There’s a fiction that if I know about it, if I’m aware of it, everybody is. Furthermore, if for some reason you’re not, you’re an out of it nerd who’s got no knowledge of popular culture.

But it don’t really happen that way at all.

I keep receiving e-mail that Ferguson was featured in the mailer’s Twitter feed or on their Facebook page. The assumption is therefore everybody knows about it. But nothing could be further from the truth, which is we all see different stuff on our feeds, if we’re paying attention at all.

Yes, despite all the Wall Street hype, most people don’t pay attention to Twitter. Oh, they might have an account, they might have signed up when it was the rage, a few years back, but they never check it out. So not only are they unaware of what’s going on there, everybody on Twitter follows different people, so they’re subjected to different information. I was right on it with the Tony Stewart accident, I saw Nathan Hubbard’s tweet about it. But the only tweets about Ferguson in my feed came from Michael Moore.

Yup, we all get different information from different people. We live in a Tower of Babel society, has been that way since the twenty first century, when the Internet took hold, but no one wants to admit it, because that would mean their reach is tiny and that they don’t have their finger on the pulse.

But there is no pulse. That’s the point. When there were three networks everybody knew about “Laugh-In,” if you didn’t watch, you were a social pariah.

Ditto with MTV. If you were unaware of Culture Club you had no eyes. That’s what built the channel, everybody imploring their cable provider to add it so they wouldn’t be left out.

And today we don’t want to be left out on a grand scale, we want a broadband connection and a smartphone, but what appears on these devices…is usually completely different from what appears on someone else’s.

This is a huge problem in music. Where people who follow the hits believe everybody does. Most of America is unaware of Jay Z’s hits, never mind Iggy Azalea’s. The world they live in is an echo chamber, which one can easily avoid.

As are the niches known as Americana and Active Rock… You think your favorite acts are impacting the general culture, that they  matter, that most people give a damn, but they don’t.

And tastemaker publications are operating on an old paradigm, that they’re gatekeepers, and they anoint the hits. But if your album is reviewed in the “New York Times” be sure to show your mother, because almost no one else gives a damn. Same deal with a late night television appearance. Hell, check the ratings, and the statistics, that’s DVR hour, most people with the set on are watching recordings, we save Fallon and Kimmel, et al, for highlights the next day online, if we bother to follow them all.

Sure, there are phenomena, like “Gangnam Style,” but now more than any time in our lifetimes, we live in a society where we consume different culture, hell, we oftentimes even eat different food! That’s been a recent story, the upper classes consume stuff the lower have never heard of.

So come down off your throne, and realize what is important to you is probably not to someone else. If you think you’re better than someone else because you know something they don’t, are aware of a record they aren’t, then you’re living in a twentieth century world, it’s you who are out of it

But what is end game? A complete Balkanization of America? To the point where we all speak different languages?

That’s possible. Hell, it’s hard to go to dinner and find points of communication…

But the truth is we’re all yearning for central repositories of information where we can find out what is not only important, but what is the consensus.

This is Twitter’s number one problem…WHO DO I FOLLOW?

And they’re not doing a good job of telling us, because Twitter is populated by techies, not liberal arts majors, they understand numbers, but not concepts.

And if Facebook showed everybody the same thing, they’d squeeze out the small advertisers. Meanwhile, isn’t that the bitch, that you can’t reach as many people on Facebook as you used to, without spending zillions of dollars?

And dollars are more important than information in today’s society, that’s what we all cotton to. Jay Z got five million dollars from Samsung, it doesn’t matter whether anybody listened to the music he was promoting, never mind remember it.

It’s like business is our national sport. Forget baseball, so antiquated and so slow that only oldsters truly care. But now the diamond fanatics will be e-mailing I’m wrong, that their ten year old is a diehard fan!

And there you’ve got the problem in a nutshell. Your anecdotal evidence cannot be spread to the masses, it just doesn’t fly. Check baseball ratings, they’re anemic.

As are most music sales.

Because most people are just not paying attention. And this is bad for society at large.

Yes, it’s great we’re disconnected from the old intermediaries, the old filters that decided what was a hit. And it’s great that the only news that happens is not in the newspaper and on TV. But having destroyed the old model, what is the new, chaos?

If the music industry had a clue, which it doesn’t, it’d post a weekly list of what America needs to check out, crossing all genres. Just like the old “Give The Gift Of Music” campaign. The key would be to build hits which benefited all of us. But no one in the industry can see this, that there’s mayhem in the marketplace.

And the old news outlets are operating on old models, if they’re operating at all.

And the Internet news outlets believe in clicks, because after all it’s about money.

And I’m stuck here in the middle with you. With tons of information and little time, wondering where to start.

Do you know what it is?

Ferguson is the first post-television news story. Used to be we turned on the box and were exposed to the world. Now the news is turning into the music business.

You know the music business… A former juggernaut where everybody screamed for a decade and now there are few dominant artists. Used to be you couldn’t escape number one, now you’ve got no idea what number one is.

When they rioted in Detroit in the sixties, everybody was transfixed, because America lived on television, and that’s all you saw on the three networks.

Today, if you don’t turn on one of the TV news programs, there’s a good chance Ferguson bounced right off of you.

Meanwhile, the news industry does not know this, so busy following developments in the story, they don’t know most people are clueless.

Credit Ezra Klein, he understands the hole at the center of the traditional news organizations’ vision, he now gives digestible background on Vox. Want to know what’s happening in Ferguson, go here:

The Ferguson, MO, protests for Michael Brown, explained

But the truth is most people don’t want to know.

Oh, they want to listen to the work of Jay Z and Beyonce, they want to be faux gangsters, but as for the plight of the black man in America, too many just don’t care. We used to make them care, now what?

And there are a ton of issues for everybody to care about. The arming of local governments with war surplus. Individual rights.

But there’s no center.

Yup, BuzzFeed has not done a list, so it’s like Ferguson doesn’t exist.

Actually, if you scan BuzzFeed’s homepage you see that there is finally a list, “How 28 Local Newspaper Front Pages Across America Covered, Ferguson, Missouri,” but it’s only got one comment, it’s got no virality.

Is that what we’ve come to? Is the only thing that matters train-wreck value? If it’s got no viral elements does it land at the bottom of the heap?

And believe me, the online “news” outlets are all about virality. “Reporters” are paid by the click. As if everything was a pop song and if it didn’t fly up the charts, it was worthless.

But news is not pop music. News is what happens. And what is happening is our government is out of control and despite the Supreme Court saying racism is over, that no voting rights supervision is necessary, it’s the same as it ever was, if you’re black, beware.

Yup, we might have a black President, but we do not live in a post-racial society.

And just like music, news is now something people follow, their obsession. Check the ratings for Fox, never mind MSNBC or CNN, they’re positively anemic, almost nobody’s watching.

And the “Wall Street Journal” and “New York Times” have readers, but local papers have been eviscerated to the point of unreadability and local news likes a good murder, but not as much as it likes a cat rescue.

So there’s no focus in culture anymore. Everything’s grist for the mill. Almost nothing lasts. And those in charge don’t blink, but double down, believing if they just yell louder, they’ll get more traction, not realizing most people aren’t paying attention and never will.

What kind of miserable world do we live in where a comedian sadly takes his own life and everybody knows about it but a young man is gunned down in Missouri and most people are clueless?

We need a rethink.

Today it was announced cable companies have more Internet than TV subscribers. The younger generation lives online, and the older generation loses touch.

Where are the young techies who are going to solve this problem? Who are going to build the go-to site for not only news, but music, somewhere someone time-challenged can go to find out what’s going on?

Ezra Klein is starting. But the best and the brightest, like Mark Zuckerberg, are so beholden to their advertisers and Wall Street that they completely evade social responsibility.

Then again, it’s our culture. Wherein the Ivy graduates all go into finance, where it’s about lining your pocketbook as opposed to doing good for society.

Ferguson shows it can happen here. That our biggest threat might not be terrorists, but us.

And those who will inherit this country know little about it, because they’re posting food photos on Instagram and building monuments to themselves on Facebook.

Pay attention.

Then again, where?

Life has become so overwhelming that we all just hop from phenomenon to phenomenon. What was the number one movie two weeks ago? What was the number one record? Who is your Congressperson? What does the military industrial complex do with its leftovers? These are the questions you should be concerned with.

But all you care about is the new iPhone.

Because Apple markets better than the “Times” and CBS.

And unless it instantly gets eyeballs and revenue, it’s worthless in today’s society.

And that’s just sad.

Yup, while you’re fighting to get ahead, to establish your brand, to win in society, you don’t realize you’re losing all the while.

Really.

“Simon Says”
1910 Fruitgum Company

The first bubblegum hit and I absolutely HATED IT!

This was ’68, “Disraeli Gears” was making an impact, as was underground FM radio, and we were subjected to this drivel on AM radio? We were going BACKWARDS!

Come on, Simon Says was made for first graders, everybody soon outgrew it, now there’s a song about the stupid game? And at this time no one had an FM radio in the car.

Utter drivel.

But it’s funny, it’s got no legs, people don’t remember this as the first bubblegum hit, it’s faded into obscurity.

“Green Tambourine”
The Lemon Pipers

Okay, it was the first number one hit for Buddah Records, the home of bubblegum, but despite Wikipedia and the rest of the web crediting this as the first bubblegum hit, I don’t think so, I LOVED IT!

And my point is not my reaction, it’s just that it sounded like what was happening, it was mildly psychedelic, with effects, and sure, playing your green tambourine might be stupid, but not like playing Simon Says. Furthermore, hippies, eighteen months before Woodstock, were famous for playing tambourines and other musical instruments. Actually, that was what was different from today, we got together and played instruments, sang along, although I don’t remember anybody singing “Green Tambourine,” because its magic was in its production, its arrangement, it’s anthemic, it’s better than most of the chart-topping hits of today!

“Yummy, Yummy, Yummy”
The Ohio Express

It’s this hit that is trotted out as the number one exponent of bubblegum, and it was a gigantic hit, but I bought the single, I was infected.

That’s the true mark of a great record, you’ve got to hear it again and again.

And I always thought the lyrics were tongue-in-cheek. And the changes are infectious, and the emotion borders on honesty.

I know, I know, people see “Yummy, Yummy, Yummy” as lowest common denominator, but the truth is it’s rooted in rock more than pop and it just sounds GOOD!

“Bang-Shang-A-Lang”
The Archies

This track has been completely forgotten, everyone remembers “Sugar Sugar,” which I found unlistenable back then and refuse to inject into this playlist today. But this, the initial Archies hit, is palatable.

Archie Andrews was still a hero. If we had the Monkees, maybe the Archies could be a reasonable production, alas, it was not, but we didn’t know it at this point, so we gave the track a break.

“My Baby Loves Lovin'”
White Plains

The Buddah bands, the 1910 Fruitgum Company and the Ohio Express, were the definitive bubblegum acts, lowest common denominator enterprises whose singles exploited and extorted money from young children. Sure, I was a fan of “Yummy, Yummy, Yummy,” but the Ohio Express’s follow-up track was just dreck. “Chewy Chewy” was not only dumb, it played on the same paradigm as the original hit, as if originality was out of the question. Whereas the 1910 Fruitgum Company’s subsequent hits were much better, although not great. “1,2,3 Red Light” was stupid, but less stupid than “Simon Says,” but although listenable, it’s forgettable. “Indian Giver” was a step up, but not a giant one.

And here begins the problem. What else do we call bubblegum music? Online you’ll see Tommy James’ “I Think We’re Alone Now,” but that’s just a rewrite of history. James was a legitimate act, just because something appealed to the youth and was upbeat and catchy, that did not mean it was bubblegum. And just because Kasenetz and Katz, the bubblegum progenitors, were behind the Music Explosion’s “Little Bit O’ Soul,” that does not make it bubblegum either, most people I knew considered the track to be legitimate, as did I. Bubblegum was seen as illegitimate, like stealing candy, from a baby.

And White Plains was English, but they sounded like they came from the New York hit factory, the track was light and just a bit more sophisticated than the Buddah hits, was it bubblegum? Like I said, the line of demarcation is subjective. It certainly had that sound.

“Love Grows (Where My Rosemary Goes)”
Edison Lighthouse

The same lead singer as White Plains, Tony Burrows, this is a step up from the White Plains track, it chugs along, you didn’t push the AM button when it came on, at least at first.

“Smile A Little Smile For Me”
The Flying Machine

Classified as bubblegum by many, this English act was certainly shooting for a young demo, but I love this cut to this day. The changes, the sincerity, the singability, I can remember where I was when I heard it, driving back to our ski house, after a long day at Bromley. This is great.

“Gimme Gimme Good Lovin'”
Crazy Elephant

Another Kasenetz and Katz production, I can see how some classify this as bubblegum, but to me it rocked too much, in a BTO kind of way, to be categorized as such, come on, it’s only a short hop to “Takin’ Care Of Business,” never mind so many Grand Funk hits, most especially “We’re An American Band”…hell, one could argue Todd Rundgren understood and digested bubblegum music and served it back up to those who decried it the same way bands long after the seventies mixed in disco elements and those who wanted to blow up the dance records suddenly loved the sound.

Crazy Elephant is just too big, or crazy, to be on Spotify, you can hear “Gimme Gimme Good Lovin'” on YouTube here:

Gimme, Gimme Good Lovin’ – Crazy Elephant – 1969

“Tracy”
The Cuff Links

I guess we’ve got to call this one bubblegum, since it features the same lead singer as the Archies, Ron Dante.

I liked this more back then.

Now I wouldn’t call the Partridge Family bubblegum, that was manufactured TV stuff, and it came later.

The Osmonds were more of a boy band, a white rip-off of the Jackson 5.

Yes, one could argue true bubblegum lasted a very short period of time, from late ’67 until…the seventies and the burgeoning FM album format killed it.

But for a while there, it was the rage, everybody was talking about it, hipsters hated it and oldsters tapped their feet to it and kids ate it up.

Kind of like today. Yup, that’s what Max Martin specializes in, Dr. Luke too, Katy Perry is nothing so much as a bubblegum artist, following in the footsteps of bubblegum boy groups like Backstreet boys and ‘N Sync.

You see the kids need the sound.

And in an ever more complicated world, that which is simple triumphs.

Rhinofy-Bubblegum Primer

This is why I hate the book business.

There’s been a raft of publicity for William Deresiewicz’s book “Excellent Sheep: The Miseducation of the American Elite and the Way to a Meaningful Life” wherein the author decries the soft choices of today’s Ivy League graduates.

But I can’t buy it.

Oh, it began in “The New Republic,” with the story

“Don’t Send Your Kid to the Ivy League”

But even though I was forwarded that article numerous times, it seemed like link-bait to me, so I skimmed it and moved on.

Then I became a bit more curious when the “New York Times” wrote about it on August 5th,

“This Is What An Ivy League Education Will Get You”

But I wasn’t closed until I read a review of the book on the front page of yesterday’s “New York Times” Arts section entitled

“Lowered Ambitions in Higher Education”

I just clicked to download a sample chapter on my Kindle. I wanted to check the book out.

But I can’t. It’s unavailable until August 19th.

Did you get the memo that the music industry is going to go to a worldwide release date? Finally, they’re waking up, a decade and a half too late. They’re mostly worried about piracy, but at least you can coordinate publicity.

That’s the truth, we live in a worldwide economy.

But at least people want to steal music. They don’t care that much about books.

That’s the essence of a desirable product, the degree to which people will clamor for it and download it illicitly if you don’t make it available commercially.

That’s just how dumb the book publishers are. Which is why it’s hard to take their side in the battle against Amazon, not that Amazon is right, but why do the publishers have to be so STUPID!

What is Simon and Schuster trying to achieve here? A big first week debut?

Talk to the music industry, where number one gets you one week bragging rights. Has ANYBODY spoken to you, e-mailed you, texted you about the new Tom Petty album this week? OF COURSE NOT, THAT’S LAST WEEK’S STORY!

And the way you get something to last is by infecting the public with quality. The public is the decider, not the media establishment. We not only make hits, more importantly we SUSTAIN THEM!

I’m not gonna bother stealing this book, it’s too much effort. But will I remember to download it a week from now, when the publicity’s history and I’ve forgotten about it?

We live in a day and date economy. If you’re gonna hype, let me buy it.

And sure, the cumulative hype may have helped get me interested in the book, but I can’t spread the word personally, because I can’t READ IT!

And I want to, because yesterday’s review told me 50% of 2010 Harvard graduates went into finance. And that just sucks. Once upon a time we got artists like Tom Rush from Harvard, never mind Rivers Cuomo, and funny people from the Lampoon, now all we get is rapers and pillagers.

And the review went on to say that economics was the most popular major at the Top 10 liberal arts schools. I was reading the Middlebury magazine on a flight and marveled that economics was the number one major, no one I knew majored in the subject when I was there.

This is why we’ve got lousy music, the best and the brightest follow the money, and only the money.

But one thing’s for certain, when the boomers and Gen-X’ers retire the new generation that takes over this world will know that if you’re hyping, you’ve got to be selling at the same time. That if you’re getting people interested, let them click to buy, there’s just too much information for them to remember weeks down the line.

So, same as it ever was. The entertainment companies believe they’re better than us and their customer are middlemen. Didn’t Simon and Schuster ever hear of Napster? Have they been paying attention to the music business AT ALL?

In our world we love the sound so much that the new paradigm is no promotion, you don’t even hype it until it’s available, just ask Beyonce.

But Beyonce has more impact than seemingly any writer, and Simon and Schuster is doing its best to keep it that way.

P.S. The first thing I looked for on the Amazon page was customer reviews. I don’t trust the hype. But with no publication, no reviews. Huh? I don’t care what the establishment has to say, I care about what WE have to say!