1. Book Pricing

Amazon blinked.

In case you missed the story, over the weekend Macmillan drew a line in the sand.  No more devaluing our product, no more underselling to boost Kindle market share, we’re not going to let you sell electronic books for $9.99 upon date of hard cover publication.

Oh YEAH??

Well, yeah.  You should have seen the mealy-mouthed Amazon explanation when the retailer caved.  Something about Macmillan having a "monopoly over their own titles"?  Huh?

The record companies want to raise prices at the iTunes Store and Steve Jobs goes public and calls them greedy.  Jeff Bezos just caves.

But the truly interesting point is Macmillan’s desire to stand up to Amazon.  It was emboldened by a product that has not yet hit the shelves, the iPad.  Steve Jobs said electronic books would be a straight 70/30 deal, in favor of the publisher.  And books would cost $12.99 to $14.99.

Overnight, with an unreleased product, Steve Jobs changed electronic book pricing.  Wow.

(Meanwhile, emboldened by Macmillan, HarperCollins is now angling for a better e-book deal with Amazon, which Murdoch said today is ready to renegotiate. Meanwhile, Murdoch, who controls HarperCollins, referenced Apple’s higher prices in his criticism of Amazon.  So, Bezos takes his finger out of the dike and the water comes rushing in, just like that, all because Jeff is afraid of Steve Jobs and Apple.)

2. Flash

You should have seen the blogosphere.  Up in arms.  The iPad doesn’t support FLASH!

And it doesn’t have a camera, which the ultimately released edition is now rumored to include, and there’s no USB…

But Flash?  How can we run the Internet without Flash?  It’s the standard!  Hell, you could see the blank spot in the "New York Times" page Jobs pulled up in the demo, where the movie was supposed to go.  The iPad can’t triumph…  Maybe you can get away without Flash on the tiny iPhone, but not the iPad!

Then Jobs struck back.  Trumping the naysayers by saying that Flash sucks.  That it’s the main reason Safari crashes on computers.

Mmm…  That’s right.

I don’t know if you’re on a Mac, but it never crashes, not only the whole computer, but any individual program, except for occasionally Microsoft Office, where so many cooks ended up releasing a half-baked product, and Safari.

Yes, it’s not frequent, but Safari crashes.  Or hangs.  And it’s always the damn movie.  It’s always Flash.

Suddenly, online, there’s all this hoopla about HTML5.  How it and H.264 are better than Flash and are going to replace it.

Wow.  Talk about turning lemons into lemonade.  Steve Jobs is so powerful he can change the STANDARD!  Then again, this is not the first time he’s done it.  Remember the iMac without the floppy drive, with USB connectors?  Seen a floppy drive recently?  Isn’t USB the standard (is the proprietary iPod connector about to be the new standard?)

3. AT&T

There were audible groans in the auditorium when Jobs stated that high speed cellular connections for the iPad would be through AT&T.  The groans may not have made the official video, but do you wonder why the stream doesn’t appear until hours later?  It’s got to be cleaned up!

AT&T has shitty 3G coverage.  Just watch TV and see the maps.  Yes, AT&T’s 3G is extremely fast, WHERE YOU CAN GET IT!  Which is in the metropolis, assuming the system’s not overloaded.

But today it was revealed that Verizon just didn’t bid high enough.  That AT&T put its money where its mouth was.  Coming up with a low-priced service plan that other providers weren’t about to match.  Giving AT&T a monopoly on Apple products and time to finally get those infrastructure changes in place before everybody abandons the legacy carrier.

All this and the iPad has not yet been released.

It seems the world comes down to two kinds of people.  Those who are afraid of Apple and those who are not.  Verizon is not.  But they just reported shitty numbers.  Amazon is.

You see companies believe that Steve Jobs is in control of a giant tribe, who will follow him anywhere.  So far, Mr. Jobs has not revealed a compelling reason to purchase an iPad.  But that doesn’t mean he won’t.  And when he does, when the tribe has acquired it and harangued newbies to join the team, do you want to be left out?

This is utterly amazing.  We’ve got a President, a whole cadre of elected officials whored out to corporations, their approval ratings in the dumper. But we’ve got a businessman (aren’t we supposed to hate businessmen?) who appears beholden to no one, in search of excellence, willing to do it his way at the risk that potential partners might take the highway.  When so-called musical "artists" are eager to sell out, do you wonder why Steve Jobs has got such a throng of admirers, such a posse?  To the point where an unreleased product changes the course of business?

AT&T would be in the same boat as Sprint without the iPhone and now the iPad, hemorrhaging customers.

Adobe felt it won the war of Web video and rested on its laurels, just like Microsoft.  We’ve got dominant market share, Flash is the standard, you have to use our product…huh?  Especially if the platform changes.  Microsoft may own the desktop, although their share is slipping, but it’s losing tremendous ground in the new medium, mobile devices.  Hell who’d want Windows Mobile after using Windows on their desktop?  And it’s not like Windows Mobile has gotten good reviews.

And if you think physical books are the way of the future, then you’re unaware of the towns that no longer sport a bookstore, like Laredo, TX, you’re unaware that library hours are shortening, that Borders is on the bring of bankruptcy and Barnes & Noble might soon be taken over.  The publishers are too ignorant to even see what’s going on.  They’re running into the arms of Apple to avoid Amazon.  Who do you need to fear most? Just look at a Kindle and an iPad and you’ve got your answer.  Publishers are doing BETTER by selling e-books on Amazon today, they’re getting physical book wholesale!  But fearful of $9.99 becoming the pricing standard, they’re taking a worse deal from Apple.  Retailing the books at higher prices, but getting less in return.  But how about when you want to raise prices again?  Look what happened with the record companies.  Suddenly, Apple had all the power, not them.

But publishers are shortsighted.

And Amazon is weak.

AT&T realized it’s better to get on the Jobs bandwagon than not.

And the public wants cheaper prices, or it steals.  Not that Steve Jobs really cares, he’s in the hardware business… 

There was a space in my bookcase where I kept my cash, waiting for four bucks to accumulate…then I went and bought an album, which I played again and again until I knew every cut, until I accumulated enough money to buy another, when I repeated the process.  You see, music was scarce.

Now it’s plentiful.

Albums didn’t always rule.  Actually, I was one of the few people addicted to the long player back in the early sixties, most people bought singles.  Why buy the album?  You really only wanted the hit.  But somewhere in the Beatles’ ascendance, that changed. Maybe with the single-less "Rubber Soul", certainly with "Sgt. Pepper".  The album was a statement.  Suddenly everyone was buying albums, listening to FM radio to find out what to purchase, to experiment with.  And then when these acts came to town, you went to see them.  Tickets were cheaper, it was little more expensive than seeing a movie…but that’s a whole ‘nother issue. No, it’s not.  Let’s ask that question, what makes someone go to the show?

Assuming it’s not a has-been, not a classic rock act, what motivates the average person to overpay to go to the extravaganza? The hit.  People didn’t know much more than the Spice Girls’ "Wannabe", they were caught up in the hoopla.  And hoopla still exists, especially if you’re like GaGa and put together a string of hits, but how about everybody else?  How many people can have that many hits?  How many can have hits at all?

The listening experience is completely different from the sixties.  Today, there’s too much choice.  I’m not starving for music at home, I’ve got a plethora of services, but anyone can listen to everything via MySpace/YouTube/LaLa.  What are they going to listen to?  Are they going to listen to the album?

Ever marvel at how a youngster multitasks, appears not to be overwhelmed by media?  That’s because kids today are only interested in great.  They’ll dig deep on something that fascinates them, otherwise they’re just interested in the headlines.

There’s too much information.  And the way today’s youngsters deal with it is to separate the wheat from the chaff.  They’re interested in the hit single, but they’re not about to pay ten plus bucks for an album and play it over and over again to get it, that paradigm is THROUGH!

Really, don’t see the album/single debate from the perspective of the artist, certainly don’t look at it from the perspective of the record label, look at it from the perspective of the listener.

The listener wants great music.  He’s building a library, a playlist, it’s akin to the early sixties, when singles ruled.  Why buy the album?  What are the odds the rest of the tracks are great?  Very low.  Furthermore, the album’s not a deal.  At least in the sixties there was an economic incentive to purchase the long player, that doesn’t exist in the digital world.  Maybe if the album were five bucks instead of ten plus.  But then people still wouldn’t listen to anything but the hit anyway.

In other words, the game we’ve been playing has died.  Almost completely.  And it’s only going to get worse.  And if you’re playing the old way and bitching, you’re missing the point.

If you’re satisfied with the audience you’ve got and you want to satiate this small coterie with a collection of ten tracks, be my guest.  But those not fans will ignore your long player, they don’t care, it’s too much music to penetrate, they’re not convinced it’s worth dedicating the TIME, if a single cut bubbles to the surface they’re interested, but they’re not going on a fruitless hunt.

So, if you’re making an album as an economic vehicle, a product that can blow up and rain coin into your pocketbook, you’re screwed, it just doesn’t happen like that anymore, because almost no one has got the time to listen to anything but your best work.

A head-scratcher, I know.  I’ll give you an example.

I love One eskimO’s "Kandi".  I’ve listened to it at least fifty times, the same way we wore out singles in the days of yore.  But have I played the entire album?  Oh, I gave it a shot.  But it doesn’t sound anything like "Kandi".  What I mean is it doesn’t have that sly R&B sound, and with thousands of other cuts on my iPod, I gravitate to them.  In other words, our collections today are not albums, but a playlist of singles.

Now this has huge impact on the business, everything from acts to labels to concert promoters.

Acts are going to inherently make less money, after all, people want less of their music.  And those who are interested in a complete album are very few.  Those days of ten million people buying the album just to get the single are done, they died with Napster, they’re never coming back, the cherry-picking world of iTunes rules.  If you want to last, you’ve got to super-serve a small coterie of fans.  Don’t tour the world, don’t go for world domination, just satisfy your fans, because a fan will come see you live, will buy your merch.

Record labels…  Suddenly, they’ve lost most of their revenue, and it’s never coming back.  You may be selling many more of one, but no one cares about the other nine cuts on the album.  You shouldn’t even make them, shouldn’t even bother.  Maximize revenue from the single.  And scale back, knowing that the glory days are done.

Concert promoters?  Who’s going to come see the acts?  In quantity?

That’s one reason festivals rule.  You get to graze.  Most of these acts can play to very few solo, aggregate them and people get to sample, immediately giving a thumbs-up or a thumbs-down.  Your festival appearance is crucial, you must kill, this is where you convince people to come see you again, but odds are most people won’t.

But none of this is bad for music.  In the aggregate, people are listening to more music than ever before.  It’s just that rather than being limited to three networks, there are five hundred channels.  Rather than being limited to what’s in the theatre, they’ve got Netflix.

And when the CD dies?  And no matter what you read, it’s on its way out, there’s not going to be anywhere to buy it, sure there will be some indie stores, but so many of those have died, people will start wondering why you ever aggregated ten tracks together, the same way a kid today doesn’t understand an 8-track or a cassette.  Once the physical format dies, the whole construct is kaput.

So what’s a new act to do?

First question its dedication.  Do you want to play in this new world?  Where a few beat-infused tracks can get airplay on Top Forty and succeed but people don’t have to listen to Top Forty?  Are you willing to work really hard for far less, knowing that mass success is not in the offing?

If so, woodshed until you create that one listen track.  That’s your main hope of your music spreading.  A cut so good people will tell others about it.  Will put it in their playlist and keep it in rotation.  Then you’ve got to come up with another.  And another.

And chances are, you can’t.

Which is why you read about scenes in Brooklyn and the bands never reach ubiquity, because the average joe just doesn’t care, doesn’t get it.  But people like Owl City’s "Fireflies".  As for the rest of the album, do you even need it?

This isn’t about Apple.  This isn’t about the labels.  It’s not about the acts.  It’s about the audience.  We’ve got incredible shit detectors.  More music at our fingertips than we can ever listen to.  And believe me, we want to listen.  But only to what’s great. Can you blame us?

From: Melanie Howard
Subject: HE CALLED ME BABY

Bob,

I’d love to weigh in on HE CALLED ME BABY as my late, husband, Harlan Howard wrote the song.  Patsy did cut it in the early 60’s as a mournful ballad. It has also been cut by Waylon, Charlie Rich, and even Harlan Howard himself just to mention a few. You’ll have to look for the guy version under SHE CALLED ME BABY.  I find the pages on Harlan Howard in allmusic.com to be fascinating.

Candi Staton’s original record did not have horns on it.  Rick Hall added them after the record was released to the betterment of the record, I think. Candi’s version still stands the test of time and I think that is saying something 40 plus years later.

Harlan wrote the song as a simple country song with a simple country tune. In the mid 60’s Harlan was offered several record deals to record his own songs.  He wasn’t foolish and knew he should give his best songs to those who could sing much better than he.  He recorded a few concept albums but his heart wasn’t in to being a performer.  He was shy and hated the spotlight. He had a breakout hit in Texas on SHE CALLED ME BABY and was forced to hire a publicist and a promoter and was on his way to Texas. After the gig, he returned to Nashville fired the publicist and promoter and refused to leave again.  Seems he didn’t write any songs for two weeks surrounding his one gig and he knew that performing was not for him if it took his focus off his first love and that was as a wordsmith.  He loved the fact that he could write songs that would get the real singers out on the road and he could stay home surrounded by the comforts of his new works in progress.

I love the One EskimO version of KANDI. I’ll love it even better, if we get paid on it.  I think Harlan would love it too.  He got a big kick out of hearing different interpretations of his songs as long as credit was given to him as the creator. He loved Candi’s version of HE CALLED ME BABY.  Heck he even liked Nazareth’s version of BUSTED another classic tune written by Harlan Howard.

Thanks Bob for talking about songs and music.  I enjoy reading your emails.

Melanie Smith-Howard

___________________________________

From: Seymour Stein
Subject: He Called Me Baby!

Dear Bob,

Discovering that Candi Staton’s "He Called Me Baby" is a song rooted in country should not come as a surprise.  Country and Western and Rhythm and Blues are much closer than people realize.  When you consider the roots both lie in the South, it’s really no surprise.  King Records where I got my education was in Cincinnati, on the Kentucky border and very much influenced by both genres.  Syd Nathan would often take songs recorded by his country acts and record them by R&B acts.  Two that come to mind are "Blood Shot Eyes" by Hank Penny also massively successful in R&B by Wynonie Harris and  "Signed, Sealed and Delivered" a number one country smash for Cowboy Copas, was later done successfully by James Brown.  

Paul Ackerman, the legendary music editor of Billboard and Rock & Roll Hall Of Fame inductee gave Jerry Wexler the country song "Just Out Of Reach"  which was Solomon Burke’s debut after he left Apollo Records to join Atlantic.  The original country and western version was on the Four Star label.  I forget the group.

Perhaps, the greatest of all examples was Ray Charles classic album Modern Sounds in Country and Western Music and brought the artist to the mainstream.  The hit single, "I Can’t Stop Loving You" was written by Don Gibson for Kitty Wells and was a hit in both fields.  Other songs of note on the album were "Born To Lose" and two Floyd Tillman tunes "It Makes No Difference Now" and "I Love You So Much It Hurts" as well as three Hank William’s classics "Hey Goodlookin’"  "You Win Again," and "Half As Much."  

Pop A&R men like Mitch Miller at Columbia and Hugo Winterhalter were also quick to spot country classics and record them by pop acts in the days just before the beginning of Rock & Roll.  Miller had great success with "Cold Cold Heart" by Tony Bennett. "You Belong To Me" by Joe Stafford.  "Half As Much" by Rosemary Clooney and later in the early days of rock with Guy Mitchell’s "Singin’ The Blues" and "Heartaches By The Number" originally introduced in country by Marty Robbins and Ray Price respectively.  Winterhalter produced Eddie Fisher with Eddy Arnold’s massive country hit "Anytime"  and also Slim Willet’s "Don’t Let The Stars Get In Your Eyes" a number one for Perry Como.

Perhaps the best example of pop goes country is Patti Page’s "Tennessee Waltz" written by Pee Wee King and Redd Stewart produced by either her manager Jack Rael or Mercury exec Art Talmadge, I can’t recall.  First a hit in country in versions by Cowboy Copas and Pee Wee King.  Patti Pages’, one of the first "multi-track" recordings spent over three months at the top of the pop charts.

Listened to Candi Staton’s  "He Called Me Baby" and like it a lot.  If you’re not familiar with Little Esther Phillips version of "Release Me," I think you’ll enjoy it.  Originally a country hit both for Kitty Wells and Ray Price.  Any of these three versions far superior to Englebert Humperdinck in 1967.  All this just goes to prove is a great song is a great song; back in the 50’s and 60’s and still true today.  

Best Regards,
Seymour

Speaking of crowdsourcing…

Someone forwarded me these tweets from Josh Groban:

"I really don’t feel that charity performances should be subject to reviews in the same light as other performances…."

"people give their time, energy and voices, for free and with little to no rehearsal and critics should put away the snot-o-meter."

"just a thought. night!"

http://twitter.com/joshgroban

Felice disagreed with Josh, after all those in attendance were paying a fortune for this show, many $1,250 a ticket, they expected a quality performance and were entitled to it.

But what struck me was Josh’s thin skin.  I don’t know if he was reacting to my tweet from MusiCares or another’s, there were many tweeting away on their hand-held devices, but he seemed to be shocked that we were biting back, that we were judging him, rendering an opinion, questioning his intentions.

That’s the sea change in the world of celebrity.  Unless you want to function alone, in the privacy of your own bathroom, in the dark, expect people to be aware of what you’re doing and judge it.  You see, to quote Bob Dylan, a surfer would "rather get you down in the hole that he’s in", and he’s now got the ability to make this happen.

You’re no better than the hoi polloi, you put your pants on the same way.  And your fame and riches are dependent upon the public, which gets a say as to your affairs.

But the mainstream media hasn’t caught on to this.  The mainstream media is in cahoots with the stars playing the old game, negotiating for access, fearful of saying something negative for fear access will be denied in the future.  Meanwhile, in cyberspace, it’s a free for all.

Oh, people have had opinions forever, it’s just that they could not be aggregated, there was not a parallel story to the mainstream spin.  But now there is.

For example:

Subject: Re: Grammys

Bob,

I agree, she has become a laughing stock overnight. The discussions on my facebook page alone prove that this will haunt her career forever.

Ross White
Sadson Music

The discussions on his Facebook page?  I don’t see those quoted in the "New York Times", I don’t see them being pored over on the CBS News.  It’s almost like they don’t exist.  But they do.  And people trust these musings much more than those of the vapid talking heads.

Subject: Re: Grammys

Bob,

I haven’t watched the Grammys in years, but my 8 and 11 yr old daughters saw that it was on, so we viewed the show for about 2 hours. I was wondering how Taylor would sound after having heard her on SNL, and judging by the look on Stevie Nicks’ face, I thought she wanted to give Ms. Swift a swift kick in the pants to get her on-key.

I did a Google search on "Grammy’s 2010 Winners," and found that I wasn’t alone. The Washington Post posted a sampling of Twitter comments about her performance.

@Borowitz Report Satan Chooses Taylor Swift Performance as Ringtone

@questlove dear kanye im sorry

@Borowitz Report: God Hoping Taylor Swift Does Not Thank Him

@jfdulac Wifey, listening to Taylor on the #Grammys: "She couldn’t even get into the chamber choir at my high school singing like that."

@Borowitz Report T-Pain Hired to Autotune Taylor Swift at 2011

@idolator How suitable: that guy from #americanidol introduces @taylorswift13, who — we have to say — sounds a little pitchy, dawg.

@harvilla taylor swift’s career singing on live television should’ve gotten an "in memorium" nod

@Kiarri Last year the big battle was between Rihanna & C Brown. This year the fight was between Taylor Swift & pitch.

@jjjrrr Dear Taylor Swift, the music store called, you left your pitch on the counter with your lip gloss

@jeffstearns Taylor Swift? More like Francis Scott Off-Key, am I right?

@feliciapollack Taylor Swift can’t sing. She sounds like she’s playing "Rock Band" in her basement.

@JenRBoyd Oh boy. Taylor Swift’s pitch is flatter than a pancake tonight. Bless her heart

@ianfrancisbush I am starting a disaster relief fund to get Taylor Swift a chromatic tuner.

Laura Faeth

I know, I know, I’ve got to give the "Washington Post" credit for picking up on this story, and I do, if they continue to get hipper, great, but for the public this is everyday information.  Yes, as oldsters decry Twitter as a waste of time, a place where those with no life delineate what they ate for breakfast, these same supposed peons are ripping their clients a new asshole.

So you can sit in your marketing meeting, calculate how you’re going to placate radio, but there’s a shitstorm blowing somewhere you’re not even paying attention.

But speaking of radio…

From: Lance Bakemeyer
Subject: Re: Grammys

I predict you will be right on every count regard Ms. Swift

They played 10 seconds of her duet with S Nicks on the local talk radio station in Denver this morning.  Even the talk radio DJ’s knew she was out of tune and said so.  I’m sure that they never heard of Auto-tune.  They seemed dumb-founded that it could sound so bad.

It’s amazing how quickly the music biz is changing – you are right on all counts about the public finding what they want and ignoring the mainstream tripe.

Morning shows are seen as evanescent fodder, the rantings and ravings of the irrelevant.  Well, tell that to Howard Stern’s audience…  Didn’t he get a couple of candidates get elected, didn’t Christie Todd Whitman name a rest stop after him?

The point is, Ms. Swift’s abominable performance on the Grammys may not be a big story in the mainstream, but on the Net it’s a conflagration, and how often have we seen the Net ultimately influence the mainstream story, like with the U.S. Attorneys fiasco…

Everything’s grist for the mill in the mainstream, said and then forgotten.  But stories brew online, tenacious bloggers stay on them until they get traction.  If you don’t think Taylor’s poor vocals last night on the Grammys will end up haunting her, you don’t have an Internet connection.