“Old Records Are Outselling New Ones for the First Time”

That’s why Lucian Grainge wants EMI. If you think he’s going to operate what’s left of the legendary label, after stripping off parts to satisfy the EU, you’ve got no sense of music history. Mergers are about contraction. Remember PolyGram? With its Polydor, A&M and Island labels? See them as standalone entities in Universal today?

And what about BMG/Sony? All I see now are two labels, where there used to be a plethora. This merger is not about new music, it’s about old music. It’s about catalog. It’s about leverage. And believe me, there’s a lot more leverage in the Beatles and the Beach Boys than there is in spending a ton of cash on evanescent new acts most of which won’t succeed anyway.

In other words, Lucian Grainge is lying. And the EU and the press are too stupid to know it. Hell, Capitol under Grainge will ultimately be like A&M or Geffen under Jimmy Iovine at Interscope, an imprint, with historical value at best.

As for putting music out today… The album is fading. Not because I said so, but because the consumer said so. The consumer wants to cherry-pick. He only wants what he wants and he wants it now. He doesn’t want to watch everything on AMC, only “Breaking Bad”. This is so different from the way it always was that most people can’t wrap their heads around it. Kids don’t have a short attention span, anybody who says that is completely ignorant. They’ve got an incredible shit detector. They’re only interested in what is great. They only want the hit, because they know the rest is shite and they don’t have the time to waste, they’re dedicated to video games and texting and apps and the old days of being shy of stimulation and playing a mediocre album until you memorized it are done.

Yes, there’s more good music today than ever before. Emphasis on “good”. Used to be the labels acted as a filter. If they signed it, you paid attention, it had the imprimatur of quality. Now the majors have lost said imprimatur and are competing with the rest of the stuff in the marketplace and the consumer is only interested in what bubbles to the surface. As for those of you reading this newsletter and going to see Frank Ocean and Azealia Banks, you don’t count. It’s the mainstream that counts.

And Lucian Grainge knows this. As do his competitors. Which is why they don’t spend years developing that which is left field, that which is not radio-friendly. They call it music “business”, and first and foremost they know this.

And when it comes to any business, distribution is king. The same idiots who say kids have short attention spans spew the fallacious construct that content is king. Nothing could be further from the truth. If something is great, and you can’t buy it, it’s irrelevant.

The majors controlled the music business via distribution. Even if you could get your indie record in the store, a very difficult thing to do, you couldn’t get paid. You had to be aligned with a major to get paid. Lucian Grainge is smart. He wants to bring distribution back under the control of the majors. That’s why you can’t find out what you make at Spotify. Spotify is controlled by its major label investors. And if the Universal/EMI merger goes down, Universal will have even more power. To extract concessions on its terms.

It’s like a bad Mafia movie. Spotify is all digits. But you can’t figure out what you get paid. And nobody at Spotify can talk. For if they do, they might not get killed, but the majors are going to make them pay, teach them a lesson.

The promise of digital was transparency. Something the major labels abhor. They’re doing their best to obscure it again, even though Google provides analytics for free and Apple cuts straight 70/30 deals.

No, but not in the music business.

Be very afraid.

They’re not making more radio stations, which is why the Telecommunications Act of 1996 was so heinous. It concentrated control in the hands of the very few. Sure, the Internet may eventually supersede terrestrial radio, but if that ever happens, it’s going to take decades!

The copyrights that control the music business, and they’re not the new ones, but the old, are not going to expire until most of us are dead. The digital distribution infrastructure put into place today is going to hamstring development in the sphere for decades hence.

Don’t you get it?

This show is gonna change TV news.

What do we know about “The Newsroom”? It’s behind a paywall playing to a limited audience and the critics hate it. But that’s irrelevant. By taking a stand, and doing it well, an individual, in this case Aaron Sorkin, can change the course of history.

This is what music used to do.

Yes, while musical acts are figuring out which ass to kiss, what Fortune 500 corporation to sell out to, HBO is leading the charge. Music is a second class citizen. Movies are a complete joke.

This is the power of excellence. It can change the debate.

Everybody in TV news knows you’ve got to be partisan. You’ve got to be histrionic. You’ve got to do soft news stories that make people sigh. Informing the public? Truth? They’re way down the list. It’s not like these anchors and commentators don’t know what they’re doing, they’re far from ignorant, but they’ve just shrugged their shoulders and said they’ve got no choice, that’s the system. And when Sorkin calls them out, they feel crummy inside. The same way you do when your teacher confronts you about cheating on the test or your mother accuses you of lying. You halfheartedly defend yourself and when the truth comes out, as it always does, you promise to change your ways, you don’t want to feel this bad again. After watching “Newsroom”, and if you think anchors don’t, you probably believe the Mafia didn’t watch “The Godfather” or “The Sopranos”, these newspeople feel dirty, they find it hard to do their same inane shows.

Oh, this fourth episode was far from brilliant. In the middle it devolved into cardboard TV set-up. Who slept with who. Tabloid journalism. Real housewives. But it turned out it was just a ruse. For the big set-up. The media conglomerate itself was setting Jeff Daniels up. They wanted the upper hand.

Ain’t that the way it always is.

That’s why Matt Taibbi gained traction. He spoke the truth the public could not understand. You believe if you just go to work every day, things will work out, that your superiors are playing fair. You don’t understand the game. And everything’s got a game.

You want to know the music business game? The people in power want their bonus. And nothing will stand in the way of it. You might not want to deliver your album when they need it, but then your record starts falling down the chart and you have trouble getting paid. That’s the game powerful people play.

As for dating insecurities, Sorkin got that right too. Daniels may be the powerful anchor, but he’s clueless when it comes to women. And speaking of clueless, Olivia Munn may look like a model, but on this show she’s an economics expert who admits she knows nothing about dating.

Wow, how real is that. The rock star, who if he can get laid every night, does not even know how to speak to women.

And then there’s Sam Waterston imploring Jeff Daniels to date on his level. Hell, it’s always easier to date down, then you’re not challenged, then you don’t feel anxious, then you’re in control.

But nobody’s in control. Everybody’s just faking it. And it’s art’s job to reveal the truth, the man behind the curtain. But today all we’ve got is pussies who do what they are told, adhere to the rules just like the TV newspeople. Hell, they listen to the suits. Don’t you get it, the suits’ interests are not your own, they don’t want truth, justice and the American way, they just want money…in their pocket.

Music could speak this truth too. That’s what Bob Dylan did.

But that tradition is dead. Instead we’ve got a tabloid press questioning who the next “Idol” judge will be. As if judging these wannabes isn’t equivalent to scouting for major leaguers at the Little League game.

One song can make a difference. One TV show can make a difference. The power of the individual is limitless.

But you must pick up the reins and testify. You must be beholden to no one but yourself. You must deliver your message so perfectly-pitched, so expertly crafted, that it’s undeniable.

My inbox is going berserk with this:

Holy Ship

At the risk of overloading you with a third e-mail, and I know after two sign-offs increase dramatically, I must say I know Gary Richards, I know about this cruise…

And for those paying attention, and I know by the volume of e-mail I’m getting on this subject many are, Gary just made a deal with Live Nation. I told him to. Not necessarily Live Nation, I won’t get that specific, but I told him he could not remain independent and could not tie up with a neophyte. Because of the money and the talent.

So you’re loyal to Gary/Hard Events. That’s just great. But right now, “Coachella” has got a greater reach. That’s the power of brand names. That was my point.

And for those saying that talent is king… I agree. Except, as stated previously, recent events have proven that going it alone, with your own money, is a tough row to hoe. It’s kind of like starting a car company. Other than Tesla, which got a rave review in the “Wall Street Journal”

I Am Silent, Hear Me Roar

the highway is littered with the carcasses of failed automobile companies. The startup and infrastructure costs hobble you. What everybody does on a mass scale everyday, like pollution controls, you have to engineer from scratch, or pay dearly to license. Justin Bieber may drive a Fisker, but the cars have been poorly reviewed and analysts don’t expect the company to survive.

In other words, the odds are stacked against you. If you want to become a concert promoter, book that which Live Nation and AEG want no part of. Otherwise, their money and might will come in and trounce you.

Now that Gary Richards is aligned with Live Nation he not only has the company’s deep pockets at his disposal, but also its relationships, with both artists and agents. There’s no loyalty in this business anymore. Which is why indies get trounced. Your only hope is to pay top dollar and utilize your leverage to convince someone to play with you. That’s how Randy Phillips got Britney Spears to sign with AEG half a decade back. He told her managers he would get promotion in Regal Theaters, which are under the same corporate umbrella.

Yet it is heartening that without a big promotional campaign, without paying PR people to spread the word, the people who truly care, the members of the electronic music community, are aware of the Holy Ship!! cruise.

Grow or die.

Expect the usual suspects, Live Nation and AEG, to expand. Now the turf war has been expanded to the sea. I’m not saying every niche cruise is at risk, then again, so many of the acts on those boats Live Nation and AEG want no part of.

Cruises offer a couple of things that are hard to get elsewhere. Like-minded community and intimacy. People will pay dearly for these. Life is about experiences more than money. Then again, you oftentimes buy experiences with your money. And these boats don’t leave every week. You want to be on them.

From Desert to Cruise Ship: Coachella Heads to Sea

Personally, I believe they’re missing a giant opportunity, they should have made it the Sahara Tent At Sea. The time to capitalize on electronic music is now, no one knows the future, this is what kids want to do. Go to sea, get high and dance. Then again, imagine the legal problems! Hell, if someone died at sea on a Coachella boat, that’d quash the venture forever. But I wouldn’t be surprised if there are O.D.’s on the vessel anyway. Put that many people together and anything can and will happen.

But the big point here is Coachella is now a brand name. Which Paul Tollett does his best to polish and maintain. He doesn’t whore it out, it’s got respect, it’s got an audience. And anybody trying to compete…has a problem.

There are four big festivals. Coachella, Lollapalooza, Bonnaroo and Austin City Limits. Bonnaroo couldn’t expand to Vegas and C3, the company behind ACL, is also behind Lollapalooza and other ventures, not that the punter would know this, but the point is if you’re entering into the festival business today, good luck. Hell, look at the UK, where oversaturation has come to roost and put a huge dent in the market.

Dave Matthews couldn’t succeed on his own last summer and Metallica had a highly reviewed festival that didn’t break 30,000 per day. And we can debate locations and lineups all day long but never forget that Coachella lost money for years. If you’re launching a festival and planning to be profitable instantly, you’re dreaming. The weather alone could kill you.

But it turns out like just as no act is as big as a label, certainly prior to the Napster era, now no act is bigger than the promoter, no act is bigger than Coachella. In other words, AEG may pay, but AEG rules.