The artists are ignorant and Spotify is clueless.

I feel like I have to be the lone voice in the wilderness, the correction factor, to all the b.s. strewn by the artist community, because Spotify has no cojones and sent in the B team as opposed to Daniel Ek.

That’s right, kids who are thrilled to have a job, who’ve got no idea of Spotify’s generation and its road map to success. Drones thrilled to have a job in the music business who don’t understand they’re caretakers for a revolution as opposed to worker bees at the label.

The truth is you have to know how to think. That’s the goal of an education. That’s where America has let us down. Because you don’t want to pay taxes, you want everything to be quantifiable, so you’re tearing down the old edifice not realizing there’s no new.

Which cracks me up completely. Has everybody lost their memories? Only a decade ago this same artist community was decrying the iTunes Music Store which is now suddenly their savior. And I’ll note that iTunes decimated the CD model just like streaming is killing downloads, but what bugs me is how art, which is supposed to be cutting edge and challenging, is now populated by wusses who abhor change and want everything to remain the same even though the world is moving faster than ever before as a result of new communication techniques fostered by technological breakthroughs.

Daniel Ek is a rock star. You remember them, don’t you? People who broke all the rules and did it their way? This nobody from nowhere had a vision and camped out and convinced labels to give him the rights when piracy was devastating the business. Have you noticed that artists have stopped bitching about P2P and have now made Spotify the bogeyman? It’s like someone has to be the enemy, and it can’t be them.

And then Daniel Ek hires a team, positively awful in most cases, refugees from the music biz who can’t get a job anywhere else who believe their gig is to schmooze as opposed to lay it on straight, and on top of this he layers a patina of niceness akin to the execrable seventies campaign “Have A Nice Day.” Makes me squeamish, the way Spotify wants to be my friend. Steve Jobs never wanted to be my friend, he was providing tools, so good people clamored for them, and Spotify is doing the same thing.

Spotify has eviscerated piracy. But the artists don’t like this. They’d rather keep the old declining model and bitch about the unknown and the uncontrollable as opposed to vie for a solution.

So what’s their solution?

HAVE CONSUMERS PAY MORE!

Ain’t that a laugh, ignorant of the fact that Apple is lobbying labels to bring a music subscription down to $5 a month, they think if they can just convince the public which used to steal to overpay, like they did for one good track on a CD in the nineties, everything would be hunky-dory. While you’re at it, why don’t you make the public use rotary telephones, give up texting, bring back ringtones!

Can we all look forward people?

The truth is successful artists make more money than ever before. It’s just that not that many artists are successful and none of them make what techies and bankers do.

Welcome to the world economy, where the rich get richer and the poor get poorer, where the excellent stand out and the good get no traction.

Used to be you overpaid for records because you were captive to your local store. Just like rarities used to be such and commanded top dollar before eBay. The world has shrunk, and it’s not Spotify’s fault but it is reality. Everybody’s competing against everybody else. You cannot carve out a small territory for yourself.

So middle class artists are anathema. People would rather overpay to see stars, and since you can only listen to one song at one time they want to hear the music of the stars too. Artists tell consumers to play their godforsaken album ten times to get it. Why don’t these same artists sit in a club listening to a bad band play originals for ten hours straight! No one’s got the time for anything but excellence, and that’s nobody’s fault but it is reality.

So what we’ve got here is Luddite artists who’ve declared the enemy to be Spotify the same way writers have declared Amazon to be taboo. You don’t want what you wish for. What you wish for had an ignorant government fining publishers and Apple for colluding on price under antitrust law, only increasing Amazon’s power. Get the government involved and you know you’re screwed.

I’m not saying publishing royalties shouldn’t be higher on Pandora, a horrible service if there ever was one, but I am saying don’t screw with the flow of progress, it just might come back to haunt you.

Those agitating loudest about Spotify payments are the never gonna make it and those who have who say they’re doing it for the little guy who comes thereafter, what a load of crap. Are we gonna let fans run baseball? Do we really believe today’s players care about tomorrow’s?

And if they did, wouldn’t they be holding out against their labels for better terms? At least the labels have room to pay. To try to squeeze more cash out of Spotify is to kill the golden goose, to drive the service bankrupt. Credit card and hosting/streaming costs and you want them to work on less than 30%? Or to put it in a language you can understand, do you want Apple to work on less than 30%?

But who cares about the details. It’ll all work out.

But what I have to do here is take the unpopular stand, the one against the crowd, which has worked itself up into such a frenzy that truth can never out.

Streaming won. Hell, it won in movies/TV first. We’re never going back to ownership. We’re never going back to windows. Can’t we all at least start on the same page?

As for labels getting an ownership interest in streaming services, that does not mean Spotify, et al, pay out any less in royalties. And I could explain economics to you but the truth is you signed that deal and whoever told you nothing changes is an idiot you should never pay attention to again.

Your enemy is obscurity. Any way to reach people is to be applauded. Nowhere is it written that recorded music should generate as much revenue as it did in the past, nowhere is it written that you should be able to spend hundreds of thousands of dollars making an album, nowhere is it written that you’re entitled to make music at all!

So throw your sticks and stones. I don’t care, I’m on the winning side. I’m aware of progress. I can see where I’m going. I’m not an ostrich with my head in the ground. Agitate against label payouts if you’re complaining at all. Otherwise, just do me a favor and write a hit song. And if you can’t, please get out of the way. Because we only have time for hits. And yes, once upon a time we had time for marginal, but now we’ve got almost no time at all! And that we do possess we want to spend listening to what everybody else does. And yes, there are exceptions, but marginal artists are not entitled to put food on the plate. Maybe they have to get a day job. Maybe they have to give up.

And that’s just fine with me.

“Spotify’s Artist Outreach Mission Leaves Some Wanting More”

What an original!

We’ve been told that selling out is a choice. But the truth is Neil Young is just wired different. You can’t emulate him, because you’re not him.

This interview was very slow to get going. Because Neil was reluctant. And he was mimicking his hero Bob Dylan, refusing to explain his songs and obfuscating in interviews. But then Neil started revealing his choices and they were so different from everybody else’s that you couldn’t help but marvel.

Like being pissed at the cameramen at Woodstock, to the point of yelling for him to get off the stage, the result being Neil’s absence from the movie. But he didn’t care.

And this is fascinating, because dedicated Stern listeners know that Leslie West believes his career cratered as a result of not being in the flick, that his manager’s decision for Mountain not to be in the movie hurt him forevermore.

But then there was the refusal to be on the “Tonight Show” with Buffalo Springfield because it wasn’t their audience. Can you imagine that today? Someone refusing to do press because the audience might not be right? Ever since the Police the goal is world domination, and if you’re not interested, I’m gonna beat you over the head and convince you.

And then the refusal to get back together with CS&N. Sure, he’s got a feud with Crosby, but even more interesting was the lack of motivation. Howard talked about the fans, Neil didn’t care about the fans, he cared about the music, to go play the greatest hits so people could hear them and everybody could make money held no interest.

And then Neil unloaded on AGT. He repeated it a few times, wondered why Howard Stern did the show.

And that’s when the gap was fully evident. Neil Young was refusing to play the game. He wasn’t gonna come on and reveal all his warts and make like they’re all friends just to sell his latest forgettable product.

And let’s be clear, that is why he was on, to flog Pono and his book and his album, which is kind of sad, I’d be more impressed if Neil dropped by with nothing to sell, but in these moments the divide between broadcaster and talent, between talker and singer, between performer and artist, could not have been more evident. Neil Young was gonna be himself, he could only be himself, and it made Howard and his show look small.

That’s how it used to be, when musicians were giants who walked the earth towering over all other media. Before the best and the brightest went into tech and all we got was an endless parade of yes people willing to bend over to get reamed by not only the industry but the corporations. Who can believe in people like that?

And sure, there was some detailing of how the songs came together, but to say this interview was great would be to overestimate it. At the end it finally flew, Neil relaxed, didn’t deny he was dating Daryl Hannah, said he loved to paddle board, but this was not a morning in the clubhouse so much as a glimpse into the mind of an artist.

Who lives in his own head and doesn’t follow the charts and has no idea of this popular culture of which you speak because he’s doing his own thing.

And I don’t agree with all of Neil’s choices, nor do I think much of his recent material is genius. Then again, even he thinks he’s repeating himself.

But you don’t often get a chance to peek into the brain of an original artist who impacted the culture and is still here, with his faculties intact, not retired, but continuing to push the envelope.

I implore everybody making music to listen to this interview. Not because it’s great, because, as I stated above, it’s not, but because it illustrates you’ve got choices.

You don’t have to write hits.

You don’t have to listen to your label.

Your manager’s job is to free you up, to respect your wishes, to allow you time to create.

We’re so far from the garden I doubt we can ever get back.

There will always be music.

But that does not mean it will be art.

Art requires artists. Who question. Who take chances. Who hew to the vibrations of their own inner tuning fork, who we pay attention to because of their strength in following their vision, in continuing to search without compromise.

Whew. It was definitely Neil.

But he was definitely not like anybody else.

Neil Young On The Howard Stern Show 10/14/14

LISTENS NOT DOWNLOADS

Who cares how many people downloaded the new U2 album, the only important thing is how many people LISTENED to it!

This is a huge sea change that is getting little publicity and has been overlooked in the outcry about streaming payments. In the future, you will get paid for every play of your track for all time. Talk to oldsters, the money’s in the publishing, and now the money’s in the play. The more people subscribe, the more each stream is worth. The more streams you get, the more you get paid. So you might have even retired, yet if your music is still popular, if you still have fans, you’ll continue to get paid.

STREAMS NOT SALES

SoundScan is nearly irrelevant. Furthermore, Spotify lists plays, information that used to be hidden from the hoi polloi. The fact that old media trumpets an old metric is indicative of their failing and flailing status. They do it because they’re brain dead and everybody else is doing it. It’s good to be number one, but much more important to be number one on Spotify or YouTube than SoundScan. Ask yourself, who IS buying music these days? Only the ancient Luddites, the rest have moved on to access.

HIGH QUALITY STREAMING

Deezer Elite is SO good you’ll gladly pay. I want to listen to all my old music all over again, to hear what I might have missed, especially on tracks where I never owned the CD. Tidal is coming and expect Spotify to follow. Sure, it’s double the price, but worth it if you’re a music fan. This is gonna change the face of both listening and the kind of music we are listening to. Rich acoustic sounds sound better in FLAC, it’ll pay to get it right in the studio, because once again people will be able to hear it!

RESALE/SCALPERS/SECONDARY MARKET

What kind of bizarre world do we live in where the only person standing up for paperless is Cat Stevens, who canceled at the Beacon because of high resale prices?

It’s sad that the NY legislature is so ignorant and so swayed by the wrong powers to the degree they ban paperless.

This is an artist issue. The only people who can prevent tickets from being sold at a multiple of face value are artists. But most don’t want to move on this. For fear they won’t sell out, or because they’re participating in the secondary market themselves.

It’s sad, income inequality has infected the music business. But, once again, it all comes down to the artists. They can solve this problem. You don’t have to make every ticket paperless, you can still do platinum, but you can either be part of the problem or part of the solution.

But the sad thing is the public has become inured to scalping. They know the only way to get a good ticket is to comb StubHub, and now even Ticketmaster lists secondary tickets. The enemy has won.

CONCERTS

The only thing that can’t be stolen, that cannot be replicated online. This is the music business’s advantage, one that everybody else is trying to copy. Events are rampant, publications have conferences, but music was there first. This is the silver lining of the internet era.

PHOTOS

The new autograph, the new souvenir.

Acts can charge for meet and greets, just as long as they let their fans post the resulting pictures to social media.

YOUTUBE

Was purchased by Google for $1.65 billion in 2006.

WhatsApp was purchased for $19 billion by Facebook in 2014.

Who got the better deal?

Yes, there are huge infrastructure costs, but one has to laud Google for picking up YouTube at what now appears to be a bargain basement price.

As for Facebook, I assume you saw the article that teen use had declined,

“Teens are officially over Facebook”

It appears that Facebook paid quite a premium for WhatsApp, but the truth is you can’t be victimized by not invented here syndrome. Acquisitions can help you, the same way Apple purchased SoundJam to build iTunes.

SAMSUNG

What did Gretzky say, skate to where the puck is going?

Samsung is screwed in mobile because it doesn’t have unique software. The Korean company is being undercut by cheap Chinese Android phones. The big money goes to those who can predict the future and plan for it. If you’re focusing on today, you’re soon to be behind the times.

SHARING ECONOMY

It doesn’t matter how many people downloaded U2’s album, or Thom Yorke’s, but how many people shared them. Your goal is to get people talking about your production, it’s the only way to both keep it alive and make it grow. The old mold of mainstream media promotion is purely one on one, it engenders little virality, which is why new albums and movies are hyped to high heaven and are instantly forgotten. Your music should be a disease. Which can spread through the whole world via one person. If someone is not eager to share your work, you’re dead in the water.

It was a party.

The classic rock era was passive. Today’s music scene is participatory!

People have become stars in their own lives, utilizing their mobiles to post to Instagram, everybody believes he’s famous, is it any wonder today’s music reflects this?

We used to adulate the acts, now we adulate ourselves.

And this is very hard for the oldsters to understand.

Pitbull came from nothing. And so many of today’s concertgoers don’t have much. What else to do but dance? While you’re plotting your ascension up the economic ladder.

You would have cracked up. The show began with a scroll of text akin to “Star Wars,” detailing Pitbull’s rise from the depths. And then the man elevated from the floor and from there on the energy sustained, the audience was happy, it was everything yesterday was not.

Pitbull flashed pictures of a private jet on the big screen. As if your goal in life was to have a NetJet account. He was the ringmaster, and you can sit at home and judge it, but it was so much fun!

Usually it takes five or seven minutes and then I’m bored. I’ve seen it. They’re playing music I’m barely familiar with with lyrics I can’t comprehend and I stand there wondering how long it’s gonna be to the end. But in this case the show was a pleasure. I enjoyed it.

As did those in attendance.

It also didn’t look like a classic rock crowd. Everyone said it was 60% female, but when I went out for a pee, in between acts, when the deejay kept most people entertained, I encountered nothing but women, dressed in their finery. You didn’t come to this show in your duds, you put on your look. Was it a Latino thing? Christy Haubegger, my firsthand expert, told me that’s what her people did. But not to snare a man, but to show how fine they were. Yes, there were endless lines of women with no guys in sight, prancing as if they were in one of those MTV videos.

And Pitbull had six dancers, constantly changing outfits, akin to those girls you hire at your wedding or bar mitzvah, but it did resemble a rap video of the nineties. Only in this case Pitbull wasn’t being exclusive, but inclusive. It wasn’t about drawing a line between performer and audience but keeping them connected.

And sure, he played his hits. Duetting with Kesha on “Timber,” who appeared on the big screen, as did other famous personages.

And interspersed were famous rock songs, like “Sweet Child O’ Mine,” it cracked me up, this wasn’t a concert as much as an event.

But Ne-Yo did show up in the flesh, to sing “Give Me Everything” with Pit. The worldwide hit produced by Afrojack.

And there you have it.

While you’ve been home practicing your guitar, writing dreary songs about love lost, the genres have merged. They rap in country, and this huge hit would play just great at Electric Daisy.

And in the Sahara Tent.

Yup, instead of a deejay, there could be a live performer at these shows, and then everything you thought you know would be history.

It’s a brand new world out there. One the young people have only known.

Sitting in the audience passively watching longhairs strum their tales is now passe. Sure, it still exists, who knows, it could come back, but our entire scene has flipped upside down, it’s about having fun in our brutal culture that venerates winners and excludes losers and today’s young people know this and have decided they’re going to climb the ladder, because being at the bottom is anathema.

Pitbull’s just the cheerleader.

With worldwide hits with worldwide sounds.

Wake up to the new world, it’s not going anywhere, it’s not a fad. Everybody knows these hits and sings and dances along to them, whether they be white, Latino or black. Society has moved on. Warner Brothers might have been the icon of the seventies, but today it’s not about your soul but your bank account, and to deny this is to exclude yourself.

So join the festivities, have fun, dance while you’re plotting your ascension, to get your mind off reality, to escape the punishing life fostered by baby boomers who claimed to love one another, but turned out to be the greediest souls on the planet.

Their children know this. And have decided to party like it’s 1999.

And there’s nothing wrong with that.