It’s a sport unto itself!

Why am I writing about Stefani Germanotta?

Because you’re interested.

In a world with very little commonality, we gravitate to that which others are talking about, rallying around.

And the issue of whether Lady Gaga’s album is a stiff is something we can all weigh in on. Whereas whether your unsigned band is any good…we haven’t even heard it!

Gaga’s problem is the expectations became too high.

Furthermore, unlike her competitors, Gaga had an identity.

I mean who is Rihanna really?

And Justin Bieber, other than having a bad case of arrested development.

These acts are positively two-dimensional. Which is why Gaga became so big, she was three-dimensional, she stood for something.

But suddenly the act became bigger than the person. The clothes superseded the music. Talk about the Little Monsters was louder than any of her tracks.

And then outsiders lost traction.

Peter Kafka wrote a column today about a Bon Jovi video.

The Story of This Viral Video Will Blow Your Mind! (Please Tell Your Friends!)

I watched this clip before I read Peter’s story. But he got it right.

There’s an element of fakery involved.

Once upon a time we shared the unknown with ownership, let me tell you about something cool!

Now we’re on the lookout for manipulation. Everything’s fake.

And even though Gaga started out real, the manipulation trumped the truth.

Enough with the outfits.

If you can’t have a hit single, don’t try to record one.

The Beatles were smart enough to take left turns. “Sgt. Pepper” had no singles.

But Gaga tried to play the same way and lost. Because the game had changed.

Those hits on Top Forty? They’re written by committee. They’re no different from Teslas. Highly-refined items that only occasionally self-destruct. To believe a Katy Perry single is gonna fail is akin to thinking your toilet isn’t gonna flush. All the risk has been removed. It’s formula.

And Gaga wasn’t formula.

But she tried the same formula once again. Over the top outfits with over the top marketing but without a formula hit single.

Actually, “Born This Way” was formula. That’s when we started to believe she couldn’t live up to the hype, when she ripped off Madonna and didn’t seem to realize it.

So what we enjoy now most is the Gaga movie. Wherein she reacts to the haters. Where she tries to live up to the expectations but cannot.

It’s like putting a drug addict in the operating room. This ain’t gonna turn out good.

Then again, she said she was a drug addict. There was so much self-revelation it trumped the music.

Just like R. Kelly trumped Gaga herself on SNL.

SNL made her music seem small. Whereas in 2010 she was larger than life.

We were more interested in watching her in skits than listening to her music.

Gaga became a celebrity. That’s all she’s got left.

And we all know it’s about music.

But that seems to be the goal today. Let me use my music as a vehicle to celebrityhood. Because everybody knows celebrities get free stuff, everyone knows their name and they’re usually rich.

This is what Adele avoided. Sure, she had great music, but she left it at that. And a lot of personality, hers was one of the best live shows I’ve seen this century.

And then Gaga was trumped by Lorde. Who called the whole thing b.s.

Lorde made it because of the music. But she’s sustaining because of the lyrics.

Yes, “Royals” pokes holes in the empty MTV culture that still pervades the music business. Where it’s about gaining monetary trophies, living the life of a hedge funder without putting on sweatpants and going to work.

Yes, they’re no longer rock stars, they’re money stars. A rock star used to have no limits, today’s stars are tools of the system, and poorer than the bankers and techies.

And the rest of us are truly poor. All we’ve got is our ability to watch the shenanigans and discuss them.

Which is why we tweeted, before we burned out on that.

Which is why we spread viral videos, before we realized they were fake.

Which is why we’re talking about how Gaga is self-immolating… Not because we care that much, but because we’ve got nothing else to talk about!

I don’t care.

Oh, don’t get me wrong. It’s sad that a kid has a frightful disease, it’s cool that his wish came true. But if you think this is news, you probably don’t know that Obamacare was supposed to save our nation’s health care industry, not destroy it.

Marketing.

Virality.

These are things the government knows nothing about.

But the right wing media is expert upon it.

Death panels. Discarded health policies. They made the failings of Obamacare go viral. Meanwhile, the Administration was oblivious. And at best, punching back, answering instead of leading.

Kind of like the music business.

Did you see some nitwit is making a movie how the Internet is destroying the music business? Featuring David Lowery and the usual suspects?

This is like the government allowing you to keep your lousy health care plan because it benefits you, and no one else. Even though the new rules might be advantageous to almost all.

I’m sorry your business model was eviscerated by the Internet. But do we all have to stay two steps behind because you might be hurt by progress?

That’s what I hate about America, no one can lose. There can be no progress because someone might get hurt. Meanwhile, all around you, progress takes place in industry and people do lose. Typewriter companies don’t form a lobby and get the government to outlaw PCs, and the government is so behind on tech…it builds a lame website.

You want the younger generation to sign up? At least make the site work. They live online. Not even on their desktops, but mobiles.

Then you’ve got to get the word out.

Batkid was a manufactured story. Trumped up by the usual suspects, like BuzzFeed and the HuffPo whose whole existence is predicated on link-bait, headlines which seem intriguing that can give you a respite from your normally dreary work day. Even though they’ve rarely got calories, and like drugs they leave you feeling worse off than better.

You want to be famous in the Internet era, you want to get rich?

Then play the game. Create something that people want to spread.

Employing Batman is like using Dr. Luke. It’s a guarantee of attention. You’re never going to go into a radio station and say this is the new Dr. Luke production, even if the artist’s a nobody, and the program director is gonna refuse to listen to it, not gonna happen.

So what’s gonna make your music gain attention? Sure, we all know it must be good, we learned in the eighties that a great video can’t sell a mediocre song.

But if it’s good, how do you gain attention?

This is what the major labels have focused on since day one. They’re experts on radio and traditional publicity.

But PSY and the rest of the web stars beat them to YouTube.

And now the entire government has been beaten by Batkid. There could have been a campaign that got the younger generation interested in health care, but everybody in D.C. was asleep at the wheel, the same way the music industry was at the turn of the century.

The truth is people want music. Just like they want to click through and tweet and e-mail and Facebook post about this Batkid.

The problem isn’t the Internet eviscerated the music business, but that the people in the music business won’t come to the water. They’d rather dehydrate and complain.

What’s gonna get people interested in your product. What’s gonna make them spread the word, do your work for you. Nothing other than a Super Bowl ad is gonna be rammed down people’s throats successfully. The best campaign ever can be ignored, you need a dose of virality.

Batkid doesn’t need to save only San Francisco, but the government and the music business. Both of them historically behind the times.

The problem isn’t change, that’s the exciting part. The public gloms on immediately. It’s how do you harness this change to your advantage?

That’s the game, not complaining that the CD died, people are stealing and spreading inane fictions about Spotify payments.

Hey, did you see BitTorrent traffic is down?

Amazing what a little innovation will do.

Legal systems always triumph.

Once the laggards get off the couch and realize the future is here.

“Decline in US BitTorrent traffic, says study”

“Everything You Need To Know About Make-A-Wish Foundation’s Adorable, Crime-Fighting Batkid”

“Good Doc on the Collapse of the Old-School Music Industry”

Tell her I’m sorry
Tell her I need my baby

That’s the hook.

I hated country music in the seventies (the sixties too, unless you consider “King Of The Road” and “Dang Me” country, and exclude a few Johnny Cash numbers, and definitely not “A Boy Named Sue”). This was before it was classic rock lite, when strings were more prevalent than banjos, when it was a ghetto of shitkickers and big hair.

But then I heard Charlie Rich.

Going to college in Vermont was so different from living in Southern Connecticut, where we feasted on New York radio, with its legendary deejays on AM and then FM, with no need to listen to anything we didn’t want to. Vermont was a vast wasteland of entertainment. There was one movie theatre. One fuzzy TV channel. And other than the college station, bland AM outlets that spoke to a populace that was not yet hip, and definitely not left wing. You got some Top Forty, some community service and country.

Driving through the landscape was an endless experience of reaching to the center of the dashboard to dial in something palatable, oftentimes something at all.

So I ended up hearing stuff I wouldn’t have listened to otherwise, that I came to love. Like Jim Croce’s “I Got A Name” and “The Most Beautiful Girl.”

I was opened up by “Behind Closed Doors.” Which I half liked. The verse bored me, but the chorus was so endearing. But I liked “The Most Beautiful Girl” throughout. I got to the point where I wanted to hear it.

At first I thought he was truly singing about a little girl. Hey, it was country, even back then they focused on family.

But not as much as drinking and love. Country people fought. And were not afraid of talking about it. Whereas up north we were too uptight to reveal our flaws.

I quickly learned “The Most Beautiful Girl” was a song of regret.

But I didn’t know true regret at that time, there was no romance at the hothouse college I attended, most of what I knew about love was fantasy.

It starts with an acoustic guitar, a piano, you fall right into the groove.

Hey, did you happen to see the most beautiful girl in the world

They’re beautiful to us. Don’t denigrate yourself, what you believe are your imperfections are exactly why someone is going to love you, or already does.

And if you did was she crying, crying

It’s conversational, as if you walked down the street and bumped into someone you knew, not even a close friend, who you listened to because of the sincerity of the question.

I woke up this morning and realized what I had done

If you haven’t been here, I feel sorry for you. That means you’re playing it too close to the vest, you’re taking no risks. And if you do risk, say what you truly feel, sometimes you go over the line, and the other person reacts…and pulls away…and you feel so lonely.

Tell her I’m sorry
Tell her I need my baby
Oh, won’t you tell her that I love her

He’s telling everybody, but only one person really needs to hear.
Will she listen?
I’m not sure.
But we did.

Rhinofy-The Most Beautiful Girl

Miley Cyrus covers Summertime Sadness in the Live Lounge

It’s better than the original.

The tsunami of hype told me Miley Cyrus covered Lana Del Rey’s “Summertime Sadness,” but I didn’t click through until I got personal e-mail, that’s what it takes, people we trust telling us to check something out. And what I discovered was a hauntingly beautiful, sentimental track that reminded me of nothing so much as something from the Doors’ “Waiting For The Sun,” most specifically “Summer’s Almost Gone.”

We’ve been exposed to so much mainstream mediocrity that we’re shocked when we find out what’s right in front of our eyes is exceptionally good.

You remember the Doors, right? Not the hits, the album tracks. They seemed to be made next door, not the room where everybody was paying attention. Our favorite music had a quality of being internal, as if we were hearing what was in the brains of the singers, which was remarkably similar to our own emotions, back before music became an assault.

Not that all assaults are bad. Come on, AC/DC is great.

But MTV made it all about balls to the walls all the time, all the faders turned up to 11. It was about beating us into submission.

And I will say at points in this video Miley Cyrus is oversinging, but there’s a subtle element, a quality of that summertime sadness.

Sadness.

You don’t hear it in hip-hop.

You don’ hear it in Katy Perry’s music, wherein she’s roaring about girl power.

It’s as if everybody’s a winner, but that’s not true. We all lose sometimes. And what helps us get through is music. We can watch television and films, but we can feel music.

This is a Lana Del Rey original.

Which I immediately pulled up and discovered the basic elements were there, but she needed Miley Cyrus to put it over the top.

Or Cedric Gervais. The French deejay who made it a sleeper hit this summer.

Not that I heard it. I don’t listen to those stations. Too much Howard Stern, too much SiriusXM. I used to think I was hip, but now I know no one is, we’re all foundering, constantly surprised by that which whole colonies experienced years before.

The SNL performance and the plastic surgery turned me off of Elizabeth Woolridge Grant (Lana Del Rey’s real name). We crave authenticity. And when you’re revealed to be fake, we want no more. Maybe if Lana Del Rey had been sold more like Laura Marling, hadn’t tarted herself up, hadn’t had lip injections, she could have snuck up on us. Instead, we were turned off.

But not all of us. Miley knew. And she picked this song to cover for the BBC and knocked it out of the park.

This is what Clear Channel should be doing in its Burbank studio. More live appearances for both radio and web, that will enrich and enhance our lives.

It’d be easier if Miley Cyrus couldn’t sing. If it were only about the antics.

But boy does she emote, boy does she make you feel like it’s coming from the inside.

Oh, my god, I feel it in the air
Telephone wires above are sizzling like a snare
Honey, I’m on fire, I feel it everywhere
Nothing scares me anymore

That’s the chorus. If it were better, the song would be a classic. Akin to “Wicked Game.” But it’s the musical disappointment of the song. And the lyrics are too broad, except for the concept of nothing scaring you anymore. That’s a power individual feeling.

But it’s the repeated verse that entrances…

Kiss me hard before you go
Summertime sadness
I just wanted you to know…

Whew! That’s when it’s hardest, when they go away. The regret seeps in too soon…when will I see you again?

Oh, you know that feeling. There are so many great songs with the concept of seeing someone again, from the Mamas and the Papas’ “I Saw Her Again” to Dido’s “Sand In My Shoes.” This is real life, not I’ve got a Benz and some ho’s and I’m better than you.

None of us are better. That’s the truth. Musicians used to make us believe they were just like us, only more talented. And if we could just meet them, they’d understand us.

But that concept evaporated when everybody was trying to imitate and join the club of the 1%.

You’ve just got to listen to this track.

There’s power, there’s subtlety, there’s meaning…what more could you ask for?

Lana Del Rey originals