What kind of crazy fucked up world do we live in where the number one selling artist, DWARFING the first week numbers of almost every other act, can’t do shit live?

How the fuck did we get here? With the media wanting stars, the labels delivering them, and the public scratching its collective head and saying WHAT THE FUCK?

I don’t want to denigrate T.I. But, even though he sold 465,000 records last week, he’s STILL NICHE! That’s just a small fraction of the number of people in the U.S. But he’s number one, and we must obey and respect him. Rap rules. Top Forty rules. Even MTV rules. HUH?

So music video started out as home movies. Then Michael Jackson brought it into the realm of features. And then rappers made them about lifestyle, RICH lifestyle, bitches and ho’s and rims and boats and… It was good for TV, but ELSEWHERE?

I mean can I fuck a chick to a movie?

But advertising sells records. And MTV was the greatest music advertising medium of all time. So, the labels delivered more rap videos. And the rappers themselves? They knew more about marketing than the skinny white boys with guitars. Oh, the alternative rockers wanted to be rich too. They just couldn’t figure out HOW TO DO IT! Oh, you know they wanted that success. Otherwise, why would the Shins have gone on SNL? Or Arcade Fire? They want to be big TOO!

At least Arcade Fire normally practices a different philosophy. Positively cottage industry. Doing it outside the system. But most of these acts want in, and they don’t understand that not being dangerous, not even speaking the truth most of the time, they can’t COMPETE with the rappers.

Yup, the rappers were shooting each other. In feuds. Hell, you were afraid to leave your house, even if you lived in the SUBURBS! Some Escalade might come by and the bullets might start to fly.

But the children, they were drawn to the danger the way boys are now buying "The Dangerous Book For Boys". The rappers were better outlaws than middle class men like Nicolas Cage in overproduced action adventure movies. Matt Damon scary? No, the scary stuff was happening on the street. So I can kind of understand why rap started dominating, it had all the honesty and truth absent from rock and roll.

But then rap became a caricature of itself. About the same time CD sales started tanking. But rather than invest in the future, which is NICHES, the labels just invested in more high concept drivel, which they could sell to the media. The Pussycat Dolls? Why does the media keep lionizing Jimmy Iovine? He’s got all kinds of revenue streams, he’s taking them to Vegas, WHAT THE FUCK HAS THIS GOT TO DO WITH MUSIC?

Not much. And that’s why I’m focusing on T.I.’s sales here. This incredible number proves that the sales chart has lost touch with music, REALITY! Oh, there’s a game being delineated in the album sales world. But is it THE game? Or is it the SIDESHOW!

The album sales game is a winner take all world, expensive to play, where most stuff loses. For every T.I. success, there are a zillion failures. But if you get a band together, and play live and people want to see you, and you build it from there, are you a failure? No. You’re already in the BLACK! And if no one comes, YOU BREAK UP!

That’s the world today. People making music at home, putting it up on the Web, trying to have it catch fire. No, there might not be any stars, maybe there never will be, but CUMULATIVELY, the niches are EATING UP MARKET SHARE! But the story is about the big label hypes.

Oh, it’ll be all over the press. T.I. enters the chart at number one! He’s a STAR!

You want stars? Go see the Police sell out stadiums. Go see KENNY CHESNEY sell out stadiums. T.I. is NEVER going to sell out a stadium, not even close. So he wins this week, more power to him. But let’s have a little perspective, a little context. T.I. is on fewer iPods than Led Zeppelin, and always will be. Pink Floyd too. Sure, most people acquiring classic rock aren’t PAYING for it, but that doesn’t mean it’s not the biggest music in the land.

And if classic rock is the biggest music in America, how come all the stories are about these evanescent Top Forty wonders? How come new rock acts aren’t trumpeted? Oh, I’m not talking the Arctic Monkeys, even Amy Winehouse, but stuff more PALATABLE TO THE MASSES!

Oh, I guess you call that country.

And you don’t listen to country. That’s fine with me. But that proves my point. We live in a scattered, niche landscape. Each into his own thing. And the fact that a guy who’s GOOD AT SELLING ALBUMS gets all the press sticks in my craw. Albums are no longer the only measuring stick. They’re just one piece of the pie.

The labels control the media.

The media are hacks who want the perks of access.

The public has tuned out. Believing that the labels and media are out of touch, have no CLUE what is truly going on.

Speaking of satellite radio…

I was driving to KLSX Sunday night and I was listening to XM’s folk channel. And what came out of the speakers of my automobile had none of the immediacy of Britney or Beyonce, none of the in-your-face manipulation of Fall Out Boy, only an honesty I recognized, that I treasured way back when, before I knew there was a "Billboard", when you built a collection based on record credits, friends’ recommendations and magazine reviews. And the resulting body of work, it was your Prozac, it was the antidepressant that got you through, but more than that, this music made life worth LIVING!

The shows weren’t extravaganzas, and they weren’t expensive. Music was like milk, a daily exercise. You discussed music like cars or computers today. It was the most important element of your life.

One of the great images you got researching your favorite subject was the picture of late teens and twentysomethings overseas listening to delta blues records. Ordering them by mail, playing them again and again, getting the riffs down, and then being inspired to create classic rock.

And it’s this magic, this great tradition, that gets today’s youngsters to tune in. It’s all part of a continuum, not a here today gone tomorrow hula-hoop, this music has meaning.

So I’m pulling up to the parking lot, and this guy is picking an acoustic guitar, and singing as if the story is more important than the fame.

And he never got much fame. But he drank himself to death in the process of trying, to get bigger, to spread the word.

He was in a band when one was no longer needed. Clapton went solo not long after Taste launched.

He had the world’s shittiest label in the U.S. Polydor was even worse than RCA. But this guy had talent, this guy could PLAY!

Those old delta blues musicians. They didn’t do it for the money. THERE WASN’T ANY! Maybe for the lifestyle. Playing all night, getting high, chasing women. But so many had day jobs. The blues was their story. What is Justin Timberlake’s story? Mouseketeer follows trends to stay in the public eye to get rich? Nothing inherently wrong with that, but there’s just not any humanity, no meaning.

Music has become mass ritual. You bump bodies to it in clubs. You go to arena shows for events more akin to movies than music. Music is oftentimes an aural assault, not a warm piece of bread, delivering happiness to your nose, radiating warmth to your insides, keeping you going. But this Rory Gallagher acoustic number, "The Cuckoo"…THIS is sustenance. It was just me and Rory in the car. I felt no different from lying on my bed listening to records in college.

I saw Rory live, with Taste, opening for Blind Faith. My friend John Hughes burned "Laundromat" into my brain. Still, "The Cuckoo" is new to me, the same way "Stairway To Heaven" is to a fifteen year old. With the same ethereal effect.

But there’s majesty in that Led Zeppelin track. There’s no majesty in "The Cuckoo". Just an itinerant soul, telling a tale before he moves on to the next town.

Rory Gallagher has moved beyond the next burg. He’s TRULY gone underground. He’s dead and buried. But like the great delta bluesmen, his work lives on.

Clive Davis would say the song needs tweaking, he’d add production. Lyor Cohen would propose having one of his charges rap in the middle. Charlie Walk would talk about turning it into a duet, with Wyclef, and broadcasting a video on V Cast. Jimmy Iovine would say it’s great, but wouldn’t sign it, because who needs a journeyman with bumps on both his face and his career?

But the listener. The listener would hear the raw, unadulterated track and EXULT! Bathing in the honesty and the immediacy.

 Bob,

Please utilize this math as you see fit, but I request you do not reprint this email as coming from me. You can even take credit for the math if you like.

In general, the Live Earth stuff rubbed me the wrong way as it did you. But what really gets my goat and adds to the opinion that this is more a Kevin Wall ego stunt is the oft-quoted, never challenged figure that 2 billion people watched a portion of Live Earth. Yet I do the math, and I just can’t get even close to that figure.

First off, there’s around 7 billion people on the planet, so about 30% of the planet watched this event? That’s a bit of an overstretch. Then, if you discount the approximately 1 billion people on the planet who live in abject poverty, that brings it down to 6 billion, or 1 out of every 3 people watched some portion of this event. I’m not sure that ratio would hold up amongst my circle of friends.

So, what about doing the math in reverse? Well, I’ve rarely seen a TV show get more than 25 million viewers in the US in the last year (only really the Super Bowl and the American Idol finale). But anyone in TV knows that to get ratings, you don’t broadcast something on a Saturday…at night…in summer.

But for the sake of argument that they did manage to find 25 million viewers across all the channels combined and throw in a very generous 5 million off of Satellite Radio. Now, let’s take into account the published figures of 10 million watching on MSN and 1.3 million attending the concerts themselves. So far, we’d have:

US TV – 25 MM
Sat Radio – 5 MM
Internet – 10 MM
Concertgoers – 1.3 MM

So we’re only at 41.3 million. So presuming 10% of the US saw this (which is still a big if), you’d still need to get to the 1 in 3 figure for the rest of the world. And we HAD a concert on our soil. Can we presume places like Russia (150 million people) had 1/3 of their population watching? I would doubt it.

But again, let’s be GENEROUS and say that 10% of the rest of the non-poverty world did indeed watch Live Earth. That would add another 570 million which would mean about 611.3 million folks watched a portion of Live Earth. Now I can’t get 611 million people to watch anything that I create, so that’s still impressive. However, that’s not even 1/3 of the published figure that remains unchallenged by their organizers.

And remember this is being generous with the TV and satellite stats. Those numbers could easily be far lower than 30 million and likely will be. It’s also generous to say that 10% of China were watching Live Earth, which had no Chinese pop stars on it to my knowledge. So by my math, Live Earth would have to be 3 times as generous to reach the presumed statistics.

I’ve done my share of statistic embellishment in my time, but this one takes the cake.

I was at the psychiatrist today, and on my way out, I noticed a new fob on his keychain. Instead of the SAAB logo, it had the Acura logo. I asked him, HAD HE GOTTEN A NEW CAR?

An Acura TSX!

I told him I’d test-driven that car. It was a lot of automobile for the money. Furthermore, it came with BUILT-IN XM! What did he think of the XM?

He hadn’t listened. Well, he’s a shrink. I figured he was talking on the phone. But NO! You see his new Acura came with an iPod connection!

He’d gone Mac a couple of years back. I’d like to think it was all my stories during sessions. I’m not sure, but he first went for an iBook, which came with a free iPod, and then an iMac.

This is no geek. This ain’t no C++ programmer. This is just a regular guy, older than me, utilizing the new technology. And if this guy has forsaken radio, FREE SATELLITE RADIO, then what chance is there for this industry to SURVIVE?

You can’t say you love satellite radio anymore. People laugh. Like you stepped in doo-doo. Howard Stern and Mel Karmazin tarred the reputation of the category, and now it’s fighting to remain a niche. Better management, a better sale of its story, might be able to stanch the bleeding, but it seems America just ain’t buying, just ain’t INTERESTED, even when it’s FREE! Because people have discovered the iPod, which lets you listen to EXACTLY what you want WHEN you want. And they’re not going back to the old ways, never ever.

Even Pandora and LastFM have usurped satellite radio’s buzz. What kind of crazy fucked up world do we live in where people have more faith in a COMPUTER than PEOPLE! Everything’s hand-selected at satellite radio, but the public doesn’t give a shit, they DON’T TRUST THE HANDS!

No iPod, satellite radio is a winner. But with choice and a seamless car interface, satellite radio is a boy band with a minor hit, never to be heard from again. Kind of like LFO.

Thinking about all this, I wondered, WHAT ELSE HAD THE iPOD KILLED?

1. Rio

The iPod wasn’t the first, just the best. Rio had a head-start. It bungled the ball. First and foremost because it had inferior software. The iPod might LOOK cool, but it’s software that makes it work so well, such an attractive product. So, the iPod didn’t only kill Rio and Creative (check, their numbers are in the toilet, they’re pulling back), it killed Sony Connect.

2. Sony Connect

It just didn’t work well. And it was half a solution. You need a store AND a player. Sure, Connect was hampered even more by an incompatible format, but the lame software coupled with the equally lame hardware doomed the service. Usability is more important than appearance. Stunningly, iPod/iTunes had both. Sony was only interested in the packaging. You had to be a geek to use their players, and most people are not geeks, and even geeks get frustrated sometimes.

Any competing store will not be a threat without a competing player. Amazon selling tracks? Probably a disaster. (Hell, wasn’t Yahoo supposed to steal Apple’s thunder?) Because even if you know how to BUY on Amazon, what the fuck do you DO with said tracks?

The average person has no idea what folder to place downloaded tracks into. The average person has no idea where the tracks download TO! They can’t even find what they’ve BOUGHT!

And, even if you don’t want to move the music to an appropriate folder, HOW THE FUCK DO YOU ADD IT TO YOUR iTUNES LIBRARY? People know how to buy from iTunes, and rip CDs. But the average person has no idea how to import. And why do so if it’s such a HASSLE!

And before I move on, the iPod didn’t only kill Connect, it put a huge dent in SONY INC! Suddenly, Sony was no longer the leader, no longer the desirable product. The twin prongs of Apple and Samsung damaged Sony’s reputation IRREVOCABLY!

3. The CD.

Napster wounded the CD, but the iPod killed it.

It came down to this. Do you want to be able to take YOUR ENTIRE COLLECTION WITH YOU, or a bunch of scratchable CDs and a large portable player that skips. I mean try JOGGING with a portable CD player. And then, as iPod penetration became greater, it became positively UNCOOL to own a Discman. Further killing the CD format.

A 45 held two tracks. An LP forty minutes. A CD seventy minutes. An iPod? DAYS WORTH! So, the ART FORM was challenged. How long should an album BE? Should there even BE any albums? Stunningly, both labels and artists are still debating this, still clinging to the album format when consumers only care about ONE THING! That the music be GOOD! They want a LOT of good music, and NONE bad.

4. The Major Labels

Oh, they’ll survive, in some ultra-merged fashion, focusing on their catalogs. But the iTunes Store flattened distribution. Anybody can get on the service, and anybody can get paid. The majors controlled distribution, they no longer do.

5. Terrestrial Radio

The iPod not only put a dent in satellite, but terrestrial music radio too. Radio’s only hope is topicality. News and discussion thereof/talk. To play the same old tracks over and over again? People only tolerated this when they had no options. Now, with the iPod, the public is extending a middle finger to radio, and RADIO DOESN’T EVEN REALIZE IT! Radio thinks it’s a monopoly, that people MUST listen. No way. And, iPod penetration will only increase. And music radio’s numbers will continue to go down. And labels won’t have controlled spheres within which to hype their products…

6. Palm

Did you catch the numbers?

RIM will survive. BlackBerries are e-mail devices. Corporations are not about to switch to iPhones, which do e-mail much more poorly and sans as much security. But all those things you do on your Treo? With that fucking stylus? Lamenting the constant crashing? You’re gonna do those with your fingers on the iPhone. The e-mail on the iPhone is every bit as good as that on the Treo. And the device is slimmer, cooler, and ultimately MORE USABLE!

The iPhone IS an iPod. And it was only the success of the iPod that allowed Apple to make such a splash with the iPhone.

7. Dell

An industrial box, sans identity, with tech support in Bangalore, as opposed to a badge of honor that works. Which you can get tech support on FOR FREE by a genius at your local Apple Store! Corporations will continue to be Windows/PC, but the movement amongst the hoi polloi, everyday people, to the Mac is stunning.

This is hurting not only Dell, which thought it was about price only, but MICROSOFT!

8. Microsoft

No longer the indomitable beast. Today, the "Wall Street Journal" told the company to spin off its never made a profit Xbox division. Heard of anybody buying a Zune recently? Eager to get a Vista box?

Microsoft ain’t going away. But when it comes to new products, usability, STOCK OWNERSHIP, one goes with Apple.

It was a trojan horse. A supposedly overpriced device that only worked on Macs. Now, the iPod and its attendant store are viewed as behemoths, which rule the world of music with an iron fist.

How funny.

But even funnier is that the consumer is on APPLE’S side. No one professed love for their Dell, certainly not for Windows, but Apple can sell ANYTHING based on the reputation it built with the iPod.

So, what have we learned?

It’s not about price, it’s about focusing on a need, that many people don’t even know that they have, and delivering a solution. It’s about usability. It’s about cool. It’s about design from the top down as opposed to committee. It’s about excellence as opposed to lowest common denominator.

And the juggernaut continues. In the future, people will want only basic mobile phones or FULL-FEATURED ONES! Mobile high speed networks will MEAN something, people WILL WANT to surf at high speed whilst on the run. So, cell service in America will IMPROVE, all as a result of the iPhone, a direct descendant of the iPod. Hell, AT&T is upgrading their network AS WE SPEAK!

It used to be about muscle. Controlling distribution. Now it’s about quality. Google gives you the result you’re looking for, and Apple lets you take your lifestyle on the run. You didn’t foresee either solution, but now YOU CAN’T LIVE WITHOUT THEM!