1. The major labels will only get stronger. We live in an a money economy and the only ones willing to invest in artists are the labels. Furthermore, they’ve got the relationships at radio, which are key to developing acts. The players want cash, the major labels have it, no one else will get involved because the returns are so bad, the majors have gotten a second wind, they’ve adapted to the internet, all the hogwash about disruption was just that. (P.S. This isn’t forever, but it’s certainly for now.)

2. The Apple Watch will be a success. First, because it’s Apple. Second, because wearables will become important, they’re already here with fitness trackers. You don’t want to pull your phone out of your pocket a hundred plus times a day, that’s inefficient. Will the expensive Apple Watch or cheap one sell? It’s too soon to know, but once again, a company with an integrated approach triumphs. Apple was not the first in MP3 players or smartphones, but it was the one that blew up the market. People love to hate on Apple, especially those not addicted to the brand. The noise level creates dissonance in the marketplace. But the truth is the press gave a pass to Google Glass and it failed, it’s skeptical of the Apple Watch, but it will win. Once again we’re moving towards utility as opposed to show-off status. If it doesn’t do much, if it doesn’t work right, we don’t want it.

3. The concert business will burgeon. We’re in the midst of a long journey from ownership to access, concomitantly people want experiences more than ownership of status items. Once you’ve got an iPhone 6, you’re covered, there’s no $5000 model. If you’re buying a fancy car to impress people, if you’re all about acquisition, the millennials are laughing at you, you’re branding yourself a baby boomer. This is an important change in our country. Virtual goods have value.

4. There are only three news outlets in America, the “New York Times,” “Wall Street Journal” and “Washington Post.” Their only challenge is securing their power. No one else has boots on the ground. TV news is a joke. If you turn on the television to find out what’s going on you’ve probably got an expensive automobile in the garage, trying to impress those who don’t care. Television news has no reporters. The aforementioned print publications do. As well as Bloomberg, that’s the x-factor here. He who controls the news controls the dialogue. Hits matter, but Buzzfeed, HuffPo, et al, are sideshows. There has always been gossip. There will always be listicles and link-bait, but don’t confuse them with the genuine article.

5. Twitter might not be doomed but it is challenged. It’s just too hard to use. How about the ability to just subscribe to a news feed of topics you’re interested in, maybe even curated by experts in the field? But the Twitterdomos won’t do this, because they’re too impressed with the service. They know there’s a problem, but to admit it would be to acknowledge the service is less than perfect, which it is. Meanwhile, Wall Street already knows, the stock has tanked. We want real time news, we don’t want it quite like this.

6. Snapchat. Evanescence is the new trend. Driving people to see something now before it disappears. It’s kind of like sports. It’s meaningless tomorrow. Only in this case, it doesn’t exist tomorrow.

7. There will be a left field, artistic success in the music business. The public demands it. Despite all the hype for stars of the moment, there’s a hunger for that which feeds the soul, that we truly can’t shake off. This new act will be comprised of very skilled players, who are not beholden to the usual precepts or partners. The hipsters will laud them, but then the press will put them over the top.

8. The mainstream press and the owners of this country are doing their best to keep down lower class agitation, i.e. protestation against income inequality. The tragic shooting of New York policemen has been utilized to silence stories of protest and unrest. But income inequality is the story of the year, which will be amplified by the Republican Congress. Not everybody can pull themselves up by their bootstraps. Self-reliance only goes so far. Expect further conflagration, you can only keep people down so long.

9. Ignorance reigns. Misinformation is king. This is a cancer upon our society. Special interests spread falsehoods, or shade the truth, and the public picks it up and we’ve got an entire nation that can’t agree on the facts, never mind where we’re going. This is an exponent of bad leadership, or the lack of any leadership at all. Sometime in the future we’ll all go to one place to get our news. But unfortunately, that’s not imminent. Artists have the power to spread the truth, unfortunately artists are so interested in money, truth takes a back seat.

10. Mobile won. Even more so around the world. Think of the handset, not the desktop.

11. Streaming won. Vinyl is agitation against a disconnected society where we have no way to display our identity. If it were really about sound, people would be gravitating to Deezer Elite and Tidal. But they’re not, because they don’t want to hear better sound, the want to own something. This sounds like a contradiction to the new non-ownership society, but really it’s about the non-identity society. In a world where we all have the basics, the aforementioned smartphone, et al, how do we distinguish ourselves? People always want to distinguish themselves. Vinyl is a ripple on the ocean. And streaming sound quality will improve.

12. The movie business is headed for turbulence. Ticket sales are down, theft is high… The “Interview” revolutionized the business, not because of the hack, but because it went live in theatres and online day and date. This is the future. And until you can see all movies at one low price in one location online, expect theft to continue. That’s right, the movie business thinks it’s smarter than the music business, but nothing could be further from the truth.

13. Curation will rule, but not in 2015. We’re still in a streaming turf war. Songza was a joke. Playlists have been around for over a decade with little impact. The people talking about curation don’t care about it, they just want to sell you their scaling streaming service, which is why it won’t work. Curation works in radio because everyone agrees on the same songs. This will happen in music too. Making the blockbusters even bigger. But it won’t happen this year.

14. Baby boomers will continue to run the music business. No significant change will happen until they retire, which is at least a half decade off.

15. The American Dream is alive and well in the mind of the consumer, if not the true statistics. Everybody’s got an idea, everybody wants to get rich. Now, the focus is primarily on tech and “Shark Tank” products, they scale better, you can get rich easier. But people still believe they’re entitled to music success. But the truth is the most successful people are those with wealthy parents who send them to the best educational institutions wherein they make life-long relationships that pay dividends in their endeavors. That’s right, they were born on third base and the rest of you are outside the stadium, and most people don’t even know it. The poor have no idea of the advantages of the rich. Despite all the hoopla about wealth, if the general public had any idea how rich the rich truly are, the lifestyle they live, there would be spontaneous revolution. Meanwhile, they’re kept busy perfecting their dreams, which rarely come to fruition, they participate in the sideshow.

Furthermore, the best and the brightest don’t go into the arts, the odds are long and the rewards not only elusive, but relatively scrawny. Expect no change here this year. The progeny of the rich are too anxious to take a risk. I’d like to say change is coming from the artists, but you’re better off looking to “Vice.” That’s the story of the age, the power of news, not art. Create an alternative news site and you’ve got power. But people don’t want power, they want money. Not realizing that power is the trump card. He who reaches the most people and controls the dialogue wins, especially in 2015. I’ve about given up on the artists taking a stand. Mark Zuckerberg is more powerful than any musician. But it doesn’t have to be this way…

Music is a popularity contest.

That’s right, you can’t bitch about your Spotify payments if no one wants to listen to your music.

This is where we’ve arrived, the data-centric world. The old days of Tommy Noonan manipulating the “Billboard” chart are done. Now all we’ve got is raw statistics, which will leave most people out.

And they don’t like it.

That’s the number one bitch in the music business, that you can’t make any money, that the internet destroyed the paradigm and now you’re broke.

Well, just like Sam Kinison said not to send food to Africa, but suitcases, if you want to make money…MAKE MUSIC PEOPLE WANT TO LISTEN TO!

Sounds simple, I know.

But you don’t want to do it. You want to make the music you want to make, and then bitch that people won’t listen to it, that the label won’t sign it and that radio won’t play it, ignoring the fact that YouTube and Spotify are open worlds, and if there’s any demand, it can be instantly filled.

Are you a member of a club that is marginalizing yourself? Are you so busy talking to your friends in the echo chamber that you don’t realize you’ve got to convince those outside it to make money?

Being a hipster might make you cool, but it won’t make you rich.

Of course, some hipster music breaks through. And that’s great, we need the bleeding edge, that’s what’s wrong with too much of today’s pop, the formula. But most hipster music is just not made for mainstream consumption, which is fine, but please stop complaining that no one wants it.

Imagine making a tech product no one wants. Do these people complain, no they PIVOT! An incredible percentage of tech companies started out making something different, and when no one wanted it, they took the essence and turned it into something else.

Which means if you know how to play, you don’t only have to play the music you do.

And if you can’t sing, you can get someone who can.

And you can learn how to write songs.

Just because the barrier to entry in music is so low that does not mean everyone is entitled to be successful.

As for Taylor Swift bitching about Spotify payments, not only is she already rich, she gave the biggest injection of publicity to the Swedish streaming music service ever. Now everybody knows what Spotify is. Thanks Taylor!

And if you’re successful on Spotify you’re gonna get rich. Don’t conflate low Pandora payments with Spotify royalties, they’re a different animal, although songwriter payments need to be improved (thank the government for screwing that up.)

There’s tons of money in music. You’ve just got to make stuff people want!

And if you’re decrying everything successful as pabulum, the joke is on you.

Dark star, I see you in the morning
Dark star, a’ sleeping next to me

No, not “Dark Star,” DARK SKY!

I love this guy Slava Rubin, he’s the Founder and CEO of Indiegogo. You know how some people rub you the wrong way at first and then you become best friends? That’s Slava.

We were at the Summit Series, in Utah, at the top of Powder Mountain, debating crowdfunding, the music business and the world in general. It started out as a heated debate, and then Slava and I entertained questions for hours and when all was said and done there were smiles all around.

And the very next morning we were in the van to the lake, pondering when it was going to stop raining, and Slava said…DON’T YOU HAVE DARK SKY?

I hate to feel inadequate, especially in front of techies, I like to know what’s going on, and then Slava pulled up the app which said it was going to stop raining in two minutes…and THEN IT DID!

Like magic. I had to have it.

I know, I know, no one likes to pay for apps, including myself.

I know, I know, it’s a failed business model.

But I will tell you, for my $3.99 I’ve gotten endless entertainment. It’s a parlor trick. I was at Amy and Leo’s in Pacific Palisades and it was clear and I pulled up Dark Sky and it said it was going to start raining in 25 minutes, and it did, even though every weather forecast said it would not!

There’s no human element in Dark Sky. It triangulates radar and algorithms to come up with an up to the minute forecast for exactly where you are, or want to be, you can plug in alternative locations.

Like right now it says it’s 13 degrees and falling, and it feels like 2 degrees.

For the next hour there’s no precipitation.

The nearest precipitation is 45 miles to the northeast.

Meanwhile, there’s a Winter Storm Warning for Eagle County, that’s where I am, where it’s been blowing and snowing all day long, it was a veritable winter wonderland, there’s nothing I like more than being out in the elements, riding the chairlift, banging the bumps in the quietude of a snowstorm.

Dark Sky says there’s a 56% chance of snow until 8 PM.

Tomorrow, the high will be 10, the low -7, BRRR! It always gets cold after a storm.

Sunday, there’s a 72% chance of snow. Dark Sky is predicting 2-4 inches in the morning and afternoon.

Is Dark Sky always right?

No.

But I will say yesterday it was pukin’ snow and I pulled up Dark Sky and it said it was gonna stop in 25 minutes. No one believed it, including me, I mean it was coming down as heavy as it does in Vail.

And then, right on time, it STOPPED!

Whew!

Slide backward from the homepage and you get the radar.

Click on the temp and you get the wind speed and direction, humidity, pressure and visibility.

It’s absolutely incredible. And since I’ve been in Colorado, more accurate than the National Weather Service, more accurate than all of the weather prognosticators, and let me tell you, here in snow country, people take the weather VERY seriously.

So I know you’re not gonna buy it. Because you don’t want to spend $3.99.

And you weather acolytes are gonna tell me you’ve got an app as good.

But then I’m gonna whip out Dark Sky and convert you.

I promise.

Thanks Slava!

Dark Sky

She was sittin’ all alone over on the tailgate

That’s right, the boys and their trucks. But wouldn’t you want a guy? If you had a desire to hug and kiss and more? Is there anything wrong with being red-blooded and desirous?

OF COURSE NOT!

I was lookin’ for her boyfriend
Thinkin’, no way she ain’t got one

Insecurity, it’s in the DNA of men. That’s right, all you women worrying about being picked, feeling at the mercy of the opposite sex, the truth is guys are riddled with self-doubt, don’t mistake the bluster for confidence, it’s just a way they screw up their courage to interact with you WHATSOEVER!

Soon as I sat down I was fallin’ in love

Guys don’t fall in love gradually, that’s women. You know, the people who testify in the Sunday “New York Times” Style section that they were friends first. Guys are never friends first, no matter what they tell you, the truth is they fall in love right at the very first, and then they wait for the signal…

Talkin’ over the speakers in the back of that truck
She jumped up and cut me off

There’s a canard that men want you to be demure, look good and keep quiet. Nothing could be further from the truth. Men are clueless without women. We might be able to make some money, but we don’t know how to create a social schedule, we need to be led, we need your help. And what attracts us, after looks, is someone who is alive, who is so excited by life that she can’t help but jump up and take action, who’s a live wire waiting to react.

She was like, oh my God, this is my song
I’ve been listenin’ to the radio all night long
Sittin’ ’round waitin’ for it to come on and here it is

And here we come to the heart of the matter, the exuberance, the excitement, the way the unexpected heart’s desire can send us over the moon (and there’s a cliche for you!)

If you’re over the age of thirty you know exactly what Luke Bryan is singing about, pushing the buttons on the radio and hearing the one song you’ve been waiting for all day. That’s why kids cannot understand the power of radio, because they don’t remember when it was the only thing, the only way to hear it, when music was not free, when everything ever recorded was not at your fingertips.

She was like, come here boy, I wanna dance

Most guys don’t. Dance, that is. But if you ask us, we will, especially if it’s the beginning of a relationship.

And she gave me a kiss
And she said, play it again, play it again, play it again
And I said, play it again, play it again, play it again

We just want to do it over again. Everything. With you. Start with a kiss, graduate to sex, we’re completely enthralled. Women lead, never forget that. And when they do, we doofuses cannot help but be thrilled and play along.

I could try and be cool, tell you my favorite track of the year is something obscure that you’ve never heard of, recorded by someone in Iceland to an Afro-beat by someone who never shows their eyes and dresses totally in black. But that would be a futile effort by me to look cool.

And I’m not cool. A few people are, the rest of us are not. We commit faux pas. We stay stupid stuff. We lie in bed at night replaying the day, wishing we could pray away mistakes. We stumble through the world alone, and then we uncover a record that gets us through.

“Play It Again” serves that purpose for me.

I wish I could tell you I have all the answers. Oh, I’m looking, constantly. But unlike many, I’m willing to separate the wheat from the chaff, I know that in this Internet era usability is everything, that it doesn’t matter what hits you intellectually, but emotionally. Windows Phone ain’t bad, but not good enough to buy. Ditto on Fire Phone. There’s plenty of good out there, but I’m only interested in great.

And Luke Bryan’s “Play It Again” is great.

I heard about his album “Crash My Party” from a friend. An agent in Nashville who issued a caveat, how Luke was decried but “Drink A Beer” delivered.

And it did. Deliver, that is. And yes, we always hate the people at the top. Everyone from Obama to Taylor Swift to Luke Bryan. But unlike so many, Luke Bryan is not beating us over the head, telling us to pay attention, issuing statements how great he is. His music is speaking for itself. The public is embracing it.

And what’s so wrong with the public taking you into your arms?

I feel sorry for those so outside they cannot embrace the mainstream, whose identities depend upon being different. Once upon a time, when society was cohesive, when art was limited, those people had a place in the firmament. But the truth is we now live in a Tower of Babel society and it’s the mainstream moments that keep us together, that connect us, whether they be sports, news or…hit music. We gravitate towards these shared moments. If you refuse to, the joke is on you. With so much info, you’re not only ignored, it’s like you don’t even exist.

So I went to Stagecoach where the Americana man of the moment played to fewer than a hundred people.

But when Luke Bryan took the stage there were 70,000, a sea of people as far as you could see, with their heads in the air, singing along with every song.

Play it again, play it again, play it again.

That’s why we go to the show. To hear the songs we know by heart one more time. We can’t believe it’s really happening, it’s like heads exploding in that SNL skit about Oprah giving away cars. No one else matters in these moments, you bond with the heavens, where your eyes are looking, because this is as good as it gets.

Then I got deeper. I memorized Luke Bryan’s Spring Break EP. I learned what a Yeti was. I tried to play other music, but I couldn’t stop digging deeper. Luke wasn’t brand new, there were old albums I could explore.

I’d ‘a gave that DJ my last dime
If he would have played it just one more time

We’ll do anything to make you happy. Anything.

I was scannin’ like a fool, AM, FM, XM too

This roots the song, I scan XM ALL DAY LONG!

But I stopped real quick when I heard that groove
Man, you should have seen her light up

That’s our goal. To get you to light up.

Tom Petty may have called country music “rock music of the 70’s” but the truth is despite a scorched earth publicity campaign Petty’s last LP was essentially a nonstarter, it had no cultural impact, except for a few hard core fans no one listened to it, it had almost no radio action, few played it again and again and again.

But Luke Bryan’s “Crash My Party”… IT WAS A CULTURAL INSTITUTION!

Check not only the sales figures, but the Mediabase chart. Luke Bryan is all over the airwaves. He’s big, he’s successful.

And I’m proud to say I’m a fan.

You can like “Homeland,” “True Detective,” all the TV shows everyone else does. But when it comes to music why do you have to trumpet the obscure? Does it really keep you warm at night? Do you run into a desired love who melts when they hear the same arcane song?

Probably not. That’s like finding a needle in a haystack.

And there’s another cliche. And the reason they’re cliches is they’re true.

And the truth is country music is the most dominant format in America. Because it focuses on the basics. First and foremost the song. Then the singer. And then the humanity. We can relate.

We need more of this in the rest of music.

In the meantime, I’m gonna play it again.

And again.

And again.

Spotify link
YouTube link