“Oscar Ratings Crash To All-Time Low; Viewership Falls Under 10M For First Time Ever”: https://bit.ly/3eyc9IL

This is what happens when you lose touch with your audience.

Confronted with a decline in awards show ratings the TV industry has singled out once in a lifetime events as the cause. Nothing could be more untrue. If anything, Covid-19 would make people more prone to watching. They just don’t want to watch this.

And this situation reminds me of the record companies. Who felt that Napster was all about people stealing, refusing to acknowledge the flaws inherent in their business model. It’s hard to think back to an era where the public had to pay fifteen bucks for one good track on a lengthy CD, but that is what was going on in the nineties, and as soon as the public found an alternative, people exercised it.

Same deal with visual entertainment. There are no ads on Netflix. And it’s about story. Who wants to watch self-congratulatory two-dimensional actors for three plus hours? Well, we’ve got our answer, not many.

The show had no gravitas. That was it’s only traditional pull. That you were peeking inside an exclusive event. But if you attended last night’s soiree at Union Station…you couldn’t wait to go out for a smoke, to the bathroom, to sit there for all that time was akin to being at an endless religious service, and just like most people no longer believe in God, most people don’t believe in movie stars either.

The Oscars had a chance to change the paradigm, but the organization refused to do so. As for the minor differences from previous shows…you have to address the carcass, otherwise you’re doomed.

So what have we learned?

The masses won’t watch anything with commercials. And no one DVRs live events (well, except for a de minimis number of diehards we can ignore). So we’ve got the worst of both worlds here, endless commercials in a one time event that has no delayed viewing interest and no repeatability.

Movie stars are now small. Sure, there are inane youngsters caught up in the “glamour” and the outfits, but that’s a very small percentage of the population.

Everything is niche these days, and if you try to go broad, you lose the essence.

Lead or play to the audience. It wasn’t like last night’s show was a must-see extravaganza, testing all limits, destroying what came before for something new. No one who didn’t see last night’s show felt they missed anything. If it’s a live event, it must be special, it must be like the concerts of yore, if you weren’t there, you missed something.

The audience must feel it is involved, that it has something at stake, otherwise it’s just a show. As for caring who wins… That game was eviscerated with the MTV Video Music Awards back in the eighties. It’s about the show, not the awards. And everyone forgets who won anyway, unless they do something outrageous during their acceptance speech.

There was no train-wreck value, nothing you couldn’t take your eyes from. They do call it “show” business, but there was no show involved. Some of the criticism was that it felt like a banquet at the end of a business convention, I must say that’s true.

But the problem runs deeper, the movies have lost touch with their hold on America. If the business is one of moving the culture, then green light more of those pictures. Instead, there are a few highbrow pics trotted out for these awards shows that most of the public ignores and never sees. As for Frances McDormand saying we need to see “Nomadland” on the big screen… Why? It already played. And is available on demand on Hulu. What could be better? Go to the theatre, why?

Just like music must be heard on an overpriced CD. Doesn’t the Academy realized the public has moved on to something better?

As for where it’s moved, Clayton Christensen said the disruptor is always cheaper and inferior, but good enough. But then it gets better and supersedes the original. In other words, TV used to be crappy, cheap but crappy. Now Netflix is cheap and better than the movies, and the only people who don’t understand this are those in the Academy!

This is fascinating to watch. The problem was never diversity, the problem was the product.

Yes, I hate to say this, but last night’s show could be relabeled the Woke Awards. I’ve got no problem with boosting women and people of color, but if you watched the show that seemed to be its focus, overcompensating to the point of losing touch with America. This is what happens when you listen to criticism and adjust. Everyone who plays online knows that you don’t do that, certain people can never be satisfied. More women and people of color on both sides of the camera? Excellent! “Black Panther” showed there is an untapped demand. But last night’s show was more like an Oberlin reunion than a Saturday night at the multiplex.

And Questlove… He’s the Dave Grohl of hip-hop. Safe and lovable. Can’t they get anybody else, as opposed to the usual suspect?

And if you know a great swath of the public is turned off by the performers’ politics, why did you start off with them?

I’m not saying to tone it down so much as to understand the arc, entice your audience and hold on to it.

Then again, none of this can be said because the woke police have made it so no one can comment on certain issues. Men can’t weigh in on rape. White people can’t talk about issues of color. There’s a prescribed agenda, a set of rules everyone must adhere to, irrelevant of their inner beliefs. This is how the Democrats lost control of D.C. Trump came along and said the unsayable, spoke to the underrepresented. Forget that his opinions were heinous, forget that he was the worst president of all time, not only not addressing the big issues, but pushing the nation backwards, the truth is he tapped into dissatisfaction, which Hillary certainly did not. I don’t want to litigate the past, unlike Fox News, but what Hillary was promising was four more years of what we already had, and that was not appealing to great swaths of the population. Which is the same thing we’ve got with this Oscar telecast. No matter how much they tell us it’s different, we tune in and it’s the same damn show, one we’ve rejected previously.

The truth is it’s unfixable. As a result of being on network TV with advertising, as long as the Academy wants that check, the telecast is doomed. As for playing to the one who pays the bills… Look how well that turned out in the music business, the labels were driven by their relationships with retail…and then retail ceased to exist, turned out the customers didn’t want to go to a store to purchase overpriced CDs.

But the public does want to pay for music, just in a different way. Streaming has escalated recorded music revenue. People will pay attention if you modernize your product and its distribution.

But the truth is on streaming services the single rules, not the album. And acts drop a lot more product. The systems of old no longer apply. And the labels have been dragged into the future, even though the aged artists keep complaining that someone moved their cheese, as if we could go back to a business model that did not work for customers.

Movies… It turns out people want more of them, which is why Netflix with its doubled-down production slate satiates the public.

Turns out people want long form series.

Turns out documentaries can triumph, they just cannot be preachy.

Is there a market for superhero/cartoon movies? Of course, but the truth is the hip-hop/pop of the Spotify top 50 is shrinking in market share.

Thus we have the great bifurcation, between what was and what is, between yesterday and today. There hasn’t been a generation gap this big since the sixties, but the self-satisfied baby boomers believe they’re inherently hip and know it all and are in touch.

For twenty years now everything’s been up for grabs, all institutions and systems have been in play. Why should it be any different for the movies?

The second most interesting story of the show was how Chadwick Boseman didn’t win. Turns out the producers couldn’t fathom this, placed the Best Actor award at the end for a feel good finish. But it turns out the producers were out of touch with the voters, and Anthony Hopkins won. This is not the way the Oscars are supposed to work, the sentimental favorite is supposed to win.

But the most interesting story of the Oscars telecast is the horrible ratings, a 58% decline overall, a 64.2% decline in the cherished 18-49 demo.

The 18-49 group doesn’t remember an era when the Oscars were a must-see, they don’t even remember an era when going to the movies was a must-do!

If this were a sports team, the public would be up in arms, people would lose their jobs.

But the Oscars is like politics, always behind the times, fighting the last war, to the point where the public has given up. Yes, the parties lose and then they just do the same damn thing over again the next time. As for the congresspeople continuing to pay fealty to Trump… Let me see, did anybody watching 1/6 truly believe it was a safe rally where no one was hurt and all the bad actors were antifa members? We’re supposed to disbelieve our eyes and ears? This works for some people, after all, 9.85 million people actually watched this show.

But most didn’t.

Play to them.

Why isn’t there a concomitant examination of music?

I’m positively stunned at the amount of coverage the Oscars are getting. Especially for a show everyone has agreed no one will see. Bill Maher said it best…

“Every year I write down my Oscars predictions. This year I predict I’m not going to watch.”

The coverage is a reflection of the myopia of mainstream media, which believes if it cares about it, everyone else will. This is the great bifurcation which truly gained steam about ten years ago, between those who get their “news” from newspapers and TV and those who get it online, oftentimes via social media and “word of mouth.” The end result is we live in a world where facts are fungible and no one can agree on the truth, but rather than address this problem, the mainstream media feels if it doubles-down, it can just convince people to care, to pay attention, when the truth is they don’t. To put it another way, we haven’t had that spirit here since 1999.

As for the outsized focus on film…

In 2019, U.S. box office revenues were $11.4 billion.

In 2019, U.S. recorded music revenues were $11.1 billion.

Furthermore, you can add on another $28 billion for the live music business, which doesn’t have a film equivalent. Then again, visual entertainment has streaming television revenues.

But let’s go back to box office. Traditionally, the exhibitors retain 50% of the gross, which means $5.7 billion flowed back to rights holders.

In music, streaming outlets retain 30% of the gross, which means $7.7 billion flowed back to rights holders. So why does music get no respect?

If you look to history, the Warner cable system was built on the back of the Warner music labels, which were throwing off tons of cash. Not that we ever hear about that.

But we do hear about the decline in recorded music revenue this century. Yes, music was the canary in the coal mine for digital disruption, but although it was a wrenching transition, music figured it out, via streaming, and now revenues are consistently going up. As for film? It’s still wrestling with digital disruption. Do we release the films day and date on streaming services? Do we have one outlet where everyone can pay one price and see all the content online?

Even worse, we’ve got a cadre of oldsters complaining that films must be seen in theatres, when that ship sailed in the music business, finally no one is complaining that music must be listened to on CD. Remember all the arguments about the sound of MP3s? Well, it turned out most people could not tell the difference, and presently there’s a move to higher resolution streaming. As a matter of fact, for a low price you can stream better than CD quality via Amazon Music Ultra HD. And finally, the oldsters’ complaints are fading in music.

But not in film.

The irony is that as music playback systems have gotten worse, film’s have gotten better. And I’m not talking about the theatre experience, which is arguably worse, no comfy seat in a stadium arrangement can overcome of smartphone use and talking, never mind sticky floors, but you can buy a 65″ plus OLED TV that renders an astounding picture, ironically the same one all the filmmakers employ. And, you can watch on demand, as in when you want to. Why is it the film business believes it can dictate our habits when everything else is on demand, at our fingertips instantly? I.e. the film starts at 7:30. You’ve got to leave your house, budget time to park, buy tickets, go to the bathroom, watch trailers and…if you get there late, tough noogies.

Yet the music business is consistently seen as a second class citizen.

So for months we’ve endured a debate as to the wokeness and content of today’s films.

That’s not an issue in music, Black music dominates the charts.

As for awards… If you think awards matter, an Oscar or a Grammy, you don’t know how many broke, out of work, no longer remembered people have won each.

As for executives… Strides need to be made, but the truth is today’s major labels are oftentimes just the end point, the acts are developed by people of color and managed by people of color. That does not mean progress cannot be made in the executive ranks, but a little perspective would help here, not that you ever want to mix truth into the story…

But what blows my mind is all this debate re the content of film. There’s no debate about the content of music!

Film is expensive. A collaborative effort. Resulting in story that even a five year old can debate.

Music can be extremely inexpensive, made by one person in their bedroom, and even the biggest hits…about the most you can say about them is “it had a good beat, I could dance to it.”

Then again, music has started to imitate film, at the elite level anyway. Marketing is so expensive that the major labels put out less product than ever before and want to do their damnedest to ensure they’re hits. To the point where records are made by committee, and constantly reworked, remixed in an effort to have success, when the truth is music is best when it has that je ne sais quoi of lightning captured in a bottle.

But, in movies people are complaining about the content. Either it’s too serious or not mindless enough. As if movies could truly parallel life, when the truth is that’s music’s skill.

But music is in a bad place.

Music is purely commercial. Art is secondary. True, the Oscars might have nominated a bunch of highbrow stuff the hoi polloi have not seen, but we don’t have an equivalent layer of product in music, that which demands respect but got little commercial traction. Instead in music the focus is always on the vapid mainstream, repetitive sans meaning. In music, a forty year old fake drum sound, i.e. the Roland 808, dominates today. Which is kind of like insisting all films be shot in black and white. But there’s no uproar. Except from the audience, the truth is new music has lost its hold on the public, most people don’t care, which is why the hits have less market share on Spotify than they have previously, you don’t need to know them. As for the petty wars and triumphs…that’s fodder for fans and gossip rags, nobodies arguing about nothing, and too often it’s about money not art.

But criticize a successful act/record at your peril. If it made money, it cannot be bad. At least the highbrows bitch about high concept cartoon/superhero flicks, but they don’t bother to even weigh in on the dreck sold to the listening audience.

And in both cases, film and music, all the heat now rises from the bottom. Yes, it’s the unfettered individuals online who garner all the attention. Film/the Oscars has not even figured out how to harness the power of TikTok, never mind YouTube and Instagram and Snapchat. As for the music business, all it can do is sign that which is successful online. The truth is the major labels don’t grow anything anymore, they just cherry-pick that which is flowering. Which is why the execs are faceless. These are bean counters, marketers not conservators of the soul of America. It’s even worse in film, not one single executive is known by the masses. As for power? Neither of them have any, music or film executives, in the general landscape. That’s owned by Mark Zuckerberg, Google, Reed Hastings… And all of these tech titans have bigger mindshare than the product itself, never mind those who green light it.

But ain’t that America, where debate must be easy and only the elites are entitled to an opinion. Yes, those with any cultural power pooh-pooh the masses as know-nothings. But if that is so, why do they keep pushing the envelope online?

Now it used to be that change was always in the offing, but income inequality killed that. The best and the brightest will not go into the arts. And if they do, the focus is on the bottom line, not the content, because he with the greatest number of bucks is…the greatest. But we used to revere those who didn’t sell so well, but impacted us with their art.

Those days are through.

The tail has wagged the dog in the arts for decades, it’s just the ancient industries and the boomers who run them have refused to acknowledge this. Furthermore, the companies they run are long in the tooth public enterprises that no executive has a significant ownership interest in, it’s all about short term gain. So is it any wonder the product reflects this?

As for those commenting… The truth is they don’t really care, it’s only once a year, when awards season comes along, and the truth is the “unknown” social media stars online have much more overall influence.

Things will get better when the boomers pass.

But until then we’ve got twentieth century mores in a twenty first century world. And you wonder why these industries and their awards shows continue to miss the target…

https://bit.ly/3tIGpqU

1

It’s inspirational.

And it’s now on Hulu.

Zappa was someone you discovered along the way, and then you went back and purchased all the albums that came before and the ones that came thereafter until…you grew up and went separate ways.

I’m not saying I stopped buying Zappa’s records, I’m not saying I wasn’t paying attention to Frank, what I’m saying is Zappa was a jumping off point, and once you were trained enough, he expected you to spread your wings and fly, and definitely not where he’d already been.

Most people did not, fly that is.

But some of us did.

You had to grow up in the sixties. I was doing an interview with Joel Selvin about his new book “Hollywood Eden” and I asked him why everybody at University High wanted to make a record. Joel said that’s where the action was. And sure, Capitol was in L.A. but the rest of the labels were on the east coast and on the west coast it was a fledgling business, run by independents, akin to the computer revolution back in the nineties. Sure, the computer revolution started in the seventies, the first time I ever saw someone using an Apple II was in the office of Frank’s manager, but in the nineties and early two thousands…tech innovation was rampant. In retrospect, it was a very brief time, before the money and consolidation came along to quash independent dreams. Compete with Amazon and Facebook at your peril. They’ll just imitate you and put you out of business, or make you sell to them.

But it wasn’t always this way.

Back in the sixties no one expected to be rich and famous. That was for somebody else, people who broke the rules. You see prior to the mid-sixties, the life of baby boomers was all about conforming, jumping through hoops. Now some turned on, tuned in and dropped out, but most didn’t have the chutzpah, and when Reagan came along in the eighties to legitimize greed they got right on board, and rode the rails through the Clinton presidency and now believed they were different from everybody else, and entitled. They were self-satisfied.

But Frank Zappa would say the joke was on them.

The greats don’t conform. Which is why you can’t learn to be a rock star in school. You were either born with it or you weren’t. And if you weren’t, you’ll never make it, the road is too hard, and to truly make your mark you must be inspired. And if you are and you make it to the top expect to be denigrated, because others were unwilling to put in the hard work and are jealous of your success. Like Glenn Frey and the Eagles. Glenn had knocked around, Geffen wasn’t interested in his work with J.D. Souther, and then he had an idea for a band, he kept Don Henley up all night telling him who and what the Eagles would be the night before their first gig with Linda Ronstadt in D.C. And then Glenn proceeded to execute. And sure, the Eagles made lots of money, Zappa had no problem with that, as long as you didn’t sell out to make your money.

So the sixties were very short, the Mothers of Invention recorded for a very brief window, from ’65 to ’69, but in that short span of time they changed the landscape, and the people who listened to them.

Irreverence, questioning authority, speaking truth to power. None of those are elements of today’s hit music. But these were the mantras of Frank Zappa. He didn’t beat you over the head with them, he just lived his life by them and you were influenced by that.

Influence… Who are you influenced by?

I’m not sure who people are truly influenced by today. I hope it’s not politicians, none of them are true believers like Frank. But in the sixties, our influences were those who were pushing the envelope, testing limits, and word would spread and…

That’s how you’d discover Frank Zappa and so much more.

So what was it like in the sixties?

Well, unless you lived then, you’ll never really know. As for the aphorism that if you remember the sixties you weren’t there, that’s completely wrong. Then again, everybody was too busy living their life to chronicle it, you didn’t want to sit back, you wanted to participate. It was about self-realization. And that’s a hard viewpoint to shake. I never have.

Yes, I’m a sixties casualty.

I’ve got this beach metaphor, hang in there with me. In the fifties there were beatniks, everybody was hip and cool, and then the wave went back to sea and the only one left on shore was Maynard G. Krebs. Same deal in the sixties, everybody was a hippie, growing their hair long, loving one another, and then the wave went out and I was left standing alone, on the beach, and when I express my viewpoints people laugh at me.

But at least I have viewpoints, I don’t take the temperature, take a poll of the audience before I act. And neither did Steve Jobs and neither did Frank Zappa. They acted on their own innate tuning fork. As for Mr. Jobs…he was influenced and inspired by the Beatles and Bob Dylan, and if Steve were still alive today he’d place them on the totem pole above himself, you see art may last, technology is always superseded.

There’s so much that’s skipped over in this movie, like how did Frank learn to read and write music. But that’s what’s great about it, it’s not comprehensive, it does its best to create a mood, a feeling, and you certainly get it. And Frank was not lovable and when the movie is over you don’t love him either, you respect him, you’re wowed by him, you’re inspired by him, and that will hit you right between the eyes whether you like Zappa’s music or not.

Not that there’s endless music in this film, that’s not what it’s about. It’s the story of Frank. Well, part of the story. There could be three or four more documentaries and they’d be almost totally new, Frank created that much, he did that much.

But what if you grow up nowhere as an outcast, how does that affect you?

And if you’re looking to do something, are you trying to get a grant, from a foundation or the government? Zappa didn’t play that game, he paid, he didn’t want anybody telling him what to do, he wanted control. And the truth is all true artists are control freaks, because they have a vision, and they know unless it’s portrayed accurately, it won’t resonate, it’ll miss.

2

“Hey punk where you goin’ with that flower in your hand

Well I’m goin’ up to Frisco to join a psychedelic band

Hey punk where you goin’ with that button on your shirt

I’m goin’ to the love-in to sit and play my bongos in the dirt”

“Flower Punk” was the song that made me a Frank Zappa fan. It was only 1968, but the Mothers were making fun of the hippies, all the non-thinking followers. Today nobody thinks for themselves, you join your tribe and never question it, it’s a nation of followers. But back in the sixties, more important than your bank account was your ability to think.

“I’m losing status at the high school

I used to think that it was my school”

High school is all about popularity, fitting in. But what if you weren’t, popular that is, what if you didn’t fit in?

“The other night we painted posters

We played some records by the Coasters

Wah wah wah wah

A bunch of pom-pom girls

Looked down their nose at me

They had painted tons of posters I had painted three

I hear the secret whispers everywhere I go

My school spirit is at an all time low”

“Status Back Baby” is on the second side of “Absolutely Free,” released in 1967, before “We’re Only in It for the Money,” which contains “Flower Punk.” I had to buy the album after I purchased “We’re Only in It for the Money” and that’s when I discovered the track. And most people didn’t know it, but if you did, you were a member of a secret club, you were aligned with Frank Zappa, you could not only see, but knew, the system was a joke.

It’s all there with Zappa. He was always true to himself. He never wavered. He never sold out. He risked, he evolved, but he never strived for a hit, and as a result everybody knew who he was, and those truly in the know looked up to him. Today they only look up to you if you make money, if you’re rich, and if you’re rich your work cannot be challenged.

Alex Winter, aka Bill in “Bill & Ted’s Excellent Adventure” has not made the typical rock doc. You know, hagiography, jumping through the hoops, he or she did this or that, got their head screwed on straight and now they’re on a victory lap, don’t you love them? “Zappa” is almost an impressionistic view of Zappa and his career. You jump from bite to bite, Frank’s history and ethos come into view, but not everything is crammed in, just enough for you to get the sense, the feel for who he is.

And the truth is the film got excellent reviews, but nobody was gonna pay to see it on VOD during Covid, when it was released last fall. This is a film for a streaming service. This is a time bomb, something that will sit in the library, waiting to be discovered by generations hence. Every artist, everybody who thinks they want to be an artist, needs to see this film, it’s the gut check of all gut checks. You see Frank’s choices, would you make them?

In other words, Frank Zappa and this film might be what W.C. Fields was to us in the sixties. Gone for decades, we were fanatics for him, went to see his pictures, like “The Bank Dick” and “Never Give a Sucker an Even Break.” It was W.C.’s sensibility, he was irascible, he didn’t have time for children and fools, he was himself all the time, meaning you could be an irreverent curmudgeon too, you didn’t have to act nice like everybody told you to, worrying about making the right impression.

W.C. Fields has yet to come back again, he may never do so, but Frank Zappa… The younger generations aren’t aware of Frank and his work, or think he’s all about “Valley Girl” if he’s about anything. But at some point, could be tomorrow, could be ten years from now, they’ll see this documentary and be inspired, need to go down the rabbit hole, listen to the music and become aware of all the possibilities.

Yes, that’s what art is about, possibilities, in your expression. Going where you want to, not worrying if anybody else wants to come along. It’s a hard road and you may never be recognized. But watching this movie you’ve got to ask yourself, do you deserve to be recognized?

You cannot watch this flick without being moved, no way.

And you cannot turn it off.

The first half could be the best rock documentary ever made. The second half is more conventional, which is not a criticism so much as I’m saying the first half is godhead.

You need to see it.

Steve Cropper is literally a living legend. Guitar player, producer, writer…Cropper has had a hand in some of the most iconic tracks of all time, from “Green Onions” to “In the Midnight Hour” to “Knock on Wood” to “Dock of the Bay” to… We chart Steve’s history from Missouri to Memphis, from the Mar-Keys to Booker T and the MGs, from Jim Stewart to Tom Dowd to John Lennon and the Blues Brothers and so much more. We discuss the creative process, the equipment, the characters…we go deep, and you don’t want to miss this!

https://www.stitcher.com/show/the-bob-lefsetz-podcast

https://music.amazon.com/podcasts/9ff4fb19-54d4-41ae-ae7a-8a6f8d3dafa8/The-Bob-Lefsetz-Podcast

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