Ask not what the middleman can do for you, ask what you can do that’s so good it eliminates the need for a middleman.

Yesterday I went to the Houdini exhibit at the Skirball Museum.  Other than astounding me with the number of Jews in magic, I was struck by the technological changes that wreaked havoc on the art form.  Movies, silent and sound, radio and television, they’d killed vaudeville, you no longer had to leave home to see the show, it came to you.

Begging the question of whether concert ticket prices will ever come down.  Maybe going to the gig will no longer be a regular habit, maybe concerts are a special event and most people experience music at home, or on the go in their own little world.

Suck on that for a while…

Don’t be distracted by the muckety-mucks trying to jet back to the past, just concern yourself with technological advancements and keep marching into the future.

In other words, "American Idol" and radio are positively old school.  Dying art forms that still have some power but will mean ever less as the years go by.

Radio?  You mean I have to sit there and listen and wait for my song to come on?  When I’ve got an iPod and I can watch TV programs on demand on screens both big and small, even my iPad?  Music radio is history.  Talk radio will sustain.  It unfolds in real time.

As for "American Idol"…who was the winner again?  That show was about competition and advertising, music was featured, but stars are not being built because that’s no longer what a star is.

A star is not someone who is hyped by money into the hearts of America.

A star is someone who creates something by his or her wits that is so intriguing that it’s forwarded to millions.

Ponder that.

Don’t make a record to get a label deal.  Don’t make a record to get on the radio.  Make a record that makes those who listen to it want to tell everybody they know about it.

This is much more difficult than the old money-focused way.  Because it depends on creativity and quality.

Sure, you can dedicate your 10,000 hours and become really proficient.  But that’s not the only reason we love the tracks of yore.  We love them because of their creativity, because of their insight, how did Frank Zappa come up with those ideas?

Maybe you’ve never heard "Status Back Baby", from the second Mothers of Invention album, "Absolutely Free".  It’s a jaunty number that sounds like twisted Top Forty music that recites the frustration of one’s spot on the teenage totem pole.  Zappa died before his time.  Not enough people heard "Status Back Baby".  They would have had to buy the album, which contained no radio hits, they would have had to have a friend who owned it.

But a friend turned me on to "Flower Punk" from the subsequent album.  He made me put on the headphones and listen to the two inane commentaries competing in each ear.  That made me a Zappa fan.

That’s how you make fans today.  By making something so creative or good that people pay attention.  That’s the major label formula.  They want to sign you AFTER you’ve gotten everybody to pay attention.  But if you make that deal you’re shortsighted, because all the label can do is get you on radio and TV, two dying media, meanwhile taking too much of the upside and paying very little in advance.

In other words, one Funny Or Die clip is better than hours spent working with Dr. Luke.  That’s the secret of OK Go.  The videos were so creative, they were passed from hand to hand via e-mail, IM and the Facebook wall.

Yes, the words of the poets are written on the Facebook wall, the subway’s passe.

So instead of handing out fliers, e-mailing everybody you know to listen to your music, the game is to stay home and create something so good, so interesting, that when it’s posted online, people won’t be able to stop sending it to their friends.

It’s not even about genres.  There are no limits online.

And catchy is catchy.  I may have only heard Rebecca Black’s "Friday" one time through, but the chorus is stuck in my head.

So stand back, take a deep breath and change direction.  Don’t play by the old rules.  Today you’ve got to be really good or really creative or both.  Your song must connect in one listen.

That doesn’t mean you can’t keep trying, you can’t keep uploading songs and videos, but the sheer mass, just staying in the game, won’t help.  You’re now an inventor, looking for that one breakthrough product.  When you succeed, your history is unlocked and your fans can wallow in your past.  This is the opposite of the major label paradigm.  There’s the hit and..?

Status Back Baby

Flower Punk 

All the scuttlebutt about Adele has been the chart success, BUT HAVE YOU LISTENED TO THE MUSIC?

For too many years we’ve been inundated with look at me artists.  I’m better than you.  Watch me dance, see my big tits, come join the party.

You don’t want to party with Adele.  THERE IS NO PARTY!

Hip-hoppers sing of kicking women to the curb.  This is a record made by someone who WAS kicked to the curb.  How does that feel?

You know.  Because you’re not a famous rapper, you’re not a famous starlet.  We’re inundated with them, from Paris Hilton to Kim Kardashian.  It’s fun to watch the movie, but it’s soulless.  And you can never say that about "21".

"21" is a peek into Adele’s world.  Her inner life.  It’s like we walked by a house and heard someone crying, got closer, and put our nose to the window.  And inside, saw someone who was where we’ve once been.  The land of heartbreak.  It’s the human condition.  To the point where some hook up with someone random just to stay in the game and others get old and refuse to play anymore.

It’s not about automobiles.  It’s not about being rich.  It’s about being human.

There’s a distance between "21" and the listener, and that’s why we’re so infatuated.  That’s why there’s no stage set-up required.  That’s why it’s not about festivals and arenas.  Because it’s not about being part of a mass audience, it’s not about the party, it’s not about dancing, it’s about connecting with the artist, doing a mind-meld.

Not that Adele is better than the artists of yore.  But she’s part of a long continuum.  Which has been whittled down to a thread.  But when we hear something real, we connect.

That’s what’s amazing about "21".  It’s about the music.  Not about the videos.  Not about the fame.  Only the music.

Sure, now that she’s successful she’s pulling back on the hype.  But that’s the way it’s always been done.  Even the Who did a commercial.  Before "Tommy", before credibility.  You do anything and everything to get traction, then you pull back.

But people want to tear Adele down.  Talk about her statements re paying taxes.  As if music is about stardom, as if artists are paragons who’ve got it all figured out and never say anything wrong or stupid.  But they do.  As did John Lennon.  The best are honest and open, instead of hiding behind makeup and getting cut to appeal to an ideal that doesn’t really exist. Tell me the men who like the inflated lips of the trout pout set.  It’s an endless race to the bottom.  One in which money trumps art and everybody’s looking to get rich quick and won’t take a risk.  Where marketing is more important than music. Where set-up is king.

Sure, XL and Sony helped make Adele a success.

But the reason she’s become a juggernaut is the music.

The tracks don’t sound exactly alike.  They don’t have the required beats.  She’s not playing by the rules.

And that’s why we like her so much.  It’s like she’s taken the TMZ/Perez scene and flushed it down the toilet and walked away.

You’ve got to listen to the tracks.  There’s not a clinker on the record.  It’s one of the few albums you want to play from beginning to end, over and over again.

And you’ve got no doubt she can sing.  It’s not studio trickery.  It hearkens back to what once was much more than it looks into the future, yet it’s not retro, it’s just right.

You know the single, "Rolling In The Deep", but the next track is "Rumor Has It".  It’s got a tribal beat that Paul Simon wishes he could lock on to:

She, she ain’t real
She ain’t gonna be able to love you like I will
She is a stranger
You and I have history

HISTORY!  That’s one of the hardest parts of breaking up.  You split up the friends, the photos, you’re cleaved in half and forced to start all over.  Romance is a bad "Groundhog Day".

The third track, "Turning Tables", is the piece de resistance.  It’s the song that Rufus Wainwright is dying to write.  With all the drama, all the emotion of the tail end of a relationship.  It’s an epic, with strings, a mini-opera, with the classic line:

I won’t let you close enough to hurt me

Who hasn’t been there?  You get too close and you get burned.  You’d like to return, but you’ve been singed and you just can’t do it again.

"Don’t You Remember".  A quintessential album cut.  Starting so quietly, it’ll never be played on Top Forty radio.  The first line says it all:

When will I see you again?

The one left behind.  He or she is not done yet.  They believe if they see you they can convince you to stay, or at least hearing it in the flesh accept the truth and begin to heal.  But who hasn’t dealt with a wimp who can’t even tell you you’re done to your face?

"Set Fire To The Rain" has a jauntiness akin to the lyrics.  The recovery process has begun.  The anger has been embraced and is now being evidenced.

What’s enrapturing about "He Won’t Go" is the sound.  The twinkling, jazzy piano, like a rainy street after a night in the club. And the killer line:

If this ain’t love, what is?

I climbed this mountain and I’m not at the peak?

And "I’ll Be Waiting" has an upbeat feel, no one can accuse Adele of making a completely downbeat album.  Kind of like when you start to recover from the end of relationship, you have good moments, they counter the bad.

"One And Only" is what the "American Idol" contestants strive for, but can’t achieve.  With them, it’s solely about the vocal gymnastics.  But they’re only half, the other half is the story, the song, when Adele sings you have no doubt it’s her, her story.  And she stays shy of Mariah Carey/Christina Aguilera histrionics.  Because just because you can do it, that does not mean you should.

And the closer, "Someone Like You", is the summation.  It’s done, it’s over, she’s recovered, to the degree anybody really can, he’s got someone else, she accepts it, if she still doesn’t like it.

The killer couplet:

I had hoped you’d see my face
And that you’d be reminded that for me it isn’t over

WHEW!

I’m truly shocked.  I’d about given up.  People play me what they’re into and I brush it aside, it’s subpar, it’s music, but it’s not life itself.

But then I hear "21" and I get that tingle, my inner flame starts to flicker, my faith in music is suddenly rekindled.  That the art form can be more honest and more pleasing than any other.

You know what hooked you once?

"21" has got that.

And the public has responded.  In a record breaking way.

This is not anomalous.  This is the way out.  This is the beacon.  Very few can do it, but enough can to sustain us.

Music happens in the mind.  It goes in the ears and percolates in the brain.  When done right, you close your eyes.  Why has everybody been imploring us to keep our eyes open for so long?

I don’t care if you like punk or jazz or emo or hip-hop, you should listen to "21".  You’ll get it.  Because it’s open.  And honest.

Like you.

Read this story:

The secret of Adele’s success? 
No festivals, tweeting – or selling out. 
Soul superstar reveals how staying small has made her massive

This is SO right it should be distributed to every wannabe musician to shed light on the proper direction to take in a career.

It’s about music.  And credibility.  And Adele has both.

The public believes her music is real and believes she’s all about the music.  That’s another one of America’s downfalls, executives wanting bigger paychecks convincing vulnerable musicians that they’ve got to play with the Fortune 500 and Clear Channel to get ahead.

Hogwash.

People want to believe. That’s what blew up music forty years ago, that’s what’s been lost in the MTV/CD era.  People no longer believe the artists are all about pursuing their craft, getting it right.  People can’t identify with artists the same way they can’t identify with Lloyd Blankfein and the rest of the Wall Street titans.  Come on, read that Mariah Carey tripe.  Is this YOU?

But Adele is not a perfect physical specimen, at least by mainstream media standards, and she’s vulnerable and you can relate. THAT’S the essence of music.

Neil Young had it right.  Tying up with corporations sullies the art.  It has a chilling effect.  Gilbert Gottfried might have put his Aflac income at risk, but no musician would do this.  Hell, you can’t get most musicians to even evidence a political view, for fear of pissing off some potential audience member in the hinterlands.

It’s your name on the marquee.  Not Jimmy Iovine’s.

Then again, Jimmy Iovine should be ashamed of himself for appearing on "American Idol".  You’ve got to watch the final.  After all the media hoopla, the testimony about J. Lo and Tyler, THESE are the contestants?  Charisma challenged tykes singing songs written by hacks?  Is this a joke?

Funny how only English acts will underplay.  Both Adele and Mumford could sell more tickets, but think it would work against them.

Adele appears on the side of her fans, by railing against the special packages made to cash in at the cash register but rip off buyers.

And no amount of Tweeting and Facebooking and online dunning will make up for lame music.

And if you’ve got great music, the rest is superfluous.  We’ve got the means to spread the word, the Internet is king, it’s fast and it’s seen as free.  We want to shove something down the pipe, something we believe in, that we were not overhyped on, that we were not beaten over the head with, that we think is on our side, something that speaks to the human condition, something that’s great on its own terms.

The public has voted.  They think that’s Adele.

From: Troy Carter
Subject: Re: Lady GaGa/Amazon

Bob,

I’m going to start calling you Charles Barkley! On second thought, Charles Barkley was at least a player in the game before he was a commentator.

With all due respect, it’s very easy to sit on the sideline and call plays. It’s a totally different story to be in the game and have to deal with the obstacles and hurdles that we face on a minute by minute basis in our business. I’m sure that 300 million people don’t read your blog, the same way that I’m sure that 300 million people aren’t interested in one particular genre of music or one particular artist.

The reality is that it’s going to take time for the marriage of music and technology to work. The tech community and the music community speak different languages and we’re working on finding the Rosetta Stone. In the meantime partnerships will be tested. Some will work and others won’t.

Although we weren’t aware of Amazon’s deal that they were offering, I applaud them for their efforts. Anytime we can get people to purchase music legally, it’s a good thing for the business. I’m sure they’ll be better prepared the next time they do such an offering.

We’ve partnered with over 27,000 non-traditional retailers worldwide on this release. No one prayed to a particular retailer. We tried something different, we’ll see if it works. As you praise Groupon, do your research and see how well they did on the Def Jam releases that they worked on. It FAILED. They aborted music for now. It’s all trial and error.

No one can predict what’s next. No one can predict a shelf life. If we left it up to the cynics there wouldn’t have been an Elvis, Beatles, Timberlake, or Bieber. It’s not fair to the hard work and effort that artists and their teams have to put in. Anybody that can make people fall in love with music is a friend of mine and anyone who can support the business of music keeps it alive for the next generation.

I’m just as frustrated as you are, as we both see the potential for music to scale. It’s going to take time, trial, and error for this to happen. I’m sure that the Born This Way launch will be successful in our eyes. It has already exceeded my personal expectations. We sold 27,000 copies in the first week on The Fame. I’m proud to say that we’re up 11% on that album over 150 weeks later. YOU CAN’T BAKE A CAKE IN THE MICROWAVE.

All of this takes time, Bob.

Lighten up a bit, it’s just music.