That’s the key today. To stay in the public eye. Constantly.

An album is released on a single date, all at once, and then it either gains traction or dies. The people who make them still think we’re living in the eighties, or maybe even the seventies, when their artwork would slowly penetrate public consciousness, after being anointed by the press and made a hit by radio. Yup, radio continued to play the hits of the day. Hell, it still does! Classic Rock radio, with its Two-Fer Tuesdays and endless repetition of the same damn hits is still prominent, it’s the new stuff that has trouble lasting.

That’s what Facebook has right. And Twitter. And Tumblr. And Pinterest. All the social networks.

You’ve got to check back in.

That’s what you want people to do, check back in.

How are you going to achieve this? How are you going to stay in the public eye?

First you’re going to have to be really damn good. And that takes a long time to achieve. Sure, Kelly Clarkson made it, as did Carrie Underwood, but all those bitching about TV shows don’t realize that the singers featured…have no career. Hell, the winner of the UK “Voice” sold fewer than 1,000 copies of her debut release

Horribly flat… Voice winner’s album sales

It’s a TV show, it’s got nothing to do with music. It’s about ogling stars and drama, that’s it. Furthermore, both Clarkson and especially Underwood had paid their dues, they’d been trying to make it for eons. So if you’re twelve and you think you’re entitled to lifelong stardom, you haven’t seen the Justin Bieber movie, wherein the audience boos him and he’s done overnight and his manager, lauded as uber-brilliant, suddenly wakes up and realizes he’s got no acts with ongoing careers. That’s what you want, an ongoing career.

Second, you start small. Not because you want to, but because at first almost nobody is interested. When you’re small, you work out the kinks. You get a feel for the game. And if you’re great, as per above, you’ll gain fans, who will spread the word. The idea of press making you a star is toast. Read the paper, go back a few years, the publicists got stories planted and the acts disappeared, because they weren’t good and had no fans. It’s slow to start at the bottom, making fans one by one, but it’s the only way to go.

Third, you’ve got to satiate these fans constantly. The old paradigm of an album every three years, with an attendant worldwide tour, are done. Because today the audience has choice, not only other music, but Netflix and video games and… Once you’ve got your relationship, you’ve got to sustain it. The Major League season doesn’t last a month. Nor does that of the NFL. It’s about getting fans hooked, engaged, invested in the drama.

How are you going to achieve this?

I’ll let you decide.

But you’ve got a few options…

You can constantly release new music. And it doesn’t have to be perfect studio recordings, it can be YouTube covers… You want your audience thinking about you.

You can tweet and use other social media. Which is about the engagement. Artistry, when done right, defines the human condition. People fantasize and look up to artists. Artists complete them. In the old days, mystery would help. But now mystery just leaves you out of the game. Today, you’ve got to feed the fantasy. Round out your life for these people. So they can attach themselves to you!

You know why you hate the movies?

BECAUSE OF SEQUELMANIA! The same old tent poles. But the reason studios make them is because you’re already invested, you’re already hooked.

But movies are now secondary to television. And what’s the breakthrough in TV? Short, straight seasons. Ten to fifteen episodes run every week until the season is done, whereupon a new series fills the block. What networks discovered was that not only did reruns alienate the core audience, it left them searching for new stuff and abandoning their shows! You never want someone to leave. You want an ongoing relationship.

And speaking of television, the front-loaded rarely lasts. “New Girl,” the breakout hit of two seasons ago, is nearly toast, but “Big Bang Theory,” an ancient production, has now risen to the top.

It’s done all wrong in music.

You ramp up the publicity, all targeted for the album release date. All trying to drive up first week sales, so radio and retail will be impressed, even though radio and physical retail are on the decline. And any student of the chart knows it’s a new album every week. That most productions enter high and then fall right down. And that the Top Ten always features unknowns…who one week later continue to be unknown. If you’re thrilled you entered high you’re delusional. Tell me where you are two or three or four months down the line, never mind a year!

Facebook Is For Old People

INSPIRATION

So my girlfriend points out a picture on Facebook of a rich friend on a plane with her dog and I’m reading the comments…and I see that of the wife of a famous movie producer, whose story was told in “Vanity Fair.”

That’s when it hit. If these people are all over Facebook, it’s toast, the oldsters have taken over and the young people have left. It’d be like seeing your parents at Pacha, or the Electric Daisy Carnival, you wouldn’t be interested in going anymore.

EXPERIENCE

The above inspiration didn’t take place in a vacuum. All day long I’m reading about Facebook and using social media. If you think you can write a hit song with no prior experience, you’re dreaming. Oh, a monkey could type “War and Peace”…but the odds are low.

Your whole life is useful information. Be ready to mine it.

EXPERIENCE 2

It was 6:35 PM and I had to leave for dinner at 7:30 and I hadn’t yet taken a shower. I had to be finished writing by 7, 7:05 at the latest, otherwise my girlfriend would not be happy.

Yes, I can write that fast. And reread that quickly. I reread everything twice, first for content, second for minutiae, like spelling errors. I change almost nothing. Because I’ve learned over time that whenever I do this, I screw it up. Like Fleetwood Mac sang, trust your first initial feeling. Give it to us unvarnished. Don’t be coy, don’t understate, go full bore.

Furthermore, I can write this fast and this cogently because I’ve been doing it for so long. Experience counts.

INITIAL FEEDBACK

Was minimal. It was Saturday night, but…

Don’t judge the success of your project instantly. Success is always a beat behind, it takes a while to percolate.

Furthermore, don’t honor the initial feedback, which tends to be knee-jerk. The sycophants and the cranks respond first. Most reasonable people never respond. An artist is in the eye of the hurricane, he’s clueless as to what’s really going on. Just do your best work and…

THE NEXT MORNING

Sign-ups to my mailing list were growing in leaps and bounds. I couldn’t figure it out, hell, I wasn’t even sure which article triggered it!

Then I read my Twitter feed. Barry Ritholtz had reposted my e-mail.

Barry’s a prominent Wall Street guru. You can see him on TV, read his books, read his blog. We’ve never met in real life, never talked on the phone, he reposted my piece because…you’ll have to ask him!

And Barry’s audience is different from mine. Suddenly, I wasn’t in the echo chamber any longer, I’d crossed over.

THE FOLLOWING MORNING

The Boy Genius Report posted my e-mail. I know no one there. I’m not a religious reader. I found out about it by Googling myself (doesn’t everybody?) And then as the hours went by, I saw the link tweeted over and over again.

TODAY

Allthingsd.com posted a quote from the article. Allthingsd is the most credible tech website out there. I wouldn’t say Kara Swisher, one of its partners, sees eye to eye with me, so she certainly wasn’t reposting as a favor, hell, she might still take it down!

I also got, and this was not the first time re this Facebook article, a request to reprint it on a site I’d never heard of.

CHATTER

Most of the chatter is happening outside my traditional loop. But I’ve also gotten e-mail hipping me to this virality. You see people are on my team. Instead of playing to those who don’t care, satiate those who do.

WHAT HAVE WE LEARNED?

The article was really damn good. Yup, I’m owning it. That’s why it went viral.

And also because it was about Facebook.

But was any of this in my mind when I concocted it, when I wrote it?

ABSOLUTELY NOT!

I almost didn’t put fingers to keyboard. Time was too tight. I was burned out. I felt whatever I did would have little effect. But I was overcome with inspiration, and I just had to lay it down.

So…

Want success?

Work hard and don’t plan for it. Woodshed, but be attuned to inspiration. Do your best to ring the bell and know you have no control over what spreads and what doesn’t.

CONCLUSION

I’m thrilled to have all these new subscribers. But do I think they’ll stick? Doubtful. Some may be intrigued by my act, but others just aren’t interested in music or skiing or the other myriad subjects I write about.

But I’m not changing for them, that’s death.

I’m gonna keep playing to you!

Nah, I’m gonna keep playing to me! Because if I get lucky and nail it…the personal is universal.

“Facebook Is For Old People”-Barry Ritholtz

“Acclaimed critic says ‘Facebook is for old people'”- BGR

“Don’t Trust Anyone On Facebook”-Allthingsd.com

1. E-Mail Addresses

If you’re gonna sell anything, you’ve got to know who your audience is. Not generally, but specifically, i.e. their names, their addresses.

In the old days it was important to know the gatekeepers.

Now, whatever gatekeepers are left are less powerful than ever before.

The Internet allows you to go direct. Why do you want to use a middle man?

Apple knows this. That’s why they built their own online store. And burnished it with free help at the Genius Bar in the retail establishment.

You want everybody to rally around you.

Used to be everybody rallied around the label. Yes, the gatekeepers, especially retail, had a relationship with the label. The acts didn’t especially matter, as long as something sold. Now you’ve got to step up and establish relationships yourself, which hopefully will last forever. As for retail, anybody can get on iTunes and Spotify. And if you’re not on Spotify, you’re reducing the chance of your music being sampled.

If you’re a heritage artist, you’ve got to start early, way in advance of the release of new material.

a. E-mail addresses… You need a clipboard at every gig. You need a song giveaway on your website in exchange for an e-mail address. You don’t need to employ your list on a regular basis, the addresses are land mines ready to be deployed when you’ve got something to sell. If you want to interact on a regular basis, do so, but it’s not necessary if you’ve already got a profile. But you must be able to push the button and reach your people when you’re ready.

b. Facebook… Have a presence there, especially if you’re an old act. People go to your website and Facebook, keep updating them with content, which will bring people back, so that when you do have something new to sell, they’ll see it, because they’re visiting.

c. Twitter… You want a high count. You can buy a starter base, so you don’t look like you’re nowhere, but the key is to grow it. Easiest way if you’re a star? Announce you’re going on Twitter and tweet up a storm for a week. You can lay off then, after you’ve gained all your followers. Almost nobody unfollows on Twitter. When you finally have something to say, your audience will see it…well, at least part of your audience, no one sees everything on Twitter. And if you want to tweet on a regular basis, go for it! But it must be you and it must be personal. If you’re not evidencing your personality online, don’t participate. We may not be interested in what a friend had for breakfast, but we love finding out you hate eggs and drink beer first thing in the morning.

2. ONE TRACK!

Since no one is interested in your new material, don’t overload us. An album is for hard core fans anyway. But since your fans are antiques, and barely buy any new material, you’re gonna sell bupkes. Furthermore, it’s all about ticket sales anyway. You want your number to go up. So you want some new excitement, which motivates the oldsters to go and take their kids.

So you need one certifiable hit.

This may require you to write and record ten or twenty. It might be necessary to cowrite. You might have to humble yourself, let other people hear your music and tell you what’s wrong with it, how it can be improved. If what you release isn’t a one listen smash, don’t even bother.

Since Fogerty came back once with “Centerfield,” he could probably do it again.

3. Target

If you’re going for radio…

The only thing that counts, that sells tonnage, is Top Forty. (And of course country, but that’s something wholly different, and they hate intruders, Hootie made it, but Bon Jovi’s been frozen out…you’ve got to be humble, play the game, call Doc McGhee to find out how he did it with Darius Rucker, or else hire him if this is your game! Sheryl Crow is laying the groundwork for a country crossover right now. She’s almost off the radar, which is rare for her. She knows country is a club, and the members decide if you get in.)

As for Top Forty, you’re lucky, the spectrum of music the format is playing is expanding, it’s not solely beat-driven drivel. If you want to be on Top Forty, call the people who win there, maybe even use them. Whether it be Dr. Luke or Max Martin.

If you don’t want to play the Top Forty game, you’ve got to find the niche where your new music applies…

Maybe it’s television. Your new track has to be the signature sound of a station, not only featured in an episode of a drama. Make it the summer anthem of ESPN, even the bumper music for HBO, be creative.

And don’t be afraid to think small, as long as it’s not TOO small…

You can be the NASCAR theme. The NHL theme. All those people talk, if you deliver, they will spread the word.

4. From The Bottom Up

Your success depends upon the people. They’re gonna break your record, not the press. Press is a baby boomer circle jerk. The writers love you and you love showing your oldster friends the ink, but it doesn’t move the needle. Otherwise the biggest stars in music would be Kacey Musgraves and Jason Isbell, with loving pieces in the “New York Times Magazine” that barely moved the needle.

You’re better off doing reddit than the “Times.”

Then again, Fogerty did this. And he did Marc Maron too.

But Maron’s crappy with musicians, they’re not in his wheelhouse.

You’re better off doing Alec Baldwin, who at least asks intelligent questions.

And there are other podcasts to be on. All of them may have small audiences, but their listeners are PASSIONATE! They don’t stop talking about their favorites. They can get the buzz going if you’ve got something that delivers.

5. Delivering

If Fogerty’s smart, he’ll use this covers album as a set-up. And release that one new hit song…soon. I’d say July 1st, while there’s still some heat from the promo. Certainly no later than September 1st.

Then we’d be blown away.

P.S. Regarding Jason Isbell… I got a bunch of e-mail about the piece in the “Times.” Turning me on to a great artist? No, making sure I saw his inane comments about Spotify! Not one person e-mailed me about his music! It doesn’t matter what your musician friends, oftentimes out of touch and ignorant, have to say, but the public, the audience, the people who spend their hard-earned cash to keep you alive.

“He used a single word, ‘evil,’ to describe Spotify, the online music-streaming service. ‘I think Spotify is honestly just another one of Sean Parker’s ways of ripping musicians off,’ Isbell said, referring to the Napster co-founder who has a stake in Spotify. His comic mini-rant about Parker was so expletive-filled that, to paraphrase Mary McCarthy, even the words ‘and’ and ‘the’ from it are not printable here. But the gist of his complaint is this: ‘People can listen to your album over and over on Spotify, and you don’t really make anything on it.'”

Jason Isbell, Unloaded

a. Mr. Isbell may know something about music, but he knows nothing about business. Spotify gives a minimum of 70% of revenues to rightsholders. And when the service scales, a lot of money rains down, this is already happening overseas. I guess Jason wouldn’t invest in a wireless company, seeing all that upfront expense…to make BILLIONS later! And sure, Spotify revenues in the U.S. are low now, and the service is being built upon the backs of artists, but it’s better than THEFT, which Spotify reduces.

b. If not on Spotify, where is someone to hear Mr. Isbell’s music? You’ve got to allow people to sample for free. If you think they’re going to purchase your album without hearing it first, you’re still buying CDs at the record shop and missed out on the entire twenty first century. It’s a privilege to have your music heard. In today’s market, it’s almost an impossibility. There’s plenty of money to be made if you have fans. And the way you grow fans is by having them hear your music, you’ve got to make it EASY!

c. Wanna know how I know the “Times” article had little impact, no virality? By utilizing the link-shortening service bitly. The Isbell article in the “Times” was only clicked on 16 times. The data’s all here:

https://bitly.com/18EirO0+

Furthermore, notice that the sharing was on Friday, when the article was online, not on Sunday, when it hit the street in print form.

Subject: Re: Rhinofy-Higher Love– from Philippe Saisse

Mr Lefsetz:

It is both humbling and an honor to be mentioned in your blog which I have been following for years now (my partner in crime Simon Phillilps has turned me on to you years ago). It is REALLY nice to be mentioned in the same breath as my other friends and colleagues.

However, Jimmy Bralower should be acknowledged for having programmed those killer drums and that wacky intro timbale groove.

Stevie actually deserves all the credit for that bass line which I have only augmented in parts. The truth is, you are SO COMPLETELY RIGHT about the cost of that particular record (or any other records made in those days and that I have had the privilege of working on as a NY studio musician working with Arif Mardin, Nile Rodgers, Russ Titelman, Phil Ramone, Mick Jagger etc…).

Russ hired me to fly with him to the UK and we stayed at Winwood’s home in the suburbs of London for weeks preparing demos, writing charts and lead sheets and working on the arrangements of the new songs in his home studio. Russ and Stevie meticulously chose and tweaked the songs so that when sessions started at then Power Station studios, everything was ready to go and we all fell into place. Costly? You bet, but as you can attest, there is a reason why that record sounds like that: Stevie and Russ were connected and on top of their game.

I also have fond memories of the music video shoot for Higher Love with Nile and Chaka. Having been part of her “I Feel For You” smash (my first NY session!) and Nile’s then frequent collaborator (Outloud, Chic, Al Jarreau etc…) it also just happened that my parents were visiting NYC at that time and sat in at the video shoot. Stevie, Chaka and Nile were gracious enough to take pictures which them and those are still on the wall at my parents home and I will never forget my late father (then an executive at Columbia France) telling me with such exuberance: “THIS song is a SMASH HIT!!!! I TELL YOU”…;)

Thank you Mr. Lefsetz for this most inspiring and hopeful article.

Yours truly,

Philippe Saisse
Calabasas, CA

 

From: TOM LIPUMA
Subject: Re: Mailbag

Hi Bob,

I’m pleased that your readers enjoyed the “Alone Together” stories.,

In regard to the gentleman whose album was black vinyl, and whose wife had the multi-colored disk, we had those pressed at the Columbia records plant in Santa Maria Calif.

Great story about that: Bob Krasnow and I drove there to meet the person who ran the plant, and see if we could do business with him for our fledgling label. As it turns out, it was a state of the art pressing plant that had just installed automated machines that used vinyl pellets that were fed automatically into a machine that squirted the melted vinyl right on to the press, instead of someone having to manually place the lump of vinyl onto the press, thus saving time when you were pressing thousands an hour. After a tour of the plant, we retired to his office and took a seat in front of his desk, which had about ten clear plastic containers with different colored pellets in them. Of course being the days of “living better through chemistry” was our motto, we had taken some owsley acid on the drive up, so we were definitely in the right frame of mind to ask him if they could press our record in one of those colors. He said of course, and we asked if we could take some samples back to Barry Feinstein who was designing the album package for us, and get his input. Barry loved the idea, but asked if they could mix all the colors together to get the tie-dye effect. They said yes they could, so back up to Santa Maria we went, except this time with Barry, to pick what colors to use to make the right color swirl for the disc. And then off we were, except the problem was, every time they finished pressing up an order for us, they had to break down the press and clean it out so they could resume using it for other orders with black vinyl. Being more creative minded than practical, we kept that going for awhile, until our accountant advised us that our profit was going down the rabbit hole. Thus just a limited amount were pressed.

Just one other thing, in regard to Bob Zimmerman’s e-mail. Delaney and Bonnie did record “Only You Know And I Know” before we did, but as far as my memory serves me, Delaney didn’t do anything on the album other than sing backgrounds along with Bonnie, Rita Coolidge, Graham Nash and a few other singers’ whose names evade me at this time’ on a cut called “Waitin On You”

By the way, I went to see Dave about two months ago in Port Washington (Long Island) and he blew me and the crowd away. For your readers who asked, He sounds better than ever. I think the years of living have seasoned his voice for the better, and his guitar playing is superb.

Please send my best regards to Wendy Waldman, I haven’t seen her since the A&M days.

My best,

Tommy