He produced Adam Cohen’s new record.

That’s where I was tonight, at the Hotel Cafe, listening to Adam and his cohorts play for not only his father, but his producer, who came up on stage and tickled the ivories on a couple of numbers.

And after the gig was over, we’re standing outside the venue and I say to Patrick, "You did "Live To Tell", right?"

Then he told me the story. He was trying to break into scoring, the notes of the track were the theme for a film entitled "Fire With Fire". He phoned Madonna to ask her to write the lyrics, but on her way to his house, he got fired.

But Madonna figured she’d do the work anyway. And that rough tape made it into James Foley’s hands, and that’s how it ended up in "At Close Range" (in its original demo form, that was the final record…magic is captured and it’s hard to improve).

I love "Live To Tell". It’s my favorite Madonna record. It’s got all the heaviness of the movie.

And then I asked Patrick how he got the gig, how he hooked up with Madonna.

It all came down to the Victory Tour. You remember, the Jackson 5 juggernaut after Michael became a superstar, he did it for his brothers, it was a financial fiasco, but it played to huge audiences.

Patrick Leonard was the musical director.

How’d he get the gig?

He called his buddy Hawk Wolinski, told him he had to get out of Chicago, where he was working for three years doing jingles. This was after his major label deal with Epic for his band Trillion. Patrick was making a living.

Hawk told him about the Jackson 5 gig.

Patrick beat out thirty other competitors, even though no one knew he was, because the guys in the band said HE WAS THE ONLY ONE WHO COULD KEEP TIME!

And you think it’s about tweeting and Facebooking, image, everything but the music.

You’re wrong.

You can fake it to make it, but it won’t last long. Keep every dime you earn, because there probably won’t be any more.

But if you’re a real musician, chances are what looks like your one big break is not gonna be, and if you persevere, you’ll get your chance, if you do the work.

That’s the part that everybody wants to avoid, seeing Snooki on MTV. They think that’s the gig they want. Why is everybody shooting so low?

So, Madonna calls Patrick’s manager, he’s got no desire to talk to her, she’s only done the first album. But his manager insists, and she says she’s a newbie, she’ll give him complete control, she wants him to do for her what she did for the Jackson 5.

You got it? SHE COLD-CALLED HIM!

She wanted Patrick because of the work.

And then Patrick ended up writing not only "Live To Tell" with Madonna, but "Cherish" and "La Isla Bonita" (the music which was originally written for Michael Jackson, who passed!), even stuff years later on "Ray Of Light", the last great thing she did in my book.

And don’t get the idea Patrick was boasting. I pulled the story out of him. Because a fan knows so much, and is eager to hear even more. He’s probably horrified I revealed so much.

But I just had to tell you.

Because it all comes down to the work.

EXPERIENCE

Kevin Systrom wrote his first photo sharing application in 2004.

In case you’re math-challenged, that’s eight years ago.

Think of it this way… How much better would Justin Bieber be if he didn’t emerge into public consciousness until he was 22 instead of 14?

Bieber’s already been eclipsed by One Direction and the Wanted. And if you don’t know that, you’re probably lining up for the Bobby Sherman show.

Paying your dues is never overrated.

SCHOOLING

Zuckerberg tried to get Systrom to work on photo-sharing for Facebook back in 2004. But Systrom decided to stay at Stanford.

Life is long. Sure, dropping out of college works for a few, like Zuckerberg and Jobs, but not most. I don’t think college is a requirement for success, but if you’re bothering to attend, stay in. What you learn in the classroom is only part of it. Your horizons are broadened, you interface with new people, you learn about yourself and ideas. Without a foundation, you’re living on your wits, you’re one false move from failure.

FAILURE

Photobox was in 2004. Then came Burbn. And then Instagram.

Why do you expect to be successful the first time out?

Pros stay at it, amateurs give up.

TWEAKING THE PRODUCT

Instagram was a stripped-down Burbn. You always think you need more, but usually you become successful with less. Less on the track. Fewer cuts.

Send a label three certified smash tracks with your voice and talent way up in the mix and they’ll be salivating to sign you.

Send a label twelve mediocre cuts with bad production and you won’t even get a response.

It’s less about money, less about production, less about slick than letting your talent shine.

iPHONE

Attach yourself to a hot product.

Play Coachella, Bonnaroo and Lollapalooza. You don’t have to reach everybody, just the vocal minority who testify.

Despite the inroads of Android, you’d think the world is run by iPhones…MAYBE IT IS!

CONCEPTION

It took eight weeks to build Instagram. Great work is done upon a burst of inspiration, quickly. Get an idea and act upon it. Don’t overthink it, get it done before you have time to reconsider.

EMPLOYEES

They started out with four, two of them founders. Upon sale to Facebook, there were only thirteen.

Don’t watch too much television, a posse is irrelevant.

More just cocks up the works. Which is why Apple is nimble and Microsoft is a frostbitten behemoth.

TRACTION

Burbn had hundreds of users, Instagram had 25,000 in twenty four hours, 200,000 in seven days and a million in ninety days.

If your idea is not taking off, maybe you need to tweak it.

You’ll know when you have something hot…by the reaction!

SALE TO FACEBOOK

Labels are cash-starved. When entities have tons of cash to throw around, we’ll know the music business is healthy once again.

Facebook needed Instagram. Does the person you’re selling to need your music?

SALE TO FACEBOOK 2

Tech is littered with companies that are sold to someone else for a high price and then abandoned. Can you say Palm? Never mind Geocities? Getting paid is not the be all and end all in music. If you’re into cashing out, you’re in the wrong industry.

SALE TO FACEBOOK 3

Instagram’s fans are up in arms over the sale to Facebook. In a world where MySpace was killed by Facebook and Tumblr is hotter than Facebook, you don’t want to piss off your fans. The amount of ill will towards Facebook is staggering. The company rips off your information and despite constantly apologizing, does it over and over again. Facebook is close to a monopoly. No musical act has this status. Play to your loyal fans first.

Fans are members of a club. If you’re playing to everybody, you’re playing to nobody.

MONETIZATION

Instagram has none.

Then again, Stanford graduates tend to be smarter than musicians.

You’ve got to play for the long money. Once everybody had Instagram, it could fetch a high price from Facebook. Worry about becoming ubiquitous, indispensable, not rich. If everybody needs and wants you, there’s money to be made.

SAYING NO

Systrom said no to Facebook more than once. He didn’t sell until he owned the sphere, had launched for Android and was beginning to be threatened by competitors.

Timing is everything.

Make your deal when you’ve got leverage.

Madonna’s New Album Bombs, Sets Record For Biggest Sales Drop

Well there goes that paradigm.

The Super Bowl sells tickets, it does not sell albums. Not if you’re an ancient superstar dashing for cash. Oldsters just want to hear the hits, and youngsters…just don’t care.

Madonna should have gone on the Home Shopping Network, like Lionel Richie, it would have helped her more. Hell, if she didn’t pull an album with ticket scam with Ticketmaster, Lionel’s sales would have killed her: http://nyp.st/HdcFYn

We no longer live in one big homogeneous society. Madonna is now niche. Just like Rihanna. Talk to hipster rockers, they can’t sing "Umbrella", they’ve never listened to a single Rihanna track, they don’t have to, now you can ignore the dying mainstream quite easily in America.

And Madonna didn’t realize this.

She tried to play the young person’s game. By associating with the hitmakers du jour, by getting plastic surgery and working out to the point where she can dance the night away. The only problem is young people see her as their mother, she’s got no momentum, and old people, her contemporaries, have saggy, lumpy bodies and cringe at someone clinging so hard to youth.

How could Madonna be so out of touch?

Getting old doesn’t have to be a death sentence. You’ve just got to embrace your age. You can inject your face with fillers, but that doesn’t change the age of your insides, of your heart and mind.

Madonna still believed it was the MTV era, a one outlet game with all of us paying attention. We’ve driven so far from that that not only does MTV air no videos, the newspapers, the conventional media Madonna depends upon is dying. And what did Bob Dylan so famously sing? "He not busy being born is busy dying?" For a while there, Madonna kept reinventing herself. But this time she blinked.

And the hippest outlet online outed her.

The headline of that radaronline.com article linked above is:

"Madonna’s New Album Bombs, Sets Record For Biggest Sales Drop"

The debut week, artificially inflated as per the "New York Post" article linked above, was 359,000. This week, 46,000.

EEGADS!

But the people Madge wanted to impress, all those youngsters who don’t read the newspaper, go to Radaronline all the time, it’s got a reputation for breaking the best gossip, even better than TMZ. In other words, Madonna’s efforts worked against her.

Madonna never should have put out a new album.

Or, if she did, she should have taken a left turn, like Mr. Richie above… Duetting with country stars? Sure, it’s a cheap shot, but at least Lionel knew these country stars had strong constituencies.

Rumor has it Madonna’s ticket sales are great. Then again, who’s going to tell the truth in that organization. But, she’s positively old school. Charging a fortune and playing huge venues. It’s like a going out of business sale. What do you do next?

Now was the time for Madonna to make a change.

Since all the money is in touring, she should have given this album away free, or sold it at a discount via Groupon, before that service goes out of business. She should have known that the marketing was more important than the music. She should have come up with an innovative way of making people aware of the tunes that let them hear them for free. Madonna needed to be inclusive instead of exclusive. Didn’t Lourdes teach her that? Young people are all about the group, baby boomers are into domination. Madonna should have come down off her perch and hung in the pit with the rest of us, illustrated that she’s truly just like us.

And she is, even though she won’t acknowledge it.

Wanna create a commotion? Play unannounced club dates. Have your picture taken with fans. Dish the dirt on "The Talk" or "The View" or Howard Stern. Invest in your future career, your longevity, instead of trying to rip people off one more time.

But Madonna’s lost touch. Put her at the end of an endless line, everyone from executives to artists, from Tommy Mottola to Madge herself, who didn’t realize that times changed, that not only is the music different, but the whole environment.

Lionel Richie Moves 20,000 CDs in One Hour on HSN

1. PRACTICE

You need neither talent nor skill to succeed in today’s music business. If you look good enough, we can fix your voice in the studio. And we can get others to write your songs. But the more weapons in your arsenal, not only the longer your career, the greater your options.

Learn how to read music and play one instrument, if not more.

2. RECORD

Recording comes before playing live because you don’t need an audience to do it. Whether done alone on a Mac or an iPad or with your group in a studio, getting your music down "on tape" allows you and others to critique it. It’s a static document from which you can learn. It’s kind of like videotape in sports.

You should not see recording as a one time thing, but as an ongoing activity. To not only learn about your music, but to make you comfortable with the process.

3. DECIDE ON THE MUSIC YOU WANT TO MAKE

Do this after you start recording, after you woodshed.

There are two options. Making the music you want to make and making music that you think you can sell. They oftentimes are not the same.


4. DECIDE WHO YOU WANT TO SELL THIS MUSIC TO

If you’re looking for a major label deal, you must make the kind of music labels sell. And you must know that record companies are first and foremost businesses, they are not museums. If you don’t think you can make a record company a lot of money instantly, don’t bother knocking on the door. Labels don’t want to hear about artist development, they want instant profits, no matter what they say. Don’t try to sell quantum physics to a baby. Don’t try to sell work boots to a runway model. Know who your audience is.

4.A. IF YOU’RE SELLING TO A LABEL…

Make it easy for them, don’t make them connect the dots. Your demo must be slick, ready to be on the radio in its present form. Sure, they might re-record or remix it, but don’t count on a label to have vision.

Visual materials help.

And so does an audience.

But be professional. Your goal is to make the label salivate, desirous of being in business with you.

5. IF YOU’RE NOT SELLING YOUR MUSIC TO A LABEL…

And you shouldn’t be doing this if you’re not making Top Forty music. Oh, you can sign with an indie, but know you’ll probably have trouble getting paid.

Indies are poorly capitalized. They don’t have the relationships of majors. They promise a lot and deliver little.

Of course there are exceptions, but discover if the label you’re interested in truly is one or you just need to make a deal to feel good about yourself, to impress your mother.

We’re living in the era of control. Give up just a teensy-weensy bit of it and you might never gain success. The suits never see it your way. If you think they do, you are one or have never been in business with one.

5.A. YOU MUST BUILD AN AUDIENCE

This is where the games truly begin. Unless you’re a famous actress or sleeping with the producer du jour, no one in the business wants to pay attention to you unless you’ve got an audience.

And the new metrics no longer count.

MySpace could be gamed and so can YouTube and Facebook. High online numbers never hurt, but no one with the money to invest in you is going to believe them on their surface. They want to show up at a gig and see it packed. In multiple cities. They want to know you’ve done the work.

And you might ask yourself if I’m doing all the work, what do I need them for?

And that’s a very good question.

5.B. BUILDING THAT AUDIENCE

It all comes down to the music. Doesn’t matter what you look like or who you know, here’s where the rubber meets the road. Music is something you hear, yours has to be really damn good to connect, exceptional. It has to be so good, that if someone listens to it they want to tell everybody they know about it. Click on the random tracks in your own library, do you want to sell this stuff to everybody? Now you’re getting the idea.

The more people playing, the harder it is to win.

Good is not good enough.

You’ve got to be great.

5.C. ASSUMING YOUR MUSIC IS GOOD ENOUGH

You must make it available. It’s got to be buyable, streamable and listenable for free. You’ve got to make it easy. Don’t make the mistake of thinking about money up front. Money comes last in music, especially in today’s world. You don’t want to sacrifice millions to make $10,000. Are you in it to be a world-beater? Then you must work for free for eons. Every dollar you do make must be reinvested. If you’re not thinking big in music, you won’t be.

5.D. PLAYING LIVE

You’ve got to. Because the days of huge recording sales are done, live is where the money is. Play anywhere and everywhere people will have you. If you’re good, the audience will spread the word.

5.E. MERCH

Must be available at every gig. It’s a souvenir. People want to invest in you. Have everything from posters to vinyl to CDs. You’re selling badges of identity.

6. TRACTION

If you’ve got none, and you’re questioning whether to give up, do so.

Traction is an indicator of whether you’re on the right track. You’ve got to gain a foothold and increase your audience. And you can’t do this artificially. Only you know if you’re going forward. If you’re delusional and want to continue with no traction, that’s your choice.

7. BE A LIFER

There’s no cashing out in music. It isn’t like Instagram selling to Facebook. If you’re not planning to play forever, stop now. Because it’s probably gonna take forever for people to learn who you are and embrace you. With the cacophony of information today it’s harder than ever to get noticed. Sticking around counts for a lot. The longer you’re in the game, the better the chance you might get lucky.

8. PUBLICITY

Works less than ever before. Works on a train-wreck level, like with Rebecca Black, but if you’re the beneficiary of this kind of exposure, milk it for as much as you can right away, because it ain’t gonna last.

The audience is sophisticated, it knows hype, and it ignores hype.

Not only does print mean almost nothing, TV isn’t much better. If TV counted, all those contestants on "American Idol" and "The Voice" would be winners, but almost none of them are.

If you get a placement, enjoy it, just don’t try and convince yourself you’ve made it.

9. CONCLUSION

YOU CAN MAKE IT!

But you can win the lottery too.

But the lottery requires no skill. Music requires a ton of skill as well as luck.

Keep practicing, keep innovating, keep learning, keep changing.

And know that the odds of you being successful are infinitesimal.

Because being successful is not solely about being talented and believing in yourself, but perseverance and personality. Can you play, write and sing like Elton or Gaga and still make friends with everybody you meet, so they’ll want to work for you?

So much of success is psychological and personal. Are you a winner? Do you have charisma? Do people want to hang on your every word? Do girls want to sleep with you and guys want to confess to you and vice versa? If you or someone in your band doesn’t have this magic amalgam of personality, chances are you’re not gonna make it.

Steve Jobs inspired belief. We can deconstruct his personality flaws all day long, but he got people to work extremely hard for him. Can you inspire people to work just this hard for you?