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People want to TALK about it!

Now you know what it was like going to the movies in the late sixties and seventies. It was not high concept entertainment, it was food for thought, the movies were STIMULATING!

No one says they saw “Adolescence” and shrugs.

And maybe you haven’t seen it yet, but if so, you will. Because you’ll feel the societal pressure, your friends will testify, INSIST that you watch it.

This is the modern paradigm. Promotion/publicity/success comes from the bottom up, not the top down. The gatekeepers try to anoint winners. And sometimes they succeed. They’re in cahoots with the PR people… There’s the anticipatory hype, then the hype about each and every star, then analysis after the project launches.

The gatekeepers missed “Adolescence.”

But it’s more than that. Multiple people have told me that Stephen Graham is the best actor of the century. Your opinion may differ, but one thing is for sure, Graham is not a conventional movie star, young and good-looking.

And unlike an American series, there are only four episodes.

And “Adolescence” is not comedy or fantasy, but real life.

Felice told me she was glad she didn’t have kids. Amy wondered what her son was doing all the time in his room, on his computer.

We can’t know what our progeny are doing 24/7.

Having said that… I went to school. Public school. And there was a constant undercurrent of bullying and tribal war. Parents think they can stop bullying, maybe by going to the Administration. That’s the worst thing you can do, now your kid is a pariah.

To stop bullying you would have to start at the core. Why do certain people have to lord it over others, why do they have to make others scapegoats? And this is not only schoolchildren…

And you can be anti-technology all you want, but the internet is not going away. Even if you take away smartphones from kids, they’ll go home and get on their laptop.

And how do you cope when someone in your family steps over the line, acts badly. Some live in denial. Most soul search.

“Adolescence” is what we crave. In a constant world of me-too in entertainment. Tell me why I’ve got to see that TV show again, why I’ve got to listen to that record? Where’s the innovation, where’s the difference?

There is none.

“Adolescence” is a visceral experience that cannot be forgotten.

“‘Adolescence’ Sets Netflix Record With 66.3 Million Views, Best Ever Two-Week Total for a Limited Series”: https://shorturl.at/bxzjX

Proving that distribution is king. “Adolescence” would have had nowhere near the reach if it was a movie. Or on a service other than Netflix. Once people started to watch the series, it moved up the Netflix chart, and I don’t know about you, but I always see what is popular, and a lot of it is dreck, but I always investigate the left field stuff I haven’t heard of.

And the friction is almost nonexistent. You click and you’re watching.

Now it’s much harder to break a record. Then again, it’s much cheaper to make a record than a TV series. But with all art, first and foremost comes the conception. Which frequently occurs in an instant, a lightning bolt of insight.

Hacks don’t like this. They’d rather assemble the usual suspects, the same writers and players and massage something to be…exactly what? Something just like the rest?

And the major labels won’t sign and promote anything outside. It’s too heavy a lift for them. You must prove there’s an audience for it first. The music being so great that it deserves an audience? That disappeared with Mo Ostin.

So we’ve got two trains running. One going to the usual destination and the other to where people want to go but they’re completely unaware of. You have to make it and then they will come. This depends upon instinct, not research. That was Steve Jobs’s genius.

Most shows today have no legs. But people keep e-mailing me about “Adolescence,” weeks after it launched. And this wouldn’t happen if all four episodes were not available at once. Most people I know view them all in a day. You can’t stop. You’re in this milieu, there’s a mood, it’s more than wanting to know what happens, it’s wanting to inhabit this space where feelings, emotions are everything.

This is the artistic breakthrough of the year. Watch it to know why.

I can still feel the pain.

So I’m reading the “Vail Daily” and I see that Matt Nathanson is playing at the Vilar Performing Arts Center in Beaver Creek.

But I don’t have a car. It’s gonna cost me as much in Ubers as it would for a ticket. But could I really be here while he’s here and not see him?

So I e-mailed Matt.

And heard nothing.

I hear from Matt on an irregular basis. To say I’m familiar with his material would be dishonest. But he is forthcoming and intelligent and we’ve talked about doing a podcast but the last time we e-mailed, it took him a week to respond.

And when I heard nothing, I figured it was a no-go.

But I woke up to an e-mail from Matt and now it was back on and I’m sitting in the Uber thinking how I don’t know this guy, what will conversation be like?

I can make musician/rock star conversation. I can turn that on. But inside I’m anxious, it seems stilted. I mean what if I don’t connect with Matt?

Now the night before in Aspen was a disaster according to Matt. To quote the e-mail:

“f*ck aspen. last night was like playing to a room full of guarded, entitled white douche bags. yikes.”

Now I don’t think printing this will piss off Matt, because he says sh*t and f*ck throughout the show. As do I, so I could relate. But Matt is much more likable than me. He’s like the smart kid in the top class who everybody digs.

And he’s an equal opportunity offender.

Now the opener was KT Tunstall, who was stupendous. To come out alone and enrapture an audience that was unfamiliar with almost all of her material? She did it Ed Sheeran style, you know, creating beats and… She strummed powerfully and sang with gusto and did her best to endear herself to the audience.

Is that what it takes?

I mean I’m in the middle of Colorado. Not a hotbed of the entertainment industry. And, in truth, the Vilar is a subsidized venue. Meaning ticket sales don’t always cover the act’s fee. You see there are rich people and they want culture in their community and they show up with their graying or already white hair…

And I told Matt not to expect much better than Aspen in Beaver Creek.

But that’s not the way it turned out.

I’m sitting there thinking how good KT was, remembering how she had that big hit and now it’s decades later and she can’t have another big hit because she’s no longer the new thing and almost nobody can have a hit.

It’s a weird business out there. Based on KT’s performance tonight would those in the audience shell out dough to see her again?

That’s the question.

And then Matt took the stage.

I wasn’t prepared. He was a bundle of energy, he had an identity, he had PERSONALITY!

And that’s something you cannot teach. That’s something those on the TV competition shows are lacking. Even judges like Carrie Underwood are not 3-D. You think if they turned sideways, there’d be nothing to see, you’d miss them.

But not Matt Nathanson.

Now there were hard core fans in the audience. But everybody else in attendance, whether supporters of the Vilar or those on a ski vacation, were immediately brought inside by Matt. It was like being in his living room. No, scratch that. You felt that close, it was that intimate, but it was definitely a performance.

He did a bit of crowd work. Asking the ages of kids after swearing.

And he both explained his career and his show and his state of mind while he was performing, THAT’S HIS ACT!

And the songs he’s singing are not “moon in June,” they’re deeper, they’re more real, they’re personal, anything but written by committee.

And Matt did have a hit while he was signed to Vanguard, but…

That was not what is driving his business. It’s him, IT’S THE SHOW!

Now most of the acts in the Spotify Top 50 are hit dependent. People come to hear the songs. And if there are no recent hits, ticket sales fall off. That’s the mainstream business.

And there is a parallel business of people playing stuff that would never make the Spotify Top 50, but oftentimes these people barely talk on stage, they speak through their music.

And Matt Nathanson speaks through his music, but he speaks so much more!

He had a spinning wheel of tunes, a la Elvis Costello. But he went through each and every listing, giving backstory. It was humorous and fascinating.

Talked about an old girlfriend whose video he saw on TikTok who blocked him after he liked her post.

It was a real person on stage.

And he spoke about playing “Thunder Road” in New Jersey and…

A couple of songs later, the lyrics are unmistakable…

“I have climbed highest mountains

I have run through the fields…”

Only to be with you, only to be with you here in the Vilar, the assembled multitude chiming in that they still hadn’t found what they were looking for.

And there was audience participation. Mostly led by Matt, not always spontaneous.

And I’m sitting there thinking this is the paradigm, this is what it’s all about. If you saw Matt Nathanson in concert, you’d pay to see him again, you’d come back. Sure, you wanted to hear the songs, Matt’s got more than a dozen albums, he’s not relying on covers, but you go to see the man, to see the PERFORMANCE!

This is not HELLO CLEVELAND! Not mindless, in some cases scripted patter by the barely verbal…

No, Matt is a college graduate, who can cogitate, who can tell a story, who can make you laugh and you may not cry, but his songs speak of real emotions, and those are not aways positive.

Now in truth, it’s hard for me to disconnect from politics. Every day I turn on my phone and am amazed.

But sitting in the Vilar, in the dark…

Everything else disappears. And I did see some dude at the end of the row reading his cellphone, but I didn’t catch anybody else doing so. They were PAYING ATTENTION!

And this was not a club show, where you’re standing endlessly, sidled up to humanity… No, the Vilar has seats, which means the music flows in the dark and it sets your mind free. That’s what I like most, when my mind drifts into places it normally never would, when I’m not caught up in the b.s. of life. This is what the show represents.

Then again, too many concerts are videos come alive. They’re synched to hard drive, there’s production. You can see it, but you don’t feel involved.

You felt involved with Matt tonight, you felt connected. I could see how one could continue to live without thinking constantly about politics.

And stardom is not about possessions, it’s not about lifestyle, sure, it’s about hits, but as I referenced with KT above… Almost nobody can have a hit today. And even the Spotify Top 50 reaches relatively few. This is not the heyday of MTV, when a limited number of videos were anointed for exposure and we all knew the songs. Today you forage…

But you’re definitely looking. And mostly it’s what you’ve already gotten.

I’m sitting there thinking as Matt’s singing U2 that he’s got a lot more personality than Bono. Sure, Bono has huge hits, he’s gallivanting with the powerful, trying to change the world. But as far as standing up on stage, telling a story, letting the audience inside, making them feel that they can identify…I’ve never seen Bono do that.

Most of these acts cannot do that.

Not that some of these acts are not truly great, have not delivered A-level material, but…

Matt Nathanson is selling something different. His viewpoint, evidenced in his songs, his stories, his IDENTITY! You feel like you know this guy. You know you couldn’t do what he does, but also you know if you were one on one with him you could talk endlessly.

Which is what we did after the show. And the amazing thing is Matt immediately revealed certain family stories…that most people NEVER TELL! He was anything but guarded. And he asked me questions and…

Needless to say I didn’t have to be anxious about our conversation. But I knew that during the show. Because I could see how Matt is.

And the bottom line is there are very few people who would not be won over by a Matt Nathanson show. Sure, he’s only got one hit. But he’s selling something more than the hit.

Matt Nathanson is unique. And that’s what we’re looking for, especially in a world of me-too.

More of this PLEASE!

Terence Reilly brought Crocs back from the dead, turned the Stanley Quencher into a phenomenon and is now President of HEYDUDE shoes. Learn how a modern magnate stays in touch with the culture and lifts brands into the stratosphere.

Early this morning I got the following e-mail from Dan Harrell:

“Was bummed when excitedly opened your podcast this morning. Not bummed anymore. One of your best guests ever. Every leader in business should take a listen. So much of what he says and what he has done I have a shared adventure with the impossible being possible. 30 years in music managing Amy Grant made his journey ring true.”

https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/terence-reilly/id1316200737?i=1000701044475

 

 

 

https://music.amazon.com/podcasts/9ff4fb19-54d4-41ae-ae7a-8a6f8d3dafa8/episodes/d677f03d-299f-424d-bcbf-6dfaa508d84b/the-bob-lefsetz-podcast-terence-reilly