SoundScan #1:

Jack Johnson “From Here To Now”

Sales: 117,260
Debut

Entered the chart at number one! Got ink in every major newspaper!

But the single, “I Got You,” has 1,157,909 plays on YouTube.

Not bad…in 2011. But in 2013, when Miley Cyrus has 173,715,141 views of “Wrecking Ball,” I ask you…who is the biggest artist?

Oh, Johnson has 17,808,873 views of “Upside Down,” from four years ago. And “If I Had Eyes” has 10,478,296 views in four years too. Proving Johnson is far from nowhere. But he’s not in the league of Miley Cyrus, who is suddenly bigger than all the MTV acts of yore, because her music can be played on demand. And that’s a good thing.

As for Johnson’s fans wanting the album as opposed to streaming… Good point, he appeals to an older demo. But the trend is towards streaming, and YouTube is king.

SoundScan #5

Avicii “True”

Sales: 49,936
Debut

No one cares! Lefsetz was blowing smoke about a niche!
Well, what do you have to say about the 85,483,163 YouTube views, huh? Avicii’s track is humongous, but SoundScan album sales don’t reflect this.

SoundScan #9

The Weeknd “Kissland”

Sales this week: 26,212
Percentage drop: -73
Weeks on: 2
Cume: 121,832

He hasn’t made it yet, he hasn’t penetrated the public consciousness.

How do we know?

YOUTUBE VIEWS!

The single only has 502,929.

“Belong To The World,” released on July 16, 2013 (and suddenly it’s the YouTube release date that’s important, not the album release date), has 1,906,034 plays. Weeknd has a long way to go. Or not.

SoundScan #12

Robin Thicke “Blurred Lines”

Sales this week: 19,096
Percentage drop: -10
Weeks on: 8
Cume: 488,915

Yes, in the old days Thicke’s album would already be double platinum. Extrapolating one can say that music ain’t what it used to be, that it doesn’t penetrate the public consciousness as deeply. But that would be wrong.

“Blurred Lines” has 21,874,554 views.

Bupkes you say!

But that’s the unrated version, with boobies. The censored take? A whopping 185,658,025 views. “Blurred Lines” has captured the public’s imagination as deeply as any track of the sixties.

As for single sales… “Blurred Lines” has moved 5,801,150 units, nothing to sneeze at, divided by ten even a greater sum than the album total, proving once again it’s all about the single.

And speaking of singles… Lorde’s “Royals” has sold 1,560,917 in 15 weeks. But it’s got 18,881,081 YouTube views. It appears that you know a track has truly become ubiquitous and penetrated public consciousness when it goes north of 50 million views on YouTube. In other words, Lorde has a way to go…or not.

As for Katy Perry, she’s already a star. She’s sold 2,403,154 singles in 6 weeks. But she’s got 98,799,681 views of the “Roar” video on YouTube. Which is why Katy can sell out arenas and Lorde cannot. YouTube is the new arbiter of overall fanbase, not sales.

Oh, and while we’re on single sales, Mile Cyrus’s “Wrecking Ball” has moved 1,184,629 in 5 weeks.

And back to Katy Perry… “Dark Horse,” featuring Juicy J, sold 194,360 tracks this week. But with only an audio clip, there are only 594,466 views. Proving that if you’re going to bother put it out, launch it with the official video. YouTube means more than not only sales, but radio, especially if you’re an established act, predicate your plan upon YouTube.

SoundScan # 22

Jay-Z “Magna Carta…Holy Grail”

Sales this week: 15,308
Percentage drop: -11
Weeks on: 11
Cume: 989,624

Pretty impressive, right? Jay made a deal with Samsung, he’s the king!

Well, no. Despite all the hoopla, the album just hasn’t penetrated deeply. The official “Holy Grail” video only has 11,400,945 plays.

So what are you more interested in, music or money?

Jay got paid, but it didn’t move the needle on his musical career.

SoundScan #33

Justin Timberlake “The 20/20 Experience”

Sales this week: 11,564
Percentage drop: -2
Weeks on: 27
Cume: 2,279,591

“Suit & Tie” wasn’t a stiff, but it was far from the record of the year. It had 54,918,931 YouTube views. Solid, but not superstar.

Now “Mirrors” had 113,104,859 views, it was a much bigger record. But not in the league of Robin Thicke’s “Blurred Lines.” So, what we’ve learned is first and foremost Justin Timberlake is a celebrity, an entertainer, and that there are acts that are more successful musically.

He’s certainly not as big as Avicii.

Huh?

But I thought “Wake Me Up” only had 85,503,475 YouTube views.

Yes, that’s true!

But that’s the “Official Video,” the “Lyric Video” has another 109,047,940 views! And Pete Tong’s “Radio 1 Premiere” has another 9,892,532! Proving that if it’s in the grooves, images are irrelevant, people are truly that hungry to hear their favorite tracks.

As for albums not on the chart… One Direction’s “Midnight Memories” isn’t even coming out until November 23rd, but the single “Best Song Ever” is still in the YouTube Top Ten, with 126,725,279 views. As for sales, it’s sold 879,832 in 9 weeks… Proving it’s about the YouTube views. But you might say that YouTube doesn’t pay that much! I’d point you to One Direction’s merch numbers, breaking house records in every building they play, there’s more than one way to make a dollar and if you’re focusing on album sales, you’re missing the point.

P.S. SoundScan sales are U.S. only and YouTube is worldwide. Proving once again that techies are smarter than entertainment czars. There are no borders anymore, other than artificial ones, tear them down (and yes, some of these albums have larger sales counts when you figure in the whole wide world…then again, Spotify dominates in Sweden!)

The number one complaint I get about Amanda Palmer’s success is her music sucks.

I’ll tell you one thing, it’s not mainstream, it’s never going to be embraced by everybody, but Ms. Palmer has created a lucrative niche that others desire to inhabit, so they watch her TED talk believing they’ll learn how.

But that’s the wrong clip to play.

Amanda’s video has 1,629,436 views. But it’s Angela Lee Duckworth’s, with only 167,378 plays, which will reveal the secret to Amanda’s success. It’s grit.

It’s late Sunday night and I’m reading the “Wall Street Journal” and I come across this:

“6. Grit trumps talent

In recent years, University of Pennsylvania psychology professor Angela Duckworth has studied spelling bee champs, Ivy League undergrads and cadets at the U.S. Military Academy in West Point, N.Y. – all together, over 2,800 subjects. In all of them, she found that grit – defined as passion and perseverance for long-term goals – is the best predictor of success. In fact, grit is usually unrelated or even negatively correlated with talent.

Prof. Duckworth, who started her career as a public school math teacher and just won a 2013 MacArthur ‘genius grant,’ developed a ‘Grit Scale’ that asks people to rate themselves on a dozen statements, like ‘I finish whatever I begin’ and ‘I become interested in new pursuits every few months.’ When she applied the scale to incoming West Point cadets, she found that those who scored higher were less likely to drop out of the school’s notoriously brutal summer boot camp known as ‘Beast Barracks.’ West Point’s own measure – an index that includes SAT scores, class rank, leadership and physical aptitude – wasn’t able to predict retention.”

Why Tough Teachers Get Good Results

When I was a sophomore at Middlebury College, I joined the ski team. Coached by legendary Nordic skier John Bower, in September we had to work out three times a week, October four times and November five. In December we hit the snow.

To say the conditioning was tough would be an understatement. We had to run up the Middlebury College Snow Bowl, even worse, we then had to run halfway down and run back up again. And although the altitude in the east doesn’t measure up to that of the west, the vertical rise exceeds 1,000 feet, and you had to make it up in under twenty minutes, hopefully in the neighborhood of fifteen. And if you didn’t want to puke when it was done, you weren’t human.

But that was a cakewalk compared to the bleachers.

This is what you had to do. Hop up the football bleachers on both legs, walk down, hop up on your right leg, walk down and then hop up on your left leg and walk down.

That was one rep.

We started with four reps.

And when I was done, I called my mother, I wasn’t only ready to quit, I’d already decided, this was way too rough, especially since the Middlebury squad featured Olympians, and I was far from their league.

But my mother bad-vibed me. And nothing cuts at you like disapproval from a parent.

So I thought about it for two days and went back to the gym.

By time the snow was falling, we were up to sixteen reps, seemingly undoable, but I did it.

Kind of like this newsletter. I don’t care if you think I’m the best writer or the worst, but one thing you’ll notice about me is I never give up. Oh, over the years people have entered my territory. But each and every one has given up. Most outright, others took jobs at the corporation. So I’m the last person standing. And as a result, I’m king of the hill.

Oh, you might be able to beat me. But you’ll have to start today and go for twenty seven years…yup, that’s how long I’ve been writing “The Lefsetz Letter,” it used to cost money and be mailed via the US Postal Service, some remember, I certainly do, along with being so broke I had less than twenty dollars in my bank account and lived off Michelina’s frozen dinners, which I bought in bulk when they went on sale for ninety nine cents.

And what have you learned as a result of this?

I’ve got grit.

Other than that, I’m not sure what lessons you can learn from me. But that’s what every successful person has, grit.

So I’m reading the WSJ and I’m also thinking how my mother told me for decades I was lazy, to the point I came to believe it, especially since I was financially-challenged. But then I came to realize no one worked harder, if I was interested in something there was no time limit.

And I jumped up from the table and started googling. And instantly found Ms. Duckworth’s grit exam.

Here it is:

12- Item Grit Scale

Oh, you can finagle the answers, you can lie, but you’ll only be lying to yourself. Kind of like all those Ivy League grads who believe they’ll be happy in finance, since it pays so well. But Ms. Duckworth gave up her job at McKinsey, to teach school, and inspired by that experience she got a graduate degree in psychology and formulated her theory of grit.

Amanda Palmer graduated from college, a damn good one, Wesleyan. And then she was a living statue. Imagine telling your parents, that they spent 250k and you’ve decided to become a street performer, a veritable beggar.

But if you want to take an alternative route, you’ve got to possess grit.

As for all her tweeting and kickstarting and social networking…yes, you can glean some good ideas from listening to Amanda’s TED talk, but that’s not what made her successful. No, those are just the end results. Amanda Palmer is successful because of her identity, her grit.

And there are so many other qualities that go into the stew. Like human interaction, and the willingness to fail. The grittiest person will not make it if they don’t take risks, if they don’t put it all on the line and occasionally experience defeat.

Do I think everything I write is great?

Absolutely not.

I never write anything terrible, because I’ve been doing it so long, I’ve developed skills. But rather than try to edit myself and only send the best stuff, I send everything I write, because I never know what will resonate with my audience.

But it pains me to send something mediocre, and to get criticized, or even worse, get no response whatsoever. But rather than lament hitting send, I realize that tomorrow’s a new day, I can write again, I can try to ring the bell once more.

 

It’s having a resurgence.

The Internet was supposed to change everything, just like 9/11, but almost twenty years past its Summer of Love, 1995, when everybody bought a computer and signed up for AOL to play, it’s the same as it ever was.

In other words, I might get hassled at the airport, but I’ve got no fear going to the mall. Sure, there are terrorists in the Middle East, but other than the government spying on me, I’m not thinking about it.

And in the early part of the twenty first century it was all about letting your freak flag fly, embracing your differences, finding your niche. Now it’s about selling out to the corporation so it can make you a star, because only these giant entities have the money and power to get your message heard by many.

Apple’s greatest flaw?

Not advertising the Genius Bar.

If they had, Martha Stewart never would have ranted on Twitter that she was waiting for the company to pick up her broken iPad. She was ignorant. We’re all ignorant now. Oh, you might know there’s a Genius Bar, but I was at dinner last week with big time music educators and they were clueless as to Dr. Luke. And people still believe you can’t use a Verizon iPhone overseas. As for the odds of getting rich in America… The American Dream lives larger in Europe than the U.S., and this lack of factual knowledge is exactly how the fat cats like it. Believe in the myth, the truth is irrelevant.

Laura Wasser… Do you know who that is?

You do if you read today’s “New York Times” and this month’s “Vanity Fair.” She’s a celebrity divorce lawyer who just wrote a book. What are the odds she’s good with prose? Much lower than those of an Iowa Writers’ Workshop graduate publishing his first novel. But if that novel gets reviewed at all, it sits amongst a zillion other undifferentiated tomes, and is therefore ignored.

We revere brand names. The old dying media institutions? Those who’ve survived, who haven’t thrown in the towel, have turned the corner, they’re our new filters, even though many haven’t embraced it.

“The New Yorker,” “The New York Times”…they should worry about their credibility. It’s less how much they review than what they review. Just by reviewing something it looks important. And since we’re all scrounging for information, if you mess up and choose badly, we ignore you in the future.

“The Los Angeles Times” is cutting back. It already lost the plot, the intelligentsia have canceled their subscriptions. Yes, those who will survive have doubled down.

Oh, you’re losing the plot.

But that’s just the point, we’re living in a game of inside baseball, where the most powerful people on earth are publicists, who can get your story ink. Especially online, where there’s little editorial vetting, where it’s news only, where titillation triumphs.

We’ve been waiting for new online monoliths to curate and declare what’s attention-worthy. So far, they haven’t appeared, they may never appear, because there just doesn’t seem to be enough money in it. iTunes Radio has already put a dent into Pandora, I believe it’s better, but it doesn’t matter, it’s done by APPLE!

Yes, we’re all overloaded, we’re on input fatigue. We want someone to make sense of it. There are way too many musical acts to pay attention to, it’s easier to watch Miley Cyrus on the VMAs and have an opinion, to read what she has to say in “Rolling Stone,” even though it’s the ravings of a wet behind the ears twenty year old no different from any generation before.

But if we don’t pay attention to her, who do we gravitate to? The favorites of people who love music but have no idea how to recommend it? It’s not what YOU like, but what I do. Which is why I’m gravitating to the radio or the magazine, to anyone with critical mass, since even if I hate it, at least I’m part of the social fabric.

Yes, we’re at a turning point. The Internet has devolved into cacophony. We’re looking to the edifices for direction. Some of them are new media, many of them are old. The ones who will survive are not those looking for short term profits, but those that realize it’s a war of attrition, but one or two will come out the other side and be much more powerful.

Meanwhile, our social networks are failing. We’re losing trust in the rantings and ravings of blowhards online, even our friends. We want commonality, we want arbitration, we want to be told what to pay attention to.

So the rich get richer and the poor bitch and eventually give up.

He was taking a panoramic photograph on his iPhone 5.

What do I know about Jack Jones?

I was sitting by the pool at the Flamingo and he walked by and tapped my little sister on the head, it was a family story that has lived on to this day, one of the highlights of our trip cross-country in 1966.

Yes, that long ago.

But it was still just as hot in the summertime in Las Vegas.

And here I am sitting next to the man himself. With no airs. A regular person. Warm and friendly.

So I ask him, does he live in the desert full-time?

When he’s not on the road. As a matter of fact, he’s got a new album coming out. A live one. Recorded in England. That wasn’t the plan, he just gave the crew a hard drive to record from the board…

A HARD DRIVE?

Baby boomers still refer to “tape.” That’s what happens when you’ve got canned music at the show, it’s on TAPE!

But “hard drive” fell off Jack’s lips like he said it every day.

So he gets home, pulls up the recording on his Mac, and realizes the vocal needs to be out front a bit more, so he adds some compression…

Wait a minute, you did it YOURSELF?

Yup, oh Jack was self-deprecating. Saying his skills were limited. But he himself turned this live “tape” into an album that will be on iTunes. Like his Universal product. His RCA albums? He now owns them. Credit an old business colleague who had the foresight to put this reversion clause into his contract. Jack now sells them on his website.

Do you sign them?

Of course!

Who does fulfillment?

Jack and his wife do. That was what he was worried about most, that he’d appear small time.

I didn’t start the conversation with writing about it in mind. But the more Jack talked, the more fascinated I became. So I put it to him, and he was open but hesitant, anybody who’s been in the public eye has been burned by the press. I told him I wouldn’t burn him. And that’s when Jack told me his primary worry, since he was doing so much himself.

Oh, he’s got an agent and a manager, the bloke who promotes his shows in the U.K. That’s what happens when you’re established, you go with those who can get you the dough, who you trust. Jack said that acts his age are sold as breakage by the youngsters, you need someone who respects you and can get value, which this guy does.

Not that Jack is not involved. He goes to every sound check and ends up spending all afternoon. The wet behind the ears sound guys don’t think an old guy like him can know what he’s talking about. “Is the piano in stereo?” Jack’s been doing it so long he knows what’s right, and always confounds the young ‘uns with his knowledge.

And for forty five minutes before the show begins, there’s a video, that Jack made in iMovie, featuring not only his songs but his life, growing up.

He said it was just fun.

How long have you been doing this I asked…

Since the nineties.

He was on a PC, but he switched to a Mac because it was so much easier. But he started with a TRS-80, even taught himself to program, but never learned COBOL or Fortran.

Huh? Nobody knows those, other than people making their living coding.

And Jack goes on to say his father was always into video, and this got him into it.

And he’s into social media too. What he likes most about Twitter is the instant feedback. After the show is over, after he sells and signs CDs in the lobby, he checks his feed, to see what people have to say about his performance. That’s what he loves about the new era, the ability to know your fans, to not only interact with them, but to know what they want.

Not that Jack tweets that much. He’s more of a Facebook guy. He wishes he had more time.

But there was none of the baby boomer bitching, about the drop in record sales and the need to social network and be knowledgeable and dedicate time to efforts other than music.

We’re just one or two years and a couple of changes behind Jack. Who’s realized music is forever, and it’s all about the fans, and the best way to proceed is to be hands-on.

It was refreshing.