This isn’t about social media, this is about authoritarianism. This is what happens when one person has too much power and exercises it willy-nilly. Not only can no one stop him (or her!), a good percentage of the population supports them.

That’s right, Elon Musk is now a hero to the right. Which is kind of a headscratcher since his reputation was being a hero to the left, i.e. Tesla. Yes, the right, from the “Wall Street Journal” opinion page to legislators to the rank and file, is anti-electric automobiles. There are bogus scientific explanations, there’s the defense of the oil industry, there’s a refusal to accept change and at the root it’s got to do with freedom. Yes, the freedom to drive gas-guzzlers.

And freedom of speech. That’s the right’s complaint about Twitter, that it’s biased towards the left, even though statistics tell us otherwise. As for Hunter Biden’s laptop… I won’t wade into this quagmire, but assuming everything they say is true, what has it got to do with Joe Biden? Somehow Donald Trump is immune to the activities of his children and his real estate empire but Joe Biden, a civil servant with a fraction of the cash, is responsible for everything every relative ever did?

It doesn’t make sense. Don’t try to analyze it.

But that’s the rank and file. Here we’re talking about Elon Musk.

He’s a billionaire. Can we stop talking about his fall from #1 to #2? Isn’t that like saying Scarlett Johansson or some other legendary beauty has a zit? I mean what difference does it make, they’re still extremely attractive. And Elon Musk is still extremely rich. And in this country we venerate money and looks. Hell, that’s another thing Elon Musk does, criticize people’s attractiveness, their weight, even though he was shown in a bathing suit to be less than a perfect specimen.

But it’s not only the physical Musk addresses, he also called a cave-rescuer a pedophile. Even worse, he believes the SEC does not apply to him.

It’s not only Donald Trump who has skated legally. Musk still hasn’t been prosecuted for failing to publicly announce he exceeded 5% ownership in Twitter. And he’s lobbying for previous SEC restrictions to be lifted.

In other words, in America if you’re rich and powerful enough, the rules don’t apply. This has been the situation for eons, but we never had people this rich and powerful. Furthermore, a good proportion of the rank and file root for the rich, believing they too will be rich sometime. And they vote for policies for the rich for the same reason, like lower taxes. Never mind the power of the rich to sway public sentiment. The rich are a shadow government. Hiding in plain sight. They’re the rock stars of modern life. As for the theoretical musician rock stars? They’ll do anything for the money, music is just a jumping off point to become rich. The goal is to become a brand. There’s just not enough money making music. Can you say Rihanna? Meanwhile, these dodos, oftentimes uneducated, after all, what other vertical requires no schooling to enter, don’t realize the essence of music is the ability to speak truth to power. Rupert Murdoch is not in it for the money, he’s in it to sway the course of not only public opinion, but the country itself. That’s the power of owning the ink.

Anyway, Musk is so rich, that he could buy Twitter outright. We’ve never seen this in America before, where one person could own what appeared to be a public institution, responsible to no one. That’s right, there are no guardrails at Twitter. And Musk keeps saying one thing and doing another. Just hours after saying he wouldn’t ban reporters, he did.

Part of his rationalization is protecting his family. Well, this is evidence of the lack of privacy we all experience. And as of this writing there’s no evidence to the case, i.e. that his family was at risk, that there was a specific event. But in any event, Musk is shoring up power, he cannot be at risk. Just like an authoritarian despot like Putin. Or Orban, the hero of the right. And other totalitarian rulers. It’s their world, and we just live in it.

And Twitter is so big and so powerful that as of now, it can’t be supplanted. That’s the online history, no platform has ever been decimated by protest or cancellation of accounts. Theoretically there could be a competitor, but look at Truth Social, a backwater most are unaware of.

Meanwhile, the press keeps reporting Musk’s antics and nothing changes.

In truth, Musk is going to run up against new EU rules… But in America we’ve been told we live in the greatest country in the world and most of the population has never been anywhere else and the EU is looked down upon. It’s Brexit on steroids here in the good ole’ USA.

Even worse, Musk has the right to do all this! Yes, he owns Twitter, it’s a private company, he can ban whomever he wants to. Another headscratcher, the right is too dumb to know that freedom of speech does not apply to private companies just like concertgoers are too dumb to understand that all the ticket fees don’t go to Ticketmaster. Today the facts don’t matter, emotion does. And amazingly, the emotion on the right is that Musk is standing up to the big bad government. The same government that swooped in and aided Florida after the hurricane, even though DeSantis is a Republican.

The government is no match for Musk. He’s unafraid of it. And there can be no penalty because there is gridlock in D.C., half the elected officials’ singular goal is to make sure the other makes no progress. And if you clamp down on Musk there will be public outcry.

And in truth most people don’t care about Twitter, but the social network is where journalists themselves hang out, where news is initially made and distributed. That’s why the Twitter story never leaves the newspaper. This is the henhouse where reporters live. And they are used to speaking truth to power, that’s why you become a reporter, and now you can’t speak at all!

This is just a dry run for what can become. This is what it would look like if Trump got re-elected, became president again. One person acting on their whims, responsible to no one, even if the supposed rules say otherwise.

This is scary. We expect this nonsense from Kanye, but he doesn’t own Spotify.

This is happening in plain sight. And many Americans have their heads in the ground, like they did with the Holocaust and the Ukraine war…they think it doesn’t affect them. But eventually they come after you.

He or she who controls the news controls the country. And right now, Elon Musk controls the news. On a supposedly open platform.

I could tell everybody to cancel their account, but like I said above, this won’t happen and there will be no change.

No, our only hope is the government, which is paralyzed.

As for billionaires… This is the legacy of Ronald Reagan. Low taxes. Trickle down? Is Elon Musk giving you any of his money? The rich give proportionately less to charity than the poor.

No one should be that rich. Absolutely no one. That wealth distorts not only the economy, but public life.

And now I’ve alienated a good portion of my readers. They support Musk no matter what he does, it’s a religion.

And I’ll speak the truth but many will not. They’re afraid, of it affecting their pocketbook. Oldsters like David Crosby will state their truth and not care about the effects, but the younger generations? They don’t want to be political, they don’t want to take a risk, which is why they end up with little power. Unless you’re willing to stand up for your beliefs, you don’t count.

There will be more news. Who knows, Musk could even reinstate the accounts of these reporters. But just you wait, further shenanigans will ensue. Musk has huge blind spots. We think if someone is rich they know everything, have skills in other verticals, but this is patently untrue.

And don’t talk to me about the last election and the defeat of the red wave. Rust never sleeps, and authoritarianism is gaining ground around the world. People want someone who will make the trains run on time, who grants them the illusion that there is control. And once that person gains control, they never ever give it up.

Be forewarned. I’d say this is just the beginning, but it’s been going on for decades. The freedom that many want is really control. They want to make sure you don’t have a voice, and eventually have no power. And then…

“Washington Post” tech correspondent Taylor Lorenz is the number one reporter on social media. We go through all the platforms, their history and where they are going. Taylor is deep into it, she’s not only a scribe, but a player in the sphere. She’s the one you need to listen to!

https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/taylor-lorenz/id1316200737?i=1000590266784

https://music.amazon.com/podcasts/9ff4fb19-54d4-41ae-ae7a-8a6f8d3dafa8/episodes/a5bcc66a-8375-4362-b9f8-b7d56fb16c98/the-bob-lefsetz-podcast-taylor-lorenz

https://www.stitcher.com/show/the-bob-lefsetz-podcast/episode/taylor-lorenz-209855193

You can’t avoid Elon Musk.

There are only three superstars in America today, Elon Musk, Donald Trump and Kanye West. You can’t avoid them, everybody knows who they are and everybody has an opinion on them. Used to be records were ubiquitous, now it’s people. This is what the internet has wrought.

For a minute there we thought we had the equivalent in Adele, but she could not follow up her breakthrough record, “21,” at the same artistic level. That was the magic of the Beatles, they never disappointed us, and they were always moving forwards. This is something that has been lost from music today. Today, everybody coasts. They find their niche and stay in it. It’s so hard to gain an audience that they don’t want to risk losing any of theirs. Experimentation is anathema.

Most people didn’t used to follow the news. Kids didn’t read the newspaper nor were they addicted to television news, of which there was a limited amount. News was not 24/7, music was. You couldn’t escape a hit record. That was the power of radio. Hits were ubiquitous. No longer.

The internet allows you to reach everybody in the world. Literally everybody. Go to the most remote hamlet, and they’ve got smartphones. But what spreads…

First you must have a personality, an identity. This is where music is lacking. We’ve got cartoons, but other than Kanye, no one who is 3-D to all citizens. You don’t have to be in the news 24/7 if you create a good enough record. But no one creates a record that good anymore.

As for artistry, the only media that can reach most people and affect them are movies and streaming television. But let me be clear with movies, the only ones with ubiquity are superhero movies, and contrary to what purveyors and fans believe, there’s a wall around them. A good number of people want to see them, but even more don’t.

And theatre-going is the antithesis of the modern paradigm, wherein everything is available 24/7 and is relatively cheap. Movies have turned into events, which has minimized their impact. Whereas streaming TV subscriptions are cheap, and everybody has them, like Spotify. As for ad-supported tiers, the usual suspects are clueless. In the modern world ads look like content and you only see them on TikTok and Instagram. Madison Avenue needs a makeover. Sure, there was a breakthrough decades ago when commercials featured rock music, a graduation from the Greatest Generation’s crooner classics, but since then there has been stasis. Ads today must be doing the viewer a favor, they cannot be interruptions, they must be interesting. Yes, the ads on Instagram are tailored to the viewer, and if you don’t want a bunch of the products hawked, you’re like the Unabomber, living off the grid. As for TikTok, many people can’t even tell  the difference between ads and user-generated content. As for influencers…they are whores. Influencers are like boy bands, appealing to the lowest common denominator youngsters, like New Kids on the Block. There is no Max Martin in the influencer game, so we’ve got no Backstreet Boys or NSYNC, unfortunately.

In other words, if the ad-supported tiers were a thing, the companies would release the numbers. Spotify does…a bunch of listeners generating de minimis money. As for Netflix… This is what happens with today’s breakthrough companies. They’re ahead of the game, and then they become mature and have no second act. Good examples being Meta and Netflix. They wowed, and now they no longer can. Whereas the above trio, Elon, Donald and Kanye, seem to realize that he not busy being born is busy dying.

Elon is the Beatles, if the lead singer was Charles Manson, or maybe Tiny Tim. Someone who knows how to gain attention through constant innovation. Once again, musical acts don’t realize this. The reason Musk is interesting is because he’s got a number of hits and keeps moving into new, unrelated territory. What does PayPal have to do with Tesla? Or Tesla with SpaceX? Or any of these three with Twitter? And unlike the musicians, Musk isn’t busy being a brand. He’s all-in. Unlike the musician brands, he lays down his own money. He’s not about ripping people off but delivering new and better experiences, oftentimes unforeseen. And you can criticize him, saying he wasn’t the innovator at Tesla, but if you were alive back in the sixties you’re aware that the Beatles were not universally loved, were not warm and fuzzy. The Greatest Generation never warmed up to them, except maybe for covers of “Yesterday” and “Michelle.”

As for the Donald… He realizes that audience is king, size is everything, and truth is irrelevant. The internet amplifies outrage. And Trump delivers that every day.

As for Kanye… We’re only paying attention because of his greatest hits. The music and the clothing. Got to say, like the Beatles, we were always interested in his next move. Speaking of moving, to Wyoming, a notoriously white, conservative, rural state? Yes, Kanye was breaking racial barriers. And the success of his clothing lines. But for Kanye it wasn’t enough. He’s still saying he’s going to be president someday. He stopped speaking through his art. Then he got so addicted to attention that he tested the limits to stay in the limelight and pushed away not only Fortune 500 companies, but the public. Yes, some things are still over the line.

As for streaming TV… Sure, it was the beginning of lockdown, but we’d never seen anything like “The Tiger King.” And what resonates most is always humanity. We cared less about the animals than Joe Exotic and Carole Baskin, Jeff Lowe and the rest of the royalty in a world we didn’t even know existed.

And “Squid Game” made us confront our own life and death. Were we at risk, what would we do to survive.

Great streaming TV is always about the concept and the humanity. The essence of the classic rock of the sixties. When it became about gaming the formula, with corporate rock, it died. That’s what keeps us paying attention to the trio above, they never blink, never concede, they’re all in.

In an era where politicians are wishy-washy.

What do we keep hearing? You’ve got to appeal to the center. When all of the above tells us that is death. This is why AOC is such a star. She weighs in on everything and never compromises in her youthful viewpoint. She’s an icon for disillusioned young adults. Oh, you hate her? Well, in order to have a profile in the modern world you must have haters, if you have no edge, no one cares about you.

I’m not saying I want to hear from and be exposed to Musk, Trump and West every day, but they’ve figured out the system when everybody else is afraid or doesn’t understand it or…

Yes, the millennials were all about fitting in. And if you alienate someone, they can’t be your friend. You need to be a member of the group, whereas with boomers it was all about singular excellence. And losers hated winners, unlike the kumbaya youngsters.

So, in order to become a superstar in today’s world you must start with an essence. Elon and Kanye had track records. As for Trump…we thought he was a billionaire, and he was the beneficiary of “The Apprentice” in the same way Coldplay and Dave Matthews Band were beneficiaries of VH1. Both of these paradigms died, but these three squeaked through and have coasted on this past exposure.

So, if you want to succeed today, you must have not only an essence, but you must have a track record. Complaining is useless. You’ve got to earn the right to complain, like Trump and West. Complaints without underpinnings are worthless. We only care when superstars complain, not nobodies.

So first focus on your identity. That’s what TikTok is all about and what today’s educational system is trying to constrict, trying to make everybody a rote zombie.

Then you have to focus on accomplishments. If you’ve got none, we are not going to take you seriously. You must have a base, and I’m not talking about fans, but works.

And then you must create something special, or be pushing the envelope to the point where we can’t take our eyes off of you.

This is beyond twentieth century tropes, like rap wars. Most people don’t want to die, and they can’t understand the constant use of gun violence.

You must be singular, not worrying about the backlash or wanting everyone to love you. You must stand your ground. You must be so interesting that we can’t take our eyes off of you.

Now Musk, Trump and Kanye have turned into clowns, to some degree pariahs. Why don’t we have reasonable superstars?

Well, we did for a moment there, with Bernie Sanders. Age didn’t matter, his beliefs did. He was the Democratic party’s worst nightmare, but the people’s hope. And you’ve got to give people hope.

But leaders who aren’t crazy, that’s what we’re looking for.

And it’s not about data, statistics, it’s about state of mind. You’ve got to enter our consciousness organically. Data is old school. Data can’t tell you where you’re going, and the data got it wrong on Trump in 2016.

I’m sick and tired of hearing about the above trio. But that’s the world we live in. Where three men have risen above the fray and are known by everybody. And those who used to be well-known have become niche. Complaining musicians who care first and foremost about money.

We want icons to rally around, to have an opinion about, but those addicted to twentieth century models won’t deliver them. Three men had to forge their own paths with little support. You make your own career, others don’t do that for you, the established companies are lost in the past, they’ve got money and nothing else. They want to mold you, restrict you, smooth over and compromise your work when it’s the unexpected edges that hook us.

The internet allows you to reach everyone, but it’s very hard to do, and they’re all originals.

As for the rest of the so-called “stars”… They might as well be in distant galaxies, their light is dim and who really cares about ancient galaxies anyway, a few but not many.

We live in an era of individuals. Have an identity if you want to climb. Be confident in doing it your way. And if you don’t have traction it’s your fault.

Then again, there’s room for fewer superstars than ever before.

But we still need ’em. We need people we all know and can talk about.

That’s human nature.

Rules are for businesses. The great thing about art is it has no rules.

We live in the era of data. Everybody wants to break it down to numbers. But that’s just what they are, numbers, they don’t reference feelings or soul and never forget this about research and numbers, they can tell you where you’ve been, but they absolutely cannot tell you where you’re going. It’s the new and different that drives the music industry. And the fact that me-too has supplanted bleeding edge has resulted in music becoming a second class cultural citizen, whereas it used to always be the bleeding edge.

But that’s because most performers, most music-makers today, are not artists.

This is how it has gone throughout history. Something works and everybody copies it. So we had hair metal and grunge and… There’s a breakthrough, everybody copies it, and then the assembled multitude, the listeners, wake up one day and move on. And no one can predict when this will happen. Something is in the air and change occurs, and it always comes from the bottom up. It’s the people who embrace change, not corporations, and not most musicians.

The most legendary musicians are those who kept exploring, keeping it interesting for themselves, the two prime examples being Neil Young and David Bowie. They did not always hit the mark, but we were (and in the case of Mr. Young, still are) interested in where they’re going. A new album by either is an event, a new album by a classic rocker or MTV era act is not, which is why most have stopped making new music.

In truth, most musical acts have a relatively brief window of success. And then they’re supplanted by something new.

But the strange thing is in the internet era this has not happened. We’ve got hip-hop and pop. And they sustain. Forget those who made it in the last dying days of the old system, like Coldplay and Dave Matthews Band, VH1 and radio banged them, but these outlets don’t exist in the same way anymore. Now everybody is starting from scratch, and to make it easy, they just follow the trends instead of bucking them. That’s how you get started, by being featured on someone else’s song.

One can say Billie Eilish was embraced so strongly because her music sounded like nothing else. And K-Pop is a similar. It’s different from the trends, which is why it’s so strongly embraced. And the funny thing is it happens seemingly overnight, when in truth it’s a long process before the public embraces you, if this ever happens.

The difference was in the past, the record companies supported these seekers, today they do not. The labels are run by data. If you don’t have the socials or the touring numbers they’re not interested. It’s considered too heavy a lift. They’re moving towards homogenization, whereas music was famous for blowing itself up on a regular basis.

TV networks are similar. There were supposed content rules. And then they were supplanted by the grittier and  more real HBO shows. And now HBO has been supplanted by Netflix and other streaming-only enterprises. Disruption happens, the past dies, and if you don’t adjust…

Also, because the major labels only sign a small amount of product, there’s a morass of hobbyists cluttering the channel, who say they’re artists and usually are not. Not everybody can make a living making music, just like everybody can’t play in the NBA.

Artists are all-in, there’s no safety net, they don’t complain about their situation, they’ll starve to continue. And that’s a very small slice of the population, indeed.

And artistry is a viewpoint, which is rarely taught in today’s teach to the book world. Some people want to cut down sources of inspiration, ban books, they don’t want kids to think. But in truth it is the thinkers who change the world. And it’s the liberal arts colleges that teach you to think. If you’re majoring in business, you’re part of the problem, not part of the solution.

And insight and inspiration are the key to artistry. Which is why the greatest stuff is done by those who both write and play. The songwriters have gotten the short end of the stick with streaming, but I must say, writing songs for others… There are some artists there, but very few. People go to camps, they’re just trying to compose something an existing star will cover, they won’t even give it to a newbie act.

To be an artist you must have input. You’ve got to read, travel, experience life to write about it. That’s what the hip-hop breakthrough was all about, turned out the rappers complaining about the police in Southern California were right, Rodney King told us that, but that was thirty years ago. And Woodstock over fifty. Repeating the old saws is not artistry.

But people want someone to tell them what to do. Free-thinking is anathema in today’s society. Education is so rote in Japan and China that innovation is low, whereas in America… And the reason so many of the innovators dropped out of college, if they went at all, is because college was constricting them instead of inspiring them, they were more aware than the teachers. Really, how many of the big disrupters have MBAs? An MBA teaches you how to fit into the organization. Getting a degree is all about networking, so you can rely on these relationships… Don’t confuse this with artistry.

And music schools like Berklee can’t teach artistry. No one can teach artistry. Artistry is about freedom, and higher education wants to achieve the opposite.

Being an artist means going your own way.

I’ve got to tell you, artists didn’t complain like this in the pre-internet era. There are enemies today, Spotify, Live Nation…as if everything were business and everybody was entitled to a clear and level playing field.

That’s not how it works. When you’re a newbie you get the short end of the stick, and if you are successful enough and last long enough you gain the leverage. If you’re not willing to give to get, you will never be able to make progress.

As for data… The labels sign TikTok stars on it, and most of these signings are here today and gone tomorrow if they have any traction at all. Because data is not about artistry. And really, TikTok is not about music, even though there are some musicians on it.

Stop being a brand, stop complaining, those are avenues to stasis and irrelevance.

Concentrate on your music and the people who get it. And ignore those who don’t. You’ve got the tools to record and distribute cheaply, see if what you do resonates. And if it does… People are dying to spread the word, it thrills them to turn others on to new work. It’s just that there’s little artistry around. People keep searching for it, and when they find it…

I know it makes it easier if you get direction, pay attention to the data, but then you’re a slave to the rules and numbers. You make all your judgments based on the data. Step out of your set paradigm and you lose fans, and almost no one is willing to do this, so they just repeat what they’ve done ad infinitum, driving themselves towards calcification.

Great art usually pisses people off. Most people don’t even get it at first. And in today’s world, all the corporations play it safe, do it the old way. But you can do it yourself. But you must be an artist. The rules never apply to artists, they make their own. Set yourself free.