We were not prepared for it.

I bought the initial album, with the pinkish purple cover, based on a review in “Rolling Stone.” You could tell by the enthusiasm and the description that this was something you wanted to check out. And from the very first note it was enrapturing. That’s the power of “Keep Yourself Alive.”

Right, now it seems obvious. But it was anything but in ’73. I never heard “Keep Yourself Alive” on the radio, it was kind of like Yes with the first three albums, they were for fans only.

And then came “Queen II.” Also with no synths. Oh, how amazing is Brian May. And it wasn’t quite as good as the debut, but it got even less traction, it was like it didn’t even come out, and I figured Queen was another one of those bands I knew by heart who were destined to disappear. And then came “Sheer Heart Attack.” “Killer Queen” was all over the radio, like the band always belonged there. And at this late date, you can see that “Killer Queen” foreshadowed what was coming, but those who bought the album heard cuts like “Stone Cold Crazy,” which also got airplay, which were closer to what had come before as opposed to what was in the pipeline. Queen was another hard rocking band with impeccable chops, very British, very interesting, but they were still making music tied to their roots. And then came “A Night At The Opera.”

At this late date the album is overshadowed by the enduring success of “Bohemian Rhapsody,” but the breakthroughs were on the first side, with “You’re My Best Friend” and “’39.”

It was not like today. In the midseventies you could like singer-songwriters as well as hard rock. A true music fan had broad tastes. So when you were expecting bombast and heard “You’re My Best Friend” a smile crossed your face…how’d they come up with this combination of west coast and UK? Soft with harmonies was positively SoCal, but previously Queen had been more about assault than subtlety…but the band was not afraid to experiment, saw no need to repeat itself, “You’re My Best Friend”…sounds like the joy of said, that one person you can count on, but it’s not only the vocal and the harmonies but the pure instrumental sound, it was an aural concoction that accelerated to its conclusion and begged to be played again when this was difficult, when we lived in the vinyl era and the needle segued into the next cut.

Which was even quieter, something more similar to the Band than anything Queen had done previously, the aforementioned “’39.” Unlike today’s in-your-face music, “’39” was reflective, a whole story, with a jaunty chorus… It’d be like Angus Young suddenly cut an English folk song!

But those two cuts were just the most obvious. Before them on the first side was…”I’m In Love With My Car.” Which was typically Queen heavy, but in a newfangled way. It was slow where everything previously had been fast. Not sung by Freddie Mercury, but drummer Roger Taylor, who wrote it!

I’m in love with my car, got a feel for my automobile

We all felt it, but we never heard it put so emphatically, not by the Beach Boys or Jan & Dean. This was an English sensibility, with all the joy of pride in your machine. With harmonies to boot!

And what was dramatic was that none of these three songs sounded remotely alike. Once upon a time a band could be more than one thing, and the audience rewarded them for it.

Then there’s the baroque “Love Of My Life” on side two. You’ve got to understand, Queen was a heavy band! But now they were quiet and meaningful, and to listen to this alone in your bedroom on headphones brought in to question your masculinity not a whit. Boys are romantic, and Freddie Mercury gave us permission to be.

The only track on the album that sounded close to what came before was the opener, “Death On Two Legs.” It was like the band jettisoned a few stages and rocketed into hyperspace, years before “Star Wars” was released.

And when we initially heard “Bohemian Rhapsody” we didn’t think all time rock classic but innovative ear-pleasing cut.

And there wasn’t a single other band doing anything like this in the marketplace. Nobody was Queen-like.

And the audience could have rejected “A Night At The Opera.”

But no, when something is this good, people can’t help but embrace it, the way all the musos acknowledged how great a guitar player Eddie Van Halen was when they heard his band’s debut.

And if they had no base the album still would have succeeded. But with some airplay from “Sheer Heart Attack” and relentless quality touring, making diehard fans on the road, the audience was primed for what they didn’t expect, with “A Night At The Opera” Queen became superstars overnight.

Rhinofy-A Night At The Opera

Previous Rhinofy playlists

It’s gasoline on embers.

Yup, Thom Yorke and Nigel Godrich just did Spotify a big favor, they got every music blog and major newspaper to write about the service, the Internet is blazing with this irrelevant story, but if these guys are that mad at the service, is it worth paying attention to?

That’s Spotify’s problem. The youngsters, who glom up every new social networking service, believe it’s irrelevant, for adults at best, and those adults…are so frugal and so afraid of coughing up their Facebook identity that they don’t use it either. And then the smug, self-satisfied digerati complain about streaming costs, even though the service allows you to synch four digits worth of playlisted tracks to your handset so it’s like you own them and…

That’s just the point. Ignorance rules.

Kind of like with the artists themselves…

Read this explanation of Spotify payouts, you’ll find it enlightening:

Making Dollars: Clearing Up Spotify Payment Confusion

As for the complaint that catalog plays get as much in payment as new cuts…do Radiohead really want to take less on “Creep”? I don’t think so, just ask Brian Message, their manager, who came out against Yorke and Godrich’s screed:

Radiohead manager backs Spotify in ongoing Thom Yorke debate

A song is a song is a song. And until recently, catalog music used to cost more at retail! And since everybody’s paid by the play, why give new artists a leg up, when it’s those who last that reap rewards.

As for major label ownership… I hate to disillusion you, but he who has the desirable asset makes the deal on favorable terms. Kind of like Apple and Verizon. Yup, turns out Verizon is upside down on iPhone payments, by BILLIONS!

Verizon Could Owe Apple $14 Billion Over Insufficient iPhone Sales

Should Verizon be complaining that they pay LG less?

Come on. There is no Spotify without the major label catalogs, that’s how they got their ownership position. As for payment per track, this is what has bothered me since Spotify’s inception, the lack of transparency. It’s all digits, they now even tell you the number of streams tracks have, but as far as delineating every last detail of payment…it’s all behind a curtain, exactly the way the major labels like it. They’ve been underpaying and screwing artists since their inception. Which is kind of why artists believe they’re getting screwed by Spotify, because the label is keeping most of the royalties. If you go indie, you get paid more. As for getting paid less per stream… Come on, even Steve Jobs backed down regarding indies and the iTunes Store. Indies now make up a greater percentage of the marketplace than ever before. They’re gaining leverage. You don’t throw the baby out with the bathwater by pulling your music from the service, that’s like an eight year old taking his ball and going home, and one thing about that eight year old…the rest of the kids hate him!

If Yorke and Godrich were smart, and they’re not, based on creating this publicity juggernaut that is benefiting Spotify, not the indie musicians they say they care about, they’d be doing “I Want My MTV” commercials for the service. All acts should be doing this. MTV was a failed enterprise before this campaign, but with stars in commercials imploring viewers to call their cable companies and demand the service…MTV blew up.

We want Spotify to blow up.

Yes, we want everyone in America to have a streaming music subscription. We want to grow the pot. But Yorke and Godrich would rather stand on ceremony and deny the future to their detriment.

Most people to this day don’t know how Spotify works. We’ve got to get them to check it out.

Have you used Spotify with Sonos?

Positively mind-blowing.

Or if you haven’t got this wondrous equipment, have you been at a dinner party, in a restaurant, talking about a track and…

The Spotify subscriber pulls it up instantly on his or her phone. The rest of the patrons are wowed. You’ve got to pay to do this on the go. We’ve got to incentivize people to pay.

Or maybe, like Jimmy Iovine, you try to get AT&T to subsidize your streaming service, MOG/Daisy.

As for iTunes Radio, artists don’t want that. Are you kidding me? You want people to be able to play your music ad infinitum. iTunes Radio is a RADIO service, just like it says. Do you like sitting in your car waiting for another spin of your favorite… OF COURSE NOT! But if Yorke and Godrich and their ilk put a dent in Spotify that’s what you’ll get.

So all you artists, and too often it’s wannabes who weren’t making any money anyway but are students of the game, start proselytizing streaming services. Subscribe yourself and demonstrate them. Use your power to get your minions to sign on.

THEN YOU’LL MAKE MORE MONEY!

That’s what Seth Godin says.

Seth calls it an urge to be picked. I’ll call it an urge to be famous. And rich. With the belief that if you just put yourself in someone else’s hands, if you just get a little help, you’ll rise above the fray and become famous and be successful forever more.

But it just doesn’t happen that way anymore.

Everything starts from the bottom up. If you believe the opposite, you’re still living in the twentieth century.

So what you’ve got to do is woodshed and send your stuff to ten friends. And if they don’t tell others, if nothing happens, the problem is you.

Oh, I know you don’t want to hear this, you don’t want to self-examine, but your only other option is to get new friends or to struggle in oblivion. But to delusionally believe it’s about getting a big shot to push you…you’re wrong. That’s one of the reasons labels always ask young acts what they’ve got going on. They want to build on the fan base you’ve already established.

Seth says the key is to do work that matters, and to make enough money to survive doing it.

I know that’s not the modern paradigm, where everybody’s looking for world domination. But the question is, is that fulfilling?

Yes, I’ve changed topics. But that’s one thing that’s been left out of today’s discussion. I know plenty of people doing work I’d rather die than do. Like working in the Dakota oil fields. So you work like a dog, make money, ruin your relationship and..?

Now we need people to do menial jobs. But I don’t think those are the people reading this. You’re looking for something more. And yes, some people win the artistic lottery. But very few. If you want to survive, maybe you have to take your eyes off the prize. As far as getting picked, it happens long after you’ve done the work, when you’re no longer even trying.

Yes, the media has a herd mentality. You rise above the fray because your fan base can’t stop talking about you and suddenly everybody wants to write about you. That’s the story of electronic music in America. It’s not like there was a PR czar. As for the usual suspects…the major labels and Live Nation and AEG weren’t in it. No, the story of EDM grew as a result of the incredible success of the Electric Daisy Carnival, by selling tickets. If your ten friends tell ten more and it never stops…you’re gonna get a huge audience. That’s the story of the Dave Matthews Band, playing in a bar, opening for jam bands many have never heard of. But everybody exposed to the music told everybody else.

It’s kind of like mix tapes. They don’t write about them in mainstream media, but that’s where those who really care about hip-hop pay attention, and it’s from there that new rap stars are born.

But everybody wants a short-cut. Believing the game is rigged against them. That they just haven’t got enough money or any relatives in the business.

It might have been that way once.

But it’s not that way anymore.

You’ve got the means of production and distribution at your fingertips, they’re close to free. And if you’re not getting a reaction, if your friends are not spreading the word, the problem is you.

P.S. Seth also talks about being afraid. But it’s when you’re vulnerable and taking a risk that you truly get a chance that people will react. In other words if you’re self-censoring, you’re making a mistake. As for mistakes…you can always recover from them, especially early in the game. You can make more music, write more blog posts, this is what is called a “pivot” in the tech game. How will you know what works or what doesn’t if you do not play?

 “Seth Godin: The Art of Noticing and then Creating”
-you want the unedited version

What I like most is the tweet from MusicAlly:

RT @MusicAlly: Needless to say, Atoms for Peace albums still available to stream in full (unlicensed) on Grooveshark and YouTube

— Bob Lefsetz (@Lefsetz) July 15, 2013

What kind of crazy, fucked up world do we live in where artists are so ignorant, so behind the curve, so out of solutions that they rail against a platform that hasn’t gotten any traction anyway?

Streaming won. Kids watch music on YouTube. Over.

Furthermore, there’s no money in music for anyone but the owners of catalogs because individual acts just can’t get enough traction. We can ignore not only Rihanna, but Dave Grohl and Radiohead too. Oh, the fawning press makes it seem like these acts are important and universal, changing the face of American culture, but the truth is if you’ve heard all three, you’re part of a tiny minority paying attention, everybody else is salivating over new smartphones and the software they contain.

Yup, Steve Jobs kills the floppy, and Thom Yorke and Nigel Godrich want to jet us back to the past.

Spotify gives 70% of the revenues to rightsholders. The exact same amount rendered by iTunes. What’s the problem? That they pay you over time instead of right now? Afraid that no one will listen to your music in the future? Then you’d better make it really damn good, or create tchotchkes people are dying to own, because the old slap together ten tracks to sell for ten bucks paradigm is so toast, it’s stale and in the garbage.

Once upon a time musicians used to lead. Now all they can say is GIVE ME BACK MY PAST! As for saving the future for the new artists… I’d feel better if the new artists created their own paradigm, but instead we’ve got wannabes too dumb to do anything for themselves. Want to neuter the power of the old gatekeepers, implore acts not to sign with majors. But no, Yorke and Godrich would rather rail against the present, unaware that it’s already history. Making Spotify the enemy is akin to the RIAA scapegoating Napster. What happened after they closed Napster? It got WORSE! There was  KaZaA and Limewire. Do Yorke and Godrich like Whac-A-Mole that much that they want to fire up the arcade when the game is just about worn out?

Yup, P2P theft is too much trouble. You know what made me stop stealing? Spotify. And for young kids, YouTube. The legal way is much more convenient. This was what was supposed to happen, this was the promise of tech, finally the rightsholders are ahead of the consumers, but in this case they’re ahead of the acts too!

How much money did it take to create the cell or cable systems. And with mobile phones, it took almost two decades for people to realize they had to have one. That’s progress. You invest now for rewards later. If you think record labels believe in this paradigm you believe Doug Morris owns Sony Music… But Doug’s just an employee inured to short term profits like the rest of the corporate titans. As for those vaunted new acts Yorke and Godrich are referencing…they want instant profits too! And are usually so bad they don’t deserve any attention.

The truth is, if you’re a superstar, there’s still plenty of money in music. And superstars are the future, because no one’s got time for any less. Just like there’s one iTunes Store, one Amazon and one Google, we don’t need a plethora of me-too acts, we just need excellence.

Don’t musicians get it? If you want to survive in the future, you need solutions.

Want a solution for recorded music? Create a site with everything and get everybody to pay. Cell phone companies don’t say you can’t call your grandma, but you can’t listen to AC/DC and the Beatles and now Atoms For Peace on Spotify. Metallica and the Eagles got the memo, they’re now living in the future, but the aforementioned trio and the rest of the Luddites, they believe if they hold their music back they can stem the tide of the future, the same way the lack of AC/DC and Led Zeppelin and the Beatles killed the iTunes Store. Huh? They put a dent in it not a whit!

Will Spotify win?

Who knows, Iovine’s MOG/Daisy may replace it. Or the interim might be iTunes Radio, with the public too cheap to pay for access for the moment. But the future is definitely not paying a bunch of money up front for songs you’ve never heard. Can’t get anybody but diehard fans to do that now. And only Yorke and Godrich’s diehard fans care about their misguided removal of their music from Spotify. Everybody else shrugs and moves right along, if the news even reaches them.

In Scandinavian countries the lion’s share of the revenue IS Spotify, IS streaming. There’s nowhere to buy a CD. Is that Spotify’s fault? Did Spotify kill the CD, the album and the record shop? No, the public did, by embracing new technology, and now they’ve all gone to streaming and the crybaby acts keep lamenting the passage of the past the same way buggy whip makers and typewriter constructors did and died.

To quote the great bard Dylan, “He not busy being born is busy dying.”