s nothing you haven’t seen before. And have you noticed the help there is glum and uninformed? As for Angela Ahrendts, can you tell me where the Buy button is on the Apple website? Where there used to be coherence, now there’s chaos, no one’s in charge, no one knows what’s going on, yet the press keeps giving them a pass.

As for the vocal acolytes… They’re working the refs, like the right wingers who’ll clamp down on you whenever you posit a left wing position online. Apple dominates almost nowhere. It doesn’t own the number one computing platform, nor the number one mobile phone OS… All it’s got is a ton of profits and dominance in file sales, yup, at the iTunes Store, an antiquated construct if there ever was one.

Jimmy Iovine failed once before, with the original Beats Music service. Sans a free tier, you’re screwed. Why should it be any different at Apple, because of the brand name? That’d be like saying we’ll pay for that which is free just because a famous company is involved. Study some economics, that’s just plain wrong.

And how and why should a record exec know anything about UIs? It’d be like asking Tim Cook to A&R an LP.

As for mixing files and streams in one interface, did everybody blank on Clayton Christensen? I thought “The Innovator’s Dilemma” was the Silicon Valle bible, can’t anybody in Cupertino read? Apple was protecting its past, which is anathema in tech.

So, Jimmy makes something out of nothing, the high end headphone business was a sideshow. So, he adds some sizzle and gets heroes to hype it. Well, streaming music was not a sideshow, Spotify already had traction. And so far, no no amount of exclusives seems to move the needle, not in any significant way. Hell, Taylor Swift isn’t even on Spotify, and that service is WINNING!

Because Spotify is cool. With lame marketing, it’s all about word of mouth. Subscribers double down and testify, they’re addicted. And they aren’t about to switch loyalties. And their evangelizing gains new adherents. Which is a much stronger bond than someone signing up for Apple Music because they’re so damn dumb they don’t know what else to do.

Amazon couldn’t win in phones, why should Apple win in streaming music?

And Netflix was nobody but so far it remains unchallenged. It’s the upstart people love, however much producers might abhor the payments and near-monopoly.

Pay attention to the newbies, who are nimble, who don’t have to protect legacy assets. Hell, didn’t that help Steve Jobs win? By axing legacy ports thinkers admired his pluck, his move into the future, it turns out those mired in the past lost, Apple triumphed.

I’d bet on Jimmy Iovine if he went back to the music business. He’s a charismatic closer. But he’s out of his depth here. As for the Beats victory, that’d be like saying a manager is great after only breaking one act, when everybody knows the true greats can do it over and over again.

Apple lost its edge. Its mojo. Bands can sell millions and their next project can completely tank. Because times changed, people have moved on.

And, people have moved on from the Tidal stars. It’s a worldwide business, those Tidal owners mean something, but far from everything.

And this is how far Apple has sunk, they can’t make it on their bona fides, they need help. It’d be like Shaggy having a singer on his record, like Wiz Khalifa depending upon Charlie Puth.

And now Spotify is running circles around Apple. Turns out algorithmic curation is better than the human kind, that’s the essence of Discover Weekly.

Apple Music is a me-too product not much different from the Zune, and the refusal of analysts and fanboys to see this is remarkable.

Apple may not buy Tidal, it might gain more subscribers, but dominance is a desire that will almost definitely go unfulfilled.

I could be wrong.

But if you look at tech track records it’s Daniel Ek who’s batting a thousand, not Jimmy Iovine. And if Tim Cook knows anything about tech, even marketing, he’s yet to demonstrate it. It’s as if the band was fronted by Lucien Grainge or some other exec. But no, we want our acts propelled by geniuses who we’ve become enthralled by.

And there are no geniuses at Apple Music.

As for Beats 1, it’s an utter failure. You know how I know why? Because if it was a success THEY’D TELL US!

That’s entertainment business 101.

But all we’ve got is crickets.

There’s no catalog business in tech. It’s all what have you done for me lately. And what Apple has done is deliver a bunch of bunts with absolutely no scoring. And the last time I checked, you need home runs, otherwise there’s no buzz, no future, that’s the story in tech, no one starts slowly.

But somehow this gang that can’t shoot straight will break all the rules and succeed?

Don’t make me laugh.