When was the last time you listened to a new album and you liked it…THE FIRST TIME THROUGH!

"Get Closer" is thirty three minutes long.  Just right.  Eight songs.  No filler.

When I saw this album on the release schedule, I figured it was a greatest hits package, after all, it’s the fourth quarter and Keith’s last album came out only EIGHTEEN MONTHS AGO!

This is how you do it.  Give your audience more.  Instead of trying to reach everybody who doesn’t care, satiate the core.

And I’m satiated.

I almost couldn’t make it all the way through, I needed to write and tell you how good "Georgia Woods" is.  If you’re the kind of person who loves rock music, who nodded his head to the Marshall Tucker Band, who likes to move his whole body with the groove of the track, this is for you!

And about halfway through, Keith starts to wail…and yes, he can wail.  This is not a case of studio fakery.  I’ve seen this guy live.  He can wring the notes out.  He hits every one.  And, unlike Brad Paisley, the material is not sophomoric, it doesn’t make you wince, it’s more than serviceable, it’s really good!

And the cut before "Georgia Woods", "Without You", is equally fine.  Quieter, but not wimpy.

Some people have just got it.  They can’t help but write catchy stuff, they know how to construct a song.  You get it the first time through.

I know, I know, some of your favorite albums you had to listen to multiple times to get.  But come on, so many of the greats infected you the very first time through.  Did you have to listen to Elton’s records multiple times to get them?

My point is not to convince you, I don’t give a shit if you like "Get Closer", I’m just saying a fan is fully satiated.  He breaks the shrinkwrap, downloads the tracks to his iPod and goes driving, walks in the neighborhood with a smile on his face.

Ignore the calculated single.  Listen to all of "Get Closer".

This is not second-rate rock music.  This is the real thing!

I like Zac Brown, and Lady Antebellum ain’t bad either, just a bit sophomoric, but Keith Urban is a cut above.  Country fans know.  But you may not.

I don’t need to rank this album relative to every other release, I don’t need to analyze where it fits in Urban’s canon, I just want to listen to it, over and over again.

Really.  "Georgia Woods" has got that makes you warm in your bedroom sound.  You know, the one where you’re the only one there but you don’t feel alone.  You find yourself airpicking along.  And when Keith starts to wail, you can’t help but stand up and genuflect.

This is how it should be.  Take notice.

He played "You Never Give Me Your Money"!

And "Dear Mr. Fantasy" and…

Howard’s on 24/7 on Sirius.  And they replay the best segments on Friday.  But if you miss it, you miss it forever.  That’s radio.  And sitting in traffic listening to Howard interview Billy was pure heaven, I didn’t want to get out.

You know how these interviews usually go.  You’ve got a sycophantic celebrity or a good-looking talking head who wants to be a celebrity serving up softballs to a legend who doesn’t want to be there, who doesn’t reveal anything truly private, truly inside.

But this was like going over to Billy’s house and sitting in the living room, asking him the questions that had rolled around in your head for years, not for ratings, but because you truly wanted to know the answers.

Does he hang with other rock stars?

Of course!  Billy told the story of Paul McCartney coming to his house.  Pinching himself, since the Beatles were his inspiration, but also playing music for each other to gain tips and insight.

And he talked about Elton and the women he dated and motorcycles and record companies but the moments of pure joy, of sheer elation, were when he sat at the piano and whipped off those famous riffs.

"Summer, Highland Falls"…  I swooned!  Naked, without production, yet so perfect.

Billy talked about taking piano lessons, he even mentioned his teacher’s name, Miss Frances.  And Howard asked, couldn’t everybody see he had talent?

This was after Billy played "The Rain Song" on the hundred year old piano in his living room.  No, not the Zeppelin classic.  Billy tickled the ivories at the top and bottom of the scale in demonstration, imitating raindrops and thunder.  What little kid hasn’t done that?

And then he talked about improvising on Mozart.

And he always hears a song in his head.

And sometimes he loves the piano and sometimes he hates it.  Talk to anybody famous for a skill.  You love the tennis racket, but sometimes you hate it.  Sometimes the notes come freely, but sometimes Billy sits at the piano and all he gets is frustrated.

Speaking of frustration…  That’s the essence of "Summer, Highland Falls".  The bipolarity of his personality.  He wanted to capture it in a song.  Billy gets in a good mood, but it never lasts.  I know what he means!  I’m driving up PCH with the sunroof open and the radio on and I’m feeling how great it is to be alive and then the very next day I’m depressed.  Ah, life.

He literally wrote "New York State Of Mind" riding a Greyhound up the Hudson.  He got home and told his wife he had to go straight to the piano, he had to capture what was in his head.

The music comes first.  Then the lyrics.  Except for "We Didn’t Start The Fire".  Which he deplores since it has no melody.

He loves Hendrix.  But Stevie Winwood is his hero.

You’re listening and then he starts playing the intro for "Vienna"…  Hell, he said the inspiration for "Scenes From An Italian Restaurant" was the second side of "Abbey Road".  One time he asked Paul…were those really just unfinished songs, strung together?  OF COURSE!  "Scenes From An Italian Restaurant" was originally three unfinished songs.

Howard requested "Miami 2017".   That’s when I got into Billy.  When he released live versions of the songs everybody had previously ignored.  Unlike "Big Shot", which was about Bianca through the eyes of Mick!

Howard said it was the best experience he’d ever had on the radio.

"Better than the strippers?" Billy asked.

"Well…"

We live in an era where few can sing, few can play and if you can do the former, you can’t write.  But Billy could do all three.  He worked hard to get it right, to make it, back when you couldn’t fake it.  Listen to this.  You’ll be enraptured.  When he puts his fingers on the keys nothing feels as good, no movie, no video game, only the touch of another person’s skin.  That’s the power of music, its humanity.

Listen before they’re gone:

Part 1

Part 2

Part 3

Part 4

Part 5

Part 6

They just called me from "Marketplace".  They wanted some quotes on the new Michael Jackson album.

You know it will sell because of pent-up demand, because he died, because it’s the fourth quarter, but that’s not why I’m writing this.

Almost two years ago, I got a phone call from Laura Sydell, asking me to go on the record re YouTube.  We’d worked together before.  She called and I gave her quotes.  This time she asked me to go to Culver City, to the NPR studio, to ensure pristine audio quality.  She said it was a major story, I ultimately agreed.  Told her I’d meet her there.

That’s when Laura told me she’d be in San Francisco.  That she wasn’t going to the studio.

I live half an hour away in traffic.  Would Irving Azoff go to Culver City?  Michael Rapino?  Jimmy Iovine?  I expressed reservations, told her I wouldn’t do it, but I’d be glad to do it as usual, on the phone.

She got someone else.  He wasn’t much of an authority, but he’d go to Culver City.  Which begs the question of the authority of those who do go on the record.  Turn on the TV, you’ll see professional pundits pontificating, but they rarely have a true power base, they’re just talking.  Those truly making the decisions?  You can’t get them to go on the record.

And you can’t get me to go on the record much anymore either.  Because there’s not that much of a benefit.  I get quoted in "The New York Times" and I don’t get one e-mail.  But when I’m on NPR…

With her dander up, Laura Sydell informed me how many people listened to NPR, that public radio news reached more people than TV news. That nearly twenty million people tuned in.

I checked this out.  Laura was right.

Whenever I’m on NPR, I hear about it multiple times, for months thereafter.  From people I haven’t seen since college, from people who care not a whit about the music business.  My mother will call and say her octogenarian friends heard me testifying.  Which is all a long story to tell you when NPR comes-a-knockin’, SAY YES!

NPR may not get the ink, but it’s got the power.  It’s got an active intellectual audience that digests stories and acts on them.  My physical therapist could not be less clued in when it comes to popular culture, but a few weeks back she started talking all about the Keith Richards book…   She heard about it on NPR!

In an era of chaos, when a late night TV appearance means almost nothing, you’re better off focusing on your fans than taking the shotgun approach, utilizing multiple media outlets to try and reach people who ultimately don’t care.  Look at it this way, how often do you see Rush on TV, in the newspaper?  But Rush can outsell Katy Perry live any day of the week.  Katy Perry is a star in the media, but in the real world, not so much.

The news king in the real world, bigger than any Top Forty station, bigger than Fox News, is NPR.  They can put your band on the radar. Coverage on NPR has impact.

Every week, the Haggler in the "New York Times" responds to customer complaints.  Usually the accused enterprise makes a lame excuse and makes the customer whole.  Still, there are unreachable companies, and unrealistic consumers, those who believe they’re entitled to the product for free, to be treated like royalty.

It’s tough dealing with the public.  Because there’s a percentage of people who are always unreasonable.  But most of us are just looking for a fair exchange.  We want to get what we pay for.  And we want to know what we’re getting is a fair deal.  Unlike in the concert industry, where the biggest acts scalp their own tickets.

Anyway, yesterday the Haggler did something I’ve never seen before.  He did a tribute to great customer service.  He lauded Jet Blue.

Now you don’t have to be paying attention to know about that Jet Blue flight attendant who exited via the slide, or the time passengers were stranded on a Jet Blue plane for hours.  But you can’t let your mistakes bring you down, perfect is almost unachievable, like a great hitter, you’ve got to keep your chin up and go for the best average you can.

But in the music industry, we don’t even believe in rankings.  We believe talent trumps everything.  That if we create a desirable act, people will pay exorbitant amounts to see them.

And this may be true.  But when that act falters a bit, the hordes run.  As for experiencing a less than desirable act…now you know why people only go to one show a year.

If you read the "New York Times" piece, you will see that the Jet Blue CEO greets every new employee.  A far cry from when the Sony Music brass wouldn’t even let the troops take the same elevator.  That’s not an exercise in team-building, that’s an exercise in modern America.

But one other element of modern America is the Internet.  Dell has never recovered from the bad press as a result of outsourcing its tech help to India.  You see the cheapest alternative is not always the best.  Ever notice that Apple always ranks number one in customer service?  First and foremost, the operators are speaking English.

But as the labels fade, and believe me they are, EMI’s gonna be history if not by Christmas, at least by next Christmas, the focus is on the live side.  And the live side has been fucked up for so long that to fix it is like turning around an ocean liner.  Who hasn’t been hassled by undertrained security guards?  Who hasn’t had their box office problem unsolved?  Going to a show is like going to the post office, but with much higher prices.  And if you don’t think we live in a service economy, you probably think a restaurant with good food and shitty service can prosper.

Now I want to say that the artists have learned this lesson.  Every artist on the way up not only works the Web, he interfaces with his fans. Artists are accessible.  They give bang for the buck.  Your favorite artist is constantly proffering freebies.  But when they hit the live arena…

How about a greeter?  Yup, like Wal-Mart.  A person at the venue who every patron is aware of who acts like a traffic cop, shows you where to go and who to speak to to get your problem solved.  Dress him up in a tux.  Or turn him into a clown.  Have him pass out candy to kids and desirable coupons to parents.  Make people feel good.

And if you’re gonna outsource food production, at least insist the servers don’t wear industrial, fast food outfits.  A concert costs many times more dollars than McDonald’s, why should I be served by a teen in a blaring yellow shirt when I dressed up for the show?

And since the show was so expensive, I want high quality food.  How come baseball learned this, every stadium now offers exotic fare, but we’ve still got hot dogs and popcorn at the concert?  People will pay for high quality consumables, they’ve just got to believe they are…good.

Seating.

How come every ticket doesn’t come with a printout showing exactly where the seats are?  Either a close up map with directions on the back of the ducat itself or an extra sheet of paper that you print out at home, since you’re paying for this privilege anyway.  We pump our own gas, we can find our own seats…if you help us.

And just in case we lost the paper, how about an app of the venue for our smartphone, which shows our seat in the theatre?

And those ushers who remain must be incentivized to be nice.  Maybe a hundred dollar reward to he or she who gets the best customer service report at each show.  Come on, had your car serviced recently?  Or had the cable company come to your house?  All these people are being rated.  As a result, they’re nice, and pleading for good reports.  And the winner of the money gets his or her picture on the big screen just before the show.  People would applaud, we’re all workers, we respect our own, when they respect us.

As for exchanges, etc…

If you can’t go to the show, at least give people credit, if not their money back.  Keep a list of those who abuse this process.  That’s what Amazon does.  Return too many items and they won’t let you buy from them anymore.  But most people are reasonable.  If it turns out you’ve got a wedding that night, or grandma gets sick, shouldn’t you be entitled to a way out?  As for acts complaining…  What goes around comes around, every act has fans that can’t come at the last minute.

And how about a basket of earplugs at every door.  They do this in Ibiza, they can’t do it in America?  Furthermore, in Ibiza they brand the earplugs, putting them in a plastic bag with a logo!  Suddenly, they’re a souvenir, especially if they’re emblazoned with the name of the band.

And everybody in the building must be empowered to make a decision.  That’s what I hate about the show, you can’t find someone with authority to fix your problem.  You’re told to wait, or go to the other end of the building…  Frequently you end up communicating with a harried employee in a tie who is actually helpful, but at the cost of missing part of the show.

And how about speakers and video screens outside the venue for those who come late, or just want a breather.  Baseball stadiums put screens by the concessions, why can’t music venues?

In a constant drive to the bottom, providing less for more so acts and promoters can get ever richer, the customer has been squeezed to the point of not coming.  The only way to reverse this trend is to turn promoters into team efforts, that concertgoers know by name and respect.

A Curtain Call, Please, in the Skies