Lyor might be pilloried, but he’s doing better than Jimmy. How can that be?

A drum roll please… The label with the greatest market share of current product year to date is…ATLANTIC RECORDS! Hell, if you include catalog, Atlantic is #2 to RIGA. Jimmy’s got 7.45% of the overall market, including catalog, and Atlantic 7… (As for market share of current, Atlantic’s got 7.73% and IGA 7%.)

Staying in the current realm, Monte and L.A. Reid are right behind Jimmy, with 5+ each. Then comes Warner Brothers, with 4.76%.

Then comes Barry Weiss with 4.37%.

The man with the golden ears? The irreplaceable Clive Davis, the most successful man in the record business, lording over Alicia Keys and the "American Idol" champs? RCA Records comes in seventh, with 4.33%. Then, Rick Rubin’s Columbia, with 3.74%, Disney with 3.72%, Capitol with 2.08% and Epic, with 1.88%.

What have we learned from the above? That someone is smart somewhere. Turns out Lyon should have kept his job, Clive needed to be demoted, and change was needed at Columbia and is still needed at Capitol and Epic.

Universal is still big kahuna, with a 34.04% share of new product and 31.24% of the entire market. Sony/BMG comes next, with 20.56% of current and 21.71% of total product. Then comes Warner with 20.16% and 20.64% respectively. Then, Indies with 13.85% and 14.21% respectively. And bringing up the rear, EMI with 7.16% of current product and 8.8% overall.

Shit, what was Guy Hands thinking? He’s boxed into a corner, with no market share. He’s got to be praying for a merger with Warner, obviously he can’t make his numbers on catalog alone. Maybe he should just shut down new music development and become a catalog and publishing house.

Sony/BMG is FUCKED! Who do we blame? Mr. Root kit, Andy Lack? Who engineered this merger that has not worked? Or, the Bertelsmann guys, whose hands have not been on the wheel, intimidated by Clive Davis, getting press, but no dollars? God, so many people have been fired on the Sony end, can the company even recover? And with Rick Rubin running the operation from a distance…

And if Warner has increased market share this much, a real comeback, and reports shitty financial numbers, doesn’t that tell us…it’s almost impossible to make it in recorded music today? That change has to come from more than market share increases? Maybe Lyon should be demoted to head of Atlantic and they should bring in a real thinker… A revolutionary, a young guy who truly understands tech and the future.

Speaking of which, what has Rick Rubin actually done so far?

And if Warner can garner two thirds of Universal’s market share, how vulnerable is that company? Does someone need to get a pay cut at Universal? Is the company just coasting? How come Warner could make such market share increases, and they couldn’t? Is Universal General Motors, the lumbering giant getting ready for a fall? Missing out on trend changes? Can the Pussycat Dolls truly save Universal, or do they need to sell more product by small acts, be less about marketing blitzes and more about the street?

Maybe it’s because I’ve got a subwoofer in my car.

I’ve got no idea what’s going on with the weather in L.A. It’s Memorial Day weekend and it’s RAINING! Contrary to what Albert Hammond said, it does rain in Southern California. But never in May. It’s all gray, it feels like a fall day. When I got in the car it was like I was on the Post Road in Connecticut, in November, with winter just around the corner. About the same time of year that "Led Zeppelin II" was ubiquitous.

Actually, it was October when the album came out. I drove up to Korvette’s and bought it the day it was released. And played it incessantly. I’ll never forget our dog Muppsy chewing the cover…I STILL haven’t forgotten my little sister for that! (It was her dog…)

Sure, we knew "Whole Lotta Love" from the radio, but my favorite track on the album was "Living Loving Maid (She’s Just A Woman)". It started off on a tear, and maintained the intensity. But I know every lick of that album, from squeezing the lemon to bringing it on home. To the point where I couldn’t listen to it for years. It was like I copied it into my mental hard drive and it was in my memory forever. But in the spring of ’75, living in a condo in Mammoth Lakes, I was subjected to the album once again, beside "Physical Graffiti". It was all Zeppelin all the time. And with distance, I was reminded of how marvelous the overplayed "Led Zeppelin II" truly was.

At this point in time, I’d say my favorite cut is "Thank You". Maybe because of the exquisite Tori Amos cover. What happened to Tori? Did she believe her own hype, that she was a genius, and just float off into the stratosphere? She ultimately burned the fans who made her, like me. I bought that EP for so many people… With her great cover of "Smells Like Teen Spirit" too…

But, as I turned on to Wilshire Boulevard this morning, our new radio station in L.A. started playing "Ramble On". What a pleasant surprise. Usually AAA stations are too hip to lean back on the classics. If they only excised the term "World Class Rock" from their repertoire, I might almost believe… Well, if they got rid of the commercials too.

So I’m driving in this fall weather not far from the beach and John Paul Jones is dancing ALL OVER THE TRACK! Oh, Bonzo’s percussion is inviting, magical. Robert’s bringing us to Mordor. Jimmy’s adding lightning. But "Ramble On" is all about the underpinning, John Paul Jones’ bass. It’s like he’s a human pinball machine, bouncing off the bumpers. He’s playing the melody. It’s like a game of Brickbreaker on your BlackBerry. My head is nodding up and down with each note.

I’m thinking of how Robert and Jimmy toured without him. I think that was about the money, but if you don’t hate your fellow band members after years together, then you probably have no hatred for your siblings either. You’re thrown together in tight quarters for years, enduring, with no real choice. You see everybody in their worst moments, your own worst moments. But, it’s the disparate personalities that make a great band. Don Felder might have pissed off the Gods, but he did write the music for "Hotel California", the Eagles’ greatest number. Zeppelin is nothing without John Paul Jones. And John Bonham for that matter.

I was reminded of the Ox. John Entwistle was just as important in the Who. As was Keith Moon. You can’t get session players to cut this stuff. It comes from the inspiration, the tightness, the knowledge of playing with the same people day after day, FOR YEARS!

We don’t have to rewrite the history of Led Zeppelin. Legend may have it that the critics hated the band, certainly after the first album, but no one was paying attention to the writers, everybody knew Led Zeppelin was a cut above. Superstars. Giants amongst men. My favorite Zeppelin cut is "Ten Years Gone". I’d rather listen to "Your Time Is Gonna Come". But with a great act, one of your favorite acts, the secondary tracks, the ones deep in the albums, that you thought were just part of the mix, rear their heads years later and reinforce how fucking great the band truly was.

Last night I caught the Republic Tigers on Letterman.

No, I was not surfing. As a matter of fact, I was watching a recording of "The Deadliest Catch". But I went back to live TV because I got an e-mail from a friend, telling me the band was going to be on.

How RIDICULOUS!

Oh, the act was good. They played that track I wrote about, "Buildings & Mountains"… BUT WHY THE FUCK WERE THEY ON?

I’ve got YouTube. And an iPod. Even an iPod Touch that I can take to bed and dial up videos and music on over the Internet. Why in the HELL would I sit through some act I don’t care about on TELEVISION? Shit, even MTV gave up airing videos for this reason. People tune out. If you want to watch videos, you go to the Web, where they’re ON DEMAND!

Now the Republic Tigers can tell their parents and friends they were on Letterman. Whoo-hoo! This ain’t like being on Ed Sullivan in the sixties, it’s like being in the school play. Where only a captive audience, not there by choice, is in attendance…probably not even paying attention!

All exposure is not good exposure! Don’t take every gig. Don’t waste your time and money!

If the Stones ask you to open for them, and you’re a sensitive singer/songwriter, DON’T! Hell, I’d make a case you shouldn’t open for the Stones no matter WHAT your music sounds like. Their audience JUST DOESN’T GIVE A SHIT! If people even bother to come early, they’re probably not going to sit down, and if they do, they’re going to talk through your set of unfamiliar music. And believe me, at today’s inflated ticket prices, no one comes to see the opening act. That’s like buying Tiffany diamonds for the box. No, worse. Like buying beer for the plastic rings that hold the cans together!

My old friend Ron Fierstein didn’t believe in his acts opening for ANYBODY! He broke Suzanne Vega and Shawn Colvin as headliners. Sure, the audience might have been small at first, but the people CARED! They were quiet, they paid attention, they spread the word.

Now maybe it pays to get a song in a TV show or movie. Probably because the audience DOESN’T GIVE A SHIT ABOUT YOUR SONG! Unless it’s absolutely horrible, and these music supervisors don’t let in anything that bad. It’s about the primary action. Maybe if your song is truly great, buzz can be generated, but I don’t even buy that… With so many songs included, in the background, and the "O.C." CANCELLED!

Don’t whine, don’t tell me you have no choice, that it’s impossible to break a band. You’ve got to start very small, and only play to those who CARE!

If you want to know what it’s like doing Letterman, taking an opening slot for a band that’s stylistically different, or a superstar, go down to the subway and busk. No, better yet, go to the library and busk. No, go out to the MIDDLE OF NOWHERE AND BUSK! You’re hoping that one person, doing something else, is going to stride by and think your music is so damn good, they’re going to give you pennies. Shit, maybe all these MySpace acts SHOULD busk, so they can see how few people really care.

Or, if you’re big enough, get booked at a festival. A THEME festival. Don’t book your indie rock act at Stagecoach, and don’t book your classical quartet at Bonnaroo. People like to check out new stuff at festivals. Assuming it’s of the stripe that they like.

It’s not about dunning people who don’t care into submission. It’s not about beating people over the head to pay attention. It’s about letting people come to you. Letting the music and ITS FANS generate the heat.

Stunningly, the Republic Tigers replicated "Buildings & Mountains" quite well on Letterman last night. But they looked so out of place. With white-haired comedian Dave on one side, and bald Paul on the other. To get this act, the light would have to be low. The music would have to envelop you, you’d have to feel the vibe. NO ONE can feel the vibe on a TV variety show. If you’re on late night TV, you’re doing it to tell your mother, or as a gift to your fans, who already like you, you’re not going to break through to a larger audience. That happened when we had no choice. When we used to have to tune in TV to SEE bands. Now we’ve got unlimited choice. And we don’t want to hear the unknown work of an unknown band on TV. Not with 500 channels. Only the most passive of viewers is not switching the channel, and these people are not active music buyers anyway.

There are no short cuts. When will you realize this?

THE JONAS BROTHERS!

I was gonna give my pal Billy Gibbons and his buds a break, but they got caught in the undertow too. Every manager who booked his twentieth century act on this train-wreck of a show has INSURED that his client is now a HAS-BEEN!

Do they think it’s the nineties? Do they think the Internet never happened? Do they not realize ALL EXPOSURE IS NOT GOOD EXPOSURE!

That was the old paradigm. When you couldn’t reach the public, when it was the winner take all world of MTV. But with the turn of the century came a new era. Rather than pounding yourself down someone’s throat, you lay back a bit, you let people come to you, you let your greatness grow and spread. Otherwise you’re just another fifty year old touring sheds to those with middle aged spread. I mean there’s nothing wrong with that, BUT WHY THE FUCK DID YOU PLAY YOUR NEW SINGLE! Illustrating to ALL that you’ve no longer got it!

Shit, didn’t these antiques realize THIS WASN’T THEIR AUDIENCE? "American Idol" isn’t about rock and roll stardom, it’s about TV drama. Its fans are primarily children, enraptured by the cartoon characters inhabiting the show. That’s who peopled the barn known as the Nokia Theatre. When these old acts took the stage it was like "The Producers"! Mouths in the audience were agape, as if they were singing SPRINGTIME FOR HITLER! Who are these old farts and why do we CARE?

Seal showed he could sing better than the contestants, but shouldn’t he just be satisfied that he won the matrimonial sweepstakes? A kiss from Heidi replaces the one from the rose, you’re TOAST!

Donna Summer just looked fat.

Bryan Adams should have been playing an electric.

George Michael was equivalent to Guru Pitka, shilling, his appearance a shameless plug for his tour. Come see the man that LOST HIS TALENT FIFTEEN YEARS AGO!

Even Jack Black wasn’t funny. All I could think of was "School Of Rock", which got it so right, when this show got it so wrong.

Billy and crew looked like such aliens, like they came out of some bizarre Texas time capsule, that it almost worked. Until the camera showed the somnambulant audience, and Billy refused to take the mic and growl.

But then there were those damn Jonas Brothers. Who we aged pundits decry on principle. Not only were they reasonably good, shit, THEY COULD PLAY THEIR INSTRUMENTS, their tune was catchy, almost in the league of the Monkees! Well, not quite, but one could understand the mania. And that’s what there was in the audience, as little girls were experiencing their first orgasm.

As for One Republic… This is an upbeat show. You just got on the one hit wonder train. You had status, now you look like losers.

Which David Cook was not. He should have won. He had the rock and roll cred. He deserved it.

But I wish he’d come in second and pulled a Daughtry. Showed these fuckers who truly had the talent. But the voting public is smarter than the assholes who put together this ridiculous train-wreck of a show. The public wanted someone of substance, a rocker, a voice…a person who had something to say. Of the finalists, Cook was the one. He faltered in last night’s competition, but he was the clear winner if you were watching.

If he’s smart, he’ll tell Clive Davis to go fuck himself. Insist on Rick Rubin producing his record. Create something that’s rock as opposed to schmaltz. Hell, it could happen…BMG and Sony are the same COMPANY!

A real rock producer. If there have got to be co-writes, why not dial up Chad Kroeger. You hate him, you probably didn’t even recognize the big number at the top of the show, "Hero". That ain’t no lame Enrique Iglesias track, that’s the work of the leader of the biggest selling act in the land, a rock band, NICKELBACK!

You want to make money in the music business? Don’t go pop, don’t even bother to rap. Break out your guitar and turn the amp up to eleven. Pound the drums and SHAKE US ALL NIGHT LONG!

Rock doesn’t need to make a comeback, it never left. It’s just that its purveyors didn’t make videos as good as the hip-hoppers. Too many rock artists were anything but hip, they were sold out to the corporations, they were playing it safe. But real rock and roll can be heard everywhere, from the supermarket to the stadium. If David Cook can create a track half as good as Daughtry’s, even Hinder’s, I’ll say that’s a correction factor well deserved, that augurs for an uptick in the business, a renaissance, a turn away from the manufactured pop that the powers-that-be foist upon us that we want no part of.

As for the has-beens… Why don’t they just fade away. And unless they realize it’s a new era, that you play to your fans, not the media gatekeepers, they will not radiate.