I read a story on the airplane…

Not only am I not sure what time it is, I wouldn’t even bet on what DAY it is!

I got off the airplane and my BlackBerry said 3:22 AM.  How could that be?  My watch said an hour earlier.  Took me about twenty minutes to factor in Daylight Savings Time.  Fucking BlackBerry can’t figure out what time zone I’m in, but it can adjust for Daylight Savings Time?

Much earlier, as it rained outside, I had lunch on the twelfth floor of the Royal York with Roger Faxon, Chairman and CEO of EMI Music Publishing.  They say these guys are clueless?  Can’t agree with you when it comes to Mr. Faxon.  His views were practical, he had a handle on the landscape and informed me that EMI’s record company and publishing company were two separate entities under the same umbrella, they were already divided, it had been a condition of Terra Firma’s purchase.  So when the whip comes down…

Which it inevitably will.

Then I journeyed with Jake to the airport, which was a clusterfuck nonpareil.  The "Wall Street Journal" said to arrive two and a half hours in advance, ever since that terrorist incident at the end of last year travel from Canada to the States has been…well, let’s just say they’ve gotten a lot stricter at immigration.

Not that it made any difference.  My plane ended up being delayed by two and a half hours.

You see there was weather.  Wind shear in T.O., our plane had to stop in Chi-town for more fuel after turning back, afraid of the waiting disaster at Pearson.  As for NYC…  Something was blowing really hard there too, flights were fucked up all day.  Seymour told me he’d considered taking the bus.  He had friends in for the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame, he needed to get home.

THE BUS?

I couldn’t quite envision it, Seymour Stein journeying like Joe Buck from T.O. to NYC.  Only eight hours he said.  THE BUS?  I remember my parents making me take it from Connecticut back to college in Vermont.  This was before every kid in America got a car when he turned 16, so his parents didn’t have to schlep him around.  I was scarred for life!  Shit, if you want someone to strive for economic greatness, just make them take the bus.  It’s a window into a low class world that you’re dying to escape.  Shit, did they even HAVE buses anymore?  I thought the companies followed the railroads into bankruptcy.

Last I heard, the flight to New York was canceled and rescheduled for 7 AM.  Last I saw Seymour, he was heading for the gate.  Maybe he should have taken the highway.

And after two hours of insight with Seymour, covering the history of the music industry from Sid Nathan to Lyor Cohen, he was replaced in his seat by Vince.  Who I’d seen flying in the front of the plane on the way in.

NO, Getty Images doesn’t pay for business class.  Vince is EXECUTIVE PLATINUM!  Shit, the CEO of Getty flies in the back of the plane.  At least that’s the ticket he buys.  At least that’s what Vince said.

And like Bonnie Raitt sang, the luck of the draw got me upgraded to one of the two empty seats in business class.  Which was a godsend, having already spent the length of the journey to L.A. at the airport.

And the ride was bumpy.  But I read an article in "Vanity Fair"…

Did you read Michael Lewis’ "Liar’s Poker"?  He worked at Salomon Brothers and told the story.  One I’ve never forgotten. Of blowing up bankers all over the world.  Yup, Goldman Sachs had to unload paper, and if someone in a far-flung country, or the keeper of the pension funds lost a bundle, hell, it was just business.

And it freaked Lewis out so much he quit, married Tabitha Soren and started following baseball.

Well, not exactly.  He did end up marrying the MTV News queen.  His most famous book is "Moneyball".  But he’s still an expert on Wall Street.  He’s one of the few writers who can make it comprehensible.  Wow, you can read this story online!

Betting on the Blind Side

You’re never going to read it online.  Hell, you’re probably never even going to read it.  And that’s just the point.  The article is about Michael Burry, who figured out the mortgage market was gonna tank and bet against it.  Burry was the leading edge.

But this story isn’t about money.  It’s about dedication.

You see Michael Burry was passionate.  He was a doctor, training at the hospital, enduring those endless hours, but still he found time to pore over prospectuses, study stocks and pontificate online.  To the point when he went pro, some of the most famous traders in America found him, invested in him!

Let me make this clear.  This is like making music in your basement and getting a call from Doug Morris or Timbaland or David Foster.  But they don’t want to mold you, they don’t want to change you, they don’t want you to do anything different, they just want A PIECE OF YOUR ACTION!

Yup, they found Burry on the Internet.

Isn’t it interesting that warhorses in the music business will pooh-pooh the Net, saying you can’t break an act there, that it comes down to radio and television, but the real money men are trolling for info online?

And how did Burry get so good at picking stocks?  BY STUDYING!

Yup, doing the work.

This is Gladwell time.

We live in a country where no one wants to do the work.

Oh, I know that’s an overstatement.  But most people want to watch television.  They want to focus on their image.  Is it any wonder they’re left behind?

Not that you need a formal education to make it.  You can’t learn the stock market in school.  You’ve got to learn it on your own, like the music business.

And Burry’s returns at his Scion fund are confoundingly large.  It’s all about value.  He bets on fundamentally sound companies that are experiencing a bit of trouble.  He hangs in there during the downward spiral in order to ride the roller coaster to the top, making beaucoup bucks along the way.

This is like investing in a band that may not look great, may need to woodshed a bit, may need to make three or four albums, but when it gets it together will be a gold mine.  We can call it the Kings of Leon.  We can call it artist development. We can call it ANYTHING but flavor of the moment.

That’s the point.  Are you willing to do it differently?  Are you willing to do the work and come up with your own conclusions, your own solutions?  That’s Steve Jobs’ way.  When everybody said you’ve got to have open standards, he promoted closed systems.  And now he’s the big winner.

And Burry got so deep into it, figuring out when and what mortgage bonds were gonna tank, that he bought credit default swaps and made…enough money to buy your entire neighborhood.  And the one next to you. And the one next to that.

By being brilliant.  Even though so many investors said his plan was lunacy and wanted no part of it.

THIS is the American story.  Not making a mix tape and partying with Paris Hilton and getting a photo in TMZ…  Snooki is a diversion for the masses, the losers.  Do you want to be a winner?

Winners start off in the wilderness.  They do it their own way.  They stick to their guns.  They work incessantly and they never give up.

Whew.  That just does not sound like enough people in the record business, on either side of the fence, talent or businessman.

We live in a confusing, crazy world.  But one thing is constant.  The winners pay their dues.  And it’s not solely time on the chain gang.  No, there’s a ton of anxiety involved.  Questioning yourself, taking risks, sticking to your guns when no one believes in you.

It’s every man for himself out there.  Shouldn’t be, but it is.

There’s a safety net in Canada.  In Sweden.  That’s the socialism you decry.  But in the good old United States, the game is stacked against you.  Those with power, with money, have erected walls to keep you out.  And if you think kissing butt is the way to get ahead, you’re delusional.  It’s not about how you can get signed, it’s about how you can beat Universal at its own game.  You’ve got to be smarter than Lucian Grainge.  Believe me, these people exist.  And they’re gonna be the winners.  They’re the ones we’re gonna be reading about in "Vanity Fair" five years from now.

Parking our asses on a couch in the lobby of the Royal York Hotel, we watched the endless parade go by.  I thought everybody was here for CMW, especially the young girls parading around in their pajamas.  Turned out they were Christian moms, aged thirty, in town for a conference with someone named Beth Moore and when they realized Jake was the judge from "Canadian Idol" they insisted we stay right there, as if we could move, while they went up to their room, retrieved a camera and came down for a pic for posterity.

It was me, Jake, Eric Garland of BigChampagne and Lane Dunlop of iTunes Canada.  And after discussing my presentation, Terry McBride and Glenn Beck and the Christian Right, I asked Eric about his business, selling information to media companies that they think they want but don’t really want to know about.

BigChampagne tracks online swaps.  As Eric says, don’t kill the messenger.  But, there was that label that threatened to sue the company.  But now Eric also provides data to movie companies.  Who are always stunned how much theft is already happening.  And when Eric tells them what he tells the labels, that their business is going to get smaller, they just don’t want to believe it.  But it will.  According to Eric.  Data doesn’t lie.  Windows will get smaller and disappear.  The public loves the movies, but the purchase options have been determined by the purveyors, now the consumer is going to have a ton of control, and revenues will go down.

Then again, everybody remarked about the price of a movie.  Have you seen "Avatar"?  Jake bought four tickets and the clerk said $70.  Yup, four times $17.50.  Used to be the price of a movie was an afterthought, but if film companies want to maintain their revenues and their employees their lifestyles, prices have to go up.  Just like concerts.  Then again, we’ve never found a way to project the concert into the home, not in a way that everybody will pay, you just can’t smell the crowd, scan the audience and feel the music.

Then Jay Frank strolled by.  Jay is Senior Vice President of Music Strategy for CMT.  How a Jew from New Jersey ends up in Nashville, I’m not sure, but Jay’s right at home in Tennessee, employing his scientific approach to hits.  Hell, he even wrote a book about it.  If you want to have a hit, if you want to play by the rules, you should check it out. 

Go to: Future Hit.DNA

Anyway, being deep into analysis, and living in Music City, I asked Jay about Taylor Swift.  Pretty right on response.  He said it depended on her next record.  Could she grow, could she mature, could she deliver something beyond what she’s sold/written before?

We’ll see.

But when that topic was covered, Jay turned to Lane and asked him about Sam Adams, was it real?

We’re not talking about the beer here.  Even though Sam Adams is from Boston, even though if you Google his name, the results will spell beer.

That’s just the point…

If Sam Adams really earned number one on the iTunes hip-hop chart, you’d think there’d be some Google action.  Scroll down and you can find some recent news results, but the links, the stories?  Not to be found.

And when you go to Amazon, you find little action, only two reviews.

And when you go to iTunes, the comparable purchases are not similar material.

So, is it fake?  Or, as Jay put it, if it looks like a duck and walks like a duck is it really not a duck?

Apple is so secretive, I won’t give you Lane’s response.  But he did indicate that people have tried to scam iTunes in the past, and that they have techniques for uncovering the fraud.

Then conversation wandered to the Chris Brown wedding dance video.  Was that fake?

Jay laughed.  Eric too.  OF COURSE it was fake.

How come the mainstream media didn’t pick up on the story?

BECAUSE THEY DON’T LIKE TO BE DUPED, THEY DON’T LIKE TO LOOK BAD!

Fascinating.  Yesterday, in the "Globe and Mail", they had the story of the Facebook war between Nickelback and a pickle. In case you don’t have an Internet connection, the pickle won.  But the spicy cucumber won WEEKS AGO!  Where was the paper then?

No viral video has ever had that many hits on YouTube in less than a week.  Other online indicators of success were lacking.  But the press bought the story, hook, line and sinker.  Shit, does the "Today Show" do any investigative journalism?  It’s a feel good story!  Don’t argue with me!

And speaking of YouTube, it came out last night that that’s where people go to stream music.  Check the statistics vis a vis MySpace.  Plays have plunged on Murdoch’s site.  And speaking of MySpace, if Sam Adams is working a record, how come he hasn’t logged in to his page since the last week of February?

Samuel Adams MySpace

Did he steal credit card numbers?  Did he organize a ring of college students to amass this manipulation, this fraud?  Or could it truly be real.

Come on, how could it be real?  Tech-savvy youngsters have been running circles around the establishment for almost two decades now.

Ain’t that America.  If a President lied about nooky, I might as well cheat and scam to get what I want.  And Lehman Brothers cheated too.  And if the rich cheat, what are the poor to do?

I don’t want to convict Sam Adams yet.  There’s been no trial.

Then again, trials are irrelevant in America.  It’s about how rich the defendant is.  If he gets a great lawyer, he runs circles around the attorneys paid by the government.  See "O.J."  People are convicted in the court of public opinion.

And I don’t really give a shit about Sam Adams’ music.

But as a modern business story, it’s fascinating.

Boston Rapper Sam Adams Accused Of Buying Own Album To Top iTunes Charts

PAPERLESS TICKETING

From: Matt O
Subject: Thom Yorke tix avail a week after release?

14 US shows, 2 in california.  A week after release there are still Thom Yorke tix available for the tiny Santa Barbara Bowl.
At first I thought it was a misprint.  Turns out, you have to swipe the credit card you used to buy the tickets in order to get in to the show.  Not a scalper in sight.

Atoms For Peace
Santa Barbara Bowl

Whoa.  Is scalping the new Internet bubble?  In other words, what exactly IS the demand for tickets?

Could it be that there’s been an artificial frenzy, of brokers buying up tickets creating fake shortages that fuel further buying just to get into the building and that demand is actually lower than perceived?  In other words, is the perception different from the reality?

Miley Cyrus goes on tour and there’s mass hysteria, parents complain they can’t get their little girls in.

Miley goes on tour with paperless ticketing and there’s no problem getting a seat.

Oh, maybe Miley’s a has-been.

But Thom Yorke’s credibility is as high as ever.  Maybe it’s not Radiohead, maybe people don’t know who the act is…  Then again, could a performer have more rabid fans?

I’m not saying Taylor Swift isn’t selling out.  Or Lady GaGa for that matter.  But I’m questioning what the demand for shows really is.  Even when there isn’t paperless ticketing.  Bon Jovi blew out tickets at 55% off in Kansas City

APPLE SURGES PAST WAL-MART TO BECOME 3RD MOST VALUABLE U.S. COMPANY

Apple surges past Wal-Mart to become 3rd most valuable U.S. company

How does a mercurial bastard who ignores conventional wisdom end up running a company bigger than Wal-Mart?

Isn’t it funny.  Today’s acts are told by managers and agents and labels to sell out, quick, to do it just like everybody else, but the big winner, Steve Jobs, does it his own way, listens to nobody, doesn’t license Apple’s technology, prices his products high and makes you believe your life will be empty without them.

Steve Jobs is a rock star.

You remember rock stars, don’t you?  Those people beholden to no one, who wrote their own rules?  Who created music totally different from what came before, which people flocked to?

And Apple is Warner/Reprise.  The old company.  Run by Mo Ostin.  You know, the one where every band was good. Sure, the ultimate recording might not capture the magic, but if it was on Warner, it was worth checking out.  There might be some duds, like Apple TV, but the winners made it all worth it.

When Steve Jobs does his keynote, I get up early to see what he has to say, I watch the endless presentation unspool, a condensation by some tech reporter just will not do.  I want more.  The same way I wanted to know everything about Led Zeppelin and had to go see the Who perform "Tommy" at the Fillmore East.

The rabidity has left music and entered tech.

And who do we have to blame?

The boomers.  So inured to their lifestyles that they don’t want change, they just want it the way it used to be.  Overpriced CDs and concerts performed by bands who perfected their music on a spreadsheet.

Steve Jobs specializes in selling us what we didn’t even know we wanted.  Remember when the music business used to do this?

FREE MUSIC

Just had a conversation with Marty Winsch, manager of Corey Smith.  He said he doesn’t consider giving away MP3s online as free.  People are paying with their time.

What a concept.  That’s the one thing we just don’t have enough of.  The one thing that’s precious.  If people give you their time, you’ve got a chance of building a relationship.

If you ambush somebody with an unsolicited e-mail, you’re just pissing them off.

Remember this.

PEREZ HILTON

I like Mario, I really do.

But he’s toast.

TMZ killed him.  One person can’t compete with an army.

And now he’s getting desperate.  Evidencing the behavior of his generation.  Promoting himself, begging to be a judge on the new "American Idol" or "X Factor".

It hasn’t worked that way forever.  Sure, you can line up to be in the audience for "The Price Is Right" and clamor to play, but if you’re lucky you leave with a toaster, it’s the producer who makes all the money.

People have to come to you.  The Internet has allowed individuals to amplify their message, but that doesn’t mean anybody’s paying attention.

CLASSIC ALBUMS

Don’t pay too much attention to the Pink Floyd/EMI skirmish.  That’s not about albums, that’s about money.  As in how can the legendary band extricate its early albums from the clutches of its label.

The Internet unbundled the album, and no one can put Humpty Dumpty’s pieces back together again.

But that doesn’t mean we don’t like the albums of the past.

Jake was telling me about seeing the Musical Box.  You know, the Genesis tribute band:

The Musical Box

He went one night, and then had to go the second.

Tribute bands have been building for years.  Now’s the time to elevate the concept into the equivalent of a Broadway show.

They bring back "South Pacific", why not bring back "Sgt. Pepper", "Beggars Banquet", even "Rocket To Russia"?

It’s the music that survives, unlike many of its makers.

License the rights from the original band or its heirs and tour it, playing a classic album from start to finish for a fair price, in the neighborhood of $40-$50.

Let’s just canonize the music of yore and get it repeated endlessly.  Shit, sell it as a series.  There’s no hype, no smoke and mirrors, it’s not the original band, it’s an experience, that mimics the original, that reminds you if you were there and clues you in if you were not.

Yup, we’re gonna tour "Physical Graffiti".  And "Aqualung".

Doesn’t matter if the originals are still alive.  Do they use the original performers when they restage a play on Broadway? No, they use younger performers.

It’s the material, stupid.

DA PLANE

I do my best to fly American.  Yup, that loyalty program works.  If I’m Gold, which I am, I don’t have to pay for bags and…I can get upgraded…which happened just last week!

But not to Toronto.  The front of the plane was booked.  I had to sit in the back.

Not too bad.  I’m just gonna sit on the aisle and read my magazines all the way to Canada.

Then again, having priority access, being able to board the plane early, I’m in that hellacious anxiety-filled limbo, waiting to see who is going to sit next to me.

Yup, I get on the plane right away.  Need to.  To put all my shit in the overhead bin!  Not that I’m traveling with that much, but I want a little legroom, I don’t want to put my computer underneath the seat in front of me.

So, they’re loading from back to front.  And I’m just behind the wall in coach…  I see obese people go by…  I’m losing sympathy for Kevin Smith.  Or should I blame the airlines, with impossibly skinny seats and no legroom befitting a population of Lilliputians…

And finally, they’re loading my zone.

And one of those guys who looks like a leaking barrel…  He’s towering over me.

And he’s with this woman, I’m not sure it’s his wife, because he’s all over her, and usually years of marriage eviscerates that behavior, and they’re debating whether he should sit in the middle or on the aisle and ultimately…he tells her he’s gonna sit by the window.

Yay!  Victory!

Then again, his significant other is a bit wide in the hips.  No, that’s an understatement.  She’s fat too, just not as fat.  But then they start nookying around, as if they’re going to join the Mile High Club right there in the cabin, without a blanket, and she’s leaning against him, and her avoirdupois is…infringing upon my territory.

That’s how you start wars.  Hell, it’s bad enough that the guy in front of me put his seat back all the way as soon as we leveled out.

So, feeling encroached upon, I pushed back once or twice.  I mean she’s leaning her ass right against mine, like I’m a cushion or something.

And she never gives me room, but ultimately gets up to pee, and goes to first class, which is a no-no, and she comes back and the guy goes to pee too and she waits in the aisle and when they come back, they switch seats!

Well, at least his hips were narrower, but all his fat is oozing over the armrest, I feel like I’m going to be crushed by the Marshmallow Man.

I get it.  Fares have to be cheap or people won’t fly.  You’ve got to pack in a bunch of people to make the numbers work.

But we’re a fat as hell country trying to squeeze into a skinny world.  Kind of like a middle-aged matron sporting a spare tire trying to fit into a size 2.  At least the fashion designers wised-up and made a size 10 the equivalent of a size 14.

So what’s the answer?

I don’t consider myself a member of the fat police.  But either we’ve got to get people healthy or we need bigger airplane seats.

Then again, I read a great analysis in "Newsweek".  Stating that it’s not really the politicians’ fault, blame the electorate, which wants tons of services for no money.

Yup, I don’t want to pay any taxes, but fix my roads, give me my entitlements…

To tell you the truth, I would have rather stood up to Toronto.  Like the CEO of Ryanair suggested, however facetiously.

VINCE BANNON

You know Vince, right?

Was a performer, a promoter, a record exec and now works for Getty Images.

People steal images for their Websites.  So what does Getty do?  It makes them available cheap, so people will go legit. Hell, they’ve got a whole site where the hoi polloi can post their own photos for usage, with a bunch of instructions attached, like NO ONE GIVES A SHIT ABOUT YOUR FAMILY PICTURES!

If only the labels got the message…

You want to be a distributor for everyone.  And you want to make music so cheap, it doesn’t pay to steal.  Hell, stealing takes time.

If you think  a buck a track is a good deal, you’re probably not buying any…

Piracy isn’t a battle to be fought with lawsuits, but pricing and ease of use.

Then again, everybody knows this except the rights holders, which is why the major labels are in decline.

MUSIC MANAGERS FORUM

They had a dinner, honoring Anne Murray’s deceased manager and Sam Feldman.

Sam said some interesting things.

Like how it’s the same as when he started.  You put up posters and you build your act in the clubs.  We’re starting all over.

Sam also railed about 360 deals.  Managers hate ’em.  At least managers who are not so eager to commission the meager monies that come in on today’s new deals.  Shit, you can make more money playing the slots in Vegas.

Or, as Jake said…  In a 360 deal, is the manager working for the label?  The labels wants you to forgo commissions while you’re building the act, but the manager’s starving…

The majors believe they’ve won, 360s are the standard.  But have they really lost.  Have they got a perfect world where they rule but few want to play.

BILLY CORGAN

Yup, forgot, I read "Rolling Stone" on the plane.

Yes, I still get it.  But everybody I told about this story in T.O. does not.  The magazine has never meant less.

Anyway, Billy knows he’s a has-been.  He’s using spiritual techniques to try and remain optimistic, that he can break through again.

It’s fascinating.  Usually stars won’t speak the truth.  They’re delusional, being ripped off again and again yet believing it’s sunny when it’s raining out.

But Billy knows that people made a fortune on his music…  And now, he’s yesterday’s news.  Few want to see him.  Same as it ever was.  Which is why you can’t be on the side of the labels, who take the lion’s share of the money.  Athletes have brief careers too.  But they pay a lot in sports, the stars bring in the cash.  Used to be you could make tons on the road, now the label wants a share of that too?  Ridiculous.

Meanwhile, there’s a long story on Shaun White, the preeminent snowboarder, in "Rolling Stone" too.  You want to know what his passion is?  Music.  The hip shit, beats and such?  No, Shaun loves Zeppelin, he’s learning the guitar.  The Top Forty nitwits are the sideshow, never forget this.  The mainstream and the hip merged in the MTV era, but MTV finally removed "Music Television" from its logo, those days are THROUGH!

OLIVER

Can’t remember his last name, can’t remember the venue, but both made an impression upon me.

First, the club.  Two rooms.  Comedy in the front and music in the back.  ON A WEDNESDAY NIGHT!  You can feel the heartbeat in Toronto.  In L.A?  They’re bumping asses, trying to get in TMZ.

And Oliver, who made it into the Top 22 on "Canadian Idol", don’t hold that against him, did an acoustic set.  Shit, he could sing well, play and you could follow along, and sing along.

This is music.

Yeah, yeah, yeah.  Beats are music, and that alternative dreck is music too.  It’s just that in this post modern world in which we live, people are doing derivations of derivations that the public can’t relate to.  Let’s go BACK to the garden.  Shit, Zeppelin, et al, were influenced by the blues.  A great blues number still works.  Do you really have to mess it up with speed, time changes and screechy vocals?  Think about it.  The best cars have the simplest exterior design.  Think of the classics, stop trying to be hip.

RALPH SIMON

Worth knowing.  Clive Calder’s old partner.  But unlike Clive, Ralph’s still in the game, would be even if his old partner had cut him in on his score.

Ralph flies all over the world brokering mobile deals.  He cemented the deal between U2 and BlackBerry.  In the lobby, Ralph introduced me to this guy from India who paid Warner a bunch of money for mobile rights.  Conversations with Ralph are deep, not just statistics.

And I told Ralph that the U.K., where he resides…is completely different from America.

In the U.K., people follow music like horse-racing, they’re fans of the game.  No one gives a shit about the game in the U.S.

In the U.K., radio still matters.

Radio matters less than ever in the U.S.  You can be a radio star and play clubs, whereas someone without radio play can live off their tour receipts.

Point being, in the U.S. we’ve got utter chaos.  And the rest of the world is following us.  Everybody’s making music, potential listeners are overwhelmed, there are no filters and there’s no organization.

Filters will rule.  People want to be told what to listen to.  Online.  Shit, they’re not going to listen through endless b.s. to hear their favorite song on Pandora, that radio service has the lifespan of MySpace, it’s about reading about something and hearing it INSTANTLY, clicking on it!  Shit, you can even do this now, with LaLa and YouTube, never mind Spotify. But what you listen to…  That’s where the game gets interesting.

And recommendations won’t come from computer algorithms, but people.  Computers will decide what we listen to when you can have sex in an orgasmatron…

LUNCH

An A&R man told me how new bands manipulate the system.  They cut a radio guy in for points, get airplay and then trumpet these spins to the label.  It’s all fake.

Then again, this same guy didn’t say all new music was bad, just ABOVE AVERAGE!

Eureka, THAT’S IT!  People send me decent stuff all the time.  But one listen is enough.  Or, as the publisher in attendance stated, like Steve Jobs’ credo, music must be INSANELY GREAT!

Make that the filter.  Before you recommend something, is it INSANELY GREAT!

That leaves just about everything out.  But don’t complain, face the facts.  The public is so overwhelmed, they’ve only got TIME for insanely great.

Apple releases one or two products a year that they’ve been working on for years.  And nobody in the building was born yesterday.  You’ve got people who’ve been coding since before they grew pubic hair!  That’s what it takes to make something insanely great.  So think about it, you just learned GarageBand, cut a song and made a deal for Tunecore to put it on iTunes.  THAT DOESN’T MEAN IT’S GREAT OR THAT WE CARE!

The Long Tail means everything is available, so your friends and family can buy it, not that we, the general public, care whatsoever.

Ask yourself, in an era with infinite music at your fingertips, DO YOU WANT TO PLAY IT AGAIN?

Prior to this century, music was expensive, we had little, we played it again because we had no choice.

Those days are history, gone completely.  Everything’s available.  How do we get people to pay attention, to spend time?

By being INSANELY great!