I was almost run over by a Cadillac today.  I was walking down the sidewalk in Brentwood, staring at an Audi R8 parked by the curb, when a Cadillac ascended from the depths beneath an apartment building and just about hit me.

My first instinct?

Must be an oldster.

Sure, I wasn’t paying attention.  But this white-haired guy got all the way past me before he stopped.

I’m still shaking.

But I couldn’t get over how things had changed.  How Cadillac had gone from the mark of quality to one step from extinction.  Cadillacs used to be gigantic boats loaded with luxury.  Now it’s hard to buy a car without power windows, and navigation is an option on a Mazda.  How did Cadillac get it so wrong?

But it’s not only Cadillac.  It’s Mercedes-Benz.  BMW sells more cars in the U.S. today.  And when I owned my 2002 in the seventies, I was constantly stopped and asked what kind of car it was.

And Sony?  The best TVs are made by Samsung.  Apple’s iPod is the music player of choice.  Pay a premium for the brand?  I don’t want it at all.

Times change. If it weren’t for the Escalade, Cadillac truly would be history.  Who aspires to a Caddy sedan today?  Who wants a CD?

Yes, it’s oldsters buying CDs.  Kids don’t want them.  And kids are our future, because they’re going to be ALIVE!

In other words, you can be cruising along just fine today, and be history tomorrow.  Evaluate your corporation, your band with this in mind.

What killed Mercedes-Benz was poor quality.  They put so many gizmos in the cars that didn’t work that customers abandoned the brand in droves.  The press said the Chris Bangle designed BMWs were ugly, but that unique, soft look not only brought tons of sales, it set a trend.  Take a look at a Lexus ES, never mind a Hyundai, could that have happened without the BMW 7 and 3 series?

If you’re coasting, you may be heading towards extinction.

The concert business is about getting oldsters to overpay once a year for classic rock acts.  The whole concept of going to multiple shows a year, if not a month, is something the younger generation has never experienced.  Concerts are a high-priced event, like a graduation party, as opposed to a regular affair.  And this hurts Live Nation.  But high concert ticket prices affect everybody in the music business food chain. Suddenly, instead of purveying Toyotas, we’re selling Ferraris, which most people can only dream about.

As for rights holders protesting that music has been devalued…  The public thinks a buck a track is too much, unless you’re a casual consumer. And you can’t make your numbers with the infrequent buyer, that’s why airlines have rewards programs, they want to entice and retain their good customers, those who fly tens of thousands of miles a year.

As for the music itself…  Radio thought that since boomers listened, today’s kids would too.  Not understanding that today you have choice, and no one can tolerate twenty minutes of commercials per hour.  Terrestrial radio is in a death spiral, it probably can never change its image.  And if you’re making the homogenized, researched product radio plays you’re going to go down the drain with the deejays.

Just like the major labels being beaten up online.  Not paying royalties, ripping off artists…  Do you really think new artists are going to sign with them?

If you’re fat and happy you’d better start freaking out.  That probably means you’re on the brink of disaster.  If, like Cadillac, your customer base is ancient, then you’ve got no one who’s going to keep your business alive in the years to come.

What kind of crazy fucked up world do we live in where it takes Sting to render the classic version of this Bruce Springsteen song, nearly a decade after it was first released?

Mellencamp reworked "Born In The U.S.A." to the point of butchering it.  Loved seeing Kenny Aronoff on the kit, but this was more about Mellencamp than Bruce, and that’s just wrong.

Ben Harper and Jennifer Nettles?  Yup, that’s who comes to mind when I think of Springsteen.  At least Jennifer didn’t overemote, but "I’m On Fire" possessed none of the haunting intimacy of the original.

Melissa Etheridge did her best, but the band just didn’t swing behind her.  Watching her just reminded me how time marches on, how he/she who’s a star once eventually becomes a has-been.

I thought Eddie Vedder was going to hit it over the wall.  He had the vibe right, the feel.  But "My City Of Ruins" really shouldn’t be sung by someone from San Diego, but a denizen of New Jersey, who saw the boardwalk collapse, only to be resuscitated by gambling and then fall into disrepair once again.

And then came Sting.

At first I thought we were experiencing another Melissa Etheridge moment.  Didn’t Sting put out a Christmas album?  Other than being reviewed, poorly, it didn’t seem to have any traction at all.  Just like the opuses of not only the classic rock artists, but those from the late MTV era.  It’s like we’re at endless batting practice.  No one can get it out of the infield, and the assembled multitude in the stands are all on their BlackBerries, more interested in Facebook updates than manipulated music.

And "The Rising" was a manipulation.  Faded rock star who hasn’t done anything great since "The Streets Of Philadelphia" is implored to bring our country together with an album.  Which ended up sounding like a facsimile of his greatest hits.  It was akin to watching Mighty Casey strike out.

Terrorists might have blown up the World Trade Center, but the Internet seems to have blown up the fabric of America, the unity, the integration we once had is now gone.

And it’s not only in music.  We may have a black President, but too many people think he’s a communist who wasn’t born in America.  And legislators are beholden to corporations.  And fat cats on Wall Street believe they’re entitled to their riches, even though they bet against the investments they sold, even though they owe their continued existence to the American public they screw at every turn.

What a time for an anthem.  What a time for an artist to lay it down straight, with a song so powerful it doesn’t need to be featured in a TV show, doesn’t have to provide the bed for a commercial, but can stand on its own.

Even Bruce lost his way.  He played the Super Bowl to sell a new album no one wanted.  He released a greatest hits album at Wal-Mart, home of the oppressed worker the Boss used to try and liberate.

And now we’ve got an Englishman, deplored almost as much as our President by many.  For his tantric sex pronouncements.  For his self-satisfaction in his abilities.

He emerges on stage with a battered Fender bass.  Not a faux clone of a classic sold at Guitar Center, but an axe with miles.  Sans refinishing, sans plastic surgery, this bass shows the miles of its life, just like the lines in Bruce Springsteen’s face.  And Sting starts to sing:

Can’t see nothin’ in front of me
Can’t see nothin’ coming up behind
I make my way through this darkness
I can’t feel nothing but this chain that binds me
Lost track of how far I’ve gone
How far I’ve gone, how high I’ve climbed
On my back’s a sixty pound stone
On my shoulder a half mile line

Our country’s in sad shape.  Suddenly, every city is like Asbury Park.  Decrepit, in need of repair.  With its citizens jobless, and hopeless.

Sting evidenced the intimacy of great rock and roll.  His almost sotto voce delivery gave the lyrics meaning they lacked in Bruce’s original.

Come on up for the rising
Come on up, lay your hands in mine
Come on up for the rising
Come on up for the rising tonight

The Chinese have all our money.  Japan makes all our cars.  The Middle East provides all our oil.  Instead of being dominant, we’re suddenly in chains.  There must be some way out of this place.

But only if we come together.

That’s the power of music.

Meryl Streep was grooving.  Mel Brooks was clapping.  The President and the First Lady stood.  That’s the power of song.  It has the ability to unite us.  Both black and white.  Rich and poor.  Republican and Democrat.  We’re all Americans.  When are we going to stop fighting and join together to solve the myriad problems facing our nation?

Come on, everybody’s entitled to health care.  A chance at an economic future.  A climate where skin cancer is not a given.  It’s time to jettison the mine for me mentality that’s ruled this country for decades.  Sixties values need to return.  That’s right, it’s time to love your brother.

And what made us love our brothers forty years ago was the music.  If you wanted to know which way the wind blew, you put on a record.

And that was true again tonight.

Sky of longing and emptiness
Sky of fullness, sky of blessed life

For five minutes at the Kennedy Center, in millions of homes tuned in on CBS, we had smiles on our faces, we had hope.

And that’s what we need.

Start with Jon Stewart’s introduction.  It’s worth it:

32nd Annual Kennedy Center Honors 2009 Part 10 HD 1080p

Then go the following clip, which starts off with Eddie Vedder’s performance and goes into Sting at the 2:20 mark.

32nd Annual Kennedy Center Honors 2009 Part 12 HD 1080p

These clips are data-intensive.  Which means they can take a very long time to load.  But the benefit is they’re of an extremely high quality.  If you’ve got a good connection, click on the HD button and then the icon right next to it to blow the image up full screen.

Speaking of Jamie Cullum…

I rarely talk on the phone in the car.  Actually, I rarely talk on the phone at all.  It takes too long to get too little information.  But that’s not why I don’t talk in the car.  And it’s not that I’m worried about accidents.  It’s just that my time in my car is my own.  In my own little bubble.  Where I can drift away to the music.

And I don’t understand people playing their CDs, hooking up their iPods, my car is where I want to hear something new, where I can dedicate enough time and concentration to get completely turned on.

I know you hate terrestrial radio.  And that the signal is not ubiquitous.  That’s why satellite triumphs.

Today I heard "Hold Me Tight" from "Red Rose Speedway".  I wished they continued the medley all the way through "Power Cut", but alas, they did not.  Still, it was great to hear this deep gem.

But two hours later, when I was through with my appointment, I found myself gridlocked on the San Diego Freeway pushing the XM buttons.  And having pushed the rock buttons between 40 and 50 and finding nothing satiating, I twisted the dial one station up from the Loft, to listen to the Coffee House, which as far as I can tell is live renditions of soft rock hits.  Or maybe soft rock renditions of hard rock hits.  Or both.

And it was there that I heard this ethereal number.  That melded perfectly with the setting sun on my left and the full moon rising on my right.  My troubles drifted away.

Great songs seem to be written effortlessly.  As if the composer has put in so many hours that he can lay down perfection upon inspiration.  "All At Sea" flowed so perfectly, sans edges, yet fully taking flight, I got the impression it was written in fifteen minutes.

Like "Satisfaction".

But "All At Sea" is more akin to Steely Dan than the Rolling Stones.  Not that it’s much like Becker/Fagen music.  It too is jazzy, but a bit more subtle.  "All At Sea" sneaks up on you, like the alcohol in the drink you sip by the waterside at dusk.

Fully realized, "All At Sea" sounded both brand new and like I’d known it forever.  I needed to hear it immediately when I got home.

The studio take of "All At Sea" is a bit more polished, a bit more produced, but it retains the essence.  Of a song you listen to in your house, with a bounce in your step, that you want to go hear live, not standing packed in with other people, but sitting down, where you can levitate from your seat and enjoy the music.

It’s dreamy, it’s jazzy, "All At Sea" is great.

Jamie Cullum – All At Sea

Honey why are you calling me so late?
It’s kinda hard to talk right now

"Rolling Stone" got one thing right.  They declared Gnarls Barkley’s "Crazy" song of the decade.

I remember exactly where I heard it.  I remember coming home and going straight to the computer and stealing it.  (At that point you couldn’t buy it, and even Jamie Cullum steals music). 

Ahmet Ertegun said a hit record was something you heard on the radio in bed that made you jump up, put on your clothes and run to the all night record shop to buy.

Prior to the advent of iPods, I remember rushing home from school to drop the needle on "Back In The U.S.S.R."  Who knew the Beatles were such Beach Boys fans?  Who knew they could get the sound so right?

Honey why are you crying, is everything okay?
I gotta whisper ’cause I can’t be too loud

Why?

I’m getting the impression the singer is hiding something.  He doesn’t want someone to know…

Well, my girl’s in the next room
Sometimes I wish she was you
I guess we never really moved on

Exactly.  Maybe she drunk-dialed.  She should have respected the limits.  But she couldn’t resist, even though she too is involved with someone new, she still has feelings.

I hear rappers telling me they’re big shots.  I hear crooners and melisma-maniacs tell me they’re madly in love.  But what sticks with me is this power ballad by a band named Hinder.  Because they get the story exactly right.  The media says we fuck and forget. That we break up and are done.  But it’s much more complicated than that.  Emotions seem to be like carbon, they’ve got an unending half-life.  They fade, but never to zero.

I didn’t discover "Lips Of An Angel" on Top Forty, where it made quite an impact.  Rather, I discovered it via an e-mail, someone telling me to check out Jack Ingram’s country cover.  I got hooked on the changes first, then the lyrics.  Isn’t that how it always is with the great songs.

Great.  When a song can be covered and ends up a hit in two genres you know it’s quality.

Seth Godin had a fascinating post yesterday.  He said bookstores are toast because their best customers have moved on to the Kindle.  That those buying one to three hundred books a year are now getting them electronically.

It’s not the rats you need to worry about

Just like the Napster addicts were the heaviest music consumers.  They wanted more, hit singles they could never afford, the lost classics, live takes.  Once dedicated music fans used the service they gave up on the old paradigm.  They no longer went to the brick and mortar store to thumb through the jewel cases, they now surfed endlessly, looking for stuff they hadn’t heard in years, stuff unavailable anywhere else.

Don’t listen to those people who say the only books they read are physical.  Just like you shouldn’t bother listening to those who still purchase CDs.  They’re at the tail end of the curve.  They’re where things used to be, not where they’re going.

I was a Kindle naysayer.

Until I got one.

Now I’ve read twenty three books in eight months.  Probably more than I read in the entire nine previous years.

I download samples without leaving the couch.  When I finish one book, I go straight for the next.  I read book reviews the way I used to read record reviews.  Hell, record reviews no longer make sense.  They’re written by biased writers, who either love the act or need to prove their erudition by putting down albums they hate on principle.  And isn’t music something you hear anyway?

And I’ve found that you’re best off searching for the best reviewed stuff.  The award winning books.  Reviews seem to be much more credible in the book world.  Maybe because a book requires an investment to read.

The best book I read all year was Elizabeth Strout’s "Olive Kitteridge".  But I recently read one of the "New York Times" top five fiction editions of the year, Maile Meloy’s "Both Ways Is The Only Way I Want It".  The very first story is still haunting me.  It nailed the human condition.

We’re complicated figures.  With hopes and dreams and disappointments.  When someone gets it right, we’re drawn in.  Which is the same reason I love "Lips Of An Angel".

And just like I can repeat "Lips Of An Angel" endlessly, I’ve gotten hooked on Stieg Larsson’s books.  Last night I stayed up until two a.m. finishing "The Girl Who Played With Fire".  I couldn’t put it down.  It’s been calling to me, I’ve wanted to drop everything and read it all day.  Just like I used to be at school, dreaming of getting home so I could listen to the Beatles.

The music the cognoscenti pooh-poohs is made for radio, not the public.  Which is why people will bump asses to it in the club, but instantly forget it.  Why go to see the performer?  It’s a studio concoction.

And the music so many musos love is arcane, niche stuff.  They’re trying to prove their hipness.  I have no problem with you liking TV On The Radio or the Dirty Projectors, but if you think most people are interested, you’re dreaming.

In other words, we’re living in a land of plenty and acting like we still live in a land of scarcity, with comparatively little product that we must argue about.  But that’s not the case today, today something either gets traction or disappears.  And that which gets traction is either a train-wreck, or great.

We’ve been focusing on train-wreck.

We need to focus on great.

And we know great when we hear it.  We need to hear it again and again.  Like Alanis Morissette’s "Hand In Pocket".  Unlike so much of what is purveyed today.  The audience is ready to embrace greatness when it’s delivered.  The audience made "Lips Of An Angel" a monster hit twice.  If you think they’re wrong, you’ve got your head up your ass.

It’s really god to hear your voice saying my name
It sounds so sweet
Coming from the lips of angel
Hearing those words it makes me weak

Jack Ingram "Lips Of An Angel"

Hinder "Lips Of An Angel"