Drummer for the Tubes, Todd Rundgren and more!

Apple: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/prairie-prince/id1316200737?i=1000761790993

https://music.amazon.com/podcasts/9ff4fb19-54d4-41ae-ae7a-8a6f8d3dafa8/episodes/060400d0-3e40-4639-8431-024d360dfc55/the-bob-lefsetz-podcast-prairie-prince

Download here: https://luminatedata.com/reports/yearend-music-industry-report-2025/

What surprised me most in this report at first was the biggest hit per decade.

When it comes to the sixties, it’s Creedence Clearwater’s “Fortunate Son.”

I’m not saying that Creedence was not huge in the sixties, but I would have expected a Beatles song, something different.

Now this report says chart position was driven by short form video… That’s not ringing a bell in my head, then again, we all get different social media feeds.

Now if you listen to the lyrics of “Fortunate Son,” you will see that they’re as apropos today as they were back in 1969, when the record first came out. Sure, it’s antiwar, but it’s also anti-rich, anti-blind patriotism…you’d think that the Democrats would adopt this as their theme song. Then again, that would require them to be smart.

As for the following decades, that’s less surprising.

For the seventies, it’s Fleetwood Mac’s “Dreams,’ then again, that viral video, that broke back in 2020, but the song has sustained.

The eighties are “Don’t Stop Believin’.”

Nineties Goo Goo Dolls’ “Iris,” which has been pointed out by many, and the story of its sustainability was well-documented by the “Wall Street Journal”:

“How a ’90s Goo Goo Dolls Hit Became the Song of the Summer – ‘Iris’ has been a top global hit on Spotify for most of the last three months”

https://www.wsj.com/arts-culture/music/iris-goo-goo-dolls-spotify-charts-tiktok-0b3e20a9?st=q4MGSg&reflink=desktopwebshare_permalink

Mr. Brightside owned the aughts, which is strange in a world where rock is seen as a second-class citizen.

And the teens… Chris Stapleton’s “Tennessee Whiskey”? Which did make it to number one on the Hot Country Songs chart, but only number 57 on the Country Airplay chart and number 20 on the Hot 100… Not only is the biggest streaming song from the decade a country song, it wasn’t a hit in the way “Choosin’ Texas” is today.

As for this decade… It’s Alex Warren’s “Ordinary.”

Now wait just a second, where the f*ck is TAYLOR SWIFT!

Didn’t we experience Swiftmania just a couple of years back with the Eras Tour? Isn’t she the biggest act in the world, far above all comers? Isn’t that what the press has said over and over… After all, we’ve got Taylor and Travis, it’s all Swift all the time…

Except in the hit parade.

Now if you scroll down in the report, you’ll find that Taylor Swift does not occupy one spot in the 2025 Global Top 10 Songs On-Demand Audio streams chart.

Nor does she appear in the Global Top 10 Songs On-Demand video streams.

Now her “Life of a Showgirl” is the number one album, but the devil is in the details.

When it comes to On-Demand Audio Streams, she’s got less than everybody in the Top 10 other than Tate McRae.

That’s right, Taylor Swift has 2.030 billion On-Demand Audio Streams.

The big winner? Morgan Wallen, who has got 6.049 billion, three times as many.

Wallen’s “I’m the Problem” is number two in the top ten. Let’s count down the rest.

SZA? She’s got 3.219 billion.

“KPop Demon Hunters”? 2.605 billion.

Bad Bunny? 2.963 billion.

Kendrick Lamar? 2.359 billion.

Sabrina Carpenter? 2.114  billion.

And here comes the kicker at #8…it’s Morgan Wallen’s “One Thing at a Time,” which came out in 2023! It had 2.458 billion streams, more than Taylor Swift’s latest.

Drake? Who was supposedly neutered by Kendrick Lamar in their diss war? With PARTYNEXTDOOR their “$ome $exy $ongs 4 U” has 2.192 billion streams.

And the aforementioned Tate McRae finished up the list with 1.889 billion.

But Taylor Swift owns video, right?

Once again, the only person who has fewer On-Demand Video Streams is Tate McRae.

Taylor’s got 63.4 million

Morgan has 246.6 with his latest album.

SZA has 141.3.

“KPop Demon Hunters” has 205.9 million.

Bad Bunny has 197.7 million

Kendrick Lamar 150.3 million.

Sabrina Carpenter? 81.7 million.

Morgan Wallen’s 2023 album? 120.9 million

PARTYNEXTDOOR & Drake? 97.8 million.

Tate McRae? 52.2 million.

Now as you can see, the numbers don’t add up. How can Taylor Swift’s “Life of a Showgirl” be the number one album if the numbers say it’s #9?

WELCOME TO BIZARROLAND!

Taylor wins because of physical album sales. Yes, all those zillions of variations, they sold 3,985,000 copies! No one else in the Top Ten even broke seven figures (that’s a million for the math-challenged.)

As a matter of fact, no one else even sold 500,000! I’d recite all the numbers, but I think you get it. Well, just to add some flavor,  three of the albums didn’t even cross the SIX FIGURE (i.e. a hundred thousand) threshold.

But, but, BUT, the public overwhelmingly CONSUMED eight of the other albums more. In some cases WAY MORE!

But in the bizarre math of the music business, where physical sales are overweighted, where some buy vinyl but don’t have a turntable, some buy CDs without possessing a deck, a new stat has been created, TOTAL ALBUM-EQUIVALENT CONSUMPTION!

Now that’s pretty stupid, because that’s not how people listen anymore. They pick and choose tracks. Sure, some people listen to the album through and through, but most don’t. This is easily observed on Spotify where the numbers are public. Usually certain tracks have stratospheric streams and others are anemic. But having said that, the streams on “Life of a Showgirl” are evenly spread when it comes to the album tracks as opposed to the hits.

In other words, not only is the industry telling everybody Taylor is #1, the press repeats this info. But really, look at the statistics above… It’s like saying you’re number one at the country club because you beat the scratch golfer with your 36 handicap!

But, but, BUT you say… One must factor in release date and the number of cuts on an album and… I hear you, but that doesn’t account for all of the wide disparities here.

Let’s go to U.S. Top 10 Songs On-Demand Audio + Video streams.

Taylor Swift is nowhere to be seen.

Nor is she in the U.S. Top 10 Songs On-Demand Audio streams or the U.S. Top 10 Songs On-Demand Video Streams.

I mean one of her songs should have triumphed, right?

NO!

Hell, Taylor Swift isn’t even in the U.S. Top 10 Songs Programmed Audio Streams!

Nor is she in the U.S. Top Radio Songs Based on audience impressions.

Now I’m not judging Taylor Swift on her numbers, she’s a huge act with a huge fan base that consumes her music in volume. And quantity is not a definitive representation of quality.

But when it comes to statistics…

Hell, it’s not only in straight news that the public ends up misinformed.

I guarantee you, if you ask almost anybody in America over ten, they’ll say that Taylor Swift is the biggest act in the country, if not the world, that it’s a slam dunk. But is this really true?

First and foremost we’ve got to stop overweighting physical sales, which are manipulated by artists for chart position.

But we also have to point out that at this late date, the music business is still spewing falsehoods and the media and therefore the public are buying them.

Draw your own conclusions. 

So let me see…

They put Richard Grenell on the board, they hire behind-the-scenes fixer Mike Davis, who put the knife in the back of Gail Slater, the chief antitrust officer, they even employ Ms. Alternative Facts herself, Kellyanne Conway, and THEY STILL LOSE?

This is not a story of Live Nation and Ticketmaster. This is not a story of concert ticket prices. This is a story of the Trump administration and its losing streak.

We can start with a war that’s not a war that has never been adequately explained to the public that is ruining the world economy.

Then we can go to the insane support of authoritarian Viktor Orbán, J.D. Vance even traveling to Hungary to try and boost his candidacy, with Orbán ending up being trounced…

The bottom line is when Biden was in office, the antitrust division believed it would defeat Live Nation no problem, which is why this case was never settled. Believe me, Live Nation wanted to settle.

And then after Slater was blown out and the case was going poorly in court, Mike Davis made a secret settlement with the government, leaving out not only the judge, but the government’s own attorneys and the states, and then continued the trial! It’s almost out of “The Godfather,” then again, the Mafia has a code, whereas Trump makes it up as he goes.

Belief has been if you kiss his ass, if you pay fealty, it’s all going to work out.

So we’ve got law firms settling, Tim Apple giving Donald a gold award, FIFA coming up with a “Peace Prize” and Maria Corina Machado handing over her Nobel Peace Prize… But Trump and his minions can’t stop shooting themselves in the foot. It’s almost laughable. Pam Bondi with her burn book then getting blown out. Noem with her jet and its bedroom… Never mind nincompoops like Hegseth. They all thought they were invulnerable, because they were the sweepers pushing aside the dung in the wake of Trump’s elephant.

It’s even worse… The Supreme Court has legitimized so much of Trump’s behavior.

SO WHY IS HE LOSING!

The only question in this trial is why it took the jury so long to reach a verdict. I truly thought they’d come back in an hour or two, max. The fact that they were taking their time over days made me believe that this slam dunk might not be one.

But it turned out to be one.

As for the attorneys on both sides?

Latham & Watkins was arguing the law, that’s how the Live Nation/Ticketmaster merger got approved in the first place, high-priced lawyers negotiating with the government. But when the states grew balls and decided to continue the trial on their own, they hired Jeffrey Kessler, who’d just helped Michael Jordan behead the indomitable NASCAR.

Kessler simplified the case, he did the opposite of Marcia Clark and Christopher Darden in the O.J. trial. He didn’t bore the jury with endless evidence, he just focused on the concept of Live Nation being a monopoly, he kept driving that home.

Anybody with any legal experience knew that Live Nation was f*cked from the get-go. A jury trial? Come on… Which is one of the reasons they settled, on very advantageous terms not long after the trial began.

So what happens now…

One thing is for sure, ticket prices won’t go down. They’re a function of the marketplace. To get people to understand ticketing is like trying to get them to understand how AI works… They don’t, and they trust misinformation all day long.

But they want to go to the show and they believe that since they’re big fans they’re entitled to a ticket up close for under a hundred bucks.

So really, this trial is inside baseball. About what happens behind the scenes…other promoters, other ticketing companies. Because the public? It ain’t gonna benefit at all, not really.

Then again, it feels good. Like when Microsoft was beaten in the Internet Explorer case back in 2000. If you look at the details, they’re not that different. Microsoft was using its leverage to dominate the browser wars, never mind control the internet.

But Google came along and now owns the browser market with Chrome. Begging the question if you need antitrust enforcement or the market will always solve the underlying problem.

But even more interesting is despite all of Steve Ballmer’s missteps, like buying the handset business of Nokia, twenty five years later Microsoft is once again a monolith! It pivoted to cloud storage and…

If Live Nation loses Ticketmaster… It may be case closed, but business goes on. Live Nation dwarfs its competitors in terms of venues and shows. I don’t see anybody else ponying up that kind of money. And this scale throws off sponsorship revenue that allows the company to pay artists in many cases more than anybody else.

Of course having Ticketmaster is an advantage. But if you believe slicing Ticketmaster from Live Nation cuts the concert promotion company off at the knees, you’re sorely mistaken.

Then again, what we’ve got here is the power of the individual. No one else could  make SFX/Clear Channel what ultimately became Live Nation work. Michael Rapino sliced off the legitimate theatre division, Ticketmaster was merged with the company. You can take away some of the toys, but not the vision.

But what really killed Live Nation in this case was human nature. American business is about cutting corners, and the odds of being caught are now infinitesimal. Trump has said that bribing foreign entities for business is legit. Trump has eviscerated the IRS. But the business of most companies doesn’t elicit the passion that concerts do.

So…

Did the Live Nation employees do everything they were accused of? OF COURSE THEY DID! They wanted to look good to the boss, they wanted to get their bonus, a bigger bonus. They used every tool in the box, business is all about leverage anyway.

FURTHERMORE, they put it all in e-mail. What dummies. When it’s questionable, don’t document, because if you don’t there’s always plausible deniability. If you think the employees who crossed the line in this case are masterminds, geniuses, you’ve never worked in the entertainment business, which is the opposite of tech, it’s based on bullying, pure power, good luck with the rules, there aren’t any. So you expect the people in the trenches to observe a consent decree? Give me a break.

Now we’ve got to wait for the judge’s decision… To tell you the truth, as I’ve stated previously, I don’t see how anything but a clear division, a breakup, works. Yup, separating Ticketmaster from Live Nation. Because putting conditions on a deal, counting on Live Nation to do the right thing, that hasn’t worked.

But I can’t predict the future.

Believe me, Live Nation will look to settle again. But the company has burned out its good will with the judge, by going behind his back and settling with the government and not cluing him in on the deal.

And if there’s no settlement, there will be an appeal that goes on for years and…

What is being sold is a unique, once in a lifetime experience. It’s not  like a movie, which opens up in thousands of theatres across the nation, then plays on the home screen forever. No, the act may never play the songs from this tour ever again. The act might never go on the road ever again. In a world where you’ve got no trust in the government, where you need a north star, you rely on music to get you through. You want to see the acts live, you’ve GOT to see the acts live. And in a digital world lived on our devices, concerts are one of the few places where you can get together with your brethren in real life and have a good time.

The concert business has never been healthier. More acts are doing more business. Both old and new. You can play arenas on your first tour! That never happened before.

So if you saw Billy Joel… You  might not ever be able to see him again. And, you can tell the tale of seeing him for the rest of your life!

So even if Ticketmaster is severed from Live Nation, the latter company is not defeated.

But Donald Trump and his gang that can’t shoot straight? As the losses pile up… People and corporations will no longer be afraid of him. They’ll pull up to the bumper and put up a fight. Akin to Ukraine and Russia.

As for today’s success… This is the greatest victory for the public in years, there might not be parties in the street, but the big bad evil empire has been crushed, brought down a notch, TAKE THAT!

Could Live Nation have foreseen this?

OF COURSE!

But to rein in its employees would be antithetical to its mission.

In other words, the company was asking for it. And the only people pissed today, who are upset, are those who work at Live Nation itself. The rest of the business, the public, they’re partying like it’s 1999.

But it’s still 2026. The government still doesn’t understand the concert business, nor does the public.

But this is perceived as a victory for the little guy.

HOORAY!

This guy was one of a kind.

Scratch that… There was a group of concert promoters, who built this business, who had personality, moxie and could tell a story that you’d repeat for the rest of your life!

That’s what concert promoters have…stories. It’s not like working at a label, the relationship with the acts is different. And they continue. And even though you may only intersect with the act once a year, you’re considered a close friend, because the nature of a rock act is…they go on the road, come back home and write and record a record and then go back on the road…such that these concert promoters may be some of the people they see most!

Anyway…

Donald Tarlton, aka Donald K. Donald, just died.

If you’re under the age of 60 do you care?

If you’re under the age of 50 do you care?

If you’re under the age of 40 you definitely don’t care. You’ve never heard of him and never will. And the business is completely different today.

You see the concert business in the sixties and into the seventies was just like tech in the nineties and first decade of this century. It was the wild west, filled with entrepreneurs. And for everyone who succeeded, there were tons who failed.

These were not fat cats, just young people with an idea. They could tell something was in the air. They listened to the radio, they perceived the power of music and they knew that kids would want to see these acts…why shouldn’t they do it? They could do it, right? Borrow some money and put on a show?

Like I said, not everybody succeeded. But there were those who did and rose above and then Frank Barsalona created a territorial system… You played his acts in your assigned territory only, you did not poach from others, and Frank would not only give you the stars, but the up and comers, which you had an obligation to play. And the system was great, and functioned such that everybody got rich, until Robert Sillerman decided to roll up these old promoters and I could run you through a few steps but the end result is today that company is known as Live Nation and it is publicly-traded.

Concert promotion is mature. Only for the big boys (and girls).

In the old days everybody worked together, if your date stiffed, you’d give the promoter money back, so they could stay in business and book you and pay you in the future. No one gives money back to Live Nation, it’s a public company, SCREW THEM!

It’s no longer a family business, it’s just business.

Forget the labels. They’re moribund. Museums of old records with a few new ones thrown in for sexiness. These new records in few genres get press, but all the action is in live, where if you succeed, you can be a lifer. Now it used to be that labels shuffled the deck every few years, and that’s no longer true, but that’s just evidence of the calcification of the business.

As for live… It’s all about relationships, and it all comes down to money. All the b.s. at the labels, deciding who to sign, messing with the act’s creativity, that doesn’t exist in live. In live if you can sell tickets, everybody wants to be in business with you and they’ll pay the freight. And unlike with recordings, the act gets the lion’s share of the money.

Anyway, Donald Tarlton was there in the sixties. His first breakthrough was at the world’s fair, Expo 67.

Now I hate to tell the story, because Donald told it so well. And you’ll see reference to it in some of the obits, but… Bottom line, Donald made a bad deal for a club at the fair, and it wouldn’t work financially. But then he had a brilliant idea. Make it a HALF HOUR disco! And parade people in and out.

And I’m not going to give you more, because you’ve got to know, Donald would not only tell you the story, HE’D ACT IT OUT! Shuffling the people out of the disco. And boy could Donald tell a story, smiling with nuance.

And there are two other absolutely legendary stories…

One involving Don Fox in New Orleans… Let’s just say that Fox was led to believe he was at risk of the Big Guy coming, and he didn’t want that… Yup, not the police, not the mafia, please don’t let it happen. And when Fox was freaking out, it turned out to be TARLTON who was the Big Guy, and at the time he was a big guy!

And he’d wear those white shoes. He looked like he just came from the golf course or Miami Beach, but underneath it all, he was more rock and roll  than most of the people in the business today.

And he grew an empire, with records, with acts you’ve heard of, who sold millions, but then…

There was the time he played the Who. Great show, all good. And then in the middle of the night, he got a call they’d been locked up…right now I don’t remember the offense, I think it had something to do with being rude to the cops. Anyway, to bail them out, Donald needed over 10k in cash. IN THE MIDDLE OF THE NIGHT!

This is what a concert promoter does, fixes problems, comes through.

They couldn’t wait until the banks opened the next morning, the band had to move on down the road.

SO…

In the middle of the night, Donald calls the local mafioso. Who gives him the money in a paper bag and… Donald shows up at the jail with the cash and the Who are in the cell, with their hands on the bars, singing DON’T FENCE ME IN!

Yes, Donald knew the local mafioso. You had to. Everybody knew everybody, it was a shady business. And it’s not completely clean today.

Now the last time I saw Donald in Toronto… He was hobbled, a bit out of it, we nodded heads at each other, I greeted him in passing, but I just couldn’t stop and converse like I normally would. He’d lost more than a step, and I just couldn’t handle it.

Because Donald Tarlton was so alive. Told the best road stories I’ve ever heard, and I’ve heard a lot! And he wasn’t threatening, not intimidating, like so many of his peers. He was nice, congenial…not that he did not know where every dollar was buried.

Put Donald in the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame. Put all of the legends from Barsalona’s circuit.

But Donald was in Montreal, which in America is seen as an outpost where people speak French. But Donald was a player, as savvy as anybody in Canada, anybody in the United States.

And now he’s gone.

And he’s not the only one.

They were all characters, entrepreneurs, and the one thing they had in common was they could tell STORIES! To this day, each and every concert promoter…

You think you want to hang backstage with the band? NO WAY! You want to hang with the promoter, go to dinner with the promoter.

Which I did with Donald.

And I remember that night with that woman in Toronto…

No, it’s not as dark as you think, but it was intimate and it was important and now Donald is gone.

And it’s not like the people you see on stage. But in many ways Donald was a bigger rock star than anybody plying the boards. Because he did it his way and he LASTED! Yup, decade after decade, looking like a guy who sold insurance. But Donald sold music, he created events people will never forget, he signed and distributed legendary music and…

It was a thrill, an honor to know Donald…

No, I don’t want to overstate it… I guess that Donald treated me as an equal, and he told his stories this way. He didn’t lord them over you, he wanted you in on the joke. And you were, and you’d never forget them or him.

I certainly won’t.