“Gartner: iPhone 6 and iPhone 6 Plus drove Apple past Samsung in Q4 worldwide smartphone sales”

Get rid of the removable battery and microSD card?

That’s like kicking out the drummer and the bass player, hard core fans are not going to like that.

Tech is not like music. In music it’s about establishing a catalogue of hits so you can tour until you die. The future is important, but it’s about the past even more. In tech if you’re not on the bleeding edge, you’re gonna die, which is what was happening to Apple, it just did not have large enough phones. And it turned out people wanted phablets. Because the whole world is going mobile, that’s where you not only surf and connect, but buy too. It’s like Gary Shteyngart’s “Super Sad True Love Story” come to life. And Apple perfected the smartphone. Let’s not forget, once again, that the Cupertino company was not there first, nor do you have to be, that’s a big story in tech, that the bleeding edge does not often succeed…MySpace was replaced by Facebook and Rhapsody was overtaken by Spotify and the iPhone kicked the BlackBerry and Treo to the curb. And to win it’s not about marketing so much as functionality. If it just works, people will use it. Hell, we’re still fighting this war with television remotes…can someone make a device I can comprehend that will work with all my devices? (Don’t e-mail me your solution, the lack of a clear-cut winner dominating public consciousness speaks to my point.)

ANYWAY, Samsung ruled and now it’s an afterthought. Furthermore, by following the crowd they’re drowning the company. Never give up your uniqueness, it’s what adheres people to you. Whether it be the quirky, center console ignition in Saabs or the quirky boxiness of Volvos, the people keeping those brands alive loved those. But, of course, brands are not forever. Especially in tech, where ramp-up costs are smaller.

So Samsung triumphed as the anti-Apple, giving people what they wanted and allowing them to give the middle finger to Jobs’s company all the while. But it turns out that’s all they had. There was no there there. Despite being a Korean company, Samsung was positively Detroit, where the exterior counts and the interior is irrelevant. Detroit’s lunch was eaten by the Japanese, who knew that people would drive the ugliest cars if they just worked, and they did, and now Toyota is a juggernaut and if you’re purchasing an American car you must not have gotten the memo or are financially-challenged, because you just have to read “Consumer Reports” to know that the Japanese own reliability.

But we’re not looking for reliability in phones. We want functionality and something that lasts for two years, when we upgrade. And Samsung made a phone for all people, some for the cutting edge tinkerers and some for the poor. And now Apple has reclaimed its hold on the high end and Xiaomi has eaten up the low end and Samsung is toast. Because it’s about form not content, design not intellectual property.

It’s not so different in the music business. He who writes the songs wins in the end. Sure, ASCAP and BMI are fighting Pandora, but the truth is there’s a ton of money in a hit song still, and it lasts forever.

So what did we learn here? What are the translatable elements?

Play to your hard core. Never abandon them. Sure, change is hard, but keep what they like and add new features. The Galaxy S6 is a me-too iPhone for people who hate Apple, huh?

Content drives everything. It’s not what the phone looks like, but what it can do. Apps come to Apple first. Apple has cutting edge payment technology. Apple integrates all its devices. Apple has a culture, whereas Samsung does not. And it’s culture that keeps your company alive. The music business has focused on the exterior ever since the advent of MTV, when how you looked became the key driver. Funny how almost all of those MTV acts never lasted. But the majors still focus on looks, because it’s easier. And everyone there is brain dead, they don’t want to walk into the wilderness and invent a new paradigm. But look what happened to Samsung, their business fell off a cliff. We’ll find out if the Apple Watch is a success, but give the company credit for not only taking a risk, but one that took years and a fortune to develop. Imagine a music company doing the same. Oh no, you can’t. In content, that’s television. It’s TV that’s telling creators we’ll give you a fortune carte blanche, to do it your own way.

But the barrier to entry is so low in music! Why haven’t we seen revolution?

Because when everybody can play, the rich and talented stay out. Microsoft is getting killed in phones. Google too. You go where the people are not. Instead, in the music business we’ve got wannabes yelling about their substandard wares muddying the marketplace, causing the public to ignore the sphere or pay attention to the usual suspects. And isn’t it interesting that so many ignore what is supposedly so popular. Not only is Beyonce not that big, but neither is Kanye. As for the press lauding their efforts and puffing them up, these are the same people who kept telling us about the Korean miracle. but that’s the newspapers, constantly reporting on what has happened, not what will be.

Apple is not forever. Nothing is forever. Success is about knowing where you’ve been and marching into the wilderness at the same time. Hell, look at our dearly-departed hero Steve Jobs. He lost Apple, foundered at NeXT and then returned triumphantly at Apple, but not immediately, the prognosticators still said the enterprise was going to go bankrupt or be sold. These same people today tell us about BlackBerry’s chances. It’s over. What next, the Doobie Brothers topping the pop chart?

Good ideas are a dime a dozen. Execution is so much harder. Marrying the two is incredibly difficult. Samsung had excellent execution and lame ideas. Furthermore, they were beholden to Google for software, which is akin to not writing your own songs. Apple won by matching great ideas with incredible execution. And, over time, they’ve established a fanbase. Sure, the naysayers and media want to tear them down, but there were people who hated the Beatles in the sixties. You never react, you just go your own way. And you’ve got to give Tim Cook credit for this, he never caved into the media, never mind so many on Wall Street who wanted his head.

So we’ll all have mobile devices. Hell, we already do.

So what’s next?

That’s how you win. Knowing what’s next. Samsung has been a me-too company from its inception. They made better flat panels than Sony and bigger handsets than Apple. But innovation is not spoken there.

Once upon a time the music business was like tech. The best and the brightest challenging convention. But now it’s the dumbest of the dumb, sheeple who do what the mercenary fat cats tell them to while those with any purchase keep bitching their cheese has moved. No wonder it’s seen as a second-class scene, without a truly triumphant product, one that everyone clamors to based on its innovation and quality, it’s toast.

But you just can’t say that. Because everybody remembers what once was and is waiting for those days to return.

But they’re never coming back. Samsung is screwed, on the high end and low. Its only chance is to break new ground, but it’s seemingly unable to, remember the company’s disastrous smartwatch?

Remember the rest of the album from the artist with the hit single?

Neither do I.

Loners will save the world.

But our culture has shifted to one of belonging. The millennials are all about being a member of the group, they don’t want to stand out, don’t want to be ostracized, their goal is to be drones, to play the game so they can win.

True dat.

But I don’t want to give a pass to the baby boomers. Ever notice that on HBO the twentysomethings have their show, “Girls,” and the thirtysomethings have theirs, “Togetherness,” but there’s no boomer show? Because the boomers can no longer exhibit vulnerability. They finally took away Ed Zwick and Marshall Herskovitz’s license to make television, not that “thirtysomething” was a ratings juggernaut, but the truth is boomers are past introspection, they’re in their glory years, or days, listening to Bruce Springsteen without a care in the world, all about lifestyle. But can that lifestyle be challenged?

The biggest story in the world today is that there is no story. And when something dramatic transpires, no one can do anything about it. Putin invades Ukraine and we’re mum. But even that did not penetrate our mobile culture, wherein it’s all about me all the time, I’m a star in my own world that no one is paying attention to, even though I hunger for the spotlight. Right and wrong are irrelevant. It’s all about money and fame. And Ed Snowden hates that.

He laments the change of our culture in to one based on personalities.

And ain’t that interesting, isn’t that what Brian Williams is? Bill O’Reilly too? The news is subservient to them, they make the big bucks and cozy up to those in power and we’re all the worse for it, because the truth is everybody’s climbing a greased totem pole and the only ones who know it are at the top keeping the rest of us down.

Towards the end of this highly-reviewed movie, which is nowhere near as riveting as the hype, one of the characters, only in this flick the characters are real people, makes an amazing statement. He says that “What we used to call liberty and freedom we now call privacy. And now people are saying privacy is dead.” That’s what we’re all fighting for, liberty, right?

When we’re not fighting the government itself.

I understand the right wing position but I don’t agree with it. We need a government, government does good things. Just like John Oliver said Sunday night, that we need highway taxes to fund infrastructure updates. Do you expect the private sector to take care of that?

But even more ludicrous is all the Second Amendment talk, how the government is gonna take our guns away so we must stockpile them, so we can shoot each other, because if you believe a gun can protect you from the government you didn’t watch “Citizenfour,” you’re an idiot, because just like karate is no match for a gun, a gun is no match for the internet and electronic surveillance. You can wait for the drone to get you, but the truth is they’ll kill your rep and wipe out your life with a few keystrokes long before that.

You’d expect people to be up in arms about “Citizenfour” but the truth is they’re afraid. That’s the government’s job, with the media fanning the flames. If we don’t let the agencies run wild, the terrorists are gonna bomb Oklahoma or Arkansas, so you’d better lay your rights down now. That’s right, under the head fake of fighting “terrorism” we’re all laying down to the government and the corporations and anybody who blows the whistle is a pariah.

You remember pariahs, don’t you?

They used to be people like Steve Jobs and Mark Zuckerberg, before they revolutionized the world and titillated your fantasies. Were these popular people in high school, did they get along?

Of course not. But at least they were smart. Like Snowden.

That’s the revelation. Listening to Ed talk you’re blown away. He gets the concepts, he can articulate them. But instead the newspapers are subjecting us to the proclamations of nitwits and clickbait rules online. Because you can’t handle the truth.

And what is the truth anyway?

Turns out those climate change-denying scientists were paid for their positions.

But you probably didn’t see that, just like you didn’t see “Citizenfour,” because you don’t have HBO. And why would you need it? Susan Wojcicki and YouTube are gonna save the world! But the truth is there are very few good creators out there and HBO got there first.

So what is going on?

Do we live the lifestyle we fight for, or line up and protest?

And if you do protest, expect to be excoriated by the press. Because they’re the story, not you. How they hang with the rich and powerful, envious of their perks and frequently partaking of the crumbs that fall off the table.

There’s something hollow at the heart of America. Right and wrong used to matter. There was enough money for everybody, you could survive on a service job. But as the classes separated, the rich realized what was going on and desired to maintain their perch and keep the underclass down via subterfuge and fear.

And having gone to crummy schools, the underclass can’t grasp the facts, even when they’re staring them in the face.

So we’re dependent on lone wolves to shake it up. Snowden says he’s only the first, you can get him but others will follow in his wake.

Is this true?

Yes, for a small cadre of selfless people who put their morality before their pocketbook.

But everybody else is hustling to get ahead. In an ill-defined game where the cards are stacked against them and the odds keep getting longer every day.

Once upon a time, “Citizenfour” would incite a national debate. Now it’s just grist for the mill, Snowden’s character has already been assassinated, the flick will come and go as quickly as Beyonce’s overhyped album.

Then again, Kanye lobbies for her recognition over and over again. With no one shouting him down.

And that’s the way it is in America today, the sideshow is the main show.

And you know what happens when you’re not paying attention to the main event… Your pockets get picked and you end up broke and busted on the side of the road. But now it’s even worse, you’ll have nowhere to go, you’ll be powerless, because the government will limit your movement.

That’s right, all this hogwash about taxes and government employees are the sideshow. The main event is how they’ve got our number and we’re living in “1984” and if you believe it can’t happen here…

The truth is it already has.

Watch this movie.

It was released forty years ago this week and I didn’t even know it came out.

I was living in Sandy, Utah and there was only one rock station in Salt Lake and they didn’t play the new stuff and I was over Zeppelin anyway.

That’s right, I was burned out, couldn’t hear “D’yer Mak’er” one more time. They’re rewriting history and extolling the virtues of “Houses Of The Holy” but the truth is despite the hits it was a bit of a disappointment, certainly artistically, it was safe whereas everything before it was unexpected with rough edges that pushed the envelope. It was like the band was on a premature victory lap.

And then came “Physical Graffiti.”

I was into Zeppelin early. Had the first album way before the second. And you’ve got to know, when the second came out it penetrated the culture in a way that is unfathomable today. It’s all you heard for a month. Not only was “Whole Lotta Love” played incessantly on the radio, both the hip and wannabe hip bought the gatefold LP and you knew it by heart and to hear it again made you wince.

And “III” was a truly a disappointment. A left turn. Confounding expectations. I loved “Gallows Pole” and “Immigrant Song” and “Tangerine” but whereas the albums that came before were incredibly consistent, “III” was not. I didn’t even buy “IV” on the day of release. And “IV” is spectacular, for “The Battle Of Evermore” and “When The Levee Breaks,” never mind “Stairway,” but the debut was always my favorite until…

“Physical Graffiti.”

Well, maybe they’re tied.

But they’re so different.

I first heard “Physical Graffiti” on Jimmy Kay’s stereo in a frat house on the University of Utah campus at the end of April 1975 when we had a meeting and we all tossed in fifty bucks towards a ski house in Mammoth for May. I didn’t know these people and the music was so loud and Zeppelin seemed so adolescent that I made them give me a receipt, a hedge against them absconding with my money.

But they didn’t.

I heard “Physical Graffiti” one time more before I left the Beehive State. Actually, the night before. My next door neighbor blasted it while he toked up and I was torn between staying or leaving and I stayed way too late and as a result got a speeding ticket on the drive to Reno the very next day but…

I don’t want to get too far off course.

Bottom line, we rented that house in Mammoth and I had to endure “Physical Graffiti” incessantly from dawn to midnight, except when Jimmy played the Doobie Brothers, who I soon learned were not a joke.

And it was an 8-track made from LP. And the songs were not in order. But what first impressed me, got under my skin, was…

KASHMIR

A bludgeoning riff from an era when the riff was everything, majestic and orchestral with Robert Plant on top and once your brain clicks and you like “Kashmir” you can’t stop playing it. For a long time it was the third most popular song on FM radio, it came after “Stairway To Heaven” and “Free Bird” on all the surveys but they don’t do those anymore.

TEN YEARS GONE

This one hit me unexpectedly. It’s now my favorite Zeppelin track, my go-to cut, it speaks to me when nothing else does. Actually, that’s an important point about “Physical Graffiti,” it seems to be made without the audience in mind. That’s right, it’s hermetically sealed, it’s a peek into the life of musicians who are on their own journey and that’s what makes it so appealing, so different from today when everybody is pandering and trying to get you to like them. Zeppelin didn’t care if you liked them. Then again, maybe they knew they were so good that you couldn’t help but like them. “Ten Years Gone” contains Zeppelin’s magic trick, the transition from acoustic to electric and back again, from quiet to noisy and back. Just like the Beatles employed the bridge as part of their magic, Zeppelin utilized this shift in dynamics to hook young people all around the world. “Ten Years Gone” sounds like nothing else but it sounds so right.

BOOGIE WITH STU

Sounds like a throwaway, noodling in the studio, but it’s not. First of all, it’s Ian Stewart, the sadly-departed sixth Stone, tickling the ivories. And Robert Plant seems on such a lark. Talk about capturing lightning in a bottle…some of the best things in life are the simplest.

NIGHT FLIGHT

A tear. You don’t have time to ponder whether you like it or not, you’ve got to jump on or be left out. It amps up the beginning of side four after the contemplative quietude of “Ten Years Gone” at the end of side three. And as great as Page’s playing is, it’s Robert dancing all over the track that makes you love it, along with the stop and stutter halfway through and then the following acceleration. We were all ready to meet the band in the morning, the middle of the night, wherever they deigned to show up.

DOWN BY THE SEASIDE

A great set-up for “Ten Years Gone,” it’s almost like you can see Robert walking on an English stone beach. Side three is the most mystical, most out there. It opens with “In The Light,” which bugged me at first but I came to realize is quintessential, and then “Bron-Yr-Aur” which sounded like the first album, then “Down By The Seaside” and then the triumph of “Ten Years Gone.” What confidence, to do it their own way, daring us to throw away our preconceptions and just go on the journey.

CUSTARD PIE

The opening cut, but I never heard it that way until I purchased the vinyl when I finally had access to a record player months later. Not as good as other Zeppelin album openers, but that does not mean it’s not quality.

THE ROVER

Heavy! No wimps allowed. This was heavy metal before they sped it up and made it a niche. Headbanging music when that was not a pejorative.

IN MY TIME OF DYING

Ends side one. That was the amazing thing, the three unique, lengthy tracks that ended the first three sides, this, “Kashmir” on side two and “Ten Years Gone” on side three. “In My Time Of Dying” needed to be this long, Page was twisting and turning our head and Bonzo was pounding and the truth is Led Zeppelin was truly a band, and without every element it didn’t stand, never underestimate John Paul Jones.

HOUSES OF THE HOLY

Smacked of Little Feat, which was famous for leaving listed tracks off albums. Wasn’t this supposed to be on the prior LP?

TRAMPLED UNDER FOOT

It’s the aforementioned John Paul Jones on clavinet that puts this over the top. “Trampled Under Foot” takes no prisoners. Either you’re on the ride or you’re not. And if you are, it feels so good!

BLACK COUNTRY WOMAN

That’s right, acoustic blues were still part of the act.

I don’t know if an album like “Physical Graffiti” could be successful today. A double album, but in reality not much longer than your average CD, it had no hits as hooks, you just had to spin it until you got it, and people don’t have that time today.

But “Physical Graffiti” exists. An icon spiraling in the past. And either you know what I’m talking about or…you’re gonna have to lock yourself in your room for a week playing only it whereupon you’ll emerge bleary-eyed at the end exclaiming…EUREKA!

Rhinofy-Physical Graffiti

Records are not movies. Not made for one weekend only. Music, when done right, is forever. And now that streaming services rule, the drop date, the release date, is just a moment in time.

Everything will change.

All the front-loaded publicity, all the inane coverage of the horse race, it’s irrelevant. Now it’s all about whether people listen and continue to listen.

Who cares if you sold a minimal number of albums in your first week. And 100,000 is minimal, few people do more. That’s essentially nobody. And so many albums sell the first week and never more. Now we want to know that you’ve got a fanbase that continues to listen and hopefully grows. The spin era is over, the data era is here.

We don’t want to know that you chummed up to writers. We’re sick of hype. We don’t care about the launch, but only the flight.

As for physical retail… I don’t want to hear another word about it. The fact that people love vinyl and CDs are a significant revenue source don’t impress me. Neil Young was right, most vinyl is a joke, it’s a just the CD master on a big plastic disc, it doesn’t sound any better. And focusing the music business on CDs is like focusing the computer business on floppy disks. Ever notice that essentially all software is downloaded, even if you pay for it? And that new computers have no disk drive? And that Apple, the world’s most profitable company, makes a habit of throwing out the old to focus on the new? How come we can’t take a lesson from that? How come we can’t embrace streaming and get people to pay? Hell, everybody already is streaming, on YouTube, so blame yourself for eviscerating the record business, that’s right, all you musicians bitching about Spotify, you’re just scaring paying customers away. Then again, no one ever said musicians were smart.

Just like those saying they sell CDs at gigs. It’s a SOUVENIR! No one is gonna play it, it’s a trophy they’ve acquired with your signature. It doesn’t have to be a compact disc.

So it’s good we’ve got a worldwide release schedule. It’s a worldwide business. This helps eradicate piracy. Once again, the music industry leads. HBO and film studios force people to steal to get what they want. Now the music business is moving into the future, embracing the concept of giving people what they want. As for giving retailers what they want, those bitching about Friday as opposed to Tuesday, isn’t the goal to eliminate the middlemen? Isn’t that what the internet does?

So start your engines. The music business has changed forever. You may not be able to get a truthful royalty statement, you may not be able to get a fair share of streaming payments, but from now on we’ll know what is truly popular, what people truly want to hear. And we’ll know a hit is something that sustains, not something that is manipulated to number one for a week, never mind something that only lasts a week.

This is a good thing.

Never forget it.

“The record industry will make Friday the standard release day for all albums”