I’m not interested.

And neither is the public.

Good enough just doesn’t cut it.

Has anybody competed and won against the iPod?  Can you name an act today as good as the Beatles?

Somehow, in the last few decades, artistic quality has become irrelevant.  In the dash for cash, it’s all about shooting low, to the sweet spot, where most people live, so the purveyors can make money.

It’s worst in the movies.  Where pictures are made for worldwide audiences.  You can’t do comedies because they don’t understand the jokes everywhere else.  Instead of originality, we get endless recycled dreck, like "Pirates Of The Caribbean: On Stranger Tides".  Don’t point to the grosses.  No one says it’s good.  And it ain’t that much different in music.

Which is why we find the same people making the same records over and over again.  There are go-to guys and gals who write and produce and that’s just the way the purveyors want it.  The fact that some people buy it does not undercut the point that most people do not.  Sales are anemic.  We’ve got endless hype, and yet almost nothing sells in excess of a million copies, in a country of three hundred million.

If you want someone to encourage you to pick up your instrument and play, to try to make it in music, you’ve got the wrong guy.  I’ve got no problem with you going down to Guitar Center, buying an axe and working up some tunes in GarageBand. But just don’t expect me to get excited, just don’t expect me to want to hear it!

I know, I know, you don’t like this.  Not in a country where you get a trophy for participating and your mother says you’re the best musician she’s ever heard.

Bollocks.

A great musician has practiced, is familiar with his instrument and has something to say.  And if the music is truly great, we’ll all pay attention.

Isn’t this how Apple made it?

Because Steve Jobs is all about excellence.  From top to bottom.  If you were to buy an Apple product and be dissatisfied you’d be stunned.  You marvel at the design, you’re wowed by the usability.  You’re happy.  When were you this happy about music?

Now this is a specialized audience.  So many of my readers live for music.  But most of the public does not.  Music is just background noise.  Something you listen to as you play video games, or do your homework.  The concept that someone will create something so great that you’ve got to stop doing everything else and pay attention is unknown.

Don’t blame the audience.  The audience will embrace anything great.  Blame the artists and the companies themselves.

Instead of risking an organic experience, something fully alive, with peaks and mistakes, big acts play to tape.  They don’t want to risk failing.  But we’re truly enamored of those who play without a net.

Acts give the public what they think it wants.  Used to be acts led.

Now I’m not saying there are no great acts.

But I am saying that usually the great ones take years to make it.  They’re new, and innovative, and it takes a while for the public to come around to the sound.  And it takes a while for the creators to perfect that sound.

What we’ve got on television is commerce.  People with good voices singing someone else’s songs, in most cases, blue chips. As for the songs they do themselves…  Kelly Clarkson had a great one by Dr. Luke, but no one wants to see her now, because it was all about the performance, they knew it wasn’t HER!

Whereas we knew it was Bob Dylan.  Even though people criticized his voice.

Those testing limits, doing something different, are always lambasted at first, assuming anybody even cares.  But eventually, the public comes around.  Used to be, record labels and radio assisted in this process.  Labels found the best and radio exhibited it.  Now, what’s the record company cliche?  "I don’t hear a single?"  Hell, that was positively last century!  Now the record label says "I can’t get it on the radio."  You don’t make Top Forty music, they wouldn’t know what to do with you.  Does that make you bad?

No.

But it does make nitwits try to fill the formula.  Try to give the labels what they want, and then inane disc jockeys play this crap and if it sells at all, it’s illegal for someone to cry foul, to say it’s no good.

But it’s not.

Of course there are exceptions to the rule.

But generally speaking, we’re in a low point for art.  Because it’s all about the money.  About playing it safe.

As for those who tell those who suck that they’re doing it right, to keep at it…  They don’t want to rain on your parade, be the first person to tell you you suck.  That’s why we loved Simon Cowell, he spoke the truth we all knew.  As for those encouraging the wannabes, they’re just parasites, trying to make a buck off your dream.

There’s very little great stuff out there.  But if you can deliver greatness, people will find you, they’ll notice, you’ll make it.  Next time you’re wondering whether you should tweet, or mail more CDs, or work your Facebook page, frustrated that you’re nowhere, look in the mirror and ask yourself HOW GOOD AM I?

In most cases, not that good.

1. Why

2. Outlets

3. Choices

4.  Who makes it

5. Problems

6. Avenues for artistic success

7. The way it was

8. The future

This history of modern music was written by outsiders with something to prove.  And once they were successful and realized fame and money still didn’t solve their problems, once they were anointed by the masses, they just couldn’t do that thing that got us all heated up in the first place.  Which is why Bruce Springsteen hasn’t done anything of note in decades.  Experience and talent count, but not as much as drive, with a desire to prove.

So if you’re entering the music game, honestly appraise where you’re coming from, who you are.  If you’re truly all about the music, if you’re truly an artist, chances are you’re gonna starve for a really long time, if not forever.  You may not give up, but the fact that you’ve worked forever still does not mean you’re great.  Greatness comes from the damaged testing limits because they just don’t give a crap.  So I’m gonna be homeless and have no teeth and die at a young age?  If you want creature comforts, if you want a safety net, you’re probably not going to make it, even though you practice all day long. Because we’re interested in something elusive, from the outside, a perspective that might be in our hearts but that we are unwilling to live.  Can you risk playing original music instead of covers?  Can you risk sounding like nothing else?  And can you be so interesting, so good that people start following you anyway?

Used to be there was a whole system, a whole apparatus there to help you.

Now, you’re on your own.

There is just so much money being thrown at Capitol Hill by a sector of the industry that represent what was, not what is today or what will be tomorrow.

It makes me cringe to have them be the sole voice of the "industry".

Yes, the legacy of the music industry must be protected, but it is just that, the legacy.  

The traditional labels are releasing less music now than at any point over the last 15 years and yet there is more music being released, bought, sold, streamed, shared, stolen and downloaded by a wider array of artists and consumers than at any point in history and yet…

The sector that is releasing and representing this music are not represented by the RIAA, A2IM or anyone for that matter.

Here’s to hoping Capitol Hill is truly listening….

Jeff Price
Tunecore

Cary Sherman
The RIAA
$3,185,026

WHO YOU WANT TO BE TODAY — CEO Update, a D.C.-based trade publication for association executives (a.k.a., "what we read on Blain’s couch while he’s on conference calls"), finds seven lobbyists who made seven figures in 2009, the latest year with data available: 1) Cary Sherman, Recording Industry Association of America, $3,185,026; 2) Bruce Josten, U.S. Chamber of Commerce, $1,340,455; 3) Todd Hauptli, American Association of Airport Executives, $1,312,350; 4) Alan Roth, USTelecom: The Broadband Association, $1,159,138; 5) Cynthia Fornelli, American Institute of CPAs, $1,154,37; 6) Rick Pollack, American Hospital Association, $1,087,024; and 7) Howard Schloss, Financial Industry Regulatory Authority (FINRA), $1,065,628. (Fine print: "highest paid non-CEO staffer who is a federally registered lobbyist in a tax-exempt organization. Compensation figures include base pay, bonuses, deferred salary and nontax income on … tax return from years ending in 2009.")

from politico.com/playbook/

Why, because he did such a good job?

______________________________________

Live Nation Executive Pay

Now this is arcane, which is exactly how they like it.  You’ve got to be a lawyer to understand it, and it’s written in double-speak.

And there you have what’s wrong with America, as corporations rape and pillage and destroy the fabric of our country, the concept that we’re all in it together, that corporations work for us instead of vice-versa, evaporates… Ha!

"Under the Dodd-Frank legislations, shareholders get to voice their opinion on pay.  It’s not binding, but shareholders are suing when directors ignore their views.

Companies that ignore say-on-pay votes may pay a hefty price: lawsuits. Shareholders are speaking up on executive compensation with the voice they were given by last year’s financial overhaul legislation. Their advice is not legally binding, but that has not stopped disgruntled investors from calling in lawyers to enforce their views.

The Dodd-Frank Act created say-on-pay to blunt criticism that executives were compensating themselves like rock stars. Beginning on Jan. 21, most public companies had to put pay packages for top officers to an ‘advisory vote” by shareholders. The law did not change directors’ fiduciary duties, so ignoring a thumbs-down verdict is allowed.’

… A negative vote can lead to bad publicity or the ouster of directors. But for Jacobs Engineering and Beazer Homes, which lost say-on-pay votes this year, it has meant lawsuits against management by major shareholders."

New York Times Business Section

Now under Dodd-Frank, shareholders get to hold a vote on executive compensation every 1, 2 or 3 years.

Now ask yourself, how often do Azoff and his cronies want to risk shareholders’ wrath regarding their compensation?  Do they want to know what their shareholders think EVERY year, or as infrequently as possible?

BINGO!  Bring that winner a stuffed animal!

Live Nation wants a vote every three years.  Which is perfectly legal, but can’t be done by fiat.

Yes, shareholders get to vote on frequency, at least once every six years.  And that vote is coming up on June 15th.  What will the shareholders say?

Very interesting, but like the rest of the raping and pillaging, most people are unaware until the effects are truly felt.  Then again, the excessive compensation of Live Nation executives has already been revealed.

SECURITIES AND EXCHANGE COMMISSION:

c. Final Rule

After reviewing and considering the comments, we are adopting Rule 14a-21(b) as proposed with slight modifications to clarify that the frequency vote is required at least once during the six calendar years following the prior frequency vote.111    Under Rule 14a-21(b), issuers will be required, not less frequently than once every six calendar years, to provide a separate shareholder advisory vote in proxy statements for annual meetings to determine whether the shareholder vote on the compensation of executives required by Section 14A(a)(1) "will occur every 1, 2, or 3 years."112

SHAREHOLDER APPROVAL OF EXECUTIVE COMPENSATION
AND GOLDEN PARACHUTE COMPENSATION

Live Nation:

PROPOSAL NO. 6 — ADVISORY VOTE ON THE FREQUENCY OF ADVISORY VOTES ON THE COMPENSATION OF OUR NAMED EXECUTIVE OFFICERS

Under the Dodd-Frank Act, the stockholders of the company are entitled to vote at the 2011 Annual Meeting regarding whether stockholder advisory votes to approve the compensation of the named executive officers as required by Section 14A(a)(2) of the Exchange Act (and as described in Proposal 5 of this proxy statement) should occur every one, two or three years. Pursuant to the Dodd-Frank Act, the stockholder vote on the frequency of the stockholder advisory vote to approve executive compensation is an advisory vote only, and it is not binding on the company or the board of directors.

Although the vote is non-binding, the board of directors values the opinions of our stockholders and will consider the outcome of the vote when determining the frequency of the stockholder advisory vote on executive compensation.

The board of directors believes that a frequency of every three years for the advisory vote on executive compensation is the optimal interval for conducting and responding to a "say-on-pay" vote. Stockholders who have concerns about executive compensation during the interval between "say-on-pay" votes are welcome to bring their specific concerns to the attention of the board. Please refer to "Stockholder Communications" in this proxy statement for information about communicating with the board. The board of directors believes that a stockholder advisory vote on executive compensation every three years is the best approach for Live Nation and its stockholders for a number of reasons, including the following:

– as our executive compensation program is designed to support long-term value creation and to incentivize and reward performance over a multi-year period, a triennial vote will allow stockholders to better judge the program in relation to the company’s long-term performance;

-a triennial vote will provide the company with the time to thoughtfully consider the results of the "say-on-pay" vote and to conduct a meaningful and detailed review of its pay practices in response thereto; and

-our compensation programs do not change significantly from year to year, and we seek consistency in such programs from one year to the next.

The advisory vote regarding the frequency of the stockholder advisory vote on executive compensation described in this Proposal 6 shall be determined by a plurality of the votes cast. The alternative receiving the most votes in its favor will be the one that is adopted as the non-binding recommendation of our stockholders.

Abstentions will not be counted as either votes cast for or against the proposal.

THE BOARD OF DIRECTORS UNANIMOUSLY RECOMMENDS A VOTE? TO HOLD THE ADVISORY VOTE ON EXECUTIVE COMPENSATION EVERY THREE YEARS.

Live Nation – Securities and Exchange Commission Filing