Yesterday’s news.

I’m not talking about the man himself so much as his new track, his new album… A circle jerk publicity campaign that the old wave ate up and we’ve already moved on from. I mean how can someone who used to get it so right, who was on the bleeding edge, get it so wrong?

This is the guy who did Berlin/electronic before most people had a clue who Eno was and did the Bowie Bonds deal and now he signs with Sony and puts out a new album and the sycophantic press hypes it and drives those who care, who aren’t that many, hell there are only 29,359 views on Vevo as I write this, to the video which features a song so dirgey and so mediocre as to tarnish his entire legacy, if he hadn’t been doing that himself for decades.

How come these oldsters don’t get it? They made music that lasted forever, now they just want to play for a day. Employ the old school publicity paradigm on steroids which is ignored by everybody but the aforementioned sycophants who think we’re still living in 1974.

Bowie, want to get it right?

Do it the Mumford way.

UNDERSELL!

First he needed to go on the road, playing small venues at fair prices that you couldn’t get in. That would generate real publicity. For what happened as opposed to what’s coming. And if you’ve got something real, the fans do the work for you. They tweet, they Instagram, they spread the word. Instead, Bowie’s caught up in the mainstream echo chamber.

Second, you put out a new track that kills. And “Where Are We Now?” does not. It needed to be upbeat, it needed to be one listen. Not something that you might like over time, not when the whole world is watching.

Third, leave the audience hanging, waiting for more.

Instead of the album, drip out the singles. Create cutting edge videos. Keep the excitement going. Keep your name in circulation.

But NO, David Jones shows his age by doing it the old way, getting a check from Sony and trying to drive something down our throats that we don’t want.

Maybe he ain’t got great new music in him. Maybe he’s dried up. If so, don’t call our attention to substandard work, you ruin any opportunity for clamor if you somehow come up with something good in the future.

But my bottom line point is now more than ever music is for the long haul. You start slow and build. If you start big, you oftentimes fail thereafter. Like where do PSY and Carly Rae Jepsen go now? But at least give them credit, they came up with certified hits. The PSY video is riveting and the Carly Rae Jepsen song is so hooky, it’s velcro.

The news cycle is endless. Nothing sticks. We don’t want announcements, we want SUBSTANCE!

 David Bowie: “Where Are We Now?“

iTunes 11 is a disaster. If Steve Jobs were still alive it wouldn’t have happened, and if it had, someone would have been fired.

They took a program which did what it was supposed to, manage your music and allow you to shop in the iTunes Store, and added so many features as to make it unusable.

Let’s start with the search. Instead of getting the tracks in your library, you’re proffered choices. And navigating to your selection is slow and it used to be you just searched and what you were looking for was in the window. But no, they had to IMPROVE IT!

And once you’ve got your selection, you’ve got a flippy triangle that gives you choices, always a different number, as many as nine! All I want to do is play a track! And this is my business. Is listening to music the business of anyone at Apple?

The company blinked. It endured hated for so long it upgraded a program that worked fine to begin with. They pushed it over the edge. They turned it into Microsoft Word, something with so many features it’s damn near unusable.

Steve Jobs famously said on his deathbed not to run the company like Disney, where the enterprise was paralyzed by asking “What would Walt do?” But to abandon one of Jobs’ core principles is headscratching. Usability always came first! You needed no training, no manual, everything just worked and you could employ it intuitively.

Not iTunes 11.

Only the haters bitch. If you listen to the haters, you’re screwed.

Were the hoi polloi complaining? No, iTunes was their default, the go-to item.

It’s only the blowhards and “power-users” who complained about iTunes.

If something’s not broken, don’t fix it.

Most of your user base, most of your fans, won’t complain unless you screw up. They’re satisfied. We see this time and again in the logo world. Some idiot at the company decides to modernize and comes up with a new logo they like, the hipsters like, but the mainstream users hate! Most recently with the University of California. I didn’t attend, but anybody, including myself, could see the new logo didn’t have the same gravitas. You put in four years (maybe more) and you end up with a trendy seal? For something that takes this investment you want an imprimatur of tradition. Hell, my college diploma is in Latin, I can’t read it, but I know it’s serious!

And this is especially true in music.

DON’T LISTEN TO THE CRITICS TELLING YOU TO CHANGE!

It’s one thing if you’re convinced you’re on the wrong path, if you’ve got questions. But if you think you’re doing it right, stay the course, don’t listen to idiots telling you to change willy-nilly, even if you haven’t gotten commercial traction yet. Change the sound and you’ll alienate those who are already on board. Kind of like Gabe Dixon. He put out one of my favorite albums of the century, 2008’s “The Gabe Dixon Band,” then he followed it up with a slick concoction I can’t even listen to. He should have just stayed the course, waited for people to catch up, he had it right!

Kind of like the iPhone 5.

Do you find the rank and file, those getting an Android for free, bitching that the iPhone 5 doesn’t have the latest and greatest features? No, you only hear from the bleeding edge, people who upgrade their phones sometimes twice a year, that the iPhone 5 doesn’t have this or that. But these are always features used by almost nobody. They’re cool, but do they belong in a phone? Hell, most of these phones are hard enough to use to begin with, to get more than e-mail, texts and calls out of. Simplicity is a virtue. In addition to a huge curated app store, what makes the iPhone 5 great is the easy upgradability and the answers to your questions, never mind the raw usability.

Sure, Apple was first with the tablet, then again that’s not really true, the company made the first USABLE tablet.

And even Palm made a “touch” smartphone previously.

As for the iPod, it was just a refinement of what already existed, albeit with high speed transfer.

You don’t always have to lead.

But you do have to get it right.

And Apple got it wrong with iTunes 11.

I’m not gonna write a book.

Not a day goes by that I don’t get that e-mail. Well, at least multiple times a week. People think that will give me the imprimatur of success, will cement my credibility!

But the bottom line is I already reach more people than just about every author alive and if I took time out to write something new, I wouldn’t be able to do this.

You see I love the connection. Even more I love the writing. This is what I do. I’m not gonna change it for some old wave wankers who’ve got no idea what’s going on.

You want to talk about a challenged business… If you think music is bad, you’ve got to look at books. The quantities they sell are paltry. They don’t know who their readers are. If you think musicians are loath to social network, you don’t know any authors. They want to hang at home, preferably writing in longhand or on a Smith-Corona, thinking there is fulfillment and joy in doing it the old way. But not a one of them doesn’t complain that he doesn’t have more readers. That’s the nature of art, you want more people to be exposed to it.

And now you can do this, but the old pros refuse to. Don Henley refuses to participate online, won’t tweet, won’t comment, yet he’s one of the most erudite and opinionated musicians alive. Huh? What’s the problem Don? You afraid of the haters?

Oh, they’re legion. They come out of obscurity to eviscerate you and then go back into their holes, wearing the cloak of anonymity all the while. But if you’re not bobbing in the cesspool online you’re not even playing. It’s like refusing to be on AM radio in the sixties. Huh? That’s where all the people are!

Some days I write great stuff, and sometimes my work is mediocre. By my standards anyway. I’m never bad. You know why? I’ve done it too much. That’s your 10,000 hours right there. But although my audience likes good, they don’t really erupt until I create great. Which no one can do on a regular basis. So I keep pushing the rock uphill, waiting for inspiration, waiting to create incredible so my computer starts ringing like a pinball machine and I’ve got a euphoria…that lasts until the end of the day if I’m lucky. Then it’s back to the salt mines to create something new.

And that’s my philosophy. I don’t believe in selling, I believe in creating. I’m better off staying home and writing than doing any publicity. Because publicity is so bad at hitting the target. Most people reading or listening or watching just don’t care. But if I win online, my minions will forward what I have to say to like-minded people. I win through my art. Or lose, that’s the nature of the game.

I revere Tom Wolfe. But he took a decade to write a novel that was poorly reviewed and it sank like a stone. He could have serialized it online and worked out the kinks while he was building an audience and had a huge hit. That’s how he did it with “Bonfire Of The Vanities,” it originally appeared in serialized form in “Rolling Stone.” But NO, as John Belushi once bellowed, he had to do it the old school way, he had to employ a traditional publisher and get that big fat check. I hope that money keeps him warm at night, while he’s absent from the public discussion.

That’s what creators want… To be part of the public discussion.

And let me tell you, you don’t always win.

But the thrill is in playing.

The online game is a full contact sport. It’s like nothing previous. You’ve got to be great, you’ve got to persevere, and if you gain traction you can reach more people than traditional media outlets. Hell, I reach more people than some TELEVISION STATIONS!

And I’m not saying this to boast, I’m just telling you that if you’re inured to old rules you’re doomed to failure. The old metrics no longer apply.

Create.

Display online. Good and bad, warts and all.

Build an audience.

Have fun.

Don’t worry about money.

And if you hang in there for years, and are truly exceptional, you will be a star.

And the kind of star you’ll be might look different from the radio and video stars of yore, but chances are you’ll be bigger than the radio and video stars of today!

1. Is a revenue producing item for the label, it’s how they get their money back.

2. Is a trigger for publicity.

3. Is too long. On vinyl, you were loath to put more than forty minutes of music on a side. The most classic of double albums, and the cliche is there’s not one that could not be a single, fit on one CD no problem.

4. On vinyl there were four key tracks. Openers and closers on both sides. The CD is incomprehensible. You don’t know what songs you should check out, so overwhelmed, you ignore everything but the hit.

5. Had its breakthrough with “Sgt. Pepper.” If you’ve got a rock opera or something to say over ten or twelve tracks, be my guest, create an album. But I can’t even remember the last cohesive album statement that was any good. This is a straw man.

6. Mainstream publicity is the weakest of them all. Because the mainstream constantly needs a new stream of info. And your product gets brought down by the crap they feature the following day or week. You want word of mouth publicity. And word of mouth publicity doesn’t work on albums, but tracks. You want to go viral. This depends on a cut, not an album. The days of hearing a song on the radio and buying the album so you could hear that and more are done. There’s not a single in existence that you can’t hear alone on YouTube.

7. CDs at gigs are souvenirs. People don’t buy them to listen.

8. The fact that your hard core listens to your album is fine if you’re satiated with only reaching your hard core. But if you find a musician who’s satisfied with the size of his audience, he’s not a musician.

9. Network news was killed by cable news which was killed by the Net. People want the latest on demand. And you’re dropping an album every year or so? And the radio is eking out the music track by track, if you’re lucky? In today’s world you want to be in the public eye constantly. I’m not saying you should make less music, just that you shouldn’t see it as an album.

10. With the cost of production and distribution so low, it’s time to experiment, which is anathema to the dying majors. If you’re a metal band with country roots, cut a country song, why not? The album release cycle was a prison, you’ve been unchained, why do you want to stay inside?

11. The audience has no time. There are too many stimuli. You’re looking for the one track that can set off the explosion. And you never know what track that will be, which is why you must keep creating. Otherwise you can make an album that stiffs and your career can be over.

12. The audience is looking for great things. If you create something great, there’s a plethora of people ready to spread the word. This is more powerful than any newspaper or radio station. But your track must be great, otherwise virality stops cold. You can buy a few YouTube views but you can’t fake virality. The old days of paying radio to play your middling song into a hit are dead.

13. Labels don’t want to abandon the album because it changes their revenue model. You’ve got to pay for the exec’s car, his kids’ private school, his vacation… He likes the old way, he’s gonna fight for the old way.

14. The acts listened to albums so they want to cut albums. Not realizing the way you become a hero today is to do it the opposite or a new way from your heroes. You don’t want to do what’s already been done.

15. The album will not die overnight. But it’s dying as we speak, look at track sales.

16. Sales are miniscule compared to listens. We’re going to a listen world, i.e. streaming. It’s not whether you sold it, but whether people listened to it!

17. You’re the victim of too many bad albums before you.

18. There will always be a demand for superstar albums. But are you a superstar? Furthermore, there are fewer stars than ever before. People don’t have time for more.

19. You want a career. Careers live in the minds of listeners, not gatekeepers. The listener wants nothing more than new music. You don’t want to go on a date once a year with the love of your life, but constantly. And you don’t want to go to the same places and do the same things.

20. Albums were originally collections of 78s. Don’t let the format dictate the music. That begat Napster, when there were too many overpriced CDs with only one good track. You’ve been freed. Then again, it’s a wilderness and you don’t know where to go.

21. Think outside the box. Don’t do it like everybody else does. Make a twenty minute single. Or a two minute one. Issue a challenge to yourself or your audience. This stimulates and creates heat. And what you want is heat.

22. Albums ruled in the classic rock era because of scarcity. You couldn’t hear much and you couldn’t afford much. You played every cut because it was all you had. It’s kind of like dating. Once upon a time you were limited to the people you bumped into physically, now your universe is…the universe! You can even hook up with Russians online! Tell someone to date someone undesirable while they’re hanging out at the Playboy Mansion. That’s kind of like telling someone to listen to your crap when they can listen to the best music made, which is just as free online.

23. Artists need to be leaders, not followers. In this case, the audience wants singles and it’s the artists who are locked in the past. Artists need to get in front of the audience, they need to lead, to titillate and entrance!