“Electronic Arts, the publisher of the Madden football series and other sports favorites, sold 67 different titles in stores in the fiscal year ending March 2009. In its last fiscal year, it sold 13.”

Shrinking List of Video Games Is Dominated by Blockbusters

I read.

You can sit on the phone all day, go to lunch, but that’s a very inefficient way to gain knowledge.

In other words, are you reading the new Malcolm Gladwell book, about David & Goliath? It came out today, I got it at midnight, oh how I love the Internet and wireless delivery.

What are the hidden defects of those in power, those you want to topple? Usually it’s that they’re so insulated that they cannot see the landscape. Some college kids put a dent in the recorded music industry that the labels will never recover from. And right now while people are dying at EDM shows, Las Vegas is burgeoning, where they make more money from deejays than they do at the slots.

Didn’t know that? You’ve got to read last week’s “New Yorker” story by Josh Eels “How Electronic Dance Music Conquered Las Vegas”:

NIGHT CLUB ROYALE

Unfortunately, most of it’s behind a paywall, making it near-irrelevant. Protect your business model and turf at your peril. Here the “New Yorker” writes the best, most definitive article about the EDM scene in Vegas and most people don’t read it, what have they accomplished, reaching those who are not interested?

And yesterday, on the front page of the business section of the “New York Times” there was this story “Shrinking List of Video Games Is Dominated by Blockbusters,” linked to above.

You should read it, because exactly the same thing is happening in music. People only want the best music, the stuff that everyone’s talking about. The rich get richer and the poor get poorer.

Pooh-pooh Max Martin and Dr. Luke all you want, but if you can’t admit they’re talented, you don’t know there are 88 keys on a piano. They’re playing a game. Of making records that Top Forty will play. Complain all you want that Miley Cyrus has little talent, but can you, at home, make a record as good as “Wrecking Ball”?

NEVER!

And Top Forty is the only format that builds mainstream careers.

So, you’ve got to be a triple threat, a great writer, player and singer, and you’ve got to be able to produce too, otherwise you won’t make it. Oh, you can hire a producer, but how much do you think an A-lister costs? Only the labels can afford them. The same labels with not only deep coffers, but relationships.

Believe me, Electronic Arts would like to have more hits, it’s just that people weren’t buying their other titles. Take-Two, which makes GTA, otherwise known as “Grand Theft Auto,” makes essentially nothing else. Rather than being a producer, they’re more like a band, putting out an album every couple of years, which they slave over, that they spend double digit millions not only producing but marketing (to make a billion dollars in three days!)

That’s how hard it is to cut through the noise. And it’s those with headway who continue to succeed.

I’m not the only one saying this. Anita Elberse, a business professor at Harvard, is releasing a book entitled “Blockbusters: Hit-making, Risk-taking, and the Big Business of Entertainment” on October 15th. How did I discover it? By reading!

But my main point is while you were at home plotting your assault on the Internet, growing virally from nothing to something, the entire game changed. The public became wary of wasting time, not only foraging for new entertainment, but finding out in most cases what they discovered wasn’t worth the effort. So people have retreated, they’ve come back from the wilderness and have set their eyes on what everybody else is paying attention to.

That does not mean there are not niches. That does not mean you can’t create a profitable business using the Internet and social networking to reach those who care. But in most cases they’re the only ones who care. That’s the story of Kickstarter. You raise money to make an album for the very few who care. You get paid, but your audience doesn’t become any larger. Sure, the media has picked up on how Amanda Palmer has made herself a success, but the audience for her music has not grown significantly, she’s not become a blockbuster, what are the odds that you will?

Very low.

Look at the movie grosses. Every week there’s one winner, assuming it wasn’t produced for too much cash, and a ton of losers. What’s the result? Studios are making fewer flicks, pouring more money into those they green-light. They’ve all closed their art house divisions, because they just weren’t profitable enough, and a bad use of capital, the returns were meager.

So no, the label is not interested in your niche product, if it can’t get on Top Forty radio, forget about it.

And if you’re going it alone, you’ll probably stay close to alone.

Do I wish it were different?

OF COURSE!

But it’s not.

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.