It’s not your father’s Grammys.

Forget all the horseshit about Madonna being snubbed. Prince too. These are not lifetime achievement awards, rather recognition of what is popular and successful.

Yup, that’s what we’ve got. Not only were the alta kachers eliminated, we didn’t have any of the cred artists either, except Alabama Shakes and Chris Stapleton, who is coasting on his CMA coattails. What we have here is pure pop for now people.

And everybody over the age of thirty hates it.

But that’s the music business we’re living in now. Rock is dead. Americana may have a category, but its penetration is de minimis. All those other categories, jazz, classical, etc., ignore them…the public will. And the Grammy telecast will too, they won’t get any airtime.

And we know that an appearance on the show is much more important than winning. But really, we’ve got to give the Grammys credit, unlike the Oscars, they’re living in the twenty first century, they’re living in the now.

That’s right, Jennifer Lawrence has her knickers in a twist about women in Hollywood but women are dominating in music. Are there enough execs, enough producers? Of course not, but if you look at the nominees… Taylor Swift is up front and center. And three females are in the Best New Artist category. And Liz Rose, Taylor’s old compatriot, and Hillary Lindsey and Lori McKenna wrote Little Big Town’s “Girl Crush,” and if you don’t know that’s Karen Fairchild’s band, you know nothing about Nashville.

And you may not.

You may not know anything about rap. You may be enamored of Adele not knowing that the Weeknd rules Spotify. You may be completely out of the loop on this year’s nominees other than the ubiquitous “Uptown Funk” and the Alabama Shakes, led by Brittany Howard, a woman.

But I wouldn’t expect the Shakes to win. But you never know, Kendrick and Taylor and the Weeknd could cancel each other out, but the truth is most all of the players are so YOUNG!

The classic rock era is over. The baby boomer music is toast. It’s a whole new world and either you’ve got a hit pop track or it’s like you don’t exist.

Forget the rest of the 79 categories. The circle jerk wherein everybody who makes music gets to be nominated and put it on their bio so they can tour when they’re aged. Those categories don’t count. I’d say it’s like the Little League World Series, although the Little League World Series is more important and more people watch it. There’s this fiction that people care about the nominated stuff, I can’t say songs, because there’s comedy and even spoken word, but the truth is only those listed and their parents and spouses care. Just being brutally honest, can you take it?

Lana Del Rey, the critical darling… Her new LP stiffs, and it’s like she doesn’t exist.

As for the exclusion of the Foo Fighters from the big four categories… “Sonic Highways” was a brilliant TV show and a sub-mediocre record. But the Grammys don’t nominate the sub-mediocre anymore!

Let’s start with Record of the Year. All five tracks were hits! “Uptown Funk” was ubiquitous like in the days of old, everybody heard it and knows it. Of course it’s unoriginal, but if you think we’re in a heyday of music exploration you think vinyl still counts and sales eclipse listens.

“Can’t Feel My Face” couldn’t have been bigger in the demo…the kids who’ve inherited the earth, boomers and Gen X are in the rearview mirror.

As for Taylor Swift… She could run for President and win, she’s more popular than Donald Trump. I wish she’d take a political stand, she’s the only one who can get out the youth vote. Hell, she took Ed Sheeran on tour and gave a boost to his career.

And sure “Really Love” didn’t have much chart success, but it had cultural impact, and that’s more important today, especially when the charts can’t figure it all out, mixing streaming and sales and radio and coming up with something incomprehensible.

And sure, Fetty Wap deserves a nom, but there are only five slots, a plethora of riches I say.

As for Album of the Year… All the kids talk about Kendrick Lamar. Sure, you don’t know him if you’re addicted to HBO and expensive dinners, but if you’re actually listening to music, following it, he’s part of the discussion, always.

Personally, I think Alabama Shakes lack good material. But if that’s as left field as the Grammys want to go, I’m down with it. Better than nominating the unheard Beck album.

And “1989” and “Beauty Behind The Madness” were two of the most played albums of the year. Taylor Swift may not be on Spotify, but she’s on YouTube, which eclipses everything, most certainly sales, never mind Apple Music. And the Weeknd just blew away everything else upon release.

As for Chris Stapleton… He won’t win, you’ll forget he was nominated, we’ll see if he can follow up this publicity bump with a hit album, unlike Kacey Musgraves…

Yup, it’s all about what you’ve done for us lately, music is a cruel world, have a couple of hits and you can tour forever, but Kacey hasn’t done that!

As for Song of the Year… Most interesting is the number of writers on each. Kendrick’s “Alright” has three, including the omnipresent Pharrell, as do “Blank Space,” “Girl Crush,” “Thinking Out Loud” and “See You Again,” which is an incredible cut most adults haven’t heard, but should, it’s really a Charlie Puth record as opposed to a Wiz Khalifa track, kinda like Shaggy had his name on his hit but it was more about Rikrok. And Ed Sheeran, the great white hope, the one who plays the guitar…even his song has two writers. We’re not into personal statements as much as success. We bring out the heavy artillery, we buy insurance. Could this be why the music slides off of us? Even the Weeknd uses Max Martin, the true star of Music’s Biggest Night. We used to believe the songs emanated from the writers’ souls, now we’re skeptical. Used to be music was the most personal of media, now it’s all done by committee.

And there you have it.

Oh, we could talk about the Best New Artist category but that’s one you don’t want to win, it taints your career, even though the nominees are all good. But Meghan Trainor’s work was nominated LAST YEAR!

And Adele didn’t make the cut-off this year.

And Cash Money forgot to nominate Drake’s “Hotline Bling.”

But does any of this matter? Will the winners get a Grammy bounce? Probably not, everybody who cares already knows, they’re in the loop.

So what we’ve got here is a snapshot of the music industry in 2015. One wherein the rules confound us, make it hard to understand who is winning and who is not, but one in which we only care about what’s popular and everything else is irrelevant, where pop rules and meaning takes a back seat, where the youth own music despite the aged selling out arenas.

U2 may be telecasting from Paris, but to the people who listened to the nominees, who care about the nominees, they’re a bunch of old fart has-beens sans memorable material.

As it should be, the young should eat the old, music’s famous for that.

And the old should realize they cannot win. It’s too late, baby. You can get a Kennedy Center Honor, but in the cutthroat world of the chart, of popularity, of what’s driving the culture, you’re a sideshow. Count your money and be done with it.

Madonna, stay off the road for a few years. Bon Jovi did, good for him.

And know that your kids run the world.

Music was at the epicenter of the youthquake back in the sixties, it led and then rode shotgun. And music has incredible impact amongst the young today, even if the oldsters don’t feel it. Music dominates social media, from Twitter to Instagram, and music dominates YouTube… We’re just one step away from an anthem that blows a hole in the culture and gets us all moving in the right direction.

But that would require the winners to stop playing it safe, to stop kissing ass, to stop chasing the bucks of the sponsors, to start believing in themselves and using their power for good.

They’ve got the power baby, don’t try to fight it.

The men don’t know…

But the little girls understand.

The first thing you’ve got to know is the U.S. and U.K. releases were different.

The second thing you need to know is I didn’t buy it upon release. It had no hit singles.

Albums were a value proposition. “Rubber Soul” was the LP that broke the paradigm. But we didn’t know that yet. At the time it was a curio, something for the faithful that got no radio airplay, a left turn after the summer’s triumph with “Help” and its attendant album, once again completely different from the U.K. release.

The irony, of course, was the Beatles were soon to dominate the singles chart, with their huge double-sided hit, “We Can Work It Out” and “Day Tripper,” the former going to number one and the latter to number five. It wasn’t like we weren’t getting enough Beatles, it’s just that “Rubber Soul” did not square with reality, it’s akin to Adele and Coldplay not putting their albums on Spotify, it was all about greed, Capitol wanted more money, and the audience and the culture suffered. It wasn’t until eighteen months later, when “Sgt. Pepper” was released with no singles and it was quite clearly a concept album that we got it, that we were revolutionized, and in that same summer underground FM launched and things were never the same.

Until today, when we’re living in the dark ages once again. When Top Forty rules and everything else is insignificant. When the hits are written by a committee of old men and the front people…are just that. The Beatles wrote their own material, oh how far we’ve gotten from the garden.

The definitive version of “Drive My Car” was performed live by Paul McCartney at Amoeba Records on June 27, 2007. Beatlemania reigned in the twenty first century. After waiting long past the anointed starting time, after noticing Ringo and Barbara Bach in attendance, after fingering the LPs in front of us, the cute Beatle took the stage with his crack band and immediately laid into this opening number from “Rubber Soul” and blew our collective minds, our heads were exploding, we could do nothing but scream and pinch ourselves, that everything we remembered still existed. That’s the power of music. That’s the power of a band. No production and no hard drives are needed if you’ve got it, and needless to say Paul does. Listen here:

Paul McCartney Live Amoeba. Drive My Car (High Quality)

But, of course, the U.S. iteration of “Rubber Soul” did not contain “Drive My Car.” I only heard it at Marc Goloff’s house, he had the U.K. version, on vinyl, there were no tapes, the cover was flimsy, but the sound was enrapturing.

The U.S. album began with “I’ve Just Seen A Face.” Which was on the U.K. “Help.” But we didn’t know it, there was no internet, no music magazines, we were living in darkness. But when we dropped the needle on “I’ve Just Seen A Face” the sun started to shine. The Stones were all about bowling you over with the opening track…after that, it was up and down. But the Beatles not only killed you with the opener, they sustained the momentum. And we could sing along with Paul, he was happy, singing to us, but we didn’t matter, it was as if he cut this song in his house and recorded it for himself and we were privileged to hear it and…it still sounds magical today.

But “Norwegian Wood (This Bird Has Flown)” was the second cut on both albums. And at age twelve I’d be lying if I told you I knew exactly what John Lennon was singing about. Hell, at first I thought he was singing about a literal bird, little did I know that was English slang for girl/woman/chick…the Beatles were just a couple of years and a couple of changes ahead of us, experienced from those nights in Hamburg, we grew up and ultimately understood, we took guidance and sustenance from their words. Meanwhile, this bird had flown, so different from today’s tracks, wherein the singer’s always a winner, in control, manipulating others, John was the victim here. And we knew this track, because this was the one that received all the press, seen as racy, the adults got it, but the little boys and girls didn’t understand.

And “You Won’t See Me” was the third cut on both LPs too. But it’s something that sunk into the public consciousness years later, because I was not the only one who didn’t buy “Rubber Soul” upon release, most people didn’t buy records at all, if anything they purchased singles, so it was only as time wore on that people went back and filled out their collections and got it.

Now the English iteration has “Nowhere Man” in the fourth position.

But the U.S. version has “Think For Yourself” in that slot.

Written and sung by George Harrison, “Think For Yourself” was just a bit different from the rest of the cuts, a bit more serious, a bit more penetrating, a little darker, with a message that means more as time has gone by. A twisting, turning adventure, “Think For Yourself” extended the sound and vision of our favorite group. Well, not all of us, some preferred the aforementioned Stones, others wearing oil in their hair and pegged pants and pointed shoes thought the pre-Beatles sound was going to come back, but it never did.

As for “Nowhere Man”…that was a gigantic hit in the new year, it didn’t come out in the U.S. until the end of February ’66. But it shot right up the chart, it was not like today, songs didn’t build over time, they exploded on to the radio and within six weeks or so were replaced by something new, oftentimes by the same act, this was certainly the case with the Beatles.

Next came “The Word” on both LPs.

In the beginning I misunderstood
But now I’ve got it, the word is good

Sung by John Lennon, this is the most memorable part of the track, and the later occurrences, with different lyrics but the same sound. John had a way of emoting where you heard all the pain, all the experience, all the vigor and depression in the tonality of his voice. It’s the antithesis of the “Idol” paradigm, the oversinging of the melisma mamas. We wanted to reach inside the record and soothe him, know him, understand him…but he was unreachable, even in real life, because he had an emotional tank that could never be filled.

And “Michelle” was not a single in the U.S. Probably Paul McCartney’s second most memorable track after “Yesterday,” somehow we all knew it, but it was not a 45, it was not on the chart. We’d heard French from the Singing Nun, “Dominique” was a huge hit, but we didn’t expect the Beatles to sing in a foreign language. Do this today in our xenophobic culture and you’re seen as a traitor, but the Beatles were all about bringing us together, they were a beacon, which we followed.

“What Goes On” started the U.K. side two. Another Ringo Starr vocal in the vein of “Act Naturally,” it leavened the seriousness, added flavor, the Beatles were not locked into a groove, their sound was broad, they took risks.

“It’s Only Love” opened the American side two. I learned it from the “Golden Beatles,” the songbook with all the Beatles’ compositions to date. I didn’t know the recording, I figured it out from the chord changes, that’s right, I took guitar lessons, everybody did, we all played. And sang. “It’s Only Love” was on the English “Help.”

Is there anybody going to listen to my story
All about the girl who came to stay

As if we were quietly sitting in front of the fireplace in the moist English countryside, the sound is so rich, the vocal so impassioned, “Girl” almost creeps you out. Now you know why John Lennon is a legend. “Girl” was the second song on side two of both iterations of “Rubber Soul.”

No, I can’t leave it there. There are so many evocative lines in “Girl.” Most painfully:

She’s the kind of girl who puts you down
When friends are there, you feel a fool

Such vulnerability! I’d like to tell you I’ve grown out of this, that I’m comfortable in my skin and fully confident, but the truth is I’m still anxious and unsure, worried I won’t fit in, that I’ll be put down. This is why we take our wisdom from records, they UNDERSTAND US!

It’s that guitar part, and the jaunty vocal… “I’m Looking Through You” embodied the sixties ethos, wherein we questioned and were unafraid of going negative, this was long before poptimism, when you had to like what was popular and those who were rich, the biggest crime was to be a phony, being honest and forthright was everything. “I’m Looking Through You” was in third position on side two of both albums.

There are places I remember
All my life, though some have changed

“In My Life” was not famous back then, not part of the cultural canon, sometimes it takes time for songs to penetrate the collective consciousness. How were our rock stars so wise at such a young age? Famously sung in the “Happy New Year” episode of “thirtysomething,” the Beatles rarely license their tunes, but we know them anyway, because they just get it right.

Some are dead and some are living
In my life I’ve loved them all

John Lennon’s been gone thirty five years, but the great thing about recordings is they live on, he sounds positively alive in this track, wisdom intact, we miss him.

Just like “In My Life” is on both albums, so is “Wait.”

When people talk about album tracks know that their rep was built upon cuts like “Wait,” which were never singles, were never singled out, but were just as resonant as the hits.

“If I Needed Someone” didn’t come out in the U.S. until late June of ’66, when it was part of the Capitol mish-mash known as “Yesterday And Today,” known primarily for its discarded butcher cover. I didn’t buy that one either. I had the 45 of “We Can Work It Out”/”Day Tripper,” I had to, they were irresistible, and I didn’t need to own “Yesterday” and…I posit many people never even heard George’s gem until ’87, when the original Beatles albums were released on CD.

And then both albums ended with “Run For Your Life,” laden with attitude, I don’t know if you could sing this today, the PC police would crack down upon you. But this was the one you could play on the guitar, sing with your buddies easily, we thought of the words as more of a western than being about personal relationships. I’d had two girlfriends at this point, that’s the point of summer camp, but that was more like puppy love.

And that’s it. That was the end of 1965. Fifty years ago today. A completely different era. When we were all addicted to the radio and knew every track on the hit parade. Number one was Herb Alpert’s “Taste Of Honey.” The Supremes owned number two with “I Hear A Symphony,” the Byrds sat at number three with “Turn! Turn! Turn!” Fourth was the indelible “Rescue Me” by Fontella Bass. The Four Seasons owned number five with their nearly last hurrah, “Let’s Hang On!” and Len Barry’s bombastic, almost operatic “1-2-3” sat at number six, talk about a record that just felt right… The Beatles were nowhere on the WABC All American Survey, although “We Can Work It Out” and “Day Tripper” were hot prospects, as was Gary Lewis’s “She’s Just My Style.”

“Rubber Soul” was in the bins, alone, separate, a harbinger of what was to come, a complete blowing up of what we’d known before, not only were our musical horizons about to be broadened, there was about to be a lot more money in music, the album price point was so much higher.

That’s what happened in our lives. We baby boomers were around for it.

And at this point, everybody owns the Beatles, but it was like seeing Jordan win his championships, Nixon resigning, Kennedy being shot…you knew where you were, these indelible moments not only make up our lives, they make us who we are.

It doesn’t seem like fifty years.

I’ve loved them all. All the friends and lovers, all we’ve really got are our memories. But what keeps us going is the thrill of the new. But it’s the music of the past that grounds us, that helps us make sense of it all.

Like “Rubber Soul.”

What did that mean again?

The nip slip was the best thing to ever happen to the Super Bowl.

After Prince’s triumphant performance that is.

Quick, name who won that nip slip game! Or even last year’s game?

The Super Bowl is a national holiday wherein we all come together to eat too much, get drunk and have fun. A gathering of the tribes nearly eclipsed by the MTV Video Music Awards in its heyday. Which is why the NFL hired MTV to produce the nip slip triumph (never call it a fiasco, that’s a misnomer.) The footballers wanted some of that controversy for themselves.

And they got it.

Now nudity is so prevalent online that “Playboy” has deleted it from its magazine and the Pirelli calendar shows no boobs. That’s what you do when confronted with a changing landscape, you deliver the unexpected, you get one step ahead.

Who lost in the nip slip?

Certainly not Justin Timberlake. And Janet Jackson is still doing boffo at the b.o. As for CBS, the hosting channel? Les Moonves oversees a juggernaut.

So why play it safe now?

We know what’s in it for Coldplay. In a world where you can’t gain everybody’s attention why not go to where the most eyeballs are and then put your tickets on sale the next day. Coldplay holding back its album from Spotify is like putting the efforts of a has-been behind a paywall. Coldplay’s over the hump, it’s history, it was buoyed by MTV and VH1 when they still played music, and the world’s least dangerous band has lost its hold on the public mind. (Unless you’re a housewife, but you already spent most of your capital on Adele, who doesn’t need this circus to sell tickets, even though she’d be the logical choice.)

The NFL has used up all the has-beens, classic rockers are too geriatric to excite the assembled multitude, and the best have already made an appearance. Why not feature the music that truly runs the NFL, hip-hop?

Jay Z is the host, of course. But Hova is surrounded by Kendrick and Drake and even Killer Mike. Lil Wayne runs out for a cameo and then Dr. Dre is lowered from the heavens as Snoop Dogg goes into “Gin and Juice.”

Half of America would be thrilled.

And half of America would be vomiting!

Can you imagine the aftermath, the explication of rap’s history, the meaning of the lyrics, the offense taken by those who believe they know better, even though they don’t, not knowing Drake is a bigger star on Spotify than Adele. Yes, “Hotline Bling” is bigger than “Hello.” Because music lives on streaming services, not in CD racks or at the iTunes Store.

The NFL is in the entertainment business, so why not give the public what it wants, ENTERTAINMENT!

Forget the vocal minority imploring you to play it safe. Why would a public enraptured of Snapchat and Instagram be interested in a band that made its bones before Facebook hit the scene?

But Beyonce and Bruno Mars are thrown in for spice.

But wait a minute, didn’t we just see them?

Or is this counterprogramming, since the players are constantly testing limits and the coaches are looking for an edge maybe the NFL wants to whitewash the entire enterprise.

And speaking of white, could Coldplay be any more Caucasian? They don’t look like the NFL, no way.

So this is where we’re at. Music is all about marketing. Testing limits and saying no are history.

And sports are all about protecting the past, taking no risks, when our entire society is living on the cutting edge, knowing what happens today probably won’t be remembered tomorrow, never mind tonight.

The Super Bowl only comes around once a year. And you don’t want to blow the opportunity. You don’t want to give people what they think they want, you want to blow their minds!

Stay one step ahead of the populace or you lose your hold on popular culture. That’s what happened to MTV.

Coldplay has one number one hit. Drake has five. It’d be like playing your retired QB instead of Andrew Luck, huh?

Don’t make the same mistake. Don’t blow your opportunities. No one’s too big to fail, that’s the message of “The Innovator’s Dilemma.” If you think the NFL is forever, you’ve probably had a concussion. And ask boxing how it feels about mixed martial arts. Meanwhile, would you rather own the New England Patriots or Manchester United? If you say the former you’re a myopic fan who doesn’t realize we live in a worldwide economy.

America’s greatest export is its entertainment.

And we punt the ball and give our greatest promotional opportunity to this wimpy group from England?

No, you bring out the heavy hitters, the hip-hoppers.

So now we’ve got nothing to talk about but the game. Which admittedly has been good in recent years, but there’s no guarantee, usually it’s a snooze-fest. But to see America’s greatest collection of rappers on stage at one time?

Sign me up for that!

P.S. Read this “New York Times” article wherein it is stated that hip-hop and R&B represent 17% of album sales, but 26% of streams. Listens, not purchases. That’s where the action is, baby.

“Hip-Hop and R&B Fans Embrace Streaming Music Services”

Not that you’d know that. The news story is how Songkick flubbed the sale by revealing buyers’ info. Songkick says nothing of consequence was revealed. But the public flips out over data breaches. Rightfully so. All of which means it’s hard to do big things on a big scale. And despite so many flaws in Ticketmaster’s system, with legacy spaghetti code impairing the introduction of both remedies and new features, ultimately it works. And that’s important.

Ticketmaster, the company you love to hate. Even at this late date. Not knowing that the enterprise is a front for the greed of the acts, that it’s paid to take the heat. But it’s like finally finding out your favorite baseball player uses steroids, or that Lance Armstrong was on dope, you don’t want to believe it.

Not that I don’t give credit to Songkick. It deserves praise for not only breaking the hegemony, but making sure Adele tickets did not get into the hands of brokers. As MusicAlly put it:

“Last night, Music Ally visited three of the most prominent secondary ticketing sites – Seatwave, GetMeIn and StubHub – to count how many tickets were available for the three artists’ UK tours (a fourth, Viagogo, does not show total ticket numbers for gigs, so we didn’t include it). Coldplay’s six UK dates had 17,631 tickets available across the three secondary sites; Rihanna’s six UK gigs had 9,290 tickets available; and Adele’s 12-concert run had 649 tickets for secondary sale. Or to put it another way, the average number of secondary tickets per Coldplay gig was 2,939, compared to 1,548 for Rihanna and just 54 for Adele.

Even with caveats – Adele is playing arenas while Coldplay and Rihanna are playing stadiums, and StubHub surprisingly had no Adele tickets available at all – those figures are startling.”

Needless to say, there are tickets available on resale sites now. But not many. So Adele succeeded in her mission, but don’t forget she employed paperless the last time around.

But before we move on to the interests and culpability of the acts, let’s get back to Songkick, the site that lists concerts and is trying to move into ticketing. The problem is in most cases they can’t get significant inventory. Because the only profit in most gigs is in the ticketing. As far as the revenue for sales, everything before the fees? That all goes to the act.

Welcome to the 2015 concert business. Which is why so many promoters are moving into festivals, it’s a much better way to make money, with much better margins. In both cases you take risks, the downsides are horrifying, but the upside in festivals is so much greater.

So if the only profit is in the tickets themselves, in the fees, why should the promoter share them? Why should they forgo the fees?

And there you have the major battle. That’s why the big ticketing companies are entrenched. Live Nation looks like a concert company, but really it’s a ticketing company.

How did we get here?

Well, there are two sides. The ticketing companies paid the buildings for exclusive contracts. And then the acts, worried about promoters ripping them off, insisted on large guarantees. And the fees are outside the acts’ percentage deals, there is no “commission.” However, none of this is written in stone, everything’s negotiable. So you have superstars getting kicked back ticketing fees and…

The fees. They all don’t go to Ticketmaster. Sure, Ticketmaster takes some. But there’s a cut for the building, and then the promoter…this is often the promoter’s only profit, as stated above.

Meanwhile, you can’t get a good ticket.

How can this be?

Well, we have the insanity of pre-sales. Wherein the act gets paid for sales windows. AmEx, Citi, fan clubs… By time the ad runs in the paper there may be fewer than a thousand arena seats left. So, good luck getting a decent seat if you don’t have the right credit card or know somebody. The fiction about sitting in your underwear on Saturday morning clicking to buy… That means you’re just completely out of the loop.

Then you have the issue of the price of the ticket itself. Generally speaking, they’re way underpriced for superstars, who don’t want to appear greedy. So these stars get pissed and sell tickets to brokers directly, as do promoters, to get a taste of the upside.

But enough history, enough shenanigans. How do we fix this? How do we get the seats to the customers at the listed price?

YOU’VE GOT TO WANT TO!

Despite all the lip service, acts are wary. Because they remember the Miley Cyrus paperless fiasco. She goes on tour and moms can’t get tickets for their kids and attorneys general start rattling their sabers and the next time Miley goes out she sells paperless tickets and finds out demand’s just not that strong. That’s right, the brokers help create the frenzy. While they’re asking stratospheric prices for tickets often you can still buy primary seats at face value. Miley didn’t sell out, her image and career took a hit, and ever since…people have been afraid of paperless.

But not Adele, BECAUSE SHE KNOWS SHE’S GONNA SELL OUT!

How many acts can guarantee this? Certainly Taylor Swift. But you’d be surprised how few guaranteed sellouts there are. And there’s more than one way to skin a cat, more than one way to recapture the income going to brokers.

You can use platinum, VIP Nation. Sell the best seats for what they’re worth. Directly to those who want to buy them. This has worked extremely well, usually there’s a bonus or two attached, a laminate, a backstage tour, a meeting with the band, but that’s all just window dressing, these tickets are being sold for what they’re truly worth.

The Stones employ flex-pricing. Instead of charging low prices and having the brokers scoop up all the tickets, they start high and lower the price depending upon customer adoption. The longer you wait, the better price you might get. Assuming a plethora of people don’t want to pay a high price and eradicate all the inventory long before the gig plays.

And then there’s selective paperless. Paperless for just some of the house, the best seats.

Meanwhile, the building holds back seats for season ticket holders and…

I don’t want to educate you on all the ins and outs of ticketing, of the concert business. But the truth is it’s sophisticated, and with such thin margins, you’re either winning or you’re out. Everybody inside knows everything. Everybody outside knows nothing. This is not a technology issue, this is an INFRASTRUCTURE issue, as in how business has continually been done.

The acts don’t trust the promoters and the acts have short shelf lives but it’s the act’s name on the ticket…and now you’re aware of some of the competing interests involved, the thoughts that go through the artist’s head. Price tickets too high and not only do you not sell out, but you’re seen as greedy. Charge a low price and your fans complain they can’t get good seats, if at all, and you’re pissed that all that revenue goes to the brokers/resellers.

And that’s a business. Don’t buy extra tickets with the idea you’re going to sell them yourself. That’s just displaying your ignorance. Many shows aren’t really sold out, extra dates are added. A broker can sell only half of his inventory at an inflated price and doesn’t care if the rest of his tickets go unused.

And there you have it.

The best way to move forward is to charge what the tickets are worth. That’s what the Stones do, if you want to pay, you can get in.

Or in the alternative employ paperless or the Adele/Songkick paradigm. But then you run the risk that demand is not as strong as you believe it is.

But the truth is fewer and fewer members of the public are pissed off about all this. They’re not worried about on sale dates, the fact that shows go up a year in advance, they just wait until they’re ready to buy and…purchase their tickets from a broker, whether it be an individual agent or a corporation like StubHub. Hell, the resellers’ tickets are listed on Ticketmaster right beside the primary inventory.

People want the illusion of freedom. The ability to buy what they want at a low price and resell it with no loss. But try buying a hot tech product on launch day. And try selling it for full price a year later, even months later. The concert business is no different, it’s just that the inventory is evanescent. Once the date plays, pfft…there’s no asset left.

So I applaud Adele for her efforts here. Good work.

But it’s not gonna change the business, no way. Not now. It’s a good first step. But if most acts were truly concerned about their customers they’d follow Kid Rock’s example and charge twenty bucks a ticket. But despite Rock going out at this price twice, despite a ton of publicity, no one has.

Change can happen.

But people have to want it.

And it turns out most acts don’t want it that bad.