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I just saw this video today.

But it was launched twelve days ago on Kamala Harris’s YouTube channel.

But it’s also on Facebook and Stereogum and “Billboard”…

But it was only when Jake texted this to me that I found out about it.

Today your work is a time bomb. Do not expect instant knowledge and acceptance. People have too much else going on, too much input. And in order to really spread, you need a friend to tell you about it, otherwise it seems like hype.

But nobody likes this so nobody admits this.

The labels and the media like us to believe the entire world is waiting for the new work of Sabrina Carpenter or Post Malone or Taylor Swift when the truth is very few are. I’m not saying their audiences are insignificant, just that they do not cover everybody. We no longer live in a monoculture and the purveyors refuse to acknowledge this, because it’s too confusing, and illustrates their lack of power.

So you’ve got to make something so good that people want to tell others about it.

Sure, you can try and short cut the process, by stunting. But the problem with a stunt, when you try and gain instant virality, is when it fails, it fails completely. Secondly, most people can tell when you’re trying artificially for virality, and it leaves a bad taste in their mouth, meaning further down the line, even if you release something good, they won’t spread the word about it, they’re no longer on your team, they’re out.

So there are two streams, the obvious and the good. Sometimes they intersect, but most times they do not.

Kill someone and it will be in the news for half a day.

Create a great track and it could literally take years to break, but it’s waiting there, to be spread, each and every day of the year.

This is the opposite of the terrestrial radio paradigm. Where either it’s a hit or a stiff. On or gone. Then again, tracks take ever longer to get on the radio chart, illustrating this long process of knowledge and acceptance.

But the bottom line is to grow beyond a hit into a career, people have to like you, you have to have credibility.

When Tim Walz talks about 8-tracks in his vehicles… You know that guy. He may not live for music, but he’s been to shows, he’s got the same bedrock references. Believe me, Springsteen and Seger were bigger in their era than anybody on the hit parade today. We were all working on our night moves, trying to lose those awkward teenage blues, with autumn now closing in.

When Kamala acknowledges Walz, says “okay,” it doesn’t ring wholly true. But when she starts to testify…it’s from the heart, with knowledge. She’s not pandering, SHE KNOWS!

And that makes all the difference. It’s one thing to know a hit, it’s quite another to know the oeuvre, to have context. This is what delivers relatability.

This is why Trump is f*cked, he lacks relatability. And his lies detract from any credibility he may have once had, if ever.

That does not mean no one will vote for him, that just means the landscape has changed in eight years.

Eight years ago there was not as much in the landscape. Stars meant more than they do today. I saw online that Jimmy Fallon, Jon Hamm and Bradley Cooper were partying in the Hamptons. WHO CARES?

Gossip has been devalued. It’s everywhere and means less. So you were here or there, what does that have to do with ME? Today it’s all about the individual, who is a star of his own movie, who is leaving bread crumbs online. As for movie stars… We know they’re many times married, far from intellectual, they can’t even open a film anymore. Exactly why do we adore them? Should we adore them? Less than ever before.

And the musicians… Your songs were not written by you, you’re hawking perfume, what does that have to do with me and my identity, you’re just a poor imitation of a Kardashian, and no one in that family has ANY credibility. Sure, money, but money is not everything. Especially in this world of income inequality. You may not be rich, but you can troll anybody online, you can have impact on social media platforms.

But this almost never has anything to do with art.

Now if you try and fake the game people can tell. Harris knows Too Short from a few bars in this video: https://rb.gy/e8z61s You either know it or you don’t.

So these clips are akin to Bill Clinton playing the sax on Arsenio. But back in 1992 Arsenio reached millions, and there were so few outlets available. The big was bigger.

Today you have to start small. Be everywhere and hope to grow.

But you only grow with authenticity.

There is train-wreck value, but it’s got a very short shelf life. And in today’s world you can be known by many today and still be broke tomorrow.

So Trump keeps playing the anti role, but Hillary Clinton is not running, the game has changed, there’s a new duo in town. The only way to compete is to grow from the bottom up yourself. But Trump doesn’t know how to do this, being born on third base. He thinks you can start at the top and stay there, fearful of losing his perch all the while, which is why he keeps talking about crowd size and ratings.

He cares, most people do not. Either they were there or not. All this hype about “biggest” is for the media, not the people.

And to succeed today, you’ve got to be for the people.

“On the Edge – The Art of Risking Everything”: https://rb.gy/gauj90

No one is going to read this. It’s the new “A Brief History of Time,” you know, the Steven Hawking book everybody bought in the eighties and then found out it was too dense to comprehend, never mind put in the time and effort to make headway.

The bottom line is Nate Silver loves to play poker. And that’s what the first third of this book is all about. If you can get over that hump, you find analyses of Silicon Valley, venture capital, crypto, even an analysis of Vegas itself, but you start off with poker.

I don’t play poker. I don’t even know how to play poker. Cards are not my thing. And to win at poker you’ve got to bluff, and that’s the antithesis of who I am, I’m straight up and straightforward 24/7, deviousness is not in my personality. I’ll say what no one else will, but there’s no hidden agenda.

But what stuns me about “On the Edge” is how the media, along with Nate himself, have been hyping this book to high heaven, and no one talks about actually reading it. I mean if you’re a poker afficionado, go for it, you’ll be in heaven. But if you’re looking for…

Exactly what?

The bottom line is Silver wanted to write a book about poker, and then imposed a framework upon it, coming up with the concept of the River and the Village, two monikers that do not really convey what these groups are about.

But it’s really pretty simple. The risk takers and the establishment. The east coast and the west.

I’ve never seen such a takedown of the east coast academic establishment in a book by someone with education and status who has a name in popular culture.

Like the woman who invented mRNA vaccines, ultimately winning the Nobel Prize. She lost her gig at the big university, she had to sleep in her lab to avoid getting deported, no one believed in her, no one supported her, and it took her a damn long time to get to the destination.

Silver makes the point that institutions just want to get the next grant, they’re much less interested in breakthroughs.

But his skewering of the high and mighty, the east coast educated elite, makes me so proud I escaped, moved to Los Angeles, which everybody who is not here decries.

It’s about the freedom. Not Elon Musk’s b.s. freedom of speech, but the freedom to be yourself, to not conform, to have ideas outside the mainstream.

So that’s the battle, between the east coast elites and the west coast techies who are revolutionizing the world.

Now I’m not down with the techies who want to cast off regulations, who want to work completely unfettered, who lobbied Kamala Harris to get rid of Lina Khan.

But I’m really not down with the so-called Village, where the goal is to move up the ladder in D.C., from campaign worker to lobbyist to…a cushy life.

Those on the west coast want to change the world.

Those on the east coast want the system to never change, while they use their blue chip upbringings to start in the middle and make their way to the top.

But first you have to start with poker.

Huh?

One thing about “On the Edge,” you will never ever drop a penny in Vegas ever again. At least if you read it. The odds are stacked against you. Literally. You can’t win. Maybe momentarily, but definitely not in the long run.

As for those sports books, all that online gambling you read about?

Bottom line, if you’re any good, they cut you off. They limit your bets. So you can’t get rich.

As for making a living playing poker… Good luck. It’s like being a touring golf pro, or a traveling musician, the costs are insane, but in poker there’s no guaranteed income whatsoever.

Read this book and you’ll want to live a straight life. Like the poker star who left the game to work at Bridgewater.

And if you don’t know what that is…

Ain’t that America.

Almost all information is hiding in plain sight. All you’ve got to do is read. But that’s too tough for most people.

Wow, that sounds like a put-down. But my ultimate point here is if you see “On the Edge” as a self-help book, you’ve got it all wrong. You’re born with the amount of risk you’re willing to take. Maybe influenced by your upbringing. You can’t change along the way, you’ll get too anxious.

And that’s one reason the record business is moribund. There’s no risk involved. Everybody’s on salary, looking to get their bonus. The business was started by indies, whether it be Ahmet at Atlantic or Jac Holzman at Elektra. One of Jac’s big breakthroughs was budget classical, i.e. the Nonesuch label. The majors missed this completely. What are the majors doing now?

The reason to read “On the Edge” is to learn about this world you’re not a part of.

And if you’re part of this world, you’ll learn almost nothing new.

But you’ve got to wade through all the poker b.s. first.

Which I think most people are unwilling to do.

Could you sit in the library reading and comprehending a bunch of math gobbledygook in college? Well, think about doing it for fun.

Meanwhile, “On the Edge” is being purveyed as a mainstream book.

There are obvious truths in “On the Edge,” how crypto is being lifted up by the bros left out of the mainstream world, speculators who could never get a gig at the bank, the same people cheering Musk and Trump on on X. It’s obvious if you’re paying attention, but even big media misses this.

But Silver lays it out. Assuming you can wade through.

This is fascinating to me. It’s the Emperor’s New Clothes. Since it’s Nate Silver, since he’s the foremost election prognosticator, he’s getting a complete pass in the media. He’s on all these podcasts…did these hosts bother to read the book? I almost guarantee you not. Because it’s a schlepp, to a great degree in the wilderness, with very few cups of water. And it’s very in-depth, as well as long.

This is the modern world. Tons of people talking about that which they know nothing about while building up that which is unfit for mainstream consumption.

Which is analogous to the music business selling tripe that everybody says is great.

Believe me, we used to have risk-takers in the music business, on the creative side especially. But that required being broke and not complaining about the money, waiting for the audience to catch up with you.

No one’s doing this anymore. The first thing they want is to get paid.

They’re inhabitants of the Village, and they’re not going anywhere.

Hell, one man revolutionized music distribution, Daniel Ek. And became a billionaire in the process. And this is what musicians hate most about him, how rich he got. But he probably struggled more than you do. You’re looking at the end result, not the process.

You’ll ask yourself all these questions if you read “On the Edge.”

But, once again, first you have to wade through the poker section. And the poker analogies that pop up throughout the book.

Are you ready for that?

I believe very few are.

Trailer: https://rb.gy/30b01c

This series gets better and better.

I’ve never read a complete sentence of “Harry Potter.” And although I knew J.K. Rowling wrote genre books under a pseudonym, the reason I watched this series was because it had great RottenTomatoes ratings, 83/93. And you know those exceed my threshold.

Now “C.B. Strike,” or just “Strike” if you’re in the U.K., is not new. It premiered on Cinemax back in 2018, and I even get that channel, I might have heard the name, but I guess I’ve become suspicious of pay cable, and I refuse to watch anything week by week.

But doing research I came across “C.B. Strike,” which is now on Max, and I’m glad I did.

Cormoran Strike is the son of a famous musician and a supergroupie. He dropped out of Oxbridge to go to war, wherein he got half his leg blown off, and after returning and experiencing an up and down relationship with a pedigreed woman, he breaks free and dedicates all his energy to his P.I. business.

As for Robin… She just takes a job working in Strike’s office as a temp, but she’s got a feel for it, and she wants to stick with it, even though the pay is sh*t.

Now Robin is engaged to a putz playing the traditional game. He’s slick and monied, but controlling. And I guess this all comes down to whether you follow your dream or do what is expected of you or just follow the money. “C.B. Strike” is a great advertisement for following your passion.

So there are multiple seasons of “C.B. Strike” and if you look them up online or see them in your Max app, they’re different.

Let’s just stay with the Max app.

The first season, shot in 2018, is seven episodes long and is three different stories, corresponding to three different J.K. Rowling/Robert Galbraith books.

And what you find in the first seven episodes is that the stories are wrapped up pretty quickly, faster than you’d want them to be. Cormoran will have a brain fart, and voila!, he figures it all out.

But the second and third seasons, each made up of four episodes covering a single story each, are superior.

This is one of the few series that gets better as it goes along.

If you watch something with multiple seasons…if you like the first set of episodes, hang in there, oftentimes there’s a learning process and the producers self-correct the next time around.

Really, the third season is excellent. It does have a bit too much explanation as opposed to action at the end, but you’re intrigued the whole time.

Now the suspects in these cases change. But you don’t feel ripped-off by dead ends, and it’s not a complete twist who did it, you can understand it. But you’re guessing, and you enjoy it.

But the best part of the series is the two leads, Tom Burke as Cormoran Blue Strike and Holliday Grainger as Robin Venetia Ellacott.

Burke/Strike almost never raises his voice. It’s not that he’s not intense, it’s not that he doesn’t care, but he speaks softly and it’s so affecting. We’re used to bombastic leads. With thousand watt personalities. That is not Burke/Strike.

As for Robin… Sure, she’s beautiful, but to a great degree she plays against type. She’s willing to get her hands dirty, to go for it.

And of course there’s sexual tension. Will they or won’t they. I’ll let you watch the series and find out for yourself.

Also, “C.B. Strike” is set in an autumn-like U.K. that generates a vibe in the viewer, that adds gravitas. And when you see the modern people against the old buildings… It shows how everybody is just passing through.

Yes, “C.B. Strike” is entertainment. But truly, it’s a cut above. I don’t want to say it’s the best series I’ve ever seen, but like Cliff said, I’m down to seeds and stems.

And if you’ve watched the greats, like “The Bureau,” never mind “Spiral,” ” A French Village,” “Borgen” and “Happy Valley,” you should check out “C.B. Strike.”

Once again, stick with it, it gets better.

Unlike the horrific Max app which qualifies as a beta under Silicon Valley standards. How can Zaslav make all that money while he runs the company into the ground? It’s offensive, but ain’t that America, and you and me have no power.

You have to sign more acts in more genres and stay with them for many years.

That is the only way for the major labels to maintain market share.

They just aren’t making enough bets. They’re still mired in MTV thinking. I.e. there are a handful of universal hits and you want to control them.

No, there are more hits in more genres than ever before and if you’re just skimming from the top, you’re missing out on the moonshots.

In other words, you have to forgo the data and look at the music.

And it hasn’t been this way for a very long time.

The model is clearly established. Warner/Reprise of the sixties and seventies. The labels themselves had gravitas. Nothing was thrown against the wall. There was a reason every act was signed, and the label stood behind them for years, usually five albums. Did all of them break through? Of course not, but a good number of them were profitable, and it was nearly impossible to predict which ones would blow up.

Contrary to popular belief, most VC funded projects do not fail. They just do not return at 10x, never mind 1000x. 2x and 3x are still winners, but not enough to drive the entire business. Which is the same at a record label, you don’t expect everything to be giant, but hopefully most stuff doesn’t fail.

VCs invest in new ideas. They look to the future. They go where no one else has. To own a vertical.

I get why majors want hits, because in the streaming era those are the records that pay. But so many of those acts have no career, they can’t tour and they don’t last. And therefore you make money once and then…

Never mind opportunity cost. If you’re investing in the next me-too record, you can’t invest in what is great thereafter.

The biggest music business story of the past few years is Zach Bryan. NO ONE would have predicted that he would sell out stadiums so soon. Bryan was not selling what anybody else was, nothing in the Spotify Top 50 sounded like Bryan, so when you heard his music it stood out. Furthermore, like Warner/Reprise of yore, Bryan is credible. Won’t do anything for a buck. It’s all about the music and the relationship between the fan and the act.

Now the music business blew up in the sixties because of FM radio. Owners could no longer simulcast on FM what they were airing on AM. This gave a window to all sorts of alternatives, from Cream to Wild Man Fischer.

What has the internet wrought?

Streaming. Anybody can play.

And that’s very important to acknowledge.

The paradigm of yore was to spend a ton of money getting it right, because if you did cash rained down. Now you can’t spend that much. Furthermore, costs are down. So the script has flipped to capturing lightning in a bottle. To have many writers and remixers is to miss the point. That’s an old paradigm.

As for streaming itself, it pays handsomely to the victors, but the profits don’t come close to those of the CD era, when product was expensive and royalties were low.

Furthermore, marketing costs have decreased. You can reach the public for free. And the old ways of marketing deliver de minimis results. Print means almost nothing, as does TV. Terrestrial radio means more, but far less than it used to, and not only is it decreasing in mindshare, the young, impressionable audience does not listen to it. (To argue with me here is to miss the point, if you’re defending the past, you’re dying, you just don’t know yet.)

Used to be A&R people found acts with value and invested in making the record.

But then the script flipped to the Doug Morris model. Throw everything against the wall and see if it sticks. I.e. get it on the radio and see if it sells.

That’s history too.

Everything grows from the bottom up these days, just like in the late sixties. Word of mouth is everything. The public is hungry for quality product.

But all we get is Sabrina Carpenter.

If I read one more rave review about her new album…

This is pop music from a Disney character. The hard core audience that sustains this business is not interested in her whatsoever. What you’ve got here is a famous name blown up by the machine. Sure, she might have a hit, but does anybody BELIEVE in Sabrina Carpenter? Only the brain dead.

And there’s a business in brain dead. But Warner/Reprise rarely invested in it. Because it was all about timing, knowing when to invest and when to fold in a very short period of time.

Look at it this way… Do you know of any Top Forty acts from the sixties and seventies selling out stadiums?

Well, the Eagles have no problem, and they’re not the only ones.

Never mind seemingly every rocker of the eighties, from Def Leppard to Green Day to Motley Crue.

But what have we got in the Spotify Top 50? Brands. With the focus on the external. Where they’ve been, what they’re selling, the music is just a vehicle to make bank. Furthermore, everybody sells out, and as soon as you sell out you’ve lost credibility. Sure, social media influencers sell out, but that’s a different business. Instead of owning its uniqueness, music is trying to be a commodity like everything else, to its detriment.

And sure, Taylor Swift is selling out stadiums, but this is not equivalent to the British Invasion, where the Beatles were followed by the Stones, the Hollies, Herman’s Hermits, Gerry and the Pacemakers, the Dave Clark 5, the list is endless.

Actually, Hannah Gadsby had it right in yesterday’s “New York Times.” She called Taylor Swift “‘a can of Coke masquerading as a sorority cult.'”

Genius, and accurate.

But you can’t say anything negative about Swift, then you’re a hater.

But come on, all this hoopla, is it really about Swift’s music?

Swift hasn’t made anything that goes straight to the heart since her first two albums written with Liz Rose. Working with the producer du jour and selling multiple versions of vinyl to remain number one? That’s commerce, not art.

And other than the money… Does anybody who made their bones in this business in the sixties, seventies or eighties care?

No.

Not to mention that even Swift made it in a different era. Sans the success in country, there’s no success in pop.

And this isn’t to rain on Swift’s parade, but to illustrate how broad the marketplace is, how much opportunity there is elsewhere.

We don’t even have a reasonable Swift imitator, because it’s a dead end. There’s no movement here. But all the news is dominated by her.

Yeah, she wrote a song about me, after I wrote how her appearance on the Grammys would kill her career. But I was wrong. I was playing by the old rules, the new rules are your dedicated fans will keep you alive no matter what, as long as you are serving them. But how many people are dedicated fans? How many people can even sing two Swift songs? Phish sells out arenas, and they’re far from ubiquitous.

The whole business needs a rethink. But the three heads of the major labels are out of touch. At Universal and Sony we’ve got men stuck in the eighties and nineties. It’s all about worldwide hits. But that’s no longer the game. As for Warner… You’ve got a guy who knows nothing about music lording it over those who do.

The math in music comes AFTER the success, not before. You can count streams, but if you’re all about the data going in, then you’re not about the music.

Opportunity is rampant for indies. Now is the time to make the music you want to, that doesn’t fit in the Spotify Top 50 pigeonhole. The public is hungry for the new, the different and the credible.

You only have to look at the movie business for example. By playing it safe, releasing less product in specific genres, the movie business has become decimated. You’re not going to get a “Squid Game” in the movie business. You’ll get that on streaming because Netflix realizes we all have different tastes.

I mean who even wants to listen to the Spotify Top 50?

Twenty acts for ten years. Who is willing to take that plunge? NOBODY!

But that’s the way it used to be, that’s what built this business into the juggernaut it is. But instead, the majors are wearing blinders.

There will be change. We can’t go for this long with the old genres continuing to dominate.

Also, nobody with brains wants to be a musician, the odds are long and the pay ain’t great. You can make more at a bank, in many jobs. So we don’t get the best and the brightest.

But if we show the POWER of music… Everybody wants power. To influence the culture. Used to be the acts were bigger than the politicians, but no more. But they can be again.

All bets are off. We’re open to all comers. My girlfriend talked about buying one meat ball at Whole Foods today. She was referencing the Ry Cooder cover of the Singer/Zaret song on his first album. This is culture. I know this song by heart. Took years for Ry Cooder to break through. But he’s still got a career. Yesterday’s flavor of the moment? HISTORY!

P.S. Hannah Gadsby was about to give up and then she threw the long ball and did a special that included art history, that people weren’t even sure was comedy, and now she’s a cultural icon. And instead of boasting, she’s expressing anxiety about her career. And talking about ecology with throwaway toys. This is what the majors used to sell, not anymore.

“‘Hannah Gadsby: Woof’ Review: A Comic’s Pet Themes – In a soul-baring new show at the Edinburgh Fringe, the Australian stand-up leans once again into fears, anxieties and mental health worries.”

Free link: https://rb.gy/yyrj6q