1. John Mayer "Born and Raised"

Sales this week: 65,432
Percentage change: -70
Weeks on: 2
Cume: 285,370

I love the opening cut, "Queen Of California":

Goodbye cold
Goodbye rain
Goodbye sorrow
And goodbye shame

John Mayer "Born and Raised" Spotify

That’s the L.A. experience. Leaving the oppression behind for a land of opportunity. And the track sounds as fresh and optimistic without being dumb as the sounds emanating from Laurel Canyon forty years ago, without being a retread.

Unfortunately, the rest of the album is in the same groove. I wish John could do what those seventies artists did, be mellow and rock on the same album.

Alas, his fans don’t mind. These are pretty good numbers for someone who’s been on a self-imposed hiatus. Not that I know why.

Oh, I understand the health/throat issues, those are unfortunate. But I saw no reason for Mayer to fall on his sword. Despite the wimpiness of half his music, Mayer’s been on the cutting edge, he’s been inventing the social/online/new publicity paradigm. He did a cruise before everybody got onboard, and even had his own TV show and "Esquire" column. And he was playing with the interviewer in "Playboy" and all of the nuance got lost on the cutting room floor. So he was pilloried. Unjustifiably so.

As for him being self-centered/narcissistic… Hate to tell you, but they all are, that’s what it takes to be successful.

But the real story here, the reason I’m writing at length, is because of Mayer’s comment re Taylor Swift’s song "Dear John" in "Rolling Stone". Unlike me, I thought Mayer had the good sense not to comment. But now he’s broken his silence. One could say he’s doing so to help sell his record, but the tonality is such that he seems really hurt. "Humiliated" is a strong word to use.

But what’s most interesting to me is the impact this will have on Taylor Swift.

In case you didn’t notice, like that old Pursuit Of Happiness song, she’s an adult now. Shirley Temple was cute as a kid and a nonstarter when fully grown. That confessional bite you in the ass game Taylor played as a youngster just doesn’t go down that well as an adult.

I can take it. My main problem with Taylor Swift writing about me is the fact that she couldn’t take it. Hell, if I wanted to respond to the hatred coming into my inbox I wouldn’t have time to do anything else. It goes with the territory. Never feels good, but Bob Dylan had it right…

While one who sings with his tongue on fire
Gargles in the rat race choir
Bent out of shape from society’s pliers
Cares not to come up any higher
But rather get you down in the hole
That he’s in

"It’s Alright, Ma (I’m Only Bleeding)"

So now the onus is on Ms. Swift. Mayer put the hot potato in her lap. He didn’t sling any dirt, and said quite honestly that if she had a problem with him, he never got an e-mail or a phone call. The way human beings communicate. Hell, don’t we all hate hearing about our foibles from third parties? As for she being nineteen and innocent… Give me a break, it takes two to tango. Mayer is a well-documented lothario/ladykiller, if Swift didn’t know what she was in for, she’s got a clone who does all the writing and performing.

Expect Swift to blink. Because she’s sensitive. She’s not gonna double down, not after being called out.

And she lost in all her categories at the CMT Awards last night, hell, she didn’t even go, she watched the Kings.

And that’s totally fine with me. The CMTs are a joke.

But we’ll only be interested if Swift gives us new music that’s straight and from the heart and not vindictive, yet still honest. I’m not sure she has it in her.

But we’ll find out.

John Mayer in "Rolling Stone"

2. Adele "21"

Sales this week: 57,840
Percentage change: +4
Weeks on: 67
Cume: 9,264,442

The game here is to diminish expectations for what comes after.

And not to wait until this album drops off the chart to release new music.

As for being too soon, that window has already closed.
Many people have still not heard "21". It’s this generation’s "Tapestry". She’s the anti-star. Even if she ends up the new Alanis Morissette, this one album was enough. And really, Adele’s had two already, Alanis really only had one.

4. One Direction "Up All Night"

Sales this week: 41,433
Percentage change: +12
Weeks on: 12
Cume: 739,186

In case you missed the memo, One Direction’s video outsold Mayer’s album. They sold 76,000 copies of their DVD "Up All Night: The Live Tour".

And the only people who truly care are the little girls with crushes and the oldsters getting paid.

This is boy band mania, nothing more, nothing less. We’ve seen this movie before and we’ll see it again.

But what’s most interesting is the generation buying it. One not beholden to the old norms of MTV and overpriced CDs. Who in the music business is going to follow the new audience, throw out the CDs and play on their level?

14. Eric Church "Chief"

Sales this week: 15,073
Percentage change: -2
Weeks on: 45
Cume: 839,586

He’s selling what used to be Nashville’s stock in trade… Authenticity.

But with everybody on the country chart a fake, ass-kissing, megachurch-going sellout, Church looks like Bob Dylan.

Maybe his success will beget more of him.

But that would require all those naysayers complaining the game is phony and rigged to actually get inside and take over the empty carcass that country music has become.

18. Jack White "Blunderbuss"

Sales this week: 13,716
Percentage change: -27
Weeks on: 6
Cume: 284,036

He just can’t write a memorable song. I love the penumbra, the vinyl, the viewpoint. But I just don’t want to go home and put on his records. Isn’t there anybody in his camp who can tell him to go for greatness with his songwriting?

Jack is for fans only. The fact that he’s the poster boy for mainstream media’s new music business model does not change what’s in the grooves. Unlike Adele, you can’t spread Jack’s music far and wide.

You can shoot the messenger now.

22. Of Monsters And Men "My Head Is An Animal"

Sales this week: 12,042
Percentage change: -35
Weeks on: 9
Cume: 168,617

This is both a testimony and a condemnation of radio. The reason this album is number 22 is because of radio. But if radio meant anything, if it wasn’t a circle jerk perpetuated by the players in it and dependent upon it, Of Monsters And Men would be far bigger. Hell, in the heyday of MTV the band would be gigantic.

There’s something here. It ain’t completely clear.

Is Of Monsters And Men a fad or here to stay?

Ask Mumford & Sons, which is using its success as a springboard to stretch and change the paradigm, to excite its audience.

Please read this:

Gentlemen of the Road

This excitement is about music, not about grosses. It’s been such a long time since live has been anything but complaints you can’t get an overpriced ticket. Mumford & Sons is trying to increase its longevity by using its newfound power to titillate and bond with the audience.

Funny, for all its innovation, you don’t see Radiohead doing this.

And you certainly don’t see the old farts doing it.

Play to your active fans. Satiate them. They’re your best bet for spreading the word.

49. Garbage "Not Your Kind Of People"

Sales this week: 7,704
Percentage change: -65
Weeks on: 3
Cume: 49,151

Proof that press doesn’t sell records.

Is there anybody truly excited about the return of Garbage? An incredible first album that the band couldn’t even follow up, which is why they went away.

You can work the intermediaries, but that does not mean the end players, the public, those who count, will care.

Press doesn’t buy music or tickets. Please play to those who care.

And it’s all been print. The music has had no footprint.

Then again, without the media campaign, this album would have been completely dead on arrival.

53. Katy Perry "Teenage Dream"

Sales this week: 7,297
Percentage change: +1
Weeks on: 93
Cume: 2,226,888

There’s so much to hate here. Then again, she’s not playing to me.

But she doesn’t stop playing to those who care.

Perry’s a star, and she’s acting like a star. Not complaining. Constantly in your eye. Releasing new music off album cycle. She’s doing everything right, she’s a twenty first century diva.

And she’s the anti-diva. She’s accessible. Little girls believe if she stopped by their house they could go into their mother’s closet and have a blast playing dress-up.

Do you go away from your regular friends? Of course not, you talk and text constantly. Now that stars are creatures of the public, it’s best to get in bed with the public. Katy does that so well. I applaud her for it.

74. Zac Brown Band "You Get What You Give"

Sales this week: 5,520
Percentage change: +7
Weeks on: 89
Cume: 1,502,913

It’s not hit dependent. It’s about Zac’s bond with his audience, delivering. Not hits so much as an overall music experience. Zac doesn’t have the charisma or looks of Eric Church, but he’s even more of an outlaw, yet winning at his own game.

Have you seen the Mary Meeker slides?

She showed them at last week’s D Conference. But a tech entrepreneur friend of mine tweeted about them today, a week later.

Or how about David Lowery’s screed about the new boss being worse than the old boss? That was posted on April 15th, but almost ever day someone still forwards it to me. They’re just getting the message.

When I was in high school, everybody watched “Laugh In” on Monday night, discussed it in school on Tuesday and that was it. In the twenty first century, Adele has the number two selling album week after week even though it was released in excess of a year ago. The new buyers just got the message.

We believe in the new online media world, with everybody connected, all the time, that it’s easier to spread the word. It’s actually harder. Sure, there are phenomenons that explode overnight. Interestingly, most of them are just as quickly forgotten, like that band from Canada playing Gotye’s track on one guitar. Or the guy who said United broke his guitar, where’s that guy today? Chances are, instant notoriety will be just that. Rebecca Black is already a “Where is she now?” question, the only person who doesn’t realize that is her. It’s all about the long haul now, that’s how long it takes you to get noticed!

And don’t count on the media infrastructure to help you out. Television is all about today’s ratings, how can we goose them right now, TV doesn’t want to develop anything, it wants an instant splash or to cancel your ass.

And record labels are almost as bad. If you can’t break immediately, they don’t want to sign you. But as delineated above, the only thing that cuts through the clutter is lowest common denominator train-wreck, empty calories.

So, the higher your expectations, the harder you push, the more you’re working against yourself. Now, more than ever, it comes down to substance. Because marketing is passe. You can gain eyeballs initially with money and press, but you can’t keep them. For that you rely on word of mouth and media adoption after the fact. Hell, Amanda Palmer’s been making music in excess of a decade, but only when she won the Kickstarter sweepstakes did the mainstream media finally become interested.

So it’s counterintuitive. With everybody reachable, instantly, you think you can make everybody pay attention, fast. But with so many choices available, frequently deep niches that super-serve a narrow slice of fans, your message is not only ignored, it’s not even heard.

We even see this in tech. Everybody knows what turntable.fm is in a matter of weeks. Now, the site is dying without ever having made any money. FourSquare just redesigned itself in the hopes of gaining revenue. There are so many apps released that you don’t even bother to scan the store, you just wait until you hear about the hip one from friends. And then you use it for a while and abandon it. Madonna gets everybody to pay attention for fifteen minutes at the Super Bowl, but almost no one wanted to hear her new music, never mind buy it. She’s still living in the eighties, where promotion is everything and scarcity rules.

It’s kind of like Mt. Everest. Once upon a time, it was headline news when a human being scaled it. Now there are so many people climbing that there are traffic jams, with people dying as a result. If you make it to the top, it’s not news. But if you die, you get a bit of ink. But you won’t ever see it, you’re already gone.

Bob,

Your review gave me chills!

I, for one, have discussed, many times, with many people, the idea that Brian is, perhaps, the Mozart of our generation. I love the Beatles. I love the Stones. I love the Who and the Byrds. But "Pet Sounds" and "Sunflower" blew my mind. There are moments on those albums that transcend anything I have ever heard before.

My Dad’s sister was the first woman George Szell ever hired. She retired, after forty-three years, as the senior member of The Cleveland Orchestra. I grew up as their "mascot." I got to sit on stage while the greatest symphony in the world rehearsed at Severance Hall. Very heady stuff. I hid in a cello case, one day, and caused the entire orchestra to stop rehearsing to look for me. It was a very special childhood.

I had the great honor to tour with The Beach Boys, both as part of The Raspberries in 1974, and as a solo act in 1976. I can remember standing in the back of the hall listening to them play "Surfer Girl" every night, and, literally, getting tears in my eyes every time they came to a stop after… "Do you love me, do you surfer……." Then the spotlight would hit Al Jardine as he would sing …."girl." It was really an odd feeling to be brought to tears, almost every single night by such a simple song.

We stayed in the same hotels, on tour, and I remember walking past one of the Beach Boys hotel rooms, and hearing them rehearsing acapella vocal parts. It stopped me in my tracks, and I walked backwards, literally stunned, listening to the complexity and beauty of those vocal harmonies. To this day, I have never heard anything that could compare.

McCartney has been very generous in his admission that "Pet Sounds" inspired him to push the Beatles to create "Sgt. Pepper." He thought the Beach Boys were kicking his ass. He’s also acknowledged the fact that he thinks "God Only Knows" is, perhaps, the greatest pop song of all time. As a huge fan of both the Beatles and the Beach Boys, I can only say that it is surely genius.

Anyone who has ever listened to the "outtakes" of Brian directing the studio musicians during the "Pet Sounds" sessions knows what a genius Brian was. He took instruments that never had been heard on "pop" songs" and blended them into the vocals, unlike anything we had ever heard before. Clarinets, bassoons, french horns, baritone saxes. Every singer in the Beach Boys was an instrument. Mike Love was a baritone sax. Carl Wilson, a french horn, Al Jardine occasionally a banjo, or a trumpet.

No other band in history has ever influenced me as much as the Beach Boys. Brian stands alone as the genius of my generation, even though I, like many others, was late to catch up with him.

I challenge ANYONE to listen to "This Whole World" ( which changes keys every 8 bars ) or  "Until I Die" and find anything comparable in pop music. But you don’t have to delve into the "modern" Beach Boys to find pure genius. Just listen to "Warmth Of The Sun, " circa 1966. I had to go back and do my homework to hear the genius stuff Brian created BEFORE "Pet Sounds."

To me, there has never been anyone, not even The Beatles (and I LOVE The Beatles) that could match the sophistication and brilliance of Brian Wilson in 1966.

I’ve always loved John and Paul, and Burt Bacharach, and Goffin and King, and all the other great songwriting teams that churned out hit after hit during the time I grew up. But nobody, and I mean NOBODY, could match the brilliance of Brian Wilson, who not only wrote the songs, but arranged and produced them. He didn’t have a George Martin to help. It was all Brian.

I met Darian Sahanaja, when I was living in L.A. He’s the leader of the Wondermints, who are now Brian’s backing band, and prominently featured on the current Beach Boys tour. I heard a demo tape he had made, that included a song called "Tracy Hide", which, to me captured the essence of what Brian was doing during the "Pet Sounds" era. It was startling to hear Darian nail Brian, right down to the bass sound.

It’s no coincidence that Darian ended up being Brian’s musical director, and a driving force on the "Smile" album. I’ve also had the supreme pleasure of having worked with Mark Linnet, the superstar engineer who has been archiving every Beach Boys recording, and turning analog to digital for two decades. If you haven’t heard the "40th Anniversary Pet Sounds" recording that Mark remixed, you have a real treat in store for you. I heard things in that remix that I had NEVER heard before, not even after listening to "Pet Sounds’ a thousand times.

The world takes its toll on very sensitive people. I’ve seen it many times in my forty years in the music business. The more brilliant and sensitive, the more likely you are to be a basket case by the time the managers, agents, record labels, etc., get done with you. Very few people I have known have escaped being bludgeoned by "the business." Brian is no exception.

All I can say is I’ve never met a serious songwriter or musician that doesn’t understand that Brian is a genius of the highest magnitude in a time of multiple geniuses. Mick and Keith. John and Paul. Page and Plant. Clapton and Bruce.

To me, there will never be anyone that can compare with him, and, by the way, that in no way diminishes my esteem for Mike Love, who, truth be told, was HUGE, and underrated in the whole Beach Boys paradigm. And Bruce Johnston, Carl Wilson, Dennis Wilson and Al Jardine are not exactly "chopped liver", either. I’ve known all of them and each one possessed more talent than anyone I hear on the radio these days.

I’ve got my tickets to see them next Wednesday. I wouldn’t miss it for the world. You don’t often get the chance to hear genius these days.

Eric

A Concert Mogul Is Betting on Electronic Dance Music

You’ve got to sell to somebody. Just ask Zappos. Or Groupon!

Zappos sold to Amazon, otherwise the online retail giant would have gone into competition with the sassy shoe sales site. As for Groupon… It should have sold to Google. It made the mistake of believing couponing was forever.

Is electronic music forever?

Yes.

But at this level of attention and attendance?

Unclear.

What EDM (and I know insiders hate that term) has going for it is it’s not like what came before. And it’s dedicated twenty years to becoming what it is. Arguably, even longer. You may not have been paying attention, but soon after those Kraftwerk and Donna Summer records came out a scene was born, which has grown into a behemoth in Europe and is now burgeoning in America. It’s paid its dues. And the promoters tend to be of the people, paying attention to the people. It’s not corporate. It’s about the experience. Attendees feel they own the scene. Which is completely unlike going to the shed or arena to see a corporate show.

So far, EDM has not even penetrated arenas. Its fans like outdoor sites. Or tents. Culture, venue, is all important to them.

So wouldn’t the promoters want to stay independent?

Just ask John Scher. The fiercely independent promoter would probably still defend his decision not to make a deal with Sillerman fifteen years ago, but that was a mistake. He could have taken the money, chafed under management and gone independent again, all the richer.

So the indie EDM promoters have to sell out.

First and foremost, because they don’t have enough money. You can’t compete with deep pockets. And once Sillerman or someone else collects competitors it gets ever harder to book talent and put on an event. Yes, talent goes where the dollar is. Not only the offer, but the guarantee you get paid. Loyalty gets lip service, but ultimately you go with the dough.

So who do you make a deal with?

You could go with Live Nation. But that would be problematic. First and foremost there are two majordomos, Azoff and Rapino, and they oftentimes don’t see eye to eye. One can ask who’s in charge…

Or, you could go with AEG. Which runs a haimish, family-style organization, but it’s built on rock, on pop, EDM is something new.

That’s the fascinating story here. That Live Nation and AEG missed it. Like Microsoft missing tablets and Facebook missing mobile. You can be the biggest behemoth on the block, and if you’re not looking towards tomorrow, you’re ultimately doomed.

Furthermore, Sillerman is willing to overpay. Live Nation is a public company that has never made a profit and has debt on its balance sheet. AEG is ultimately a real estate play. Phil Anschutz doesn’t want to overpay for bragging rights.

But Sillerman does.

Yes, Bob Sillerman doesn’t mind paying too much. Because unlike his competitors, he’s not in the concert business. He’s in the money business. The goal is to build an asset and sell it. It’s just that simple. How do you roll up something so shiny on the surface that those not in the know will overpay you for it.

That’s what Sillerman did with Clear Channel. He sold the original SFX to the radio giant. Ultimately, there was a huge write-down and a spin-off. And as stated above, Live Nation is still not profitable.

So who do you go with if you’re an independent? The guy who’ll overpay you who will let you do it your way, because there’s no infrastructure, no central management to get in your way?

Expect this to change. As it did at the original SFX. But for now, you make a deal with Bob, you get a huge check, and it’s the same as it ever was. Furthermore, the more promoters he rolls up, the greater his and your leverage. As for the long term… That’s about acts, not promoters, if you don’t know you’re fungible, get out of the promotion business immediately.

And is all this good for the music, good for the public?

Looking at SFX/Clear Channel/Live Nation, one would have to say no. Someone has to pay that bill, someone has to justify giving all those promoters millions, and it’s the public. And with more competition in the field, the price of acts goes up, they play promoters off each other, and shows become even more expensive to produce, and attend.

So for those of you who were against the Live Nation/Ticketmaster merger… It seems not to have eliminated competition one bit. There are more ticketing companies than ever and Live Nation is not the only promoter in the game, there appears to be no barrier to entry other than a deep pocket.

As for Live Nation itself… Maybe Azoff ultimately signs all the deejays to Frontline. Irving may not be first, but his charisma and financial skills often put him in the catbird seat. But where does that leave Azoff vis a vis Rapino? And if Live Nation were private, would it overspend to keep Sillerman out of the market, playing for a very long term that Wall Street doesn’t respect or understand?

The times they are ‘a changing.

And the reason they are is because of the music.

All of the old players missed it. Oh, established promoters will protest they own this and that, but if there weren’t successful independents, which they could have purchased for a song way back when, they wouldn’t be in this pickle.

It’s very exciting. For business.

On a musical level?

Not so much.