Spotify: https://t.ly/vpULR

YouTube: https://t.ly/QKq5d

Did you know that Collective Soul has a new album? A double? Hell, there aren’t even any details in Wikipedia. This is the challenge of legacy acts, they might be able to sell tickets, but no one is interested in their new music, if they play it live they risk alienating paying customers, but the dirty little secret is most of the new work is substandard, a pale imitation of what made their rep.

Used to be you were a member of a club, centered around a radio station that you were devoted to. Especially before they got bogus deejays without personalities who all sounded the same. You got your news, it was one stop listening, and you were introduced to music that got the stamp of approval of the gatekeepers.

Who get a bad name. And I hear you. It was hard to get through if you were new and different or without push. But now with all the gatekeepers gone you don’t know where to start, what to listen to, you’re subjected to pure hype, and we’ve never trusted that.

But it gets even worse, if you happen to find something you like you feel like a party of one, who are your compatriots who are invested in it? You may be playing it, but the boys of summer have left the beach, there’s nobody there but you, and that’s lonely.

Now I liked Collective Soul’s “December” and “The World I Know,” I must admit that I was exposed to them by MTV, otherwise they might not have crossed my radar. But they did, and I’m not the only one who got exposed and listened and loved, those were gigantic hits on a major label, Atlantic, you can still picture the videos in your mind’s eye, at least I can.

But that was thirty years ago.

What happened in the interim?

Napster. The death of MTV. Hip-hop and pop took over the hit parade. As for rock… You’ve got the heavy Active Rock on a radio format that draws a de minimis audience. I mean I see the number ones in that world and they almost never cross over elsewhere. Nor would you expect them to. They’re heavy, and noisy. Not mass appeal. Which is fine, but…

I pulled up Collective Soul’s “Here to Eternity” on Spotify to familiarize myself with it for a conversation with Ed Roland. And I was confronted with truly anemic streaming numbers. In most cases barely more than 10,000.

So when you’re researching an act, new or not, you immediately go to the tracks with the greatest number of streams, to see what the rest of the world has anointed.

The first cut of “Here to Eternity,” “Mother’s Love,” didn’t reach me. It was surprisingly heavy for an opening track. There was melody in the chorus, but I didn’t hear the song and think I needed to hear it again.

Ditto the follow-up, “Bluer Than So Blue.” Which also has triple digit thousand streams, 124,636 to “Mother’s Love”‘s 234,684. No one is getting rich on these numbers. Then again, the album has been in the marketplace for less than a week.

Listening to “Bluer Than So Blue” again right now, I’m starting to get it. We used to invest in our records and play them until we got them. Usually a track or two reached out on the first spin, but it took a while for the rest to reveal themselves.

And I must admit, I see this listening as work. But then Spotify drifts into track 3, “Let It Flow.” AND I HEAR THAT RIFF!

I was positively stunned. This is the sound I love. This is rock. Not rock and roll, like in the fifties. Not prog rock like in the seventies. Not punk rock. But the kind of thing radio played for decades, that lived on MTV, that you never hear anymore. It’s too straightforward. And today if it’s not edgy, it’s pooh-poohed. Don’t work in a passé genre and expect anybody to care. Get those 808 beats, they even feature them in country today, it’s the law, without the 808 and its fake handclaps you can’t have a hit, who decided this?

There’s no drum machine in “Let It Flow.” Just slashing guitar. And a catchy chorus. Sounds easy, but it’s not. Listening to “Let It Flow” is like discovering a Dead Sea Scroll, an oasis in the desert. This is the sound that nobody takes seriously today, in an era of image and brand extensions, but this is the sound I love. I got it in just a few seconds, and with the change I was immediately enraptured. And this never happens.

A song you get the first time through. That you want to hear again. That you listen to and you feel good. This is the power of music, rock music.

And I’d like to tell you listening to “Let It Flow” again right now I’m re-evaluating, believing it’s not as good. But that would be untrue. It’s just as satisfying, the little flourishes resonate. I’m wincing to the guitar at 2:05. And there is only 3:18, “Let It Flow” is not bloated, it’s compact.

So I retrieved the album sticker from the garbage, I remembered it had featured a couple of cuts.

But neither was “Let It Flow.” One was “Mother’s Love,” the other “Keep It On Track,” which I hadn’t gotten to yet.

So I skipped over to cut 11 to play “Keep It On Track,” and I immediately realized why they’d picked it to emphasize. It was more complicated, but it didn’t resonate with me like the more straight-ahead, simple “Let It Flow.”

I know I’m setting myself up for abuse. Collective Soul is not an approved band, this sound has been excommunicated, but damn did I enjoy listening to it. It gave me the hit I look for from music, it energized me. Isn’t there room for this music in today’s world?

Appears not.

And you’ve got to be everywhere.

The reason influencers are such is because of their creativity. There’s a spark, a je ne sais quoi in their posts that attracts fans, who spread the word to other fans. It all comes down to inspiration.

And that inspiration is too often lacking in music marketing.

Making the music is not enough. Oh, don’t tell me you don’t want another job, posting to social media, that’s the wrong way to look at it, see it as another outlet for being CREATIVE!

Hits are all about ideas. You can get people to play. You can hire the best tech people. But to create a hit song, a song people want to listen to again and again, never mind all the way through, it must contain a nugget of creativity that sparks the interest of the listener.

This is why me-too music is inherently limited. It might reach the target audience, but it never supersedes the progenitor and the act lasts an even shorter period of time. If you want to have success in the music business you’ve got to be original.

Forget the Spotify Top 50, that’s a completely different world. If that appeals to you, go for it, the rules are clearly defined. But if you want to have success outside of that sphere…

First it comes down to the music.

Then it comes down to the marketing.

Informational posts are for fans only, they do not go viral. Furthermore, most fans don’t even see them. I’ve got 60,000+ followers on X/Twitter. If I post someone will see it, but the number is tiny. There’s just too much in the channel, Twitter posts are made to be evanescent, they’re not made to last.

So don’t bank on your followers, that’s the wrong way to look at it. You’re not feeding the already converted, you’re trolling for newcomers.

Once again, the music must be of a certain standard and almost none of it is. If it was about raw skills, the charts would be dominated by Berklee graduates, but that’s far from the case. Just like Belmont graduates don’t run record companies or talent agencies. It’s more than knowing the ropes, as a matter of fact you’re oftentimes better off not having the skills, because then you won’t be constrained by the delineated game.

The reason you want to be on TikTok is ByteDance doesn’t care about your prior success. You can go from zero to hero nearly instantly. Everything comes down to the clip itself. If you’re a successful creator with a bad clip it’s not going to be shown to most people. But if it’s a creative clip?

Don’t post your new video. Don’t post your tour dates. Don’t do anything that’s been done before. You want to do something innovative.

And it’s not as simple as filming your life.

If you’re a metal band, a member should go in leather to the food outlet of the moment and film themselves eating the offerings, whether it be a doughnut or a fine dining restaurant. This is cognitive dissonance, most in metal are so skinny they look like they don’t eat at all. And they’re known for drinking and drugging lifestyles. The key is to play against type.

Or if you’re a pop singer start talking about your favorite metal tracks, and sing them a cappella.

I could come up with a million ideas, and most wouldn’t go viral, but there’s a chance some would.

But you’re the one who has to come up with the ideas.

If everybody else is doing stupid pet tricks, come down off your throne and do one. Imagine Bill Maher in a suit getting down in the dirt.

Or a diva getting into a false argument with their manager or agent. Screaming about the tuna fish at the catering table. You said you wanted CAPERS!

Clips need changes just like songs, hooks. Bridges, choruses. That resonate with the public.

Don’t take yourself too seriously, unless your image is as a doofus.

Talk about the movies you watch on the tour bus.

Tell how it’s taboo to go number two on the tour bus. Most insiders don’t know this.

Film yourself getting up every morning, talking about how much sleep you got each and every night, showing the stress of the road.

The idea is best when it comes from the ARTIST, not a company hired for social media, not any third party. The same reason people love your music must be evidenced in your clip.

Imagine a TikTok wherein Bob Dylan talked quickly about his life. This guy is available nowhere and talks cagily and slow when he does. He’s famous for telling lies. Imagine if he told the truth!

And you can start off by telling the etymology of songs. People are dying to know the points of inspiration. The people, the places. This is easy. But it can’t be by rote, it must be intimate.

Once again, don’t see yourself as a rock star, as a celebrity, but just another person in the pit of the social media app. If you come across as equal, ironically, it boosts your cred.

You’re trying to get lucky. And you can only do so if you’re in the marketplace, each and every day. You need to see it as your full time job creating for online. It pays much bigger dividends than a piece in the newspaper or a spot on TV. I mean look at the views of these social media clips, they far outweigh the audience of almost any TV show.

And you can build an audience. Which only burnishes your career down the line. You’ve got a personality, an identity, this is key to bonding the fan to you.

And you must be everywhere. Of course Instagram Reels, and YouTube and Snapchat…

You’re throwing a line into the ocean. You’re hoping a fish wanders by and is so intrigued that they tell every other fish.

This is where it happens. On social media.

Forget press releases, a waste of time. Most PR firms are clueless.

If it’s been done before, you shouldn’t do it. Unless you put a personal spin on it, with a wink of the eye.

View it as a good SNL skit. Like from the first five years of the show. But shorter. Brief works.

And since you’re making so many, on some you play your music in the background. Don’t beat people over the head with your music, they’ve got to like you enough to be curious about your music, to pull it. You’ve got to leave it to them, not push it on them.

Spreading the word, getting attention in the new world is nearly impossible. The old methods don’t work. You’re an artist. And this is in your wheelhouse. So many musicians learned technical skills, built their own studios. But they can’t create viral clips?

And unlike in the days of MTV today’s clips are not expensive, and each and every one gets airplay.

This is an OPPORTUNITY!

If you see it as a burden you’re missing the point.

I saw Maher at Constitution Hall DC before the pandemic. He was just okay. There was a good crowd, he may have sold out, but again this was before the pandemic and his open skepticism about vaccines and masks and his agnosticism on hydrochloroquine and ivermectin and the rest, is when I believe he lost many progressive fans. At one point he started hollering at an audience member for being on their phone, which was not funny and cringy.

The jokes were mostly anti-Trump (this was DC) but he was reading his jokes off of blue sheets on a music stand.

It was the epitome of mailing it in.

I agree with your assessment of “Club Random.”

Man is he a grouchy old man, broken record, Johnny One Note.

Not only does he talk too much, but he’s a horrible listener.

One of his handlers should force him to rewatch these episodes and work on his interview technique.

It’s embarrassing for someone who’s been on air as long as he has.

Brilliant guy; I could watch him be a guest any day (when he would do Larry King Live, it was gold) that’s when he’s at his best.

But I can understand why his traveling standup routine is not attracting audiences. The world has passed him by, which dovetails with his opinion of his politics: he hasn’t changed, the Democrats have. Well that applies to his comedic persona too.

-Emory Damron, Alexandria VA.

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I’ve been a big fan of Bill Maher since I was a teenager in the mid 90s and that has only increased over time. I rarely miss an episode of Real Time and I regularly enjoy the podcast as well. You can chalk part of that up to my now being a middle aged Dad who doesn’t get out much on Fridays anymore but here’s the thing: for the first time since I was much younger, I went to see him perform at a theatre in Philly about a year ago and was disappointed. He didn’t suck, he wasn’t off his game… it was just that I already knew most of the material! And this was over a year after his last HBO special had aired. But it wasn’t just jokes and commentary from that special – it was from everything he does.

On the way home I was scratching my head…  it’s not like he’s a rising star attracting new, curious and unfamiliar crowds…so did he owe more “new” to us true loyal fans who paid and made the effort to get there? Was this somehow my fault and had I shown up with too much prior exposure to the performer? The audience (it was full or close to a full house, older crowd) was clearly enjoying it but they did not get raucous even at the best moments. Maybe that’s an age thing but I suspected many were having a similar experience to me. Long live Bill and everything he does, but I’m not in a hurry to catch him live again soon – even if he meant what he said about retiring from the road.

Matt Robertson

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Most of the time Club Random is weird and uncomfortable. Almost no one gets high with him or even has a drink, maybe a beer. And he does make it about himself but the worst was with Cameron Crowe! Bill needed to show him how much he knew about music. His take on the Beatles was dead wrong but Cameron was a real pro and just let him talk through the entire show.

Ron Maiorino

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He might think he’s a comedian, but to much of the world he’s a political pundit. That’s why he can’t fill seats – he’s spent three decades alienating half the potential audience.

Chris Beytes

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You are correct.  I will watch clips of Bill Maher’s Real Time, but I’m not going out of my house to see him.

I think for a lot of folks he is too politically one-sided.  How many pro-left or pro-right comics fill up stadiums?  I don’t think too many.  Bill may criticize the left but he lets the audience know he is still firmly with one team. So when folks go out to a show they usually go with someone, and even if it is your long time spouse you may not share the same political views, so who wants to be uncomfortable for a couple of hours.

And he is not really that funny, so there’s that…

Thanks,

Edmund J. Kelly

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My kids are 12 and 14 and could care less about what couch cushion has swallowed the remote. They don’t know that stress. All they care about is when their favorite Youtube creator is about to drop a new episode. So many choices out there.

-Brent Grunow

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Bill Maher is funny and trenchant. And he’s 68 maybe he’s had enough of touring.

Hannah Gadsby is maybe quirky but she isn’t funny. Sorry.

Mitch Tenzer

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Bill Maher is the one TV show I get excited for every week. Don’t like his podcast nearly as much. But I am a religious real time watcher. It’s the only appointment TV in my life.

Greg McLoughlin

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Interesting thing about the Brady roast: when it went out live — not the version now up on Netflix — one could really see who killed and who was just ok, as opposed to the edited versions of the roasts we usually see that makes everyone’s set look equally great. For my money, Nikki Glaser was by far the standout. She killed. Her standup act distilled down to that couple of minutes was fabulous and harsh and cutting and everything you want from a roast. And she destroyed the men. No one did it better. I’m a fan of hers generally, she’s bawdy, smart and sexy and transgressive, and her delivery is usually top notch. I was generally happy for her and the reaction in the room and the huge zeitgeist’sbump she got from that command performance. It reminded me of that old definition of luck, it’s when preparation meets opportunity, and Ms. Glaser saw her moment and seized it. It was a beautiful thing.

P.S. but then I saw her new standup special on Max and it was dreck. Just terrible. Everything about it sucked and was the opposite of the lightning in a bottle thing she created at the roast. From the fake opening shot, to the weird dress and stupidly high heels (whomever was responsible for those atrocious choices should be flogged), to the ham fisted, bush league, pull up cutaways and bullsh*t sound editing “laughter enhancement, (I’d like to add whomever directed this steaming pile of sh*t to the flogging line up) to the unbelievably long, boring and icky gang bang ‘metaphor’ at the end. And damn none of it was sexy. Au contraire. I still can’t wrap my mind around the ying and the yang of both in one week.

Steve Jones

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Brady roast was AWESOME. I grew up in foxboro, ma. Brady is a hero. They all were. Was great to see them all get down and dirty. One of the funniest things in a long time on tv.

Tim Lefebvre

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I watch Bill Maher’s show on HBO pretty much every week but I saw him in Vegas a few years ago and he’s just not that funny.

He came off as arrogant but not funny at all.

Robert Pisaneschi

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Bill Maher can’t sell out one show after three decades on TV yet Sebastian Maniscalco sold out five shows at MSG for September.  People will leave their homes if you’re funny! -t

Tony D’Amelio

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Bill Maher used to be interesting and occasionally funny. Now he is neither.

Best wishes,
Adrian Day

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“But people don’t want to leave their houses to see Bill live”.

No ….more like maybe people don’t want to pay to see or listen to blowhards.

Dante

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Maher can’t sell tickets because he’s out of touch.  And he’s smug, too; so self-absorbed in his belief that he knows better than everyone that he is oblivious to how he’s become the kind of elitist he used to rail against.  He’s also the worst kind of moral equivocator; everything is either/or with him: If you support trans rights, then you don’t believe in biology.  All college students are indoctrinated fools.  Criticizing the policies of the Israeli government automatically makes you a supporter of Hamas.  If you wear a mask in public, you’re a hysterical hypochondriac.  It’s so tiresome, his constant both-sidesing of every issue like this, especially when both sides are obviously not the same.  One is complaining about pronouns.  The other tried to overthrow the government.  The two are not comparable.

 

But this is unsurprising, given that Maher’s mostly Boomer audience tends to see the world in black and white terms.  So you could say he’s just pandering to his audience.  But I say that with friends like this, what the hell do we need the Republicans for?

 

Take care,

Wes R. Benash

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I think you’re missing something about Bill Maher’s drop in selling tickets:  he has become nasty and insufferable, especially since the pandemic. It’s no fun watching him anymore. Whereas his antipathy to Trump and his correct reading of the dangers of the Republican agenda and takeover have never been unwavering, his attacks on basically anything on the democratic side, anything progressive, diverse or “woke” and the especially cruel assessment of the campus protests have turned many of his fans against him. He gives a platform to many of the rightwing voices without challenging them and is dismissive of anyone’s opinion that doesn’t support his. Clearly, he was miserable during the pandemic, unable to go out and reach the crowds and adulation he clearly needs so much, but that has morphed into an unending attack on decisions that were made during the pandemic, decisions designed to protect vulnerable members of OUR society. While I am in agreement with his assessment of one’s responsibility for one’s own health, especially in terms of eating choices (I am myself a vegan) his attacks on overweight people are cruel and dismissive. Let’s not even get into his attacks on Muslims, a classic and terrible case of othering.

Who hurt him?

Bill Megalos
Venice

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Bill Maher Is a complete crank and a pompous ass. Has-been.

And Bill Burr put him in his place.

Bill Seipel

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I promote him. I watch him religiously. But he’s lost his base. He’s left, center and right. There’s no audience for that. I’m a big fan but I’m certainly not capable of giving him advice. Actually I’m afraid to.

By the way, the comedians, of which Bill isn’t as he’s a political commentator, that are selling out tell jokes. Not a fair comparison.

Today the “New York Times” said that the Luminate/”Billboard” chart was manipulated:

“Swift made ‘Tortured Poets’ available in four variants across physical formats, each with an extra track; these were also sold in special editions from Swift’s website with autographs and collectibles like magnets and engraved bookmarks. Eilish, who has complained about artists’ excessive marketing of physical media — saying in a recent Billboard interview that it was ‘wasteful’ to release ’40 different vinyl packages that have a different unique thing just to get you to keep buying more’ — put ‘Hit Me’ out in eight colored vinyl variants, as well as other formats like a CD decorated with paint ‘splattered by Billie.’ (Eilish defended her release plans by promoting an “eco-friendly” approach to manufacturing, saying her releases would use recycled materials.)

Even worse is the following:

“on the day that (Eilish’s) ‘Hit Me’ was released, Swift put out three digital-only editions of her album that included ‘first-draft phone memo’ tracks — while Eilish released a digital edition of her album that added isolated vocal tracks for each song.”

https://t.ly/nCKlp

So why isn’t there change, why isn’t there a correction, so we get a true, accurate chart, which would focus primarily on and give the most weight to streaming, where nearly all of the consumption takes place.

Because the labels don’t want this. The labels want to be able to manipulate the chart, for bragging rights, for future hype, talking about all the broken records. And Luminate/”Billboard” is beholden to the labels, so they’re afraid to impose any change.

But this is in the “New York Times,” isn’t sunlight the best disinfectant?

How many people do you think read the “New York Times,” never mind this article, never mind caring about this subject. Almost none.

And most of the public doesn’t even care who is number one, because they’re not listening to this music, if they’re listening to new music at all.

And all of the acts on the chart are trumped by Morgan Wallen, whose 2023 album “One Thing at a Time” is number three and whose 2021 album “Dangerous” is parked at number five, sans the shenanigans.

Yes, Morgan Wallen is bigger than Taylor Swift. But he’s a redneck pariah, so he doesn’t get the ink either Swift or Eilish do.

But this is a horse race almost no one is paying attention to. And that’s the big story here. One that is not covered not only by the “New York Times,” but in the Luminate/”Billboard” charts.

Let’s start with the “Times” itself. It is not comprehensive. The papers don’t even print sports scores, because they’re readily accessible elsewhere. If you’re getting all your news from the newspaper, you’ve got a very myopic view of society.

I went to lunch yesterday with an RFK, Jr. supporter. This guy was agitated about obesity, child health care issues. He supported RFK, Jr. because RFK, Jr. had a plan for this. Do you hear either Biden or Trump talking about childhood obesity, never mind Big Food and Big Pharma?

Well, conventional wisdom is they’re in the pocket of both, they can’t say anything negative. But whether that is true or false, many people believe the two major candidates are not speaking to the issues that are important to them.

But in the mainstream press it’s all binary. Trump or Biden, pick a side.

And they wonder why so much of the general public is alienated.

They keep telling us to care about that which we do not. Keep telling us it’s important. It’s like the media has detached from the public. Do they actually know anybody outside their bubble?

I’m not supporting RFK, Jr. for a whole host of reasons. But the person talking to me didn’t even care about vaccines, he cared about our food, children. What do you care about?

Chances are you live in a small bubble of people who care about what you do and feel isolated because no one else is concerned with what you are.

And then there’s the micro, the everyday living, i.e. paying the rent and putting food on the table. I don’t want to trot out economic numbers, I’ll just say when you keep reading about how much CEOs are making you become deflated. Are they really that much better, so skilled, or are they just in a club that keeps paying its cronies more and more?

And then you play the music of the hitmakers and it doesn’t resonate at all. You wonder if it’s you or them. Many people just disengage.

And then there are people who are passionate about music and insult you because you don’t feel the same way they do.

But you might be watching cornhole or pickle ball contests on YouTube. Activities that you can participate in, relate to. Cheaper and less time-consuming than golf. There are so many alternatives today, many of which didn’t even exist before. Or, if they did, you couldn’t bring all the acolytes together, which is easy to do online.

It’s hard not to disconnect. It’s not only Taylor Swift, but Joe Biden. You can’t say he’s old. It’s taboo. The Democrats will become draconian in their pushback. But that’s what your eyes say, can’t we have a discussion?

And why should I care about Taylor Swift and the records she’s breaking if I’m not listening to Taylor Swift. This is not the Beatles, never mind “The Godfather,’ a cultural tsunami that we all have to pay attention to, that affects us all.

But this analysis is nowhere. You keep being dunned with a mainstream you don’t care about.

We were inundated with news about movie grosses. But shooting for the fences with high concept films the studios excluded traditional moviegoers and then the superhero fans moved on and there was nothing left. Movie grosses are abysmal, and never coming back. And if you want soul fulfillment you get it at home, via your streaming service, which doesn’t hype a year in advance films that you don’t care about. Or books. They keep telling us what’s coming down the pike, telling us to get excited, not knowing that we wait for the wisdom of the crowd, we know if a movie is worth seeing the day it comes out, why should we get hyped in advance?

The presidential election isn’t until November, you want me to wring my hands over every nuance today? Give up my life because someone says democracy is on the line? I’ll vote in November, but stop bugging me.

And the MAGGOTS have lost the plot. It’s about Trump and nothing else. Would you hire an employee without looking at their CV? Would you just have blind faith?

And the liberals just say to be afraid of Trump. To get behind the nearly dead man who most of America can’t relate to. Got to give Trump credit for living in the modern world, he’s on social media, he understands the internet, it seems like Wi-Fi is blocked in Washington, D.C, how can you relate to these people?

And today everybody lies in court, and Marjorie Taylor Greene makes fun of people’s appearances. Everything that used to be taboo is now fair game. There’s no center.

So you retreat to your vertical, your interests, and ultimately tune out the mainstream story. The film studios are living the mainstream story to their detriment, as are the record labels. They’ve cut off huge swaths of the public yet believe the majority are still with them, when they’re not.

You might be a fan of Taylor Swift, or Billie Eilish, or live for Trump or Biden, kudos, live it up. Just don’t expect the rest of us to care. We are just as passionate about something else, but you won’t give it any attention, never mind respect.

We live in a Tower of Babel society and they keep telling us it’s otherwise.

They’re wrong.