My favorite cut on the first Led Zeppelin album is “Your Time Is Gonna Come.”

Didn’t used to be, I came to that one late. I first liked “Good Times Bad Times,” it was a perfect single in an era where FM and AM were diverging and the latter would never play anything like it. And then there was “Communication Breakdown,” with its machine gun intro, exploding out of the speakers right after the acoustic intrigue of “Black Mountain Side.” The cut I loved next was “How Many More Times,” which finished the album on a dark note, that was always an element of Zeppelin’s greatness, the darkness, something was always hidden, you wanted to go behind that door.

And then came “Your Time Is Gonna Come.”

Not made to be a single, it began with a long organ solo (never underestimate the influence of John Paul Jones), and after settling into a groove, the guitar and bass locking in, Robert Plant sang…

Lyin’, cheatin’, hurtin’
That’s all you seem to do

I found these lyrics going through my brain at the strangest times, they were a sidekick when I needed one, even if I didn’t know it. That’s the power of great music, it’s there for you, it lifts you up when you’re down.

And it took months for Led Zeppelin’s debut to gain traction. It was spread via word of mouth, when that was literally done with your lips, before the internet allowed something to catch fire overnight, oftentimes undeservedly. Everybody who was deeply into music acquired it, little was written about it, and then came “Led Zeppelin II.”

Imagine having a favorite fishing hole, one where only the biggest trout are caught, that only the cognoscenti know about, and in one week the whole damn world shows up and fishes it out and you’re done with it.

That’s what happened with “Led Zeppelin II.”

Unlike with the first album, radio embraced “Whole Lotta Love.” You didn’t have to be locked in your bedroom to know it. Retailers stocked enough copies. Everybody rushed out and bought it. It was ubiquitous. Led Zeppelin was suddenly the biggest band in the land. It was like PSY’s “Gangnam Style,” if that song was better and there were eight more and there were no visuals to speak of. Sure, Jimmy Page had played in the Yardbirds, but they were never that big over here and Keith Relf was the frontman. All we knew about Zeppelin was the credits. And there wasn’t much there.

But the strange thing about “Led Zeppelin II” was how playable it was.

Even back then, in 1969, at the height of album rock, LPs contained a bummer or two, a track you lifted the needle over. But not “Led Zeppelin II.”

My initial favorite cut was the unheralded and nearly forgotten “Living Loving Maid (She’s Just A Woman).” I was into the roller coaster rides, those cuts that twisted and turned at high speed and deposited you on the tarmac of the amusement park wanting to get right back on the ride, salivating for more.

Of course there was the scatological “The Lemon Song,” and there were a bunch of cuts with stereo effects that made for great headphone listening when they still did that, but the tracks that refused to fade away and continued to radiate were the ballads. Most notably “Thank You,” which Tori Amos does a killer take of, and “Ramble On.’

Now I bought “Led Zeppelin II” the day it came out, borrowed the Vista Cruiser and drove up to Korvette’s and laid down my allowance. I came home and dropped the needle and heard it for the very first time, played it incessantly for a week and then gave it up, I knew it, I’d digested it, but worse, everywhere you went you heard it. I know times have changed, but they’re still the same, we had highly-marketed acts back then, but if you put out music this infectious today all the trappings would still be irrelevant. They certainly were back then.

And I didn’t listen to “Led Zeppelin II” again for six years, until I was stuck in a condo with that and “Physical Graffiti” and a couple of Doobie Brothers albums for a month straight. All those years later I could listen once again. And “Ten Years Gone” became my favorite cut, and it still is, but when I pulled up Zeppelin on my phone the other night and heard “Ramble On” I was astounded.

Mine’s a tale that can’t be told
My freedom I hold dear

Did you watch the last episode of “House Of Cards”? When they were in the desert? I used to spend a lot of time driving cross-country, before there were cell phones, when if you were lucky you got the farm report on the radio, life was so much different then, we weren’t all hooked together, we had a freedom we’ve given up that we are only now realizing we’ve lost.

That’s what I loved about listening to music, the ability to shut out the rest of the world. I didn’t want to be social, I didn’t want to share, I just wanted to play my records and go to the show and bond with the act.

Jimmy Page recently remastered “Led Zeppelin II.” There was a ton of press about it, as if everybody was gonna go out and buy it, as if everybody still had a CD player/disk drive. Today we listen to files, tomorrow it’ll all be streams. And big announcements like this and attendant instant sales will be history. It’s about setting the record straight, getting closer to the artifact, finance has to take a back seat.

Which is all to say I didn’t bother to spin the Zeppelin remasters, the 1990 boxed set was good enough, but when I stumbled upon the remastered “Ramble On” I heard stuff I never did before.

It’s John Bonham. Is he playing with his hands? He may be dead, but he’s so alive here.

And then John Paul Jones, so lyrical on the bass. From back when bands were such, before records were made by a committee of undertakers called in to compose a hit. When you put four people in a room, a plane, a bus, you come up with something superior to what anyone can do alone.

Not that I want to understate the importance of Jimmy’s acoustic guitar, but I could always hear that. And Page is not dominating, he’s accompanying, they’re all in it together, on the journey of life, led by Robert Plant.

Leaves are falling all around
It’s time I was on my way

The funny thing is the record came out in the fall. And I hate that season and love it too. The days are getting shorter, the landscape is dying, but as you approach the darkness of winter the mind takes over from the body, this is the season of heavy thought.

Got no time for spreading roots
The time has come to be gone

I used to be this person. I was itinerant. If it didn’t fit in my car, it didn’t make the journey. I was searching for experience, for happiness, and there was little love along the way, not that I didn’t hunger for it.

Ramble on and now’s the time
The time is now, to sing my song

Funny how the distance give you insight. Get old enough and songs make sense in a way they never did before. Robert was a rock star, he wanted to devour life, he didn’t want to get stuck in one place, he wanted to experience it all before he settled down.

And like I said, so did I.

I was inspired by the music. Loud and sometimes bombastic, like Led Zeppelin, and quiet and insightful, like Joni Mitchell. If I wanted to know which  way the wind blew I turned on the radio, not for the weather report but the records. They were my guide. Inspiring me to take chances, to be all I could be.

There’s that break, with one of Jimmy’s guitars in each ear, setting your mind free, to contemplate your direction, to take stock and then…

Ramble on.

I saw Led Zeppelin one year later. In the rain at the Yale Bowl. I’d love to tell you the show was transcendent, but they were more disappointing than great. The third album had not yet been released and they played too much of it and they did nothing so much as punch the clock, because once you leave the metropolis it all runs together and rarely matters.

But I did see them again at the Forum in L.A., during their week-long stand back in the spring of ’77, when they came to conquer and achieved their goal. It was a tent show for believers, and at that point Jimmy and Robert were more powerful than any religious deity, fans would follow them anywhere. But they were in it for the money and the girls and the music. They needed the adulation but they didn’t want to bask in it, because they were different from us, other…which made us want to draw even closer.

Ramble on and now’s the time
The time is now, to sing my song

It’s always now. Jimmy may be unsure where to turn, but Robert’s still searching, a golden god casting aside his robes and walking amongst men, a beacon to us all to keep pushing the envelope, to test limits and do the unexpected.

And the glue is music.

Tech is tools.

Music is an essential elixir that changes your chemistry when it flows into your ears. It soothes your wounds and makes you powerful, and keeps paying dividends as time goes by.

I’d heard “Ramble On” enough for a lifetime back in ’69. And although I have fond memories of Crazy Elephant, I rarely go back there, the pop music is good for nostalgia but then there are some cuts that keep delivering new insights, like the Bible.

Led Zeppelin were not critically revered in their heyday.

Their manager thought so little of the legacy of their music that he sold the rights to the record company.

But younger generations picked up on the tunes and the internet made Led Zeppelin almost as big today as they were yesterday.

For now I smell the rain
And with it pain and it’s headed my way
Sometimes I grow so tired
But I know I’ve got one thing I got to do

I actually like the smell of rain. But no one enjoys the pain. And the older you get the more tired you become. But then you realize there’s only one thing you’ve got to do…

RAMBLE ON!

Ramble On – Spotify

Aren’t we supposed to hate corporations?

But Tim Cook wrote a piece in the “Washington Post” and the governor blinked, it was techies and WALMART that stopped Indiana in its tracks. Isn’t this what musicians used to do?

But musicians are afraid of offending people, afraid of being “Dixie-Chicked,” busy complaining that they just can’t make enough money in this new connected world as they charge three digits for tickets and make deals with any corporation that will have them. Because, you know, musicians need to eat too.

Hogwash.

One of the defining attributes of Led Zeppelin was they just did not give a fuck. Destroy hotel rooms? Peel off some hundreds. Musicians thought they were above the law, that the government couldn’t touch them because they had the people on their side. And they did. But now the corporations do. People will get in heated arguments over iOS and Android, we used to have these fights over bands.

Tim Cook knows the government is clueless. We’ve seen that from Napster on. By time the government holds a hearing, the tech scene has moved on, the way the audience moved from Herman’s Hermits to Jimi Hendrix. Want to have progress? Take matters into your own hands. Kind of like Irving Azoff’s performing rights organization. I’m not for the Balkanization of PROs, but it takes someone of Irving’s cunning and power to not only realize that Pandora would be screwed without Pharrell, but to take this theory and turn it into reality. That’s the story of business, utilizing leverage to get what you want, not crying to the government.

So Tim Cook runs the richest company in the world and not only comes out of the closet, but challenges lawmakers in America’s heartland? Isn’t this where the real people live and work according to Sarah Palin? How dare you offend America’s heartland! But the truth is the law was payback for religious zealots who hated gay marriage. It’s just that simple. But then they tried to shift the debate to freedom to not bake a cake and the whole country got diverted from the real issue. Which is a small core of people is working behind the scenes to get what they want while you are sleeping.

But Tim Cook was not sleeping. Scores of other tech companies were not sleeping. They could see the bill for what it was, and pushed back immediately, the same way they acknowledge software problems and push out fixes via the internet. While records take years to develop, musicians selling antique albums and blaming everybody but themselves for the decline of their business, those in the know discard the past and embrace the future.

What, Jeff Tweedy canceled a show in Indiana.

But Jay Z and Alicia Keys and Madonna were too busy trying to line their coffers in NYC, launching the moribund Tidal so they could get richer. And what is amazing is they’ve achieved the exact opposite of their desire. They believed their fans loved them and would embrace the service when online there was outrage that these “musicians” just wanted to get more bucks. I’ve seen more blowback against this cabal than Tim Cook has experienced in his three and a half years as head of Apple. And at least when they criticize him, they criticize his job performance. No one cares about Madonna’s new music. How could this group be so tone-deaf as to take the  money and run whilst saying the opposite? They can’t improve payouts. And they all did it for the dough, taking money from the enterprise the same way they do from cosmetic and beer companies. These are people to believe in?

When did it become a badge of honor to stand for nothing?

And to be afraid of your audience… That’s right, I’m speaking to you country acts. Who play rock and rap and pledge fealty to right wing hogwash all the while. Why don’t you push back against small thinking and racist, sexist and anti-gay comments? You want to take the spoils but none of the responsibility. Imagine if your records actually said something, the right thing, then you might cross over.

As for the pop acts… Do we expect faceless foreigners to testify for you? They make the records, Max Martin is a fierce composer, but most people are clueless as to who he is, he’s got no profile.

But Tim Cook has a profile.

His company makes expensive products that people love! They used to charge for operating systems, now they’re FREE! Apple sees that the money is in hardware, in services, while musicians keep bitching that people are not buying full-length CDs. Make me puke.

So now I get why corporations have all the power. Especially tech.

Because they make the fuel this country runs on. Music is a sideshow. Their proprietors are willing to do the heavy lifting to change the world. As a matter of fact, if they do not, they fail. And there’s a race to constantly improve the standard. From MySpace to Facebook to Snapchat…it’s a cornucopia of innovation.

As a result, these people become so wealthy that they are unafraid to utter their opinions.

And unlike the musicians, they’re educated. Really Alicia Keys, you want me to believe in you when you can’t even pronounce “adage”? Illustrates you didn’t write your speech, shows you’d have been better off staying in school.

But the goal is to make it while you’re barely a teenager. And to spam us with tech’s tools and get press in antiquated publications as we ignore you all the while. Meanwhile, we’re lining up at the Apple Store to buy their latest gadget.

The world has changed.

I used to believe in the players.

Now I believe in the coders. And the people who grease their skids.

Come on, can you imagine Lucian Grainge standing up to Indiana? Doug Morris barking back to Arkansas?

Don’t make me laugh.

“Tim Cook: Pro-discrimination ‘religious freedom’ laws are dangerous”

BOTH SIDES NOW
Judy Collins

The first time most people were exposed to Joni Mitchell, even though they didn’t know it.

This single was iconic, mostly for the sound and Judy Collins’s voice.

When we ultimately heard Joni’s version, on her second album, 1969’s “Clouds,” we were astounded to find it sounded completely different, with a heavy emphasis on the lyrics. Joni’s is a song, Judy’s is a record.

“Both Sides Now” cemented Judy Collins’s stardom, it’s a linchpin in her career, but just a member of Joni Mitchell’s canon.

P.S. Many people STILL haven’t heard Joni’s version. Her first two LPs were nearly ignored. The mainstream did not catch on until her sixth LP,” “Court And Spark,” and some went back, but many did not. They’re missing out.

URGE FOR GOING
Tom Rush

This will positively blow your mind, it will become your favorite track if you’ve never heard it before and if you know it…no one captures the sound of fall better than Tom Rush does here. It’s eerie. You feel creeped out and connected at the same time. This is what music does best.

From Tom’s 1968 Elektra album “The Circle Game” (that’s right, he covered that Joni song too…before anybody knew it), which was a college favorite that Tom leveraged for a deal with Columbia and further penetration into the public consciousness. But, “The Circle Game” is his best work.

Meanwhile, most people didn’t hear Joni’s version until 1996, when it appeared on her collection “Hits.” It had previously been released as the b-side of the single “You Turn Me On I’m A Radio,” but almost no one heard it.

Once again Joni’s take is different. It’s the wistfulness in her voice that gets you.

THAT SONG ABOUT THE MIDWAY
Bonnie Raitt

Absolutely, positively magical, from Bonnie Raitt’s relatively stiff follow-up to “Takin My Time,” “Streetlights,” which was produced by Jerry Ragavoy and suffered for being a bit too slick. But not this.

At this late date, “Streetlights” is famous for the first appearance of Bonnie’s cover of John Prine’s “Angel From Montgomery,” and that’s fantastic, but Bonnie’s never sounded more mellifluous than she does on “That Song About The Midway,” the story comes alive.

Joni’s take is from six years before, 1968, on her aforementioned second album “Clouds.” In this case, it’s the same song, but the effect is different. It’s like Joni’s sitting on your living room floor, alone, telling her story, and you’re so riveted and intrigued that this exquisite person is letting you inside her world.

DREAMLAND
Roger McGuinn

Most people have heard neither this nor the original, which closes side three of Joni’s 1977 release “Don Juan’s Reckless Daughter,” the first of her projects after her breakthrough to suffer not only critical barbs, but less than grand commercial success.

Meanwhile, Roger had burnt out the audience with so much mediocre material that “Cardiff Rose,” from which this track emanates, was unjustly ignored.

Released in 1976, McGuinn’s take trumps Joni’s, it sounds like the Byrds with an edge.

Joni’s take is nearly a cappella. It suffers from this sparseness.

But McGuinn renders the lyric unforgettable…

It’s a long long way from Canada
A long way from snow chains

THIS FLIGHT TONIGHT
Nazareth

I haven’t heard this in eons, but I’ll never forget this. It was released in 1973, before Joni had really broken through and only the cognoscenti realized “Blue” was one of the best albums ever cut. So, to hear this heavy version by this hard rock band was head-spinning. Meanwhile, it made inroads at radio, it was prevalent. And I’m stunned all these years later it works.

As for Joni’s take… I’d say it’s uncoverable, but it was!

“Blue” plays as a travelogue, this comes right after the legendary “California,” and if you don’t know that album, stop reading this and cue it up immediately, your life is not yet complete.

FOR FREE
James Taylor

And here we have the miracle of the internet.

The first time I heard this song was when it was performed by James Taylor at the Sanders Theatre at Harvard in April 1970. This was before “Ladies Of The Canyon” came out, when the two were dating. And I never forgot it. And STUNNINGLY, there’s a recording of it on YouTube!

James Taylor – 1970 For Free (Joni Mitchell Cover)

You get something great the very first time through!

Shortly thereafter, I heard “Ladies Of The Canyon,” and it cemented my love for Ms. Mitchell.

Once again, it sounds like Joni is playing in her living room, just for you.

Meanwhile, this song goes through my head all the time…

And I play if you have the money
Or if you’re a friend to me

Don’t ask me for free work.

Unless you’re a friend of mine. Then there’s no limit to what I’ll do for you.

A CASE OF YOU
Tori Amos

Arguably Joni Mitchell’s most famous song.

HUH?

Sure, there were bigger hits, but “A Case Of You,” from “Blue” is the one that means the most to people.

Tori’s take is just as haunting and intimate as Joni’s, but Joni’s has got that dulcimer that brings a humanity no synthesizer can ever evidence.

Tori Amos – A Case of you (Joni Mitchell cover)

A CASE OF U
Prince

Once a rare track, self-released by Prince and mostly unknown, it resurfaced in an edited iteration on a Joni Mitchell tribute album.

The greats know who’s great, and Prince has always testified about Joni.

MICHAEL FROM MOUNTAINS
Judy Collins

From the same album that contained “Both Sides Now,” 1968’s “Wildflowers,” not enough people know this, the cover or the original, from Joni’s very first album, produced by David Crosby, “Song To A Seagull.”

I DON’T KNOW WHERE I STAND
Barbra Streisand

From her 1971 album, “Stoney End,” wherein Barbra tried to be hip.

It worked commercially, if not artistically.

But Barbra’s vocal is just too perfect, it’s equivalent to that of a TV contestant as opposed to the original, wherein Joni injects juice that Barbra just can’t find.

THAT SONG ABOUT THE MIDWAY
Dave Van Ronk

You know the name, but you may not know the material.

A folk legend, Dave’s take is not in the league of Bonnie Raitt’s, but you’ll feel like you journeyed back to a Bleecker Street that no longer exists when you hear it.

Dave Van Ronk – That Song About The Midway

CHELSEA MORNING
Judy Collins

I could have included the Fairport Convention take, or Green Lyte Sunday or Sergio Mendes’s hit versions, but this is the one that inspired Bill and Hillary Clinton to name their daughter…”Chelsea.”

WOODSTOCK
Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young

From “Deja Vu,” when they were the biggest band in the land.

This is the first time many people realized who Joni Mitchell was, because it was strange for this entity not to record its own songs, the story of how she missed the festival and wrote the song got press.

It’s the stinging guitar that closes you.

Meanwhile, SiriusXM has the alternative take in its library, from 1991’s boxed set, with a different chorus, and it BUGS ME when they keep playing it on Classic Vinyl. They need to replace it with the original!

Joni’s entry is completely different. It’s more of a late night in the mud, less of a celebration, it’s haunting.

WOODSTOCK
Matthews’ Southern Comfort

This went to number one in the U.K.

Matthews Southern Comfort – Woodstock (1970)

BIG YELLOW TAXI
Counting Crows, Vanessa Carlton

After their first album, Counting Crows ran out of material, never mind lacking the production skills of T-Bone Burnett. And on some level, this is offensive, and on another it works. I’ll let you decide.

She + Him covered “You Turn Me On I’m A Radio,” CeeLo did “River,” Carly Rae Jepsen recorded “Both Sides Now,” Joni Mitchell’s legacy is not fading away and it is most certainly radiating. And although she had some hits, that’s not what it’s about, she’s left us a singular body of work…some so incredible, it’s nearly uncoverable, like “Song For Sharon” (even though people have attempted!) And we wish her a speedy recovery, because in an era of me-too, where everybody’s just repeating what came before, afraid to innovate and be out of the box…

Joni Mitchell is an original.

Rhinofy-Joni Mitchell Covers

The price?

A COOL TEN BILLION!

It had to happen. Apple’s stock rises when it has a monopoly. And despite all the iPhone profits, Android has greater worldwide market share. This is not the iPod revolution, wherein a seamless hardware/software combination, of iPod iTunes and FairPlay DRM, ensured that no other player could gain traction. Hell, Apple is losing traction every day in music. And if you believe that Jimmy Iovine can pull a rabbit out of his hat, you believe Jay Z is gonna turn Tidal into a raging success.

That’s right, Jimmy was left out of the negotiations. Tim Cook is still pissed about the U2 fiasco, wherein Iovine paid back the has-been stars and Apple ended up with egg on its face. Apple is a bigger brand than U2, and Cook feels like the company got hijacked, so therefore, just like David Geffen was left out of the MCA/Matsushita negotiations, Jimmy had no part in this purchase, it’s news to him.

Actually, credit Scott Forstall. You remember him, right? Mr. Software, Steve Jobs’s right-hand man? Forstall was agitating for a music streaming service so loudly that he got fired. But after promoting Jony Ive and closing ranks Cook had a chance meeting with Daniel Ek at the San Jose airport, while their respective jets were being gassed, and Cook realized the error of his ways. He couldn’t bring back Forstall, but he was man enough to recognize he’d been wrong, as Steve was too, files are history, streams are forever.

So the seed was planted YEARS ago! That’s why Spotify has never gone public. Projects at Apple take as long to develop as movies at Pixar and while you were looking for an Apple TV set and deriding Jony Ive’s Watch, Cook was positioning the company to win, and win big.

That’s right, now Apple’s going to own streaming music, no one else will be able to compete, it’s monopoly time all over again.

So what’s the first lesson here?

Live like a king. Get a NetJet account. You can’t advance your career flying coach. Just like a wannabe leases a BMW in Los Angeles, in Silicon Valley you fly private. For the hang. For the business.

Anyway, Apple is behind the eight ball in music. iTunes sales are faltering and iTunes Radio is a disaster. Sure, iTunes Radio may ultimately triumph in countries Pandora has not entered, but it doesn’t look good.

And Spotify looks great.

Don’t believe the naysayers. Spotify’s footprint is immense, it’s in almost every country with an economy. And as Daniel Ek so famously says, if they stopped expanding/investing, they’d be profitable today. Sure, the business was built on musicians’ backs, but we reward superstar coders more than superstar musicians, and conception is everything. In a world of me-too music, Spotify was never a me-too music service.

Spotify had first-mover advantage.

Which is why Beats Music could never catch it. Why Rdio and Deezer can’t catch it.

Along with the deep pockets to give the music away for free.

And no one has a deeper pocket than Apple. They’re the only one who could overpay for Spotify, because not only do they have the cash, they’re the only one who can benefit from the synergy of the acquisition!

That Beats Music service that Ian Rogers has been working on so hard?

It’s the equivalent of Copland, the unworkable OS that caused Gil Amelio to purchase NeXT and gain what evolved into OS X.

That’s why Beats/Apple Music has never relaunched. It’s too buggy!

So, Spotify will now be Apple’s default service. With a reskinning and a rebranding. They’ve been working on this for two years, but the software is now launch-ready. It’s akin to the Mac’s switch from PowerPC to Intel. By time they announced it, they were ready to do it, all the work had already been done!

But the free tier doesn’t go away.

This is Jimmy Iovine’s middle finger to the music industry.

That’s right, Jimmy is incredibly pissed the label bosses wouldn’t agree to lower the price of an Apple streaming service to $7.99 a month. And he’s now getting the last laugh. Because with Apple the only game in town, Lucian Grainge has to bow to his will. It’ll be ten bucks a month for all you can eat, or you can experience the ads and listen for free. Apple has money to lose as it tightens its grip on streaming music.

That’s right, it’s over. No other enterprise has pockets this deep, software this good and mindshare/rep of an equivalent stature.

Launch date is Friday May 15th.

Why?

BECAUSE IT’S THE START OF TAYLOR SWIFT’S 1989 TOUR!

It was all a head fake. The joke is on you. Taylor’s been in cahoots with Apple for nearly a year. She removed her music from Spotify in order to drive down the purchase price! Every dollar below $10 bil was hers to keep. Alas, she was unsuccessful in this effort, but she’s coming out fine. She’s gonna get a dollar for every sign-up for the first twelve months. So, expect her to hawk Apple’s streaming service like she hawked her album, and no one’s a better marketer than Taylor, no one’s got a better relationship with the press. Didn’t you notice her absence at the Tidal press conference? She, of all people, should have been there. But “1989” isn’t even streamable on Tidal, doesn’t that tell you something?

And now you know why Mercedes-Benz was a late addition sponsor to the Rock In Rio festival in Las Vegas. That’s where Taylor’s headlining on the 15th. Mercedes-Benz is going to give everyone who purchases an automobile a lifetime subscription to Apple’s streaming service, as long as they continue to drive an MBZ. It’s a win-win.

So where does this leave Tidal?

Dead in the water, where it already is. A bunch of the artists involved were already eager to bolt from Live Nation’s management division after Monday’s debacle, now this sale will anger them even further. It was all masterminded by Guy Oseary, the same guy who was responsible for the U2 album fiasco. Rumor has it they’re all going to march en masse into Irving Azoff’s fold, now that his non-compete has expired, but that has not yet been substantiated. But the reason MSG is dividing in two is to free up money for further acquisitions by Irving, so all signs are pointing in this direction.

The other streaming services will fade away and will not radiate. Because online only one entity wins, you gravitate to where all your friends are.

All the exclusives will be on Apple. The streaming service will work on Android and Windows, but icons will not look as sharp and functionality will be hampered in order to force people to buy Apple hardware. It’s all about the hardware, you know that, right? It’s the reverse razor blade theory. You give away the software to sell expensive hardware!

So now Apple owns music.

They’re not going to buy labels. That’s ridiculous. Who needs the headache?

But they are going to release data, so that acts will know that it’s the labels screwing artists, not the streaming service.

So the war is over. You can stop bitching about Spotify. You can get back to making good music, if you ever did.

As for consumers, this is heaven. And books and television are next.

Apple plans to corner the market on TV distribution, their deal with HBO is just the beginning. And despite being judged guilty of price-fixing re books, the publishers are still angry at Amazon and are willing to throw in with Cook for a subscription service. They get to set the price. Apple will just take its traditional 30%. Amazon’s reading devices suck anyway, and this is just a further way to cement Apple’s power in tablets, a way to goose sales, which have suddenly stalled.

So, it’s been proven that Tim Cook is quite the match for Steve Jobs. Just like he green-lit the evisceration of skeuomorphism, he’s pivoting the company to streaming content. He knows that streaming is the future.

DO YOU?