Tune in Saturday November 23rd to Faction Talk, channel 103, at 4 PM East, 1 PM West.

Phone #: 844-686-5863

X/Twitter: @lefsetz

If you miss the episode, you can hear it on demand on the SiriusXM app. Search: Lefsetz

ELECTION

Mainstream media doesn’t reach everybody, even though the Democrats thought it would.

MUSIC BUSINESS

Print means nothing, TV little, except for SNL and CBS Sunday Morning, yet the labels keep focusing on these outlets. As for radio… Find me anyone under 20 who listens to terrestrial radio, I can’t. But labels keep focusing on radio, even though radio reacts last. It’s a circle jerk between them and the stations, because they don’t know what else to do.

ELECTION

Republicans knew that new media was everything, the right podcast is better than a scattershot approach

MUSIC BUSINESS

Want to game social media, and therefore can’t acknowledge the truth, which is acts break on social media, but really no one has control, you chase as opposed to create.

ELECTION

Republicans said if Trump didn’t win the game was rigged.

MUSIC BUSINESS

Game the chart into irrelevance. Such that there’s a false #1.

ELECTION

Republicans knew the game had changed, Democrats still thought it was all about the ground game, knocking on doors. Democrats had all the money, but the Republicans used the new tools to better effect.

MUSIC BUSINESS

Same as it ever was. There’s lip service to the new tools, but there’s a belief that the old ones still work.

ELECTION

It’s rigged

MUSIC BUSINESS

Spotify is rigged, I’m not making any money. Never mind that you may not have a good deal with your label, never mind that no one might be listening, you’re entitled to riches, just like Harris was entitled to victory, but she wasn’t.

ELECTION

Perception was that Harris was going to win.

MUSIC BUSINESS

Perception is that the Spotify Top 50 is everything, when it’s never meant less.

ELECTION

People had had enough of the system, they wanted to turn over the table, they wanted change.

MUSIC BUSINESS

The majors release ever less product in ever fewer genres yet the public hungers for other stuff. Billy Strings is bigger than so many in the Spotify Top 50, he sells out arenas when many of those acts can barely sell a ticket. Streams are not everything, they’re just one indicator. You’ve got to look at the overall picture. But some don’t want to do this, because it’s too murky, they’d rather have a false definition than chaos.

ELECTION

Heartland.

MUSIC BUSINESS

Country is bigger than pop. The acts at Stagecoach last, those at Coachella come and go.

ELECTION

Old school DNC thought it knew everything, when it knew little.

MUSIC BUSINESS

Boomers and Gen-X’ers who made their bones in the pre-internet era think they still know what is going on, but they’re clueless.

ELECTION

Despite years in the public eye, many still didn’t know who Harris was.

MUSIC BUSINESS

Despite hit after hit, many have never heard a single cut by those in the Spotify Top 50.

ELECTION

Throw the bums out, we want something different.

MUSIC BUSINESS

We’ll give you the same damn thing, year after year. We’re in control, you’ve got no choice, when this is patently untrue.

ELECTION

Public is hurting economically.

MUSIC BUSINESS

Acts are hurt by the labels. Live Nation is their bank, not Universal Music.

ELECTION

The Democrats believed the candidate didn’t matter, it was all about values.

MUSIC BUSINESS

We’ll serve you the same damn thing, it’s easier that way, that’s what you want, right?

ELECTION

About a minute of analysis, then blame, that’s how the Democrats are taking their loss.

MUSIC BUSINESS

Zach Bryan, Billy Strings, Chappell Roan… They seemingly come out of nowhere, but the labels still don’t want long term investment and they still want something that sounds like the old thing.

ELECTION

You don’t have to play the game. Trump didn’t debate, his Republican competitors or Harris more than once.

MUSIC BUSINESS

If you don’t prove you’re worthy, we’re not interested. Show us the data, your streams, your socials, if you ain’t got them we ain’t interested, because that means you’re not really that good.

ELECTION

Trump is a renegade living outside the system, like a rock star of yore.

MUSIC BUSINESS

Everybody’s looking to sell out, to get in bed with the Fortune 500.

ELECTION

Stop thinking you’re better than us, stop dictating to us.

MUSIC BUSINESS

Trot out Springsteen and Beyonce, Taylor Swift will make sure Harris wins.

ELECTION

Move fast and break things.

MUSIC BUSINESS

Move slowly, try to maintain control.

ELECTION

Trump is a cartoon.

MUSIC BUSINESS

Rap battle between Kendrick and Drake is a cartoon. You may be invested, like the Trump followers, the rest of the public is rolling their eyes and thinking it’s ridiculous.

ELECTION

Trump demonized the system.

MUSIC BUSINESS

Everybody’s buying into the system…this business used to be built by renegade outsiders, but we haven’t had that spirit here since 1969.

ELECTION

Salt of the earth Kid Rock.

MUSIC BUSINESS

Katy Perry.

ELECTION

People are over it.

MUSIC BUSINESS

Won’t let a good thing go, keeps forcing the same damn thing down our throats year after year.

ELECTION

Biden stayed too long, wouldn’t give up power.

MUSIC BUSINESS

So many have been too long at the fair.

ELECTION

People could see with their own two eyes that Biden was compromised, and then they told people not to believe what they saw when he was clueless during the debate.

MUSIC BUSINESS

You love all those acts that win the awards and are everywhere in the news. Taylor Swift is America’s sweetheart! If you say anything negative you’re a hater and will be shouted down and ultimately be labeled a pariah.

ELECTION

Too much second-guessing by Harris. She was afraid to speak her truth.

MUSIC BUSINESS

Acts and their campaigns are micromanaged, whereas modern people know it’s nearly impossible to gain traction, that you get into the marketplace early and stay there.

ELECTION

The Democrats knew better.

MUSIC BUSINESS

So many know better, it’s the ethos of rock and roll. What you listen to sucks, it does not belong in the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame. Let us tell you about this outside act that is good on paper, this is what you should be listening to.

ELECTION

Insiders missed it.

MUSIC BUSINESS

Never have insiders had less control, despite believing they still have said control.

ELECTION

It was about Trump.

MUSIC BUSINESS

We need stars. People who test boundaries. Icons who both represent the people but are above them. We’re looking for leaders, soothsayers.

ELECTION

Make fun all you want, but most people wanted to vote for Trump.

MUSIC BUSINESS

So many of the acts hated by those who know better are warmly embraced by the public.

ELECTION

Changing demographics, Blacks and Latinos voted for Trumps in heretofore unseeable numbers.

MUSIC BUSINESS

Latin. An underserved market that has risen as a result of the easy accessibility of streaming.

ELECTION

A felon became President.

MUSIC BUSINESS

Going to jail is a badge of honor and enhances your career, it doesn’t hurt it.

“The 74 Best Albums of 1974”: https://t.ly/F9W5j

This article could not be more wrong.

I’ll make it simple, the second New York Dolls album, “Too Much Too Soon,” is #8, and Bad Company’s debut didn’t even make the list. Everybody knows it’s about the first Dolls album, produced by Todd Rundgren, with “Personality Crisis,” the second one, produced by Shadow Morton, of girl group fame, was received so badly, and was so mediocre that the band broke up and there were no more records, because sans hits there’s no money and that’s it. Now if you want to talk about David Johansen’s solo debut, with not only “Funky But Chic” but “Frenchette”…now that’s some great music.

Number one is Neil Young’s “On the Beach.” I don’t think there’s a person who was alive back then, not even Neil himself, who would agree with this. There are those who laud the 1975 follow-up, “Tonight’s the Night,” but other than on this cockamamie list, I’ve never heard a single person extol the greatness of “On the Beach.” I bought it when it came out, I know it, I liked it, and it’s interesting return to the studio after “Time Fades Away,” but far from an album you’d leave on the turntable ad infinitum.

And the media has been waxing rhapsodic regarding the fiftieth anniversary of Jackson Browne’s “Late for the Sky,” but it only made it to #31 on “Rolling Stone”‘s list. And speaking of Southern California, I know everybody hates the Eagles, but if you rank “On the Border” last at #74 behind KISS’s debut…YOU’RE DELIRIOUS!

“Diamond Dogs” was a commercial success but a critical disappointment, but Bowie’s 1974 LP is listed at #14. It was pooh-poohed so much by the cognoscenti that Bowie pulled back, re-evaluated and came back as the Thin White Duke with “Young Americans.”

Oh, just to make you laugh, Eno has got two albums in the Top 20, “Here Comes the Warm Jets” at #5 and “Taking Tiger Mountain (By Strategy.”

Now let’s be clear, I OWN ALL THESE ALBUMS! (Other than KISS’s debut, I wouldn’t buy that trash), I paid for them, I listened to them, but I’m not invested in one more than the other, I can cast a critical eye.

But I was 21 in 1974, and the people compiling this list… Probably weren’t even born yet.

And “Rolling Stone” is behind a paywall. And trolling for clicks. I mean why else create this bogus list. I mean who’s sitting at home wondering…what were the best 74 albums of 1974, hmmm… Maybe the Top Ten, but this is media today, they want you to read and discuss…

It’s just dross.

But what bothered me most was the exclusion of Bad Company’s debut. That band of seasoned musicians fronted by possibly the greatest rock vocalist of all time owned the airwaves for years, and it started immediately with “Can’t Get Enough,” which blasted out of stations on both the AM and FM dials in August 1974, it was ubiquitous.

But even better was the moody, but ultimately powerful eponymous track, “Bad Company.” With Paul Rodgers’s piano and humming and then Mick Ralphs’s guitar… And then that singing like he’s out on the high prairie, evaluating the landscape, like it’s life or death.

“I was born six gun in my hand

Behind the gun

I’ll make my final stand, yeah”

Isn’t this an even better expression of the “Desperado” ethos than most of the songs on that Eagles album?

“That’s why they call me

Bad company

And I can’t deny

Bad company

‘Til the day I die”

That’s rock and roll. The other. You didn’t want your daughter to date a Rolling Stone and you didn’t want them to date a member of Bad Company either, whose record came out on Led Zeppelin’s label.

And how about the sound of Mick’s guitar at the beginning of “Movin’ On,” the track sizzles, this is the music you listened to that made you feel good, that squeezed out the rest of the world.

“Rock Steady” had a groove, in the pocket, raw rock and roll. But Ron Wood’s barely listenable pedestrian “I’ve Got My Own Album to Do” is #48 on “Rolling Stone”‘s list.

And there’s the killer slowed-down version of “Ready for Love,” which first appeared on that Mott the Hoople album.

But the piece-de-resistance is the closing track, “Seagull.” Sure, there’s the sound, based on an acoustic guitar, but even more there’s the mood, the feeling. The track soars, and it lifts you along for the ride, just like a seagull yourself. This is the ethereal yet real on wax rock sound that epitomizes the 1970s, and it’s almost been written out of history.

Yet for some reason these doofuses believe that Harry Nilsson’s “Pussy Cats,” an execrable album made after Harry had blown out his voice, is #49.

And Bad Company only got bigger, with their next album, “Straight Shooter.”

“Johnny was a schoolboy

When he heard his first Beatles song

‘Love Me Do’ I think it was

And from there it didn’t take him long

Got himself a guitar…”

This is them, this is us. We heard the Beatles and we went electric, we all went out and bought Fenders or the best we could afford and amps.

But “Feel Like Makin’ Love” was even bigger than “Shooting Star.” All over the radio in the summer of ’75, an anthem, right alongside Aerosmith’s “Sweet Emotion.” Oh, those were the glory days.

FEEL LIKE MAKIN’ LOVE!

With that staccato machine gun guitar.

It was everything then and seemingly nothing today.

Everybody wants to write this era and this music off. They just want to talk about punk. But that came after. And it wasn’t a response to Bad Company or Aerosmith, neither was ever labeled corporate rock.

I could go on, Bad Company certainly did.

Hopefully every self-satisfied rock critic, member of the Hall of Fame, can get off their ass, out of their box, come down off their perch and be with the people who loved this music who never accepted them and acknowledge how great Bad Company was and immediately put them in the Rock Hall, give them their victory lap, because…

THEY DESERVE IT!

Playlist: https://t.ly/GBIMA

Business guru extraordinaire!

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