Take away their Super Bowl victory.

That’s right, strip them of their success, show that rules matter.

But they don’t anymore in America.

That’s what the underclass doesn’t understand…the level of cheating that goes on by their overlords, the rich and famous, the corporate titans, the sports stars. They keep telling us we’ve got to work harder, to be like them, to make it when the truth is they’ve had advantages and have greased the totem pole so we can’t climb it and all the while keep uttering duplicitous statements that keep us off our guard.

Kind of like Lance Armstrong.

You know who’s a national hero? Greg LeMond. Who won the Tour de France when Americans weren’t paying attention. He went on record that Lance doped and he lost his bike deal, he was demonized, his life ruined. Because if you stand up against the winners in today’s society you’re a loser. Kind of like Edward Snowden. Do you think the appeals court would be saying the N.S.A. went too far if it weren’t for Snowden? Of course not, justices are human, not infallible, the law is malleable, they sway with the wind.

Actions matter. Identities matter. But somehow in the dash for cash and fame these concepts have been plowed under.

Like high speed trading. Michael Lewis writes a book about what most people can’t understand and the only ones who do excoriate him, believing if they say enough negative stuff the story will go away.

And that’s the truth.

Kind of like Tom Brady.

You need an edge, everybody in America needs an edge. A thumb on the scale. A way to make sure they can win. If you don’t think the game is rigged against you you’re not playing.

It starts with schools. The best and the brightest don’t even go to public school, they have you agitating for voucher systems while their kids go to Andover and Exeter, places you’ve never even heard of. And their progeny get into the Ivys because they did too. And if they didn’t, they donate a building. Of course you can’t get into Brown if you’ve got 1000 on your SATs, but if your numbers are in the ballpark and your daddy writes an eight figure check, VOILA, success!

Welcome to America, where there’s a way around everything. It’s who you know and what they can do for you, but it’s the denial that bugs me.

When I grew up the worst thing that could happen was to bring a note home from school, my parents would hit me, literally. Today if a kid brings home a note a parent goes to the administrator and says it can’t be true and threatens to sue. Don’t ask me how things changed, but they did, and this culture is permeating our entire society.

No one can take any responsibility. And when caught, they get on their high horse and deny it. Sometimes the truth comes out, but usually years later, after the perpetrators have garnered the victory and the spoils.

Not to mention America loves a redemption story. We’ll give you a second chance if you say you’re sorry. But that rarely happens anymore, unless you’re a celebrity who makes a non-PC statement and goes to rehab… What, is this the USSR, with re-education camps?

I’d like a re-education camp.

One in which schools teach people how to think as opposed to getting the right answer on a test.

One in which you learn how to read and write, because in the digital age those are even MORE important!

One in which public universities are funded to the degree private ones are. So a degree from UCLA or Berkeley is equivalent to one from Stanford, how it used to be.

One in which you can pay your bills by doing an honest day’s work. I’m not saying people shouldn’t try to improve themselves, but without people to do all the service jobs we’ve got no economy, never mind a society.

Now it’s great Ellen Pao sued Kleiner Perkins. The VC firm won, but it lost. Because the truth is they did keep women down. And now every VC firm will be hesitant to do this in the future.

And if Brady and the Patriots skate on this no one will be dissuaded from cheating in the coming years.

At least they nailed A-Rod. He equaled Willie Mays’s home run record and no one cared.

Because the truth is we don’t care about liars and cheaters.

But if we pay Asian contractors a living wage, our TVs and computers will cost a fortune.

If we penalize the Patriots our lives will be empty with nothing to believe in.

Baloney.

People rally around the truth. That’s what art used to provide. Before we lionized second-tier charlatans like Jeff Koons and celebrated Taylor Swift for her marketing efforts, trumpeting her success on the anemic sales charts when everybody is streaming. That’s right, Swift is the queen of YouTube. Leaving Spotify was irrelevant, because it’s got few subscribers. Want to make a difference Taylor, LEAVE YOUTUBE!

Taylor took a stand, one that benefited herself.

Ain’t that the twenty first century.

And the only reason I mention her is at least you know her. Becoming world famous is nearly impossible these days. The opportunity is there, but the success rate is incredibly low.

Read this article about how hard it is to become a YouTube star:

“Can You Still Become ‘YouTube Famous’?”

But you won’t. Because you just wanna believe if you work hard enough and believe in yourself you’ll make it.

Hogwash!

The winners have an edge, AND THEY’RE KEEPING IT!

Do you expect punters to refrain from using Periscope when celebrities are paying 10k a ticket for the fight?

Welcome to the teens, where those with money and power are completely ignorant as to how the rank and file think.

We had to endure a month plus of hype for a brutal sporting event that ultimately disappointed. We heard how much money was being made. Looky-loos decided not to pay but to view the fight for free on the aforementioned Periscope and Meerkat and the threats to sue Twitter are hysterical. Everybody believes they’re entitled.

Just like the music business.

That was yesterday’s story, Apple’s effort to shut down free. Not only on Spotify, but YouTube too. Heralded by players everywhere, most don’t want to achieve their desire. They’re going to find out payments for streaming will still be low, because few want to listen to their music. All the spoils will go to the already rich and promoted, and the avenues of exposure everyone counts on, like YouTube, will be gone.

Assuming the government doesn’t step in and stop it.

But this is what happens when cronies work together. Old friends like Jimmy Iovine and Lucian Grainge. Grainge has been telegraphing this move for months, testifying everywhere his desire to get rid of free. And this might be good for the bottom line of his recording company Universal, but is it good for artists?

Knee-jerkers will say that people pay for visual content, for Netflix and Hulu and…

But the truth is visual media is facing a piracy onslaught heretofore unknown. With broadband prevalent and numerous sites for pirated downloads and streaming abundant, piracy is a cancer on the television and movie business, and they don’t know what to do but sue. They tried that in music, even suing the customers, how well did that work out?

Turns out the public is enticed by legal alternatives, that give them what they want conveniently for a low price. We’re way ahead of the game in music, but in a war of attrition, we’re about to screw it up once again. Exclusives are the culprit. You won’t be able to hear everything in one place for one low price. And the end result will be piracy, or even worse, a shrug of the shoulders and a lack of desire to check out wares completely.

That’s what we’re fighting in the twenty first century, obscurity, not piracy. That’s why YouTube and free streaming tiers are so good.

Not that people shouldn’t pay for music.

But it’s going to be a long evolutionary process, which no one time-stamped at a label has time for.

Ever try to use free Spotify on your handset? It’ll make you subscribe or give up. You can’t pick and choose songs and play what you want at will, not that this is discussed anywhere. We live in a mobile world, the desktop is dying, presently YouTube sucks on mobile, as does Google in general, which is why the company is challenged. But you’ve got the music industry finally waking up to the desktop, huh?

That’s right, as we enter a fully mobile society people will end up paying for music subscriptions because of the convenience. But you’ve got to price it right and give it time. Everybody’s not going to subscribe at these prices and not everybody even has an LTE-enabled phone.

But it’s coming.

But you always need a free way to check out music.

Back in the day, not everybody paid. Many listened to radio, which is presently execrable, furthermore, who has time for commercials?

And internet radio sucks too, especially Pandora, because it’s not on demand.

We need all access, instantly. That’s where you start online.

And if there’s a piracy path, you’re challenged.

It’s the people who are thieves, not the techies who build the pathways.

Then again, there’s a coterie of coders who put up these sites and do it for free.

What kind of world do we live in, where they don’t respect our hard work, where they don’t believe in capitalism?

One in which you just can’t get ahead and those on the bottom have contempt for those on top.

The games are just beginning in TV and movies.

But in music, we want to close the loop prematurely, coronate the present winners and forget the wannabes, just like we used to in the MTV era. Who cares if no one can hear your music if they can hear the Top Forty!

That’s right, if you’re struggling, you want a free tier.

And the business wants a free tier as an alternative to piracy.

But greed is having those in power move the ball too fast. It wasn’t until Taylor Swift pulled her music that most people even found out what Spotify was. Most people haven’t even signed up for the free service. But suddenly, if you pull all free streaming everybody’s gonna pay Apple ten bucks a month?

You’re just a pawn in their game, don’t you realize it?

Those watching the Mayweather/Pacquiao fight on Periscope did.

 

Howdy Mr. Lefsetz,

Huge fan, first time caller.

I’m a 47 year old roadie…been on lots of Rock and Roll busses, planes, trains…traveled with lots and lots of musicians.

It’s funny for me to hear a musician in the bus lounge rant on and on about how he/she is getting ripped off by Spotify…while he/she is busy downloading the current cinematic Box Office Blockbusters onto his laptop from www.neverpayforanothermovieagain.com.

There’s at least one of those guys on every musician’s bus in America…they have every movie in existence on their hard drive…and every other musician on the bus seems extremely appreciative and completely accepting of the fact that we are watching “stolen art” when we face those long overnight rides.

Never have I heard a musician stand up and say, “Guys, this isn’t fair. The people who created and starred in these movies deserve to be compensated for their hard work. Let’s take up a collection and send it into Sony Pictures.”

I’ve also seen books and magazines passed around the tour like a bad case of crabs. Do you think that I have ever a musician say, “Is that book good?… Great, I’ll go buy one too. It’s not fair to the author if we both read the book… Buying a copy is the right thing to do.”

The Rockstars want it both ways… they want their youtube… their sports sites…movies, tv shows, etc. for free but they want every person who ever listens to their song to cough up a quarter.

Spotify is going to be the great equalizer. You’re a prophet and you’re going to be proven correct.

Michael “Ace” Baker

We believe in it because there’s no advertising.

That’s not completely true, that’s just the icing on the cake. The truth is HBO is a paragon of excellence with deep pockets that attracts the best creators in media. And when HBO says yes, which is not that often, it gives carte blanche to those creators, believing art is best left to the artists.

Sounds like Mo Ostin’s Warner Brothers, I know!

So HBO has Bill Maher, who offends people on a regular basis, caring not a whit if you disagree with him.

And “Vice,” which takes you to places you didn’t know existed or never wanted to go to and makes you want to buy a plane ticket, gets you so riled up by the world’s inequities that you want to protest, just like you did in the sixties.

And John Oliver, who uses comedy to poke fun at the ridiculousness of life.

And it is ridiculous. Public life. All the ass-kissing. I watched this iHeartRadio Country Festival on Yahoo and it made me want to puke. The constant screaming, the endless plaudits, what world do these people live in? ONE IN WHICH RADIO CONTROLS THEIR CAREER DESTINY, SO THEY’D BETTER PLAY BALL!

Everybody in music is beholden to someone else. Bob Dylan had it right, when he said you’ve got to serve somebody. And it’s true, but how bad is your boss?

The Warner Brothers of the past is not the Warner Brothers of the present. Today’s record company wants to own everything you do and pay you little for it and if you don’t succeed instantly they’re going to kick you to the curb.

So in order to make your numbers, you tie up with the corporations. Who are people according to Mitt Romney, who have our best interests at heart.

HUH?

So John Oliver is poking fun at the Bud Light controversy, wherein their tagline says the beer eviscerates the word NO. Despite five layers of scrutiny, no one could see the implication of rape. And that’s corporate America, so up its own ass it can’t see a bit of light.

But what’s even better is the show pokes fun at Bud Light’s advertising. The same thing the musicians and the Kardashians and the rest of the nitwits clamor to be a part of.

The game is…if you drink the Bud Light on hidden camera, you get to play with Peyton Manning. This is real. Bud Light has hidden cameras in bars and the reward is life-sized Pac-Man and other inanities.

But no one in the John Oliver version will drink the horse piss. They keep putting it down. They don’t want to work on Maggie’s Farm no more.

And there you have it, the transition over fifty years from Bob Dylan telling you to not follow leaders and watch the parking meters to country artists putting brands in songs. And you wonder why we live in a golden age of television and music is in the dumper…

THERE’S NO CREDIBILITY!

But what’s worse is everybody working in music stokes the fire. Sponsorship is good… That’s what makes Live Nation’s numbers. That’s what will give you marketing money, if you’re rich it’ll go straight to your bottom line.

And you know why punters can’t get good concert tickets? Because American Express has paid for all the good ones. That’s right, AmEx writes a check so they can sell access to the good seats to their cardholders as a perk. And if for some reason you’ve got a Citi card, you’re out of luck.

Then again, sometimes Citi screws AmEx. So you’ve got to have them all. Kind of like Hulu, Netflix, Amazon, HBO…

But no, you can buy HBO all by its lonesome. For fifteen bucks.

A good value proposition?

Well, let’s see, they’ve got “Game Of Thrones” and the rest of the aforementioned series. And the archives have the “Sopranos”…

But there’s not new programming 24/7! We don’t get to view inane reality programming? Isn’t that today’s media landscape, people make it but no one wants to watch it, kind of like your track on Spotify, which goes unheard.

HBO decided to take the high road. Sure, they market, but there’s no smoke and mirrors, no bait and switch. And the outlet knows that only programming of the highest quality will keep its enterprise going. People can cancel EVERY MONTH!

But more than 30 million households subscribe to HBO.

They are believers.

Not Beliebers.

Justin is an uneducated idiot who the machine told us was talented but we knew was a flash in the pan. Kim Kardashian will have a longer lifespan.

And we keep hearing how great Kanye West is, but he hasn’t done anything good in ages other than complain on a world class level. His sales suck because the audience cancelled him long ago. But the media didn’t get the message. It was as if the “Times” and “USA Today” kept writing about “Deadwood.”

But they don’t.

HBO gets respect.

And it doesn’t beg for it.

Because it’s above the fray, beholden to no one.

It’s a cultural issue. Music is bankrupt. The only acts with credibility are those without traction. As if everybody who couldn’t get on HBO said they deserved to.

“Dream On” was twenty five years ago. “Larry Sanders” last century. It took HBO decades to become a juggernaut. You don’t change people’s impressions that quickly. And you don’t know what you’re doing that soon. Takes a while to figure it out, takes a while to be good.

So while you’re salivating for corporate dough, tens of millions are drinking at the HBO trough, which is credible and skeptical. Not drinking the kool-aid, not accepting the corporate b.s., the antithesis to the mainstream mantra.

Kind of like Frank Zappa.

But he’s been dead for almost twenty five years.

Kind of like the music business.

John Oliver, Bud Light (either watch the whole thing or start at 2:45)

Just because you’re a rock star, that doesn’t make you right.

In case you missed it, Roger Waters railed against techies in the London “Times” behind a paywall, but read a snippet here:

Pink Floyd’s Roger Waters accuses music industry of ‘stealing every fucking cent anybody ever made’

and now we’ve got to see his inane opinions trumpeted across all media because he was once a star and you know stars, we’ve got to listen to them. And I don’t want to even touch his anti-semitic ravings. Sure, I’m Jewish, but to think the Israelis are the sole oppressors and no band should play there is denying thousands of years of anti-semitism and the obvious point that Israel can only lose once. It’s a complicated story, and I am far from approving of everything the country does, but read Ari Shavit’s “My Promised Land” if you want to know what’s going on, Kerry did, it’s his bible, but you’d rather have a knee-jerk reaction than research complicated issues, just like in tech.

The damn tech companies did not steal your business, did not steal your opportunity, did not make you broke.

The customer did.

Which way do you want it, do you love your fans or hate them? Love those who wanted everything you ever did, even the goose farts in the studio you never thought would be released, or hate those who now have access to everything and don’t want to listen to you.

Let’s state some rules.

1. It’s the best time to be an artist in the history of the world…especially if you make popular music, if you are willing to do it yourself. There are no barriers to entry, but you’d rather sign a deal with a major label, which is kind of like a slave signing up with a plantation owner or those Scientologists who wanted to stay in the hole. I can’t help it if you’re too afraid to embrace the new paradigm, that’s your fault. Meanwhile, you’re bitching that the labels don’t pay like they used to. You want more Spotify money, put your music out yourself.

2. Major labels push what sells. They’re businesses, not museums. You can excoriate the Top Forty all you want, but if klezmer music was the new rage, the majors would pick up that. To bitch that the labels won’t put out obscure music is like complaining to Detroit they don’t make vent windows anymore. It’s not cost-efficient.

3. When everything is available, there’s a race to the top. “The Long Tail” and other tomes perpetrated the fiction that we’d all get rich in the internet economy. Didn’t work during the dot com era and doesn’t now. As a matter of fact, the rich are getting richer and the poor poorer, in not only business, but art. The public is confused. They’re gravitating to the anointed and the popular. Tech helped grease the skids, by providing access, but it’s the public that chooses what to listen to. You can get your music on Spotify easily, YouTube even easier than that, but that doesn’t mean anybody wants to listen to it.

4. Change happens. Live went to wax cylinders went to shellac to 45s to 33s to cassettes and CDs and then files and now streams. The album was a result of the 33, didn’t exist before that. But now you want to keep it. Keep the buggy whips while you’re at it. You’re supposed to be an artist, using new tools to create something different and exciting. You’re like a painter bitching when Picasso and Braque came up with cubism. Embrace the new, it’s the only way out.

5. Piracy is a problem for recorded music revenue, not artistry. It’s actually good for artistry, you can reach your public for nothing, as you now can on YouTube. Get rid of music on YouTube and watch the ARTISTS go nuclear. They want to reach people for free. Because it’s hard to make a fan.

6. Radio is not forever. Bitch all you want about a closed system. But suddenly TV is unbundling, and despite all the radio hogwash there are so many better ways to experience music that one day music radio is gonna crash, the same way AM and Viacom have. Did you see Viacom’s ratings? Double digit declines, because their young target demo doesn’t watch TV anymore, they utilize other platforms and want it instantly, on demand.

So Roger Waters blows hard and all the has-beens and never-wills throw their fists in the air and scream that he’s right.

But it doesn’t make a bit of difference. Railing against change is like bitching that you can now call across the country for free. Used to be expensive, with long distance tolls. But I don’t see you taking up the cause of the telcos, who all saw the light and moved on to wireless, and when talk declined moved on to data. How come businesses can change and you can’t?

And techies glommed on to music because it was desirable, they wanted to hear it, they wanted others to. They’re the future, not you. People want to create an app, not a song, and that’s sad.

And the truth is that despite you going on that today’s music is as great as it was in the past, the so-called “classic rock era,” it’s not. Of course there are talented people working, of course there’s money to be made, but once upon a time there was more experimentation and music was front and center in the culture, moving it. Now music is all about promotion and money. Don’t be afraid to speak the truth for fear you’ll look old, only in America do we denigrate our elders, experience counts.

And Waters’s experience is of what happened in the seventies. If he wants to tell us how he did it, we’re all ears. But if just wants to bitch that someone moved his cheese, tune him out and give him no press. The truth is Roger can’t sing and no one wants his new music. He’s not on good terms with David Gilmour and separately they’re not desirable. Hell, Brooks & Dunn got back together but we’re supposed to give every solo act a break? Going solo after the group breaks up and succeeding is the exception, not the rule.

We live in a wild, woolly time of cacophony, where the greats are at our fingertips for the same price as the dreck. And to be able to hear everything ever recorded is a boon to the listener, albeit overwhelming. As a result, there’s a shifting revenue picture. It used to be those who jumped through the hoops made money and those who didn’t didn’t. But now that everybody can play, the revenue is tilting towards the winners.

And everybody can’t be a winner.

But tech is inert. Software and devices are tools. They need juice to run on. Art can harness the tools and succeed in ways previously unknown. Could PSY’s “Gangnam Style” have made it in the old era? OF COURSE NOT! Could you watch concerts 24/7 online for free? OF COURSE NOT! Could you have a world class studio in your home? OF COURSE NOT!

We’ve got all the time in the world for great art.

And creating greatness takes a long time, to get to that level and reach people. But the audience is always ready, the techies have provided the pipe, there’s plenty of money and that’s a GOOD THING!

Never forget it.

Ari Shavit – “My Promised Land: The Triumph and Tragedy of Israel”