This is the video that sold me:

Mike Posner, “I Took a Pill In Ibiza” Live at The Roxy – Los Angeles, March 8th 2016

Just when you think we’ve hit the end of the line, that music has got no future, you encounter something like this.

Everybody didn’t sing along like this back in 1972, everybody didn’t know all the words, we were all uptight, we were all too stoned, but I first noticed this at Taylor Swift shows, before she went pop, when she was still country, when the lyrics were everything and the music served the words…everybody knew them by heart and sang along with them. That’s the change today, acts have been pulled down from the stage, into the crowd, that’s how you know you’ve really made it, when your fans see you as a regular person, one who has a moment of genius that makes them feel good.

And “I Took A Pill In Ibiza” makes people feel good.

I’d been tracking the song, figuring it was another EDM number with a hooky sound, but little meaning.

But that is untrue.

The truth is Mike Posner released it last summer and if you hear it you’ll be hard-pressed to believe it’s the same song, the original’s a slowed-down acoustic number, that’s heartfelt and suffers from going nowhere musically, but lyrically…it’s the opposite of today’s I’m a driver, I’m a winner, all positivity, all optimism all the time world. The lyrics stick out…

I took a pill in Ibiza

Now there’s nothing uncommon about that, that’s what you’re supposed to do in the Balearics.

But then…

To show Avicii I was cool

How much do we do to look cool? We’re afraid to be ourselves, we put ourselves at risk, image is everything, if they knew who we truly were they wouldn’t include us.

And I barely knew who Mike Posner was, other than he’d had some success before.

But he hadn’t had any since, which is what inspired him to write this song.

And when I finally got sober, felt ten years older
But fuck it, it was something to do

You can’t say anything negative about drugs in our culture, they’re the coolest thing going. And I’m not saying users should be put in jail, but I’ve never had a trip as good as a live experience, I’ve got more regrets than good times, and I think of all the burned out people I know who smoke ad infinitum, the dope of today, not the mild stuff of yesteryear, which will check you out and remove you from your pain, as well as society.

I’m living out in L.A.
I drive a sports car just to prove
I’m a real big baller ’cause I made a million dollars
And I spend it on girls and shoes

L.A. is all about image, what you drive, where you live, you show your wealth, it’s the opposite of the east coast, the east coast of yesteryear, when artists could still live in Manhattan. What are all these people gonna do when we go to driverless cars, owned by the man called up by an app? Youngsters know it’s your identity that counts, the rest can be summoned on demand.

You don’t ever wanna step off that roller coaster and be all alone

No, you don’t. Guys become stars, strive for achievement, for acceptance, for the perks because they want to get laid. But when they find out stardom doesn’t solve their internal problems they can’t write hits anymore, they find out their only hope is to be honest with themselves, find out who they truly are and change.

You don’t wanna ride the bus like this
Never knowing who to trust like this

Trust is everything in this world, if you’ve got no one to trust, if you’re not trustworthy, you’re gonna be uber-lonely.

And there’s nothing like being broke, losing your wheels, no one wants to hit you up on the bus because they know you’re a loser.

I’m just a singer who already blew his shot

Posner had a top ten single, but he couldn’t replicate it.

I get along with old timers
‘Cause my name’s a reminder of a pop song people forgot

Whew! You can get in the building, people know your name, but you’re a has-been.

And I can’t keep a girl, no
‘Cause as soon as the sun comes up
I cut ’em all loose and work’s my excuse

That’s the truth of being a musician, it’s hard work. It’s not like Vince and his buds on “Entourage,” there’s little time off, those are actors playing roles, whereas a musician has to create all the time and then sell it, doing publicity, going on tour, assuming anybody cares, and in today’s world it’s hard to get attention, never mind keep it.

But the truth is I can’t open up

Whew! This is a guy, being vulnerable! Do you know how hard this is to do?

I met some fans on Lafayette
They said tell us how to make it ’cause we’re getting real impatient

Everybody believes they’re a star, worthy of attention, even though this is patently untrue. The delusional ultimately have their eyes opened, but this comes some time after their impatience, they’re hanging on Posner’s words, he got there, how do they trample him and get the brass ring themselves?

But you don’t wanna be high like me

Sounds like sour grapes, but Posner’s just saying…be wary of getting what you want and finding it doesn’t make you happy, crying in your beer.

And if you listen to the original studio acoustic take, not only is it not a hit you don’t need to hear it more than once.

Until you hear the remix.

Then your head spins, the song flips, the lyrics are nearly irrelevant, they go by so fast you don’t catch them, it’s all about the sound. And just like a “Hamilton”-goer who hates rap suddenly realizes he was wrong, EDM-haters are enraptured by this sound.

This is the future the oldsters and record companies are trying to hold down. The truth is fans want to remix your work, want to make it their own, and sometimes fresh eyes and ears make all the difference, the SeeB remix made “I Took A Pill In Ibiza” a worldwide hit, embraced, ironically, by those who want to go to the island, drop a drug and cut loose.

BUT THE SOUND IS SO INFECTIOUS!

The remix would be a hit with completely different lyrics.

But they’re not.

So what’s a boy to do? Posner bears his soul, reflects how he’s down and out, and he ends up with the party anthem of the year.

Which everybody knows.

That’s the amazing thing today, how people know at all. How do all those people at the Roxy…how were they clued in?

We all want to be clued in. But the scene is overwhelming.

But then you get an email, something catches your ear or eye, and you’re a member, you’re a believer!

And that Roxy video shot from the audience closed me.

That’s the power of YouTube, that’s the power of having a camera in every fan’s hand.

Suddenly a track comes alive, an experience is created.

This is the modern future, not a canned performance, one hermetically sealed that the audience can only watch but not embrace.

Posner has sped up his acoustic number. It’s not EDM, but it’s still the same song, it’s all about the song, he who writes the changes wins.

He who creates the changes and lays down truth goes to the top, is not forgotten, that’s the essence of Lorde’s “Royals” and “I Took A Pill In Ibiza.”

It’d be easy to dismiss the modern pop scene, EDM, say everything today sucks.

But the truth is it’s hard to find.

But when you uncover gems you’re touched, feel as you always did, it’s the same as it ever was.

AND THAT’S SO FUCKING GREAT!

SeeB remix on YouTube

SeeB remix on Spotify

“The Tonight Show” (Posner does the same take as he does at the Roxy, but with not quite the same magic, but magic nonetheless)

P.S. Posner’s number 5 on today’s U.S. Spotify chart, with 726,776 streams. The SeeB remix has been streamed 197,882,428 times so far on the service. It’s a top ten digital download. The track went to number one in the UK, it’s a hit all over the world.

P.P.S. In the old days the TV appearances would be about breaking the act, now it’s about the victory lap. A hit track today is owned by the audience, and people don’t need you unless you can do it again and again and again. Hits give you a start, but a career’s so hard to achieve, just ask Mike Posner!

Their Syd Barrett LPs made nary a dent in the U.S. Most people first heard “See Emily Play” when David Bowie covered it on “Pin Ups.” But when the crazy diamond was gone word started to spread, Pink Floyd were testing limits, in an era where that was admired, unlike today, where life is so hard that anybody with any success just repeats himself, and the wannabes imitate what’s on the hit parade.

So I bought “Ummagumma” and didn’t really get it. I didn’t find it offensive, it’s just that I didn’t want to spin it ad infinitum, in an era where money was precious and if you bought it you played it until you knew it.

And then I viewed Pink Floyd from afar, I saw their albums in the record store bins, but I didn’t buy them. It seemed the act was a curio, doing their own thing to a marginal audience. From “Ummagumma” to “Atom Heart Mother” to “Meddle” to “Obscured By Clouds” and then…

I was going to college in Vermont, there was no radio, unlike today if you were living in the hinterlands you were truly out of it. Except for the rock press, “Creem” and “Rolling Stone,” they said Pink Floyd had a hit.

This was impossible. They’d given it multiple tries. Why now? Why did the punters suddenly embrace this left field act?

“Money.”

The cash register rang, Storm Thorgerson’s images covered the bandshell and it was one of those transcendent moments that you could never foresee that made you tingle and feel fully alive.

You see there was barely a more played track in the seventies. Every city you went to, every time you turned on FM radio, you heard “Money.” There was a level of ubiquity far outstripping the tunes of today, and when Gilmour and band laid into that bass heavy groove it was positively shocking, it was like having your best friend from school walk through the door completely unchanged, HOW COULD THIS BE?

And unlike the fearful acts of today, nothing was on hard drive, and unlike Bob Dylan, Gilmour saw no need to rework the number to satisfy himself, he played it just like the record.

Only different.

The bass was emphasized, the sax solo was alive and present, and he was WAILING on the guitar.

You forget what a great guitarist he is, because he never bragged, and all the accolades go to Jimi and Jimmy, Eric and Jeff, but Gilmour’s bending notes and it’s like what you heard on FM suddenly became three-dimensional, went from stereo to 5.1., it was the difference between watching porn on your computer and touching someone in real life. You’re totally in the moment, your senses are heightened, this is the GUY!

“Wish You Were Here” came before that.

This got nowhere near the airplay “Money” did. But remember when the Twin Towers collapsed, when life in these United States stopped? Jimmy Iovine rallied a retinue of stars for a concert while we were all still in shock, Fred Durst and Johnny Rzeznik did “Wish You Were Here.” Both of them have been forgotten today, they’re period pieces, but not only does this song live on, it was the most fitting number of the evening. That’s the power of rock music, that’s the power of classic rock, that’s the power of Pink Floyd, “Wish You Were Here” was not momentary, not a ditty to be digested and discarded but something you pondered and embraced, that became part of you. And it wasn’t only those who were there, but those who came after. Gilmour’s version was faithful to the record, the highlights were the picking and the nonsense vocalizations he replicated, no one does that anymore, gives us what we want, the way we heard it originally, it ended too soon, it could have gone on all night.

And, of course, there were new tracks, that was the reason for the show.

David Crosby’s vocalizations made them special, but that was not what people came to hear.

Then again, it was a somnambulant audience, they’d stand and applaud after one of the Floyd numbers, but they never really got into it…

Until “Run Like Hell.”

They’re gonna send you back to mother in a cardboard box

Disco had supposedly killed rock, on August 10, 1979, CBS laid off 120 people.

They just didn’t wait long enough. Because at the end of November, the 30th to be exact, right after Thanksgiving, Pink Floyd dropped a double album so big it made the assembled multitude forget about corporate rock, Steve Dahl was just a memory, everything was plowed under by the “Wall.”

Imagine if Adele’s music meant anything, stood for something, and her latest album was released with a tenth the hype and ended up being heard EVERYWHERE!

Sure, “Dark Side Of The Moon” never fell off the chart, but although successful, the albums that followed it were nowhere near as big, no one expected Pink Floyd to dominate at the turn of the decade.

But they did.

“Another Brick In The Wall” got incessant airplay. All we hear today is education rules, our nation is run by people who jumped through hoops, but it wasn’t this way in the classic rock era, instead we got not nincompoops, wet behind the ears idiots like Justin Bieber, but self-educated men and women who questioned authority, all the established precepts, to be an individual was key, today everybody just wants to be a member of the group.

And for years thereafter, when the station had time to kill, running up to the news, they’d play “Run Like Hell,” it’s the most famous near-instrumental you’re aware of but don’t know.

Like all the Floyd hits, they were incessant presences in our lives.

Now you’ve got to know the production Thursday night was spectacular. Not only were there Storm Thorgerson’s graphics, but Marc Brickman’s lights, he got an extra 250k to make it exceptional, this was not the same show you saw indoors, this was SPECIAL!

And Phil Manzanera is picking notes, there are three backup singers and two keyboard players, but the man at center stage was the star.

Clapton can’t even play “Layla,” maybe because those notes were picked by Duane Allman.

And so many have trouble replicating studio excellence live.

But Gilmour was making those guitar strings squeak, notes were flying out of his axe like lightning bolts, the drums started to pound, this was RUN LIKE HELL!

I jumped up. I couldn’t help it. This was unexpected. I figured he’d do “Comfortably Numb,” which he did. Sure, it was cool to hear “Astronomy Domine” and “Shine On You Crazy Diamond,” but “Run Like Hell” is rarely mentioned as sitting atop Pink Floyd’s canon.

And it took a while for the audience to recognize it, to wake up from sleep after digesting their picnics, but the sound spread, the space became electric, everybody rose to their feet in sheer wonderment, at this seventy year old who seemed not to lose a step, who wasn’t showing off, but seemed deeply entranced in playing this number that’s part of our DNA, that sets our minds free, that separates you from me, illustrates we’re all individuals, trying to survive, trying to make our lives work.

And you can turn it up to eleven at home, but you’ll never experience the power, the assault that it was on Thursday night.

And if you’re takin’ your girlfriend out tonight
You better park the car well out of sight

That’s where we heard this music, in our automobiles, privacy ruled, there was a direct link between the musicians and us, everywhere the tunes played, they rode shotgun, they gave guidance.

‘Cause if they catch you in the back seat
Trying to pick her locks

Parents didn’t let girlfriends sleep over. Mom and Dad were clueless enemies. We were inventing it as we went along. You didn’t save yourself for marriage, rather you searched mightily for experience.

You better run

Everybody’s stopped running.

We’re afraid of being left behind, but we’re anesthetized by Netflix, communication is done on Instagram, whereas going to the gig used to be a  tribal rite, it was the best place to find like-minded people.

And sure, we liked to zone out.

But we knew the future was in our hands. And nobody was gonna help us out. Institutions were not to be trusted, corporations were the enemy.

And the biggest stars in the world were musicians.

This was pre-MTV. The average person couldn’t pick David Gilmour out of a lineup.

But when they heard his guitar come out of the speaker, they knew exactly who it was.

This was the sound that soothed them, it was the soundtrack to their dreams, it was what set them loose.

David Gilmour set me loose Thursday night.

I think I finally found my hallelujah

That’s about the fifth hook in a song that’s only three minutes and nine seconds long. There’s the “Uh-hah,” the handclap/percussion, the keyboard, the staccato singing and and then…we’ve got this distorted vocal with a ton of other stuff under it, which ends with the track dropping down the roller coaster hill into an explosion of mirth.

And this track is a FAILURE!

Felice is addicted to Sirius XM’s Blend. She keeps telling me about the tracks she hears, she’s an expert on modern pop, listening to this music station with no commercials.

Terrestrial radio comes last. Unless you’re a superstar it could take a year for your track to hit the commercial airwaves, you get started on Spotify on Sirius XM on YouTube…

And all of them are light years ahead of regular radio.

Read how “7 Years” got started on Spotify, how the service peppered it in playlists, this article will be the most informative thing you encounter all day:

7 Years: How Streaming Fuelled the Rapid Rise of Lukas Graham

So, sometime last year Felice starts testifying about this track “Honey, I’m Good” by Andy Grammer. I’ve heard of neither, the track nor the act. But Felice was right, “Honey, I’m Good” turned into a monster. The official video has 57 million views on YouTube, the lyric video another 28 million and…”Honey, I’m Good” has 91 million streams on Spotify.

You’d think “Good To Be Alive (Hallelujah)” would get an instant pass, go straight to the top of the chart.

But that’s not how it works anymore. Sure, Bieber and Beyonce get that kind of treatment, but everybody else isn’t as good as their last hit, they’re almost starting all over! Needing to prove themselves, that’s how tough the competition is.

“Good To Be Alive (Hallelujah)” only lived on the Hot 100 for three weeks, peaked at #62 and is presently off the chart.

But Mediabase is what truly counts, and there we see “Good To Be Alive (Hallelujah)” ensconced at number 24 on AC. Moving down from number 23.

Then again, how much attention do we want to pay to terrestrial radio? Lukas Graham’s “7 Years” is still moving up the AC chart, it’s at number 20 this week, it’s higher on Top 40, but “7 Years” is still at only number 13, despite being number 3 on the Spotify chart with 855,404 daily plays, 240,927,322 cumulative plays and 49,913,742 views of the official clip on YouTube.

Does terrestrial radio still matter?

As the victory lap, as the way to reach those out of touch, who are not really listening, satellite and Spotify and YouTube are where the action is, the revolution is happening, Les Moonves gets it, selling CBS Radio, but the rest of the old farts believe the old format is forever.

They’re wrong, it no longer rules.

So I’m driving to dinner Tuesday night and I hear Felice’s cut, the Andy Grammer one she can’t stop testifying about, “Good To Be Alive (Hallelujah),” and I get it intellectually, but it doesn’t penetrate my brain and body completely.

BUT THEN I HEAR IT AGAIN!

Repetition, that’s what makes hits, never forget it. And if people can’t sit through your track once, never mind want to play it again, you’re dead.

Sorry. Andy Grammer gets it, you don’t.

And Felice has no desire to hear anything but Andy Grammer’s hits. The performer has four tracks on Spotify with double digit million streams and then…the numbers go down, down down, way into the single digit millions. That’s the world we live in, one of hits only, that’s how cutthroat it is.

I’ve been grinding so long, been trying this shit for years
And I got nothing to show, just climbing this rope right here
And if there’s a man upstairs, he kept bringing me rain
But I’ve been sending up prayers and something’s changed

The target audience, young people who still have their optimism intact, are worried things won’t work out, but they still believe they will.

I think I finally found my hallelujah
I’ve been waiting for this moment all my life
Now all my dreams are coming true, yeah
I’ve been waiting for this moment

We’ve all been here, maybe it’s a long anticipated, long desired victory. Maybe it’s just a serendipitous moment, when you smile and think things are pretty damn good.

Feels good to be alive right about now

These are the moments we all live for, this is how you feel when you hear this song, it’s inspirational, it rides shotgun, it squeezes out all the negativity, allows you to be your best self.

And you wonder why people want to dance to this stuff, sing along with it…in a world with so many challenges. The popsters give their audience what they’re looking for, hope and inspiration. Sure, there’s room for Joni Mitchell introspection, but we haven’t got anybody providing that, at least not on a quality level.

I was dead in the water, nobody wanted me
I was old news, I went cold as cold could be
But I kept throwing on coal, trying to make that fire burn
Sometimes you gotta get scars to get what you deserve

Come on, you’re sitting at home, lying on your bed in your parents’ house, feeling down and out, and then you hear this track and you tell yourself…GODDAMN, I CAN WIN!

Now “Good To Be Alive (Hallelujah)” has only 6,246,634 streams on Spotify.

And the official video only has 3,153,311 views on YouTube.

And you wonder why you can’t get paid! This guy had a gigantic hit and he’s still struggling, and you have five figures of YouTube views, maybe six, and you think you should be rich! Never mind how much money was spent on this video.

Yes, you need money to make it in the pop world.

And you’ve got to social network up a storm.

And then you just might have a chance.

This is the major league. Too many are playing in the minors and not even realizing it! “Good To Be Alive (Hallelujah)” is a top ten record in every era prior to the internet, where all records are competing against all others, and if it’s a second listen track you can’t compete with the first.

Still…

If you listen to Sirius XM you’d be convinced “Good To Be Alive (Hallelujah)” is a smash, they play it constantly. I just listened to it twenty times in a row on Spotify, it makes me feel good. Maybe it’s got a chart life in its future.

But even if it doesn’t, it lives on in the minds of those who heard it.

And Andy Grammer has to go back to the salt mines.

Welcome to 2016.

Good To Be Alive (Hallelujah) – Spotify

Good To Be Alive (Hallelujah) – YouTube

It’s a producer’s medium.

Howard’s on vacation and I’ve been sampling the Pulse on Sirius XM and what stuns me is how the songs all sound alike. They’re peppered with a zillion hooks and the voices are interchangeable.

Welcome to 2016. Wherein the youngsters get it and the oldsters are scratching their heads.

Whilst the oldsters keep bitching that the album must be saved, that music is best heard on vinyl and streaming sucks, the youngsters know it’s all about the hit single, it’s the only way to break through the noise, because Top Forty has the biggest footprint and the odds of gaining ubiquity elsewhere are nearly nonexistent.

That’s why you’re broke, no one’s listening.

Used to be you got a record deal and some publicity and some fame and people knew who you were and would check you out, and once they got hooked by you they stayed attached.

But now we’re bombarded with media all day long. It’s nearly impossible to get anybody to check anything out. And despite the oldsters owning the press, traditional media, with reviews about hipsters and statement makers…

The younger generation just doesn’t care.

The younger generation might know who Jimi Hendrix is, but they never experienced underground FM radio, they never experienced limited options, they’ve only known a smorgasbord of opportunity, wherein he who buys insurance and lights himself on fire wins.

It started with MTV. Where you needed to be good-looking and make obvious tracks. Sure, “Thriller” was long, but that was an anomaly, the cut was propelled by a lengthy, intriguing, state of the art, over the top John Landis video, it was a moment in time.

Which quickly passed.

Disco didn’t kill rock radio, MTV did.

MTV returned us to a hits format. New Top Forty outlets appeared on the FM dial and their ratings surged. And sure, KROQ had impact in the nineties, but the reason that format was so successful was because Rick Carroll limited the playlist.

So, in a world of unending plentitude, the spigot gets ever tighter, we want ever fewer tracks.

So if you want to be successful…

You don’t go into the wilderness and write dirges about your lack of love.

No, you imitate Kelly Clarkson, who went on “American Idol.” Today it’s about instant fame. And let’s not forget, Clarkson had none before she not only got television exposure, but worked with MAX MARTIN!

Listen to Top Forty… The only difference between Taylor Swift’s hits and the rest of the dreck is she’s got the best tracks and one of the worst voices. Everything she built her career upon, the intimate, melodic, tuneful country stories…that’s been eviscerated, it’s out the window. The tracks are catchy, but mostly Taylor Swift is a product, known primarily for her fame.

And the wannabes are imitating her.

They not only know no different, they know how hard it is to break through!

The oldsters make a statement without a single and are heard at best on marginal formats. They don’t cross over, and usually they don’t deserve to, because when the best of the best are mediocre…no one pays attention.

And all the Top Forty stuff… You get on one listen, two at most, or else you’re done.

Scream all you want to. The people working in this sphere are not dumb, with blinders on, it’s the oldsters who are clueless. The youngsters realize how competitive it is, they’re dealing in reality as opposed to being lost in the past.

But how do we wrest popular music from this drivel going down the drain?

First we must have music in the schools, teach people the tools, then we can hope someone can be inspired to do something different.

And I’d like to tell you exactly what different is, but I’ll be honest and say every new trend was unforeseeable.

Other than it featured a new sound that was honest and credible and those involved didn’t care about anyone else.

All the stories in the “New York Times,” the reviews, the analysis, the twenty tracks you have to hear right now… IRRELEVANT!

Daily Pitchfork info goes straight to the dustbin. Oh, a few embrace it and live for it, but the scene is so minor it can’t come close to selling out an arena. And then you’ve got the moribund Conde Nast purchasing the outlet as if it was the future. Hell, the future ain’t even GAWKER! Even Nick Denton is in the rearview mirror.

So you may decry the modern pop scene, but everybody involved is damn smart, they get what you don’t. It’s like they decided to be engineering majors and you decided to get a psychology degree.

But wait you say, we need psychologists!

Of course we do. But not ones bitching they can’t get paid who don’t help anybody! It’s their excellence that must draw people to them.

We live in a Tower of Babel society, We’re looking for connection and communion. The popsters have figured out a solution.

It’s your turn to learn the lessons and improve upon their work, to do something new, that changes the culture.

Change comes first, money second.

And if you’re reversing those, you’re never gonna make it.

Some of the pop stuff is astoundingly good.

Most is repetitive.

But despite the wide swath of music being played today, it’s only pop that has critical mass, only pop that matters.

P.S. Meanwhile, the greatest threat to the popsters is one Dave Cobb, who produced not only Jason Isbell, but Jamey Johnson before him and Chris Stapleton after him. The history of the music business is the jump from one legendary producer to another, they each come with a new sound and are then buried under the work of another. From Sam Phillips to George Martin to Mike Chapman to Stock Aitken Waterman to Max Martin. Cobb is on to something, he’s the opposite of pop, he’s about truth and soul. Furthermore, Cobb’s work has traction and is making an impact. March into the wilderness and don’t complain. And do work that’s true to itself. We’re counting on you to bring down the pop monolith. And listening to David Lowery complain about Spotify, and believing that vinyl made more profit than free streaming

patently untrue, read a brief analysis here:
A Closer Look At RIAA Claim That Vinyl Sales Generate More Revenue Than Billions Of Ad-Supported Music Streams

will just keep you stuck in the mud, living in a past which will never return.