I started a new book and it set my mind adrift.

Actually, I finished one about Nazis, brief but overrated. But it’s funny how my generation has a fascination with Nazis. I don’t think younger people do. World War II was close by in our rearview mirror growing up. We couldn’t quite understand how it happened. Then again, this was when America was a clear number one. Isn’t it funny that all the progress is initiated by the EU these days? The USB-C connection on your new iPhone…credit the EU, trying to reduce waste, never mind enable convenience. When it comes to stopping bad corporate behavior, it’s the EU that takes the lead, the EU that is supporting Ukraine, as America slowly loses its perch as the keeper of the world’s peace. It’s like the country is Freddie Prinze, and I’m not talking about Junior. Remember, “Eez not my job!” Actually, it seems not to be America’s job to do so much these days, not only outside the country but inside. You’re on your own, it’s not my responsibility. Actually, there’s a great story in today’s “Wall Street Journal”:

“Money floods into shares based on memes, is shifted around by algorithms based on past patterns, or goes into vast passive index trackers sold on the basis of being virtually free. None have an incentive to devote resources to keeping the corporate bureaucracy in check, since day traders and hedge funds will be gone before the next CEO meeting, while passive funds can’t sell even if the CEO is thrown in prison.”

“Why We Risk a Cartoon Version of Capitalism – Private-sector investors are so ineffective at overseeing companies that state-run funds feel the need to step in”: https://shorturl.at/TWZ27 (That’s a free link.)

I’d like to tell you there are stories this interesting in music, but despite being the canary in the coal mine for digital disruption in the aughts, music is now adrift. Now it’s all AI and politics, with a mix of business stories thrown in.

Anyway, I’m addicted to the news. And not the analysis from biased sites on the right and left, but the derided mainstream news, which is flawed but far superior to the outlets cited by the cranks who can’t accept that we all live in society together and if you don’t come together… Well, you risk the end of democracy. Never forget, fascists promise the trains will run on time, that there will be order, and then you wake up one day and you realize you’re the one who has sacrificed.

But I don’t read much nonfiction. Because at best it’s informational, it doesn’t set your mind free like fiction.

Write what you know is an aphorism we hear constantly. And the truth is this is what most people do, which is why we have so many books set in college, college towns, because the writers have gotten their graduate degrees there. And in this book, three girls (we can call college students girls, can’t we?) are being interviewed about marriage, which then devolves into a conversation about money, and along the way we find out why they’re all ensconced in the same dorm building.

And this reminded me of going to college. You remember, being thrown in with a bunch of kids you’d never met before. Your family and friends from back home irrelevant. And it was just your personality, trappings were irrelevant. And everybody had the same status, everybody earned their right to be there, you were forced to interact, to make friends, to find your own people.

Same deal at summer camp.

But that does not happen when you’re an adult. Sure, you can go to a conference and you might not know anybody, but there are already cliques, and status is important and evident.

You can go to work in a new office but there’s a definite hierarchy, and the others have experience, you’re the odd person out.

This experience of being thrown into a new situation, raw, with only your wits, I miss. Growing up there were resets on a regular basis. But then they stop. People move up the economic ladder, they gain assets, there’s a striation of society. Except maybe when you go into the old folks home, after they strip you of your possessions and everybody is similar, then again they’re all not healthy, they all don’t have their wits about them, and family visits. Your family didn’t come rescue you at college, not even kindergarten or high school. You were on your own. And it was anxiety-provoking and thrilling. An adventure.

Now maybe if you’ve lived in the same town all your life you’re not quite sure what I’m talking about. Maybe this is another case of the hoi polloi versus the elite. Maybe it’s another way the elite are advantaged, by being forced into these new situations and gaining life skills. Maybe this is a way private college students are advantaged, at state schools you probably already know people and so many go home on the weekends. At a private college, an elite college, you’re stuck there with all new people.

Then again, today you’ve got your parents on speed dial. You may meet new people, but the old ones haunt you forever. You never lose touch with anyone. You can look them up online. If they’re not on Facebook, they’re on LinkedIn. The past haunts you in a way it did not in the pre-internet era. Then again, statistically fewer people move these days, it’s too expensive, but when the boomers grew up you picked up and plopped down in a new town on a regular basis. And you got in your car and went exploring, maybe drove cross-country. Our experience was visceral and real as opposed to virtual. Not that I want to put down the virtual world, the internet, in many ways it saved my life.

But that experience of entering new worlds raw, that’s gone. And if you boasted that you owned this or that, or had been here or there, you were an object of ridicule in college. Who you were was what it was all about. Be a joker, be a good conversationalist, be someone who can be trusted…that was what was valued. We were all sifting these new societies for friends. Even stranger, who we started out being friends with oftentimes was not who we ended up  being friends with.

But get older and everybody clings to their résumé. They don’t want to let us forget their job, their house, their cars, their trips… Hell, social media is mostly about bragging.

But we’re all just people underneath. We can relate to most everybody in truth, despite the polarization in society.

Furthermore, it’s a personal responsibility to keep growing, to push the envelope, and too many are tired, just playing out their years. And you don’t need money to have these new experiences, you can go volunteer in your own damn neighborhood. But that would mean you’ve got to meet new people, feel uncomfortable, question your suppositions.

Talk to anybody who’s got children. They go to college and they come home different. They shed the indoctrination of their parents, they have their own ideas. They call this growing up.

But too many people stop growing.

1

Why can’t we have more albums like “Frampton at Royal Albert Hall”?

Today’s listening experience is different. So much of music is foreground, whereas yesterday the music used to live in the background, it was personal, just you and the tunes, a secret communication.

Credit FM radio. Before that, it was all about the hit. The album was an afterthought, usually a mish-mash collection of hits and dreck. Of course the Beatles changed that, inspiring others to make cohesive album statements, but they wouldn’t have triumphed without FM radio. You may think the White Album is a classic, but it was not played on AM radio. “Sgt. Pepper” debuted at the same time as FM underground rock, it was a marriage made in heaven, along with a bunch of bands from the San Francisco Bay Area, Big Daddy Tom Donahue and KSAN revolutionized music. Because suddenly there was a place to hear these sounds, that were not made for AM radio. The apotheosis was Woodstock, when all the bands making these sounds appeared in one place and the staid media and those it informed were positively stunned. All those people showing up for THAT?

After KSAN FM underground rock moved to New York City. And slowly populated the rest of the metropolises thereafter. If you lived in a backwater, you could not hear these tunes. Unless they crossed over. The best example being Cream’s “Sunshine of Your Love,” that got AM airplay in the summer of ’68, long after the underground FM stations had worn out the groove.

So many of the iconic bands of the era, they didn’t have an AM hit. “Purple Haze” wasn’t heard on AM, although years later Hendrix’s cover of “All Along the Watchtower” crossed over. Steve Miller? He didn’t have an AM hit until 1973! Traffic? They never ever crossed over to AM, not in America. Sure, some of their tunes were covered by acts that had singles success, but not Stevie Winwood and company. There were no AM hits from Blind Faith…

And the labels signed all these acts without AM hit potential. Because record companies were about singles and doubles more than home runs, never mind grand slams. The music was the key element. And this music infiltrated the youth, affected society in a way no other medium came close to doing.

Of course it couldn’t go on forever. Lee Abrams came along with his Superstars format, which was close to Top 40 on FM. So either you were played, or you weren’t. Which meant acts started making music they thought Abrams would add. And this led to corporate rock and then the reaction of  disco and it all imploded at the end of the seventies, the cynicism was felt by the public, which turned elsewhere for entertainment satiation, and then along came MTV.

MTV was AM radio all over again. It was about the hit. And if you didn’t follow its playlist, your radio station lost ratings and ultimately flipped format. MTV dictated. Furthermore, the acts MTV featured were bigger than almost all of the acts prior. Yes, that rocket ship bumper was apropos. Because if MTV aired it, it blew up, it went worldwide. And conjoined with the new CD format, coin rained down in amounts previously unheard of.

So, the cynicism set in again. After the “novelty” records of the early years, the Haircut 100s, the T’Paus, never mind Duran Duran and Culture Club. First and foremost you had to look good, and then you had to make an expensive video, and then MTV still might not air it. But if it did…

We had hair bands. Eclipsed by the Seattle sound. Actually, MTV was constantly causing whiplash in the recording industry. It would have edicts. Less metal. More of this, no more of that.

And by time we hit the nineties, it was all about the money.

And then the internet came along and blew it all apart. 

2

The major labels didn’t understand the internet, they still don’t. They think it’s physical in the virtual world, but nothing could be further from the truth. For many reasons… Most people cotton to single outlets online. Amazon and Apple have traction, but really it’s a Spotify world, not only in America, but the entire globe. Because people go where everybody else does. Like in retail, there’s Amazon and…minor players. This is unlike the bricks and mortar retail of yore, where there was a record shop not exactly on every street corner, but there was a plethora of them.

The major labels want codification, they want rules, they want a system. But in truth, the internet blew it all to smithereens.

Sure, there are still “hits,” but if you’re not a fan of the act, you don’t have to listen to the track, the act, you may be completely unaware it exists!

But the major labels can’t adjust for the modern era, they’re like the newspapers. Rather than investing and growing, they’re cutting. They’re putting out fewer albums by fewer acts in fewer genres, wanting to have gigantic hits, meanwhile the landscape has changed. Most of the money is deeper down. The hits are losing market share, the great unwashed, not signed to major labels, are gaining it.

I could say it’s 1967 all over again, but although history repeats, it’s always with a twist.

Once again, the landscape has been broadened. It’s the opposite of AM, of MTV, it’s not a controlled market whatsoever. In fact, ANYONE can play. And instead of adjusting for this, Lucian Grainge wants to lop off the compensation of those with little market share, few streams. If he were smart, he’d dig down deep and find a way to monetize the music of the great unwashed, because you never know where your next hit is coming from.

Today major labels believe hits come from the internet. Prove it and they might sign it. This has to do with clicks, with views, it’s got nothing to do with music. If people are clicking on goose farts, the majors will sign the goose and put out its record. Whereas major labels used to hunt for talent, and then nurture it, mostly in a hands-off manner. Today? They’ll ask you to do a cover, to employ another songwriter, to remix. The opportunity cost is so high that they want insurance, but this is the opposite of the essence of music. This is not collaborative art like movies or TV, music is about pure inspiration, resulting in a creation that almost no one can define, can quantify, but that resonates with the public.

So the majors, if they want to survive in the new music world, need to sign more acts in more genres, and should stop laying off workers to satiate Wall Street. I mean what does your stock price have to do with  music anyway? And Warner is run by a man from the visual world, imagine that in the days of Ahmet Ertegun.

But unless you’re employed by the major label, you don’t care about it. But you still make music, and…

If you want the rich and famous contract proffered by Orson Welles to the Muppets stop now. That’s no longer the paradigm. You’re on your own. And if you truly want to succeed… Well, are you an artist? Or are you a me-too influencer looking for brand extensions? Both coexist, but the nougat is in the artists. And there are very few artists. You can make music, but that does not mean it has the je ne sais quoi that resonates with an audience. Just because everybody can play doesn’t mean everybody deserves attention.

So radio airplay means less than ever before. And Spotify and the rest of the streaming outlets do a piss-poor job of featuring new music. This is not Tom Donahue, music maniacs moving the culture, rather it’s a slew of drones creating playlists for the brain dead. Caught up in monetization, saving the recording industry, the streamers have abdicated their responsibility to break quality new music. And how important is music to Apple and Amazon anyway? Not very.

Maybe this will change. Maybe there will be some coherence, the streamers will find a better way to connect artists and listeners, but I wouldn’t bet on it.

Which means the onus is on the artists themselves.

And an artist is not entitled to an audience, or to make a living. The question is… Can you come up with something that resonates with people, in quantity? And can you continue to do this?

Very few can. But today, most are starting live, on the road, because if you can draw an audience, promoters don’t care what your music sounds like. Don’t equate this with social media goose farts. To put together a live act, hone it and draw people to see and hear it requires a lot of effort and very few can achieve this.

We live in an era when everybody is looking for the visceral, for a connection. And despite all the hoopla, most times hit music does not provide this. And whereas it used to be all about the recording, now the song is just a framework for the live performance. People want a sensation beyond just listening to a recording. They want to feel the music, want to be in an assembled multitude, they want a unique experience, they want to be taken higher.

And the entire recording industry is unprepared for this. Because they can’t understand it and can’t think of a quick way to make money on it.

I mean Peter Frampton didn’t have an AM hit until his double live album, after four previous solo albums.

The same game is being played today. You keep doing it until you achieve critical mass. Look at Hurray for the Riff Raff. That woman has been doing it for years, she’s just getting big time traction, and she’s got a catalog, like the acts of yore.

You’ve got to be willing to labor in the wilderness. And find a way to keep yourself alive.

And if you’re twelve and can play the hits on YouTube… You’re a long way from the top, hell AC/DC had multiple albums and two lead singers before they became monolithic.

So all the action is in the underground once again. Will these new underground acts blow up to the level of yore? Well, the interesting thing about the internet is you can reach everybody, but it’s hard to get everybody to pay attention.

So stop trying to write a hit, that’s passé. Stop thinking about being lifted by radio and TV, which mean less than ever before anyway. No, now is the time to go on your own hejira, to woodshed, to come up with something completely different, like in the days of FM underground rock, that was the amazing thing, none of the acts sounded the same.

But be sure of one thing, the audience is hungry for something new and different that titillates them.

Hell, much of the audience thinks music is all about hits you can dance and party to. Their idea of an oldie is Mariah Carey.

We’ve driven this train about as far as it can go. Today’s “hit” music is more vapid and less influential than it has been in sixty years. All the action is in the back alleys, in the penumbra.

Hit music is a business that draws blind acolytes. But when you get discerning people, who live for the music…

I’m not talking about fandom, people bonded to BTS, or Swifties… I’m talking about people addicted to music, period. Early adopters. Who are sifting the sounds, looking for fulfillment. The recording industry has done its best to turn these people off, with the crap being purveyed, but it is these people who are the heart of the business. Not the pre-teen who goes to the show and buys a ton of merch, that’s momentary. No, we’re talking lifers.

Sure, you like music, but that may not be enough. We hear all the time that young people love music. But that’s not what I’m talking about. I’m talking about the vinyl junkies of yore, who had an insatiable need, whose life was consumed by music. There’s no infrastructure nurturing and satiating these people.

But that’s the future. The smaller acts, that can’t be categorized, whose music listeners can’t stop testifying about.

And no one on the business side of recording wants to go there because the parameters are not clear and it’s a long haul.

But those who put in the effort, on both the creative and business sides, are the ones who will revolutionize this business. It’s coming. If for no other reason than it just can’t go on like this.

What a crock of sh*t.

This is not a judgment of “Texas Hold ‘Em,” it’s a great track, nearly a one listen hit. But if you think the country audience has embraced it…

You’ve got another think coming.

We do not only have duplicity in politics, we’ve got it in music too. Those who are not students of the game, who are exposed to this headline, which is everywhere, will believe that race relation issues have been exterminated, that Black Beyonce has been embraced by White Country.

But nothing could be further from the truth.

It all comes down to Lil Nas X. After signing the man, Columbia ginned up a fake controversy. Saying that “Billboard”‘s charts were racist, that the entire country community was racist, because they didn’t acknowledge the success of “Old Town Road,” they were boycotting it.

And what did “Billboard” do? Say “Old Town Road” wasn’t country, therefore it wasn’t on the country chart. As for country radio, have you ever listened to it? “Old Town Road” fits not at all.

Columbia laughed all the way to the bank. This fake controversy gained media traction and it blew up Lil Nas X even bigger. Let’s be clear, “Old Town Road” was pretty gigantic before this fake controversy, but after it the track became ubiquitous. Billy Ray Cyrus, who hadn’t had a hit in eons, glommed on to the controversy, cutting a duet on the track with Lil Nas X… It was another music business victory, no harm, no foul.

Well, not really. Actions have consequences.

Now Beyonce’s “Texas Hold ‘Em” is a lot more country than “Old Town Road,” and it’s possible that country radio may embrace the cut, BUT THIS HASN’T HAPPENED YET!

Check the latest Mediabase Country chart, there are forty cuts, AND “Texas Hold ‘Em” is nowhere to be seen! Doubt me? Check it out for yourself”: https://rb.gy/14213h

So what is a country hit?

Well, according to “Billboard,” it’s a combination of airplay, sales and streams, a secret sauce. And one thing is for sure, Beyonce is a superstar, she had ton of sales and streams, but seemingly no country radio airplay, not a spin to be found.

Now if you want to have a chart with all genres included, be my guest. As a matter of fact, it exists, it’s called the “Hot 100.”

Now that chart is a miasma of obfuscation, talk about a special sauce… It includes single sales, radio airplay, digital downloads and streams. DIGITAL DOWNLOADS??

I get the e-mail all the time, some track is number one at the iTunes Store. That’s like telling me how many DVDs a movie sold. It’s all streaming now. Even worse, digital downloads and physical sales heavily outweigh streams in the formula employed by “Billboard.”

So let me get this straight… Almost all of consumption is streaming, but when it comes to the chart…streaming is a second-class citizen.

Now on the Hot 100, Jack Harlow’s “Lovin On Me” eclipses “Texas Hold ‘Em.” That’s a bad headline, #2 only worked for Avis.

Now the definitive statement when it comes to streaming, when it comes to consumption, is the Spotify Top 50. On that “Texas Hold ‘Em” is also number two.

Now “Texas Hold ‘Em” does appear on Spotify’s Hot Country, but it is not number one, it’s number ten.

So “Billboard,” fearful of getting into an “Old Town Road” kerfuffle, considered “Texas Hold ‘Em” to be country, where it promptly went to number one, where the big pond eclipsed the little creek. It’s like bringing a major leaguer to a Little League game.

But to what degree has the country audience embraced “Texas Hold ‘Em”?

Now some country fans may be listening to Beyonce, to “Texas Hold ‘Em,” they may even be listening to Metallica. But the Nashville based scene… So far, it doesn’t look like Beyonce is a factor whatsoever.

BUT SHE’S NUMBER ONE!

Let’s be very clear, “Texas Hold ‘Em” is a hit, a very big hit. But is it a COUNTRY HIT?

What are the criteria for a country song?

That’s murky, but I’d say to be a country hit a track must “fit the format” and be embraced by the audience. We can debate whether “Texas Hold ‘Em” fits the format, but one thing is for sure, it has not been embraced by the country audience in any significant way.

Is it because the country audience is racist? Or because the country audience hasn’t heard the track on the radio, the last bastion of a controlled ecosystem?

Or maybe the country audience doesn’t see “Texas Hold ‘Em” as country. They see Beyonce as pop, as living in a different domain.

This is all gray. And even by discussing it one risks being called a racist.

But come on, how come we can’t face facts here. The music business is as bad as Kellyanne Conway and her cronies. To say “Texas Hold ‘Em” is the number one country cut is to employ alternative facts.

And who does this behoove?

Beyonce. Period.

And “Billboard” is nothing without the labels, piss them off at your peril. Hell, “Billboard” has the backbone of a jellyfish.

Could everyone agree to consider “Texas Hold ‘Em” to be country, could it be embraced by the country community?

That could certainly happen, but it hasn’t happened yet.

Tune in Saturday February 24th to Faction Talk, channel 103, at 4 PM East, 1 PM West.

If you miss the episode, you can hear it on demand on the SiriusXM app. Search: Lefsetz