Hip-hop will not come back.

Hip-hop was of a time and place that no longer exists.  Built on a foundation of truth about the inner city, it resonated with blacks and whites because of its truth.  But it was blown up by nineties society.  When we were all in it together, when the hip merged with the mainstream, when we had no choice.  There’s no longer one scene, but many.  Furthermore, like the major labels, big time rap consolidated and became about only a few themes, bitches, hos and cash.  With choice, people went elsewhere.  They’re not coming back.  Hip-hop will survive, but as a shadow of its former self.

Video has moved to the Web.

You’re better off breaking on YouTube than MTV, or anywhere else on television.  Because clicks on YouTube have the imprimatur of the public’s choice.  People are sick of being dictated to by the man, they want to make their own choices.

Singles are death.

Unless you can convince the public to believe in the act, and want to purchase everything it ever does, you’re fucked.  There’s just not enough money in singles.

The cost of production has gone down, irrevocably.

You don’t want to be in the studio business.  Sure, you can make a better record in a big room with state of the art equipment, but who is going to BUY that record?  Economics dictate that production costs be lower.  And with the new computer tools, they can be.

The major labels will lose market share.

What they do best is find bland talent and utilizing carpet bomb marketing, they try to sell it worldwide.  There is a business here.  It costs money, that indies don’t have.  If you want to be ubiquitous, you’ve got to be on a major label.  But not only does this reach for the brass ring come with costs to your career, most types of music just can’t be sold in quantity anymore.  So we’ve got indie niches.  Until the majors enter these indie niches, they will forever lose market share.  The networks merged with the cable channels.  Will the majors take over the indies?  Only if they’re smart.

The credible acts of tomorrow will not sell out.

And credibility will equate to "career".  If you want people to believe in you, if you want to be able to play music for a decade, you cannot make a deal with Procter & Gamble, or even Jagermeister for that matter.  The more you take the cash from anyone but your core constituency, your fans, the more these same fans can’t believe in you.  Go for the slow build, not the fast ascent.  Artist development is not only in the hands of the label, but the act itself.  If you’re looking for shortcuts, you’re negatively impacting your career.  If you’re good, people will find you, you’ll develop.  Then again, most acts aren’t any good.

Music is not cool.

I just did two hours on this last night on KLSX.  The only callers who said music was cool were those into heavy metal bands you’ve never heard of.

Doesn’t matter what you think of music, its image hasn’t been tarnished, it’s been TRASHED!

The whole industry is in trouble.  As a result of the RIAA suing its customers, hip-hop being a joke and the selling of vapid, no-talent singers who don’t write their own material and sound like an imitation of Mariah Carey, if they can sing at all.

People have tuned new music out.

Yes, there is great new music out there.  But the casual listener is not exposed to it, and therefore has tuned out, and is into other entertainment media.

As for modern music like Justin Timberlake, that’s seen as a vehicle to bump bodies in the club, it’s not something you want to listen to on the stereo at home.  And until that desirable listening experience comes back with new music, and people haven’t changed, they still want it, kids still sit in front of their computer or fall asleep with their iPods to Led Zeppelin and Pink Floyd, we’re fucked.

Music should be paid for.

Music shouldn’t be free.  But the major labels made it so.

You can’t pull people back into the past.  You’ve got to monetize the way they presently acquire music.

This is immutable.

The more P2P is demonized, the less revenue comes in, the more the business of selling music goes into the toilet.

People only want to see stars.

Oh, you might want to see the Decemberists, but most people don’t know who they are and don’t care.  And the Decemberists have got TRACTION!  There is not a healthy live music scene.  Live music is like blockbuster movies.  Everybody wants to see a very few acts.  Not that we should blame them, there aren’t many good acts out there.  And tickets are too expensive and a show is no longer about the music, but the production.

A greedy industry is looking to get all the money and is not looking to the future, when there are no superstar new acts that anybody wants to see.

Melody never goes out of style.

Beats might be selling, but there is ALWAYS room for a well-sung song with a melody and hooky changes, which people can sing along with.  Those who realize this will end up with all the money.

What kind of crazy fucked up world do we live in where a TV show is better than any mainstream music released this year?

Music used to be cutting edge, music used to touch your soul, you used to look to music to help you understand yourself, point the way.  Now you’re better off watching "The Sopranos".

Oh, of course, last season was a bummer.  But you’ve got to give David Chase credit for TRYING SOMETHING DIFFERENT!  Which Bono and U2 refuse to do.  Musical acts used to test the limits when they were at their peak.  That’s why Neil Young’s a legend.  "Time Fades Away" was a fuck you to all the wimps expecting a new "Harvest".  Now, you’ve got to get the fans in a club, you’ve got to get them on a cash gravy train, you’ve got to have your hands in their pants.  You’re ripping them off every which way and yet you still expect them to believe, ain’t that a laugh.

I remember driving down the freeway hearing Marvin Gaye’s "Sexual Healing".  Even Alanis Morissette’s "Hand In Pocket".  Where are the one listen tunes of today?  That make you run to the record store, to purchase, to play?  Sure, there’s good stuff out there, but it’s not TRANSCENDENT!  Oh, we had Marshall Mathers for a while.  But he’s no Syd Barrett.  He stopped making music and just did stupid things.  We want to scrape his remains off our jackets.  But we’re constantly peering in on "The Sopranos", we want to see what Tony and the gang are up to.

The right wing press says the show’s success depends on violence.  Well, if that were true why doesn’t every TV show, every movie with blood succeed?  No, the physicality, the excesses, are just a backdrop to the family story.  This is us.  More than we ever were on "Seinfeld" or "thirtysomething", certainly more than we ever were on "Little House On The Prairie" or "The Brady Bunch".  America is about individual fiefdoms, known as families, and how you try to stay connected while establishing a separate identity, as you try to accumulate wealth.

Oh some substitute status for wealth.  But oftentimes they’re the same thing.  That’s what we revere in our celebrities.  Not their talent, but their access, their lifestyle.  We want to play too.  EVERYBODY wants to play.

And everybody bends the rules.  But HOW FAR?

Tony Soprano is just the hothead down the street, with a temper, except for the fact that he’s a mafioso.  Oh, you know the kind of guy, he makes small talk when you run into him at Fountains of Wayne, but then you get an agitated phone call, telling you to make sure you take in your garbage cans, that your dog doesn’t take a shit on his lawn.  The line between civility and chaos is fine in American society.  And the culture of the street is not the same as the culture of the university.  It’s not about civil discourse, but STANDING UP FOR YOURSELF!

Bobby Bacala was no different from an underling at the office, who’s been kowtowing to the boss for too long.  Tony went too far.

But doesn’t everybody go too far when there’s alcohol involved.  Oh, Monopoly is fun when you’re ten.  But when the game transpires over hours in the heat of an evening drenched with spirits, there’s going to be trouble.  And it won’t be about truth so much as a release of tension.

Or maybe it’s just my family.  The explosive moments.  It could be totally calm and then my dad would erupt like a supernova.

And what’s up with Meadow.  Is she going to be a professional or is she going to take over the family?  Because loyalty is key in our society.  Did you catch how offended she was over Tony’s arrest?

And Anthony, Jr.  What do you do with a kid like this?  Who can’t go to school?  Who’s good at heart but who is so easily influenced by others?  If you don’t have a similar member of your family, you don’t have a family.

But the greatness of the episode came in the foreshadowings that didn’t come true, that didn’t come to pass.

You saw that kid playing in the lake, and you just knew she was going to drown.  But then Tony said what you were thinking, and Carmela told the story of the pool party and it never happened.

And when Tony pulled off the highway for Bobby to take a pee, you were sure he was going to beat the shit out of him.  But when they reappeared with the Canucks, Bobby was unscathed.

We didn’t feel like we were being tricked, we felt like we were being respected.  And this drew us in further.

What do you do with a sister like Janice?  Who’s got an eternal chip on her shoulder?  Always believing she is the best and the brightest and your success is not only unjustified, it should be HERS?

Watching "The Sopranos" is watching us.  And we’re forever riveted by our own story, how did we get here, how is it going to work out?

Traditional entertainment serves us a fantasy, believing like Jack Nicholson in "A Few Good Men" that we can’t handle the truth.  But it’s what we’re confronted with 24/7.  We hold it inside because we don’t see it reflected in the media.  We feel completely alone until we watch "The Sopranos".

It doesn’t cost much.  Just a few extra bucks on your cable bill.  You don’t have to pay to park, and you don’t have to be worried about being elbowed aside by the hoi polloi.  If you want to be a VIP, you lay down for a plasma or an LCD set and are able to watch it in HD.

And Sunday night at 9 PM, as you nestle on the couch with your popcorn and Coke, you start hearing that song, never a hit, but better than anything on the Top Forty.  And your adrenaline starts to pump.  Tony’s put the money in the toll.  He’s on the New Jersey Turnpike.  And then he turns into his driveway, the music screeches to a halt, the image fades to black, and you’re inside.

That’s what we’re all looking for, to be inside.

It’s not about gloss, or shine.  Tony is overweight.  Carmela doesn’t fit the image of a babe.  But they’re three-dimensional in a way none of the usual suspects are.  We know them, we are them.  Living compromised lives, yet still trying to fulfill our dreams, all the while laughing, eating and having a little fun, in the bedroom, at the restaurant, in front of the TV.

This is the kind of art we marvel at, that we can’t get enough of.  One containing truth, about the human condition.

We were living in a hip-hop nation.  What happened?

The Internet.

Hip-hop evolved into a marketing juggernaut.  The sound of the people made by performers who would endorse any product, tie in with anybody willing to pay them.  And the marketers paid them.  And the mainstream media covered the shenanigans.  And then suddenly nobody wanted rap records anymore.

Of course rap became a caricature of itself.  Then again, if you were cutting edge, you got no airplay.  And with no touring business to speak of, and with disc sales declining, you needed that airplay.  So ever more bland hip-hop was foisted upon the public on MTV and radio and…suddenly people had somewhere else to turn.

This is the broadband story.

Broadband begat not only YouTube, but the demise of Don Imus too.  If it weren’t for Media Matters, and its posting of the Imus clip, this story would have blown over, it would have been business as usual.  But the Net kept the story alive.  The Net MADE the story.  The Net fanned the flames.

The major labels believe the Internet is synonymous with theft.  Sure, a lot of stealing goes on via the pipe.  But a lot more is exchanged between people.  Information.  New music.

The old system was built upon control.  We decide who to sign, we decide who to promote, you choose from our slim pickings.

But suddenly there was more choice.

But you weren’t supposed to like those new choices.  They didn’t sound like the mainstream, they didn’t have the same traction, they weren’t UBIQUITOUS!  And that’s exactly why the public embraced these new acts.  They hearkened back to the days of the late sixties and early seventies, when the man had AM and we had FM.  And the labels purveying the music were icons we wanted to work for, when they were doing their best to midwife the cutting edge, what we wanted to hear.

You know that doesn’t describe the major labels today.

We’ve been reading over and over how Americans are bombarded with marketing messages, which are ignored.  What makes the music industry believe it’s immune?  That when it hypes something it hasn’t got the feel of Procter & Gamble trying to convince us to try out a new soap?

And with so much money at stake, the usual suspects ramp the hype up even more.  Jay-Z is EVERYWHERE when his new album comes out.  But that doesn’t sell it.  Because people can see the sell.  And the sell has nothing to do with the music.

And didn’t the labels cry that CDs have to cost so much because of the MARKETING COSTS?  The HYPE costs?  It’s exactly these costs that are putting their acts in the ground.  Only the lowest common denominator is interested in the tripe they’re selling.  Doubt me?  Then why do the Shins sell more albums the first week than the vaunted J. Lo?

Most albums sell a pittance.  They’re far from ubiquitous.  It’s the HYPE that’s ubiquitous.  Suddenly, with a fraction of the marketing budget you can reach enough people to sell more albums than those of the scorched-earth policy overhypes.  Think about THAT!

In other words, there’s more money in the niche.  Not only are niches selling a lot of records, they’re doing so for a fraction of the cost.  And people want the album, since they believe in the act.

We’re in a new golden era.  Pay no attention to what the major labels are saying.  Don’t worry about iTunes and DRM and lawsuits.  They’re the detritus of an old world.  What’s fascinating is that those who desire music are pulling it on the Web.  They’re going out and finding it, they’re searching for great new stuff.  And when they find it, they buy it, and go to see it live, they BELIEVE in it.  And it sounds anything but formulaic.

In reality, this is less of a revolt against hip-hop than a setting loose of music lovers in a vast candy store.  Why eat the same thing over and over again when you can try something new?

If you’re playing only the hits, you’re missing most of what people want to hear.

Then again, to get most of those people you’d have to play ALL KINDS of music.  Begging the question of whether broadcasting is even the model.  Whether it’s more about niches.  Whether satellite’s tens and tens and tens of stations are necessary to fill the need.

You complained about the lack of melody in today’s music?

No problem, you no longer have to listen to it.  You can find something more appealing on the Web.  Friends help.  But even solo surfing turns up all kinds of appealing stuff.

We’re seeing a great democratization of the landscape.  Dictation is no longer the norm.  It’s not about strong-arming someone into liking your wares, it’s about trying to do something so great, so appealing, so honest that people will flock to you, and sell it for you.

The landscape will never be the same.

No one knew what satellite radio was until Howard Stern signed on.

And people hate Howard.

Suddenly satellite radio went from something cool, the new iPod, into the same old thing, but you pay for it.

I mean who wants to pay for Howard Stern?  Oh, his show is better than ever, but it’s all about freeing HIM, not servicing YOU!  He was constrained by the FCC, not you.  And suddenly you got the same old thing, except it cost you $12.95 a month.  Sure, diehard fans were happy to pay.  But most Stern listeners were not.  Only a fraction followed him to satellite.

Great way to build a business.  Giving the middle finger to your audience.  Telling people you need to feel free to make $100 million, but really you’re all in this together.  Bullshit.

And those not into Howard Stern, they were happy to stay away from the stink.

But what about XM?

X what?

Suddenly, satellite became synonymous with Sirius.  Howard hyped it everywhere he went, for a year before he could even be heard on the service.

And then Mel Karmazin followed him there.

Mel Karmazin is the number two poster boy for everything Americans hate about radio.  Number one, of course, is the Mays family/Clear Channel.  But wasn’t it Mel who turned CBS Radio into an advertising juggernaut?  And everywhere he went after signing on to Sirius, Mel babbled about how he was going to sell so much advertising.

Suddenly, satellite radio was Howard Stern with commercials.  And you had to PAY FOR IT!  People were turned off.

Most people have never heard satellite radio.  They’ve got no idea of its charms.

Then again, if you listen to Sirius, it doesn’t sound that different from terrestrial.  The deejays are jive and the records are repeated endlessly.  But you’ve got STARS!  Curious, don’t you think.  In an era where the stars on television are the hoi polloi, where everyman is what most people want to see, they suddenly want to PAY to hear the bloviations of people who have no previous history in radio?

Now if you need Howard, Sirius is the only place to go.

And if you buy a Sirius-ready car, you’ll find the service is superior to terrestrial, so maybe you’ll keep up your subscription.

But where’s the growth?

Suddenly signing up satellite subscribers is a grind.  The kind Mel Karmazin works with his salesmen.  Instead of people flocking to buy it, like Windows switchers to Macs, you’ve got to convince people.  And that’s tough.

XM had it right.  The service was growing organically.  Its best salesmen were its subscribers.  But you can’t sell XM to non-subscribers anymore.  They know all about satellite.  Losing money and desperately begging for a merger.  Battling with terrestrial and iPods.  Shit, does the iPod cite the Walkman as competition?  But we’ve got Mel all over the media saying Sirius and XM have no choice but to merge, because of all the competition.  Does U2 have competition?  Even Coldplay?  Great bands generate their own desire.  It’s only crap bands that have to fight for their spot in the marketplace.

I’m getting a bad feeling that the Sirius/XM merger is a fait accompli.  That all of Mel’s whining is going to convince the regulators.  And this is sad.  Because what’s lost in translation is satellite radio’s PROMISE!

Oh, don’t tell me about Net radio.  First and foremost, you can’t get it in your car, and won’t be able to for a while.  Never mind that too much of it is unlistenable.  And HD radio?  The amount of money thrown towards programming wouldn’t keep XM or Sirius afloat for minutes.  No, satellite radio is the answer, if only they could make it cool again.

I don’t think Mel is interested in making Sirius cool.  He’s just interested in the bucks.  Which is why satellite is being dragged down.  But XM?  Can XM be cool again?  Can XM be saved by a repositioning, a separation from Sirius?

XM is not terrestrial without the commercials.  It’s a different philosophy.  The deejays don’t talk jive and the playlists are varied.  Not that anybody but subscribers knows this, because nobody has told them!

The future is about filters.  XM is a filter today!  But it’s been positioned so poorly, it’s dying on the vine.

While Hugh Panero focused on car deals, he did no soulful marketing.  And, didn’t plan for car owners to switch the service off, because the vibe on satellite is so bad in the community.  Buying satellite is like buying a Zune.  What kind of chump lays hard-earned money down for crap?

First and foremost XM has got a perception problem.  Sirius does too, but it’s going to use this merger to triumph.  But what if the merger doesn’t happen?  What if regulators finally see that competition is best?  Can XM sell itself again?  Can it get people to believe and spread the word?  That’s its challenge.