Caitlin Clark
This is the Beatles, not Taylor Swift.
This is not a victory lap by a known quantity, this is something brand new, something most people were unaware of that will change the landscape forever.
Let me ask you, did you know who Caitlin Clark was last year?
Unless you were a fan of college basketball, of women’s college basketball, I’d posit no. But today? Caitlin Clark is everywhere, and not because of the self-hype of social media, she’s barely testifying at all, it’s all because of her playing, her ability, the sheer wow factor of what she does on the court.
This is the antithesis of parents pushing their prepubescent kids’ musical travails. As if we’re interested in the work of kids who haven’t lived who desire nothing so much as fame.
This is someone who paid their dues off-screen, not in front of all our eyes, when no one was paying attention, and let the work speak for itself. There’s no hype involved, Caitlin Clark is just that good.
Kind of like Michael Jordan. But most people didn’t become aware of him until he was in the NBA. And as great as Jordan was, he was not the first great basketball player, not the first legend, just a bit better than those who’d come before.
Whereas Clark comes out of the blue, in a moribund venue boosted by Title IX. We weren’t paying attention, most people didn’t care, but Caitlin Clark has done more for women’s basketball than anyone before her, and it all comes down to her abilities, her playing.
Like the Beatles.
You’ve got to know, prior to January 1964, almost no one in America knew who the Beatles were. Hell, Capitol didn’t even want to release their records.
As for the Beatles…they and the acts who followed were influenced by the roots records imported by American seamen to Liverpool. They honed their chops ad infinitum when U.S. radio was dominated by teen phenoms like Bobby Rydell. Most acts didn’t write their own material, the music business was a sideshow, but after the Beatles it became the main show. By time we hit the seventies, record divisions were generating more profits than the TV divisions of entertainment conglomerates. Warner’s music companies built the Warner cable system. Truly.
So when the Beatles appeared in January ’64 with “I Want to Hold Your Hand,” when they appeared on “Ed Sullivan” the following month, they were fully-formed. How was it a band that we’d never heard of had developed off the radar, and when we finally heard and and saw them we discovered their music was superior to all the rest on the chart?
This was not New Kids on the Block. The Beatles were not a fad. They led first and foremost with their music, which didn’t sound like anything else. And was laden with harmonies, bridges, memorable choruses…they’d studied what came before and then concocted something new, beyond what anybody had come up with previously.
And then the gates opened.
Turned out they were not the only off the radar act in England that had honed its chops.
We got the British Invasion.
And then the Yardbirds and the original Peter Green Fleetwood Mac, all these blues-rockers who built FM radio.
And the music business was never the same.
Sure, there was Beatlemania, but as much as people had their favorite, it was always about the music, always. And unlike the media-trained stars of today, the Beatles knew who they were, they were experienced in life, they were cheeky, they smoked, they were themselves, which was a revelation.
We’ve got musical stars today. But we’ve got no Beatles, haven’t for a long time. Nothing new and different that blows our minds, that lifts the entire business.
I could posit why, but that’s not my point here. My point is we’ve been waiting for something to take us to the next level.
And we never got a new Beatles, but we did get Cream and then prog rock and even disco, which was denigrated but has never died, and underpins some of the great music in history.
And Kurt Cobain was an original. I mean melodic punk? With meaning? No wonder he and his group were immediately accepted and adored. In one day “Smells Like Teen Spirit” hit MTV and everyone in America seemed to know who Nirvana was.
And it wasn’t that different with Alanis Morissette. A world-weary twenty one year old talking about her feelings and sex? She blew up too.
And there were all those hip-hop acts/tracks, from “The Message” to “Nuthin’ But a ‘G’ Thang” to “Gin and Juice” to…
The twenty first century.
The internet splintered music into a thousand pieces and therefore what succeeds most is that which is on-trend and homogenized.
Want to read an interesting article? Read this one, from today’s “Washington Post”:
“The word ‘viral’ has lost its meaning – In a world where 20 million views is routine, our understanding of virality has shifted”
Free link: https://wapo.st/3Va2Ndi
Facebook got sued for inflating statistics. And now Twitter/X is doing it too. All those numbers the record labels are relying on…they’re not so trustworthy, never mind millions of views is no longer viral, never mind the hype for clips/trends that are promoted as viral and reach very few.
In other words, both creators and record labels are following a pipe dream, down the drain.
The search for something fully-formed, new and different, a great leap forward, that the public may not understand at first and is then fully-embraced… Has stopped.
It’s not like Caitlin Clark just started playing basketball yesterday. She’s been at it for years. And was great before this. But the moment came and we were all wowed, we’d never seen anything like her before. And that’s what we’re looking for, human excellence, beyond our comprehension, that we didn’t even know we were looking for, that we can’t take our eyes off, that changes our lives.
That’s what we live for. Not promotion, not hype.
When everybody is doing it one way, that’s the time to do it a different way.
This may not be a great analogy, but they’ve been having Formula One races for decades. But an innovative, extremely watchable series on Netflix, focusing on personalities, blew up the entire sport. We might have known a little bit about the drivers, but not the team owners, the support people… The series was so good, so riveting, that it blew up Formula One, to the point where people not paying attention are now riveted.
All it takes is one lever. One thing completely different.
And it always comes from outside.
That is why the heart of America is streaming television, not movies. Movies are imitative, streaming series are original.
We’re looking for originals, that which we haven’t seen before. And when we find it, we don’t only embrace it, but the entire landscape, all boats are lifted, we enter an entirely new realm.
All we hear about from the major labels is profits and losses. Laying people off, reorganizing. Believe me, you’re never going to revolutionize the landscape that way.
And, innovation always comes from outside.
But too many buy the old paradigm, of instant worldwide success. That’s history. Today you hone your craft, pay your dues, off camera. And then if you’re good enough you blow up on the main stage seemingly eons later.
It takes a lot of perseverance, belief in yourself, to build your act this way. Sans instant gratification, slogging along. But just like doctors go to college and medical school and then do internships and residencies…that’s what the greats who change the landscape do. Before they emerge fully-formed.
Like the Beatles.
Like Caitlin Clark.
