I’m sick of hearing about it, it’s so 1999.

That’s right, piracy in music is dead, and if you keep trumpeting it as a cause for the decline in recording revenues you’re stupid or work at a label or both.

Because the only people bothering to steal these days are those who never planned to pay.

Because everything you want is available for free. On YouTube, on Spotify…streaming won, and people only want what they want, not the other nine cuts surrounding the hit.

That’s why recording revenues tanked and didn’t recover. Piracy was a wakeup call, but after the iTunes Store/legal alternatives, we found out that people didn’t want the album. Yup, while you keep trumpeting its vitality, its artistic necessity, I must point you to YouTube, where you’ll find the hit has zillions of views, and the albums cuts…not so much.

Same deal on Spotify.

Turns out people don’t want most of your music, and that’s got nothing to do with piracy.

We’re not only living in a post-Napster era, we’re living in a post-piracy era.

It doesn’t pay to steal.

And if you’re broke, it’s your own damn fault.

Because you’re not writing hits, you’re not tying up with people who can make hits.

Music is a game, and if you’re unwilling to play it, you’re not going to be successful.

Even if you write a hit song, you’re gonna need help. And that help certainly exceeds posting it online and spamming everybody you know about it. Your song has to enter the collective consciousness, it must be perceived to be a hit, people must believe they need to check it out.

And once they do, if they like it, they’ll continue to click and spread the word. If they don’t…

That’s the dirty little secret, if I check you out once and don’t like you, the odds of me checking you out again are infinitesimal. You can blame it on piracy all you want, I’ll blame it on me not having enough time and having a plethora of other music at my fingertips. And five year olds and fifteen year olds are no different from me, everybody’s got endless stimulation, endless options, and very little time.

Recording revenues will go up. When more people have streaming subscriptions. Which will happen. Just look at foreign territories, where the CD is dead and gone, like Scandinavia. But the labels were smart there, they did not delay the entry of Spotify, but embraced it. Yes, if Warner hadn’t prevented Spotify from launching in the U.S., by refusing to license it, YouTube would never have gotten the traction.

But at least YouTube pays… Have a couple hundred million views and you’re making serious coin. Not only on YouTube, you’ll have many other opportunities.

But we’ve got ancient players decrying the end of the old game. The one wherein you won the lottery by getting a label deal and got heard on radio everyone listened to and the only way to hear all of your work was to buy an overpriced CD.

So now that these people are broke, they’re blaming piracy.

Piracy was once the issue, over a decade ago, but no longer.

But people keep decrying the future and embracing the past, it’s seemingly endless.

The people who said they had no reason for a cell phone, never mind a smartphone. Now you laugh at those without smartphones, yes, we’re laughing at you…

The people who said they saw no reason for files, who embraced CDs.

The people who kept lauding bookstores, with their limited inventory and low accessibility. Yup, I drove to the store where they didn’t have what I wanted, or they couldn’t find it because it was mis-shelved. Now I can find it instantly on Google, that’s a problem??

The future is scary and different, but it keeps coming down the track.

Lately it’s Bitcoin/digital currencies, you pooh-pooh them, seemingly unaware that every time you charge something there’s a huge payment to the bank, to cover fraud amongst other costs.

Techies are doing their best to whittle those costs down.

But you’re afraid of the future.

So you put up a straw man, a bogeyman, piracy.

We live in an incredible era, where you can hear every song ever recorded for free.

Not really. You’re paying, that ad before the YouTube clip, that ad on Spotify or your subscription fee.

And those who are not being listened to don’t like it.

But if you create something people want to hear, and that’s the essence of popular music, this era is nirvana. Lorde could not have made it in the last century. Sure, she had a deal with Universal in New Zealand, do you really think she would have gotten a U.S. release pre-Internet?

But you think you deserve that attention, even though your track is nowhere near as hooky.

Whenever you hear someone making excuses, complaining about how they just can’t make the money they used to in music, move on, don’t listen, don’t get dragged down the rabbit hole.

There are winners and losers in every revolution.

Sure, it might be harder to record drums at home on Pro Tools, but many couldn’t record at all previously, not being able to afford a real studio, never mind a real engineer.

And those without a deal can play now, despite the fact that in most cases we don’t want to listen to what they have to say.

And if you do create viable music, people are willing to pay more than ever to see you perform it live.

This is a problem?

I’m not saying the music biz is without pitfalls, but I am saying we’re living in a new reality, and piracy helped get us here, but piracy is not the problem now.

P.S. Used to be very few paid for music, now almost all do, even grannies click through to YouTube clips. This is a start, a good thing. We’ve just got to up the payments.

MONEY

There’s not enough of it for investment.

We keep reading about VC’s investing in tech startups, but it’s hard to get people to invest in your band.

There’s tons of money for the elite at Live Nation and AEG. But they don’t really invest in new acts, and the labels have been decimated by the Internet and don’t have much to invest and have to make their choices very wisely.

Furthermore, no one with deep pockets wants to invest in music because the labels have catalog, making their ongoing business easier/sustainable, and acts go to promoters who pony up the dough, there is no loyalty.

As for VC investment, it only goes to techies. Who’ve raped and pillaged music for a decade and a half. Despite all the lip-service to being music fans, the truth is techies love money more, and will strip-mine music to get paid.

RECOMMENDATIONS

Yesterday, the L.A. “Times” printed a booklet of the top 100 restaurants in the city. It’s gold, because of the credibility of its author, Jonathan Gold, who started at the “L.A. Weekly” and writes so well I almost put down the newspaper to drive for the fries at Republique while reading his column on Saturday.

Polished, modern République with maybe the best fries in L.A.

We’ve got no trusted tastemakers in music. We’ve got tons of algorithms, we’ve got narrow radio stations beholden to advertisers, but no one with established credibility telling the public what to hear.

Once upon a time WABC AM/Cousin Brucie, et al, told their listeners what they needed to hear, the best of the best. There were equivalents in Chicago and L.A. But today…

Songza gives us too much untrustworthy information, who can wade through all those playlists, never mind all the bad music.

Beats reaches no one, and it too has endless untrustworthy playlists.

Pandora is a cornucopia of that which you do not want to hear. If you love Pandora, you’re not really listening.

Jonathan Gold is not doing it for the money. We need a Jonathan Gold in music.

No one’s got time for endless playlists/explorations. The future in this time-challenged world is serving up a short list of what people need to hear, in order.

COUNTRY FANS EMBRACE HIP-HOP, BUT HIP-HOP FANS DON’T EMBRACE COUNTRY

Or to quote Luke Bryan…

Might sit down on my diamond plate tailgate
Put in my country ride hip-hop mixtape
Little Conway, a little T-Pain, might just make it rain

It’s kind of like HBO fans refusing to watch Showtime. There’s a ton of good stuff if you’d just broaden your horizons.

FESTIVALS DON’T DEVELOP ACTS

They’ve got headliners, often reuniting/long in the tooth acts, and a plethora of wannabes. Who is developing the new acts? No one with any money…

SELLING OUT

It’s hard to be credible if you keep complaining that you can’t make money and are playing to corporations as opposed to fans. If we can’t believe in you, there’s no bond. Anybody saying there’s no cost to sponsorships/endorsements is clueless. Get a hip sponsor, like Patagonia. Or leave the money on the table in service to a longer career.

PEOPLE WHO CAN’T SING BELIEVE THEY DESERVE TO BE HEARD

You can fake it on record, but it’s much harder to fake live. Jimmy Page recently said he can’t sing, what makes you believe you can?

ENDLESS E-MAILING OF YOUTUBE COVERS

It’s about originals baby. If you can’t write, we don’t really care.

ALBUMS

No one’s got time for filler ever.

If you want to make an album, first you have to sit through all 62 episodes of “Breaking Bad,” and that was a good show!

Maybe we’ll force you to sit through all 13 seasons of “American Idol” first, especially the elimination episodes.

SOUNDSCAN

Sales are meaningless. Despite the industry still making most of its sales profits from CDs. That’s like Apple pooh-poohing mobile/iPhone because there’s still big business in iPods. If the whole industry can’t agree to move into the future, what hope is there?

SCALPING

I get it, the rich can buy up everything I want, but even concert tickets? Paperless should be embraced by all acts going clean, as well as all-in pricing. Until we get the public on our side, we can’t progress. Just because Ticketmaster gets all the blame instead of the act, that does not make it right.

P.S. StubHub went to all-in pricing, and are taking a hit to boot:  What kind of bizarre world do we live in where a resale service is more honest than the primary service?

“StubHub Sings the Blues After Shifting Fees: Attempt at Price Transparency Backfires, Hurting Sales”

INFORMATION

Wikipedia gives us the details of every performer worth seeing, but there’s not one site that lists all live gigs in your area, not one that’s trustworthy, comprehensive and has critical mass. Eventful is a failed enterprise, Songkick is a financial play based on the delusion that they’ll be able to sell tickets to desirable shows, yeah, that’ll happen, and Ticketmaster is slow and inefficient and can’t list everything because its competitors don’t want them to. In other words, you’re not gonna see AEG shows on Live Nation’s site, and vice versa. Yes, the music business is failing the information age.

DATA

The labels still believe we’re living in the pre-Internet/computer era. Google coughs up truth instantaneously, for free, yet labels and most publishers still can’t provide accurate data of what was sold/played, and certainly don’t pay accordingly. It’d be like buying a Tesla with no place to plug it in. Music is made on computers, but accounted for via the equivalent of paper books. Screw the artist by making an onerous deal, but at least let them see what it’s going to take to recoup, and pay them frequently.

WE GET THE MUSIC WE DESERVE

We live in a money-grubbing/unequal society wherein my inherent advantage leaves you behind. So the labels screw artists and anybody with a brain and an education refuses to participate. So music is left to the hustlers and the ignorant and you complain that these lower class denizens have no backbone…

MACKLEMORE DRESSES UP AS OFFENSIVE JEWISH CARICATURE AT SECRET SHOW

Macklemore Dresses Up As Offensive Jewish Caricature At Secret Show

Anti-Semitism is in our rearview mirror just like racism…not.

Anti-Semitism is rooted in ignorance. Stereotypes are reinforced as those perpetrating the myths have little to no contact with Jews.

Macklemore is lauded at the Grammys for supporting gay marriage and then pulls this stunt.

He needs to be re-educated.

Furthermore, every day the rights of African-Americans are pushed down further. Whites are trying to eradicate their right to vote and to pull themselves up by gaining an education. Yet the rest of the country shrugs its shoulders as the oppression continues.

As for those who believe people should pull themselves up by the bootstraps… Tell that to a child born into poverty. We have to help our brothers, but this can’t happen if we all marinate in hate.

Take that Grammy back.

KENDALL JENNER CAN’T READ

I Can’t Read Good

But she looks good in clothes!

Student debt is insane, but we laud nitwits like Kendall Jenner as opposed to those truly striving to better themselves.

You’ve got to be able to read today, the Internet is based on reading…

As for the “Billboard Music Awards,” if you care who won you’re the target audience for this excuse to run commercials. Yup, that’s what this back from the dead show is about, a way to make money, just like every publication now has a conference… But it’s hard to get those who truly have something to say to attend…

THE NEW YORK TIMES KERFUFFLE

And if you think we’ll be talking about this in two weeks…

The right wing keeps talking about the right to fire, but the “left wing newspaper” does so and it’s unjust, huh?

Forget the details, all I know is this is the typical news cycle… Headlines about anything but the news. With everybody following the scorecard but nobody following the game.

The “New York Times” airs its dirty laundry and its competitors revel in it.

And I’m not saying the “Times” is perfect, but I am saying all its competitors run a distant second, or third, or…

HYPE

Am I the only one who can’t read the “Los Angeles Times” Calendar section because it’s endless hype?

Neil Young has a new album… WHO CARES!

Let it bubble up, let it sustain, let people other than those in the press talk about it.

They should publish the names of the PR people, they’re the real stars.

NATE SILVER

Started over and lost his audience.

That’s the hardest thing to do in the Internet age, gain an audience. Nate had one at the “New York Times,” he left for greener pastures, and has now been forgotten.

People are time-challenged, they’ve got their favorites. Katie Couric has been downsized to nothing at Yahoo and for David Pogue it’s almost as bad.

Don’t give up your platform too soon.

Howard Stern moved to Sirius before Internet cacophony. Satellite radio itself would have a hard time triumphing in today’s world. And it took years of hard work and being a judge on “America’s Got Talent” to bring Howard back, bigger than ever, that’s the power of network television.

So, before you jump, ask yourself, do I really have an audience, is it really going to come with me?

One thing you can say about Stern, he’s got a loyal audience and he prepped them for a year re his move to Sirius. What prep did Silver, Couric or Pogue do? How did they let those who might follow them know they were moving? They didn’t. And they had a gap of time before they re-emerged, Howard started on Sirius right after terrestrial.

GODZILLA

Maybe some futuristic monster will come down and squash Hollywood, which is creatively bankrupt. They’ve moved all production from L.A., they might as well move their studios to China or Europe, where their real audience lives.

GLOBAL WARMING

That’s what it is kids, even if it’s colder in your neighborhood right now, we don’t need to call it “climate change,” because the people who don’t want to believe in it don’t care what we call it. But the truth is it’s not about people, but corporations, never sleeping, munching profits. They’re going to agitate against anything that might cost them money. Corporations run this country, and the only way to take our nation back is to educate yourself and vote, but people like Macklemore demonstrate that most people are stupid and the right wing is doing its best to make sure the disadvantaged don’t vote.

We went to Brent’s Deli.

I needed to feel something. Others take drugs, drink alcohol, I eat. And since I didn’t get my pastrami sandwich on my birthday, and since Langer’s is no longer open at night, we journeyed out to Brent’s.

Which is in Northridge, the epitome of the suburbs. In a strip center. And it never occurred to us that at 6 PM the place would be packed, that we’d have to wait.

But it’s a Jewish pilgrimage.

And so different from the rest of Los Angeles.

In L.A. two things are important… How you look and what kind of car you drive.

And these people didn’t look good.

Not that they looked bad, well, some did, it’s just that they didn’t put on their look. They didn’t change clothes, they didn’t put on makeup, there was no preparation whatsoever. They were at home watching television and got a hankering for deli and…

Kind of like me. I’m reading the new Michelle Huneven book, and after lying around all afternoon I wanted to enter the real world. I brushed my teeth, put in my contacts, threw on my shoes and we were out the front door.

And we find ourselves waiting for a table, staring at cakes so big, they could serve as life preservers, assuming they float.

And I knew what I wanted… Pastrami on rye with Swiss cheese and Russian dressing. But I’d forgotten that at Brent’s they specialize in Reubens, so I substituted sauerkraut for cheese and upon closing my menu the bus boy delivered pickles.

Pickles… My father used to have giant jars of them in the garage, where never a vehicle was stored. There was a cornucopia of gems in that space, from the extra freezer to sports equipment to Pepperidge Farm cookies, which my father bought at the seconds store in Westport… Does it really matter if a cookie is broken?

The pickles in the garage were usually of the green tomato variety, nice and sour, the kind that make you wince with their tartness.

But the ones that had me swooning this evening were…

New pickles.

You know, ones that are barely beyond cucumbers. With just a hint of…

Who knows what that is. I remember that movie wherein Peter Riegert was a pickle dealer, but really I’ve got no idea how they make pickles.

Except I did read in the “Wall Street Journal” that they marinate them in outdoor tanks in Chicago. Did I really want to know that, my food swims in all that pollution?

And Jews used to go out for Chinese food on Sunday night. Cantonese.

But no one eats Cantonese anymore, and really, L.A.’s more of a Thai town.

And I bit into that pickle and Felice could not help but remark upon the smile that graced my face.

Some things are so right, they connect us to distant memories we thought we’d forgotten, and when we experience them, we can only smile.

It took me back to the deli in Bridgeport, where they made a spread so thick with chives you could barely see the cream cheese.

My father would stride in, point out the pickles, walk to the counter and start ordering…

P.S. Deli is notoriously bad in Los Angeles. And I can only extol the virtues of Zabar’s, but even in NYC too often the pastrami is thin and fatty and virtually tasteless. Langer’s is L.A.’s best, but if it’s Sunday night, or you’re in the Valley, try Brent’s.

Brent’s Deli

The Black Pastrami Reuben (They say it comes with Swiss cheese, but it doesn’t!)