Tune in Saturday September 23rd to Faction Talk, channel 103, at 4 PM East, 1 PM West.

Phone #: 844-686-5863

Twitter: @lefsetz

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

You don’t know everything. And if you pretend to know everything, those who know something will dismiss you. Used to be a pro knew every record on the chart, now pros have never even heard of an act that goes #1.

Ignore the charts. They’re momentary. Today it’s about longevity, streaming pays out for the life of the copyright. Look at the cume, that’s important, but how many streams this week, slicing and dicing, that, i.e. the chart, has never meant less.

Are you a recording artist or a touring artist? Sure, they can be the same thing, especially after you’ve had success with your recorded music, but when you’re starting out… Making hip-hop and pop is a game, roadwork is irrelevant. How do you get enough streams to make an impact? Whereas if you don’t make hip-hop or pop, you’ll never make it on the chart, you’ll never have enough streams, focus on the live game. The live game is harder to play, you can’t go from zero to hero overnight, but the dues you’ve paid, the struggle, will build a career that pays dividends down the road. A momentary recording success might get a bunch of people, not all the people, to know you now, but will they pay to see you tomorrow, never mind today? Doubtful.

The money is in live. Promoters keep artists in business. Record companies do not. They want you to prove it first online, and they don’t want to put forth enough in advances to pay your bills so you can give up your day job. Furthermore, the lion’s share of tour revenue goes to the act, it’s just the opposite if you’re signed with a major recording company.

If someone is bitching about streaming payouts, if they say Spotify is the devil, ignore them, know they don’t know what they are talking about. It tends to be the rap of old artists that used to be supported by labels who complain most, and then there are the never-was and the wannabes who complain who aren’t even in the game. It’s a matter of perspective, even a million streams is nothing these days. Compare yourself to better known artists, you’ll be stunned how many streams they have. And if you have a lot of streams, you can make a ton of dough on streaming. Most of the money goes to rightsholders, and there are not the financial shenanigans of the past, the new digital, transparent world, is far superior to the old.

If someone complains about the internet, how much time young people spend on it, if they say they like to own music, know they are marginal and ignore them. Everything happens online. That is where music lives, where you find out about it, where you listen to it. The audience is online, the active audience, be there.

Don’t complain about social media, either be there or accept your diminished fate if you are not. Not every act has to be universal, hyped, you can make a ton of dough not posting at all, but if you don’t post, don’t complain.

Watch TikTok every day. An hour a day at the start, at least fifteen minutes a day thereafter. TikTok is the heartbeat of America, if you want to know what is going on, watch TikTok, more than TV news or the newspaper. TikTok videos are honest and visceral. Ignore all the hype about influencers, in most cases I skip right past their videos, watch those of creators who are doing it for the fun of it, to express themselves. They are tapped into what the audience wants. The audience wants to believe you’re just like them, at the core anyway. A human being with foibles. Make music from this perspective and you have a chance of winning.

Moon/June… The deeper the lyrics, the greater chance you have of connecting with the audience.

Songs have greater longevity than beats. If your song is singable, it will give you a better chance of success, of your song impacting people and lasting. Melody, changes…they never go out of style.

Beware of hucksters and shysters. If someone tells you to pay them to get ahead, don’t. Don’t pay for the website, don’t pay for potential leads for gigs, that’s your job. There are a ton of people out there just looking to make bank on you, and they don’t care about your career.

Live works when the audience is engaged, nearly stunned, when people believe they are seeing something that they cannot get anywhere else. There are many ways to do this, not only dancing and production. A great performer can hold an audience just at the mic. The way their body moves, the way they articulate. This is why you must work live a lot to get good. It’s all about experience, you get more comfortable in your body, you figure out what works and you deliver.

Keeping a band together is hard. Some big managers today don’t even want to manage bands. Think about this on your journey.

Don’t sign anything until you absolutely have to.

Don’t sign anything without a music business lawyer involved. Scrape together the cash, it is worth it in the long run.

You can’t make it if you treat music as a hobby, it must be everything.

Whatever you do first is not as good as what you do later. Everybody thinks their first song is great, until they write their hundredth song and look back.

Rules are made to be broken, that’s what art is all about. If someone tells you something can’t be done, ignore them.

Don’t complain if nobody is listening, if nobody is paying attention. This just means your music doesn’t resonate with others or you’re a crappy marketer. That’s right, everybody starting out is a marketer, no different from the way it’s always been. In the pre-internet era, you put up posters. Now you post online. Same deal.

Don’t repeat yourself. If you’re busy satisfying your audience you’re decreasing the length of your career. Test limits, push the envelope, change, if it’s interesting to you it might be interesting to others.

It’s never too expensive to go on the road. Just slim down the production, the trucks, the travel… Don’t let the costs prevent you from playing.

Anybody who says they need money to start is delusional. Everybody’s got a computer, everybody has access to the internet.

Be involved with people who are passionate about you and your work. The biggest person won’t be as good as the lesser person if they’re not into you.

Leave money on the table. If you want everything, chances are you’ll end up with nothing.

Give to get. Everybody needs a piece in order to be incentivized to do the work.

You know better than the label, better than anybody when it comes to the music itself. Don’t be cowered, do it your way.

The label is interested in making money, you’re interesting in making art and having a career. Sometimes the interests align, sometimes they don’t.

Everything is negotiable, there are no standards.

Capture the zeitgeist as opposed to getting it right. Which is why newbies with little cash oftentimes trump the experienced artists. It’s about capturing lightning in a bottle, not polishing it until it is perfect.

Be a fan.

Don’t work all the time, otherwise you’ll be absent input that will feed your creativity.

Don’t let others bring you down. Your compatriots might try to make you feel bad so they can gain the opportunity.

Mr. Rolling Stone. Jann has a new book of interviews entitled “The Masters.” We discuss the artists and more. (Note: This was recorded on Monday September 11th, prior to the publication of the “New York Times” interview and the subsequent controversy.)

https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/jann-wenner/id1316200737?i=1000628682964

https://music.amazon.com/podcasts/9ff4fb19-54d4-41ae-ae7a-8a6f8d3dafa8/episodes/906f2c72-6eeb-44d6-9504-e6e54a28f728/the-bob-lefsetz-podcast-jann-wenner

“Katy Perry Sells Catalog Rights to Litmus Music for $225 Million”: https://tinyurl.com/n55a6vhw

The banks are going to end up owning the rights to the greatest songs of all time. How could the artists be so stupid? So shortsighted? So contrary to what they’ve been saying forever?

Which is the man has screwed me.

It won’t be long before you find out that some of these legendary acts who sold their rights are out of cash. How can that be, you ask? Well, in truth you can blow millions in a day, never mind a year, and never forget that Iron Mike Tyson ended up broke.

A good musical artist is a bad business person. Oh, there are exceptions, but the skill set is very different. One runs on inspiration, the other on cold hard cash.

So let’s see how this plays out…

Artist who generates cash is sitting at home when the phone rings from their lawyer or manager and they’re told some newfangled publishing company is going to pay millions for their rights.

Now imagine this. You’re sitting at home, getting stoned, watching television, and out of the blue someone calls to say they’re going to give you tens of millions of dollars. Sounds great, right?

Well, it’s especially great for your lawyer and manager, because if you make the deal they’re going to get paid. And very few managers are going to say no. Because as much as artists are screwed by labels, managers are screwed by artists even more. They don’t always have paper contracts, and that doesn’t mean they’ll get paid anyway. And the lawyer is on a percentage, or even if not, will have a huge payday. So are they going to tell you not to sell? Of course not!

Under the best of circumstances they’ll be neutral. And the artist is too ignorant to say no. It’s free money. The tax rate may go up…we’ve been hearing that canard for years now and it hasn’t happened, they can’t even get rid of carried interest, do you think they’re going to screw artists? D.C. is afraid of raising any tax, especially on vocal artists who can spread their hurt via their words and music.

Or you hear someone else has sold and you want that money too.

So it’s an incredible payday.

But it’s more like the marshmallow test.

This is what I don’t understand… If the artist has financial issues, why are these outfits paying them so handsomely? Money is not stupid. Money is smart. You may decry Wall Street, but when it comes to numbers, when it comes to spreadsheets, that’s their expertise.

So, Katy Perry is selling to Litmus, only that’s backed by the Carlyle Group. And if a bank puts up the money, it wants its money back. So the asset,  i.e. the company, i.e. the publishing rights, your rights, are going to be sold again so the bank can get its money back. Or if you sell to Hipgnosis, your rights are going to end up being controlled by Blackstone.

This is math folks, and the investors in Hipgnosis are in an uproar. You see publishing rights were a hedge, a regular return, when interest rates were low, but now they’re sky high, so it’s a bad investment, never mind the raw issue of asset value. Merck might be your best friend, Merck might be looking out for your catalog, but if you think Merck can stand up to money, if you think Merck is going to be in control forever, you were probably dumb enough to sell your rights in the first place.

And it’s not only Hipgnosis. Round Hill just sold, albeit to Concord, but Concord is majority-owned by Michigan Retirement Systems, a pension fund. And a pension fund only puts up a billion dollars if it believes it’s a safe bet, it has a fiduciary duty to all those workers.

And do you think when the bank owns your music it’s going to say no to using it…absolutely anywhere? Try getting all those rights of approval in your deal, you won’t, because the buyer doesn’t want to be hamstrung.

So, kiss your rights goodbye, all you’re going to end up with is a pile of money, which will be sliced and diced, taxed, and then what are you going to do with it? Invest it? Well, you had an incredible investment, a regular rate of return, which was recession-proof, that’s why all these investors lined up to buy these rights to begin with! The market may go up and down, but songs provide a regular return. May not be sky high, but you won’t get wiped out in a day.

Yeah, go and invest that money, if you’re smart enough to do that, if you don’t blow a chunk right out the box, which you will do, because that’s what people do when they get a windfall, they buy cars, they go on trips, they fly private… Investments go up and down. Music returns…seemingly forever, the copyright in America never seems to run out, credit Disney and Mickey Mouse. Your kids and their kids can live off your music, but you chose to blow it all.

And even worse, as referenced above, you’ve got no control. Your babies, your creations. Who knows when the muse will hit again, who knows if you’ll ever be inspired.

Even Bruce Springsteen… Don’t talk to me about inheritance taxes, if you do well with the money it’s going to be taxed too, but it won’t have this guaranteed rate of return.

As for value… Look at it this way, these companies are paying for decades-old songs. And the value keeps going up. Everybody who sold early is regretting it.

And income is only going up. The streaming outlet raises consumer prices a dollar, from ten to eleven bucks…and that’s a 10% increase on return to the rightsholders, it’s a gift! But you don’t get that gift, because you sold. And the gift is only going to grow. Streaming prices are never going down, they’re only going to go up, and new avenues of exploitation are coming down the pike on a regular basis. No one foresaw TikTok… But you won’t benefit, because you sold out.

Ah, but you’re broke. Well, if your catalog is worth so much, your income stream, you can borrow from the bank, or against your house, and pay that off over time, and you won’t be paying forever. And god forbid you’ve been living far beyond your means…maybe you can learn to live within a budget, cut back a little, it’s amazing what you can live without.

But when it all comes down, when the dust has settled, you’ll see your song in a suppository commercial. Synched to some crappy movie or TV show, something you would never approve, but it’s too late.

Money doesn’t have feelings, the bank doesn’t care about you. Nor do the successors in ownership, your songs will be tossed from company to company and all your cries about artistic freedom will be laughed at, the joke’s on you.

But you got 18x! Well, what happens after 18? Never mind 18 becomes 16 when the streaming rates go up by a buck. What looks like a good deal gets worse every day.

And there’s nothing you can do.

But life is short, you say.

But it’s also long. You could live to 90. And Katy Perry is only 38. And believe me, you won’t be writing hit songs and performing on stage in your nineties. But if you still own your songs, you will keep getting paid. After all, if you’re alive, so are your fans, who need to hear your music, which therefore never becomes worthless.

Money for control? I thought control was everything. That was the essence of being an artist, you didn’t want anybody to tell you what to do.

Well ain’t you a sucka…