Tom Petty didn’t want to be the guinea pig, he didn’t want MCA to sell his next album for $9.98.

Although there was radio action on “Breakdown,” Tom Petty’s first two LPs were not commercial juggernauts. He was still somewhat of a secret. Unfortunately going in the wrong direction. You can only be the new thing once, and when the build is at a feverish pitch and your second album is not as good, it’s hard to recover from that.

But Tom and the Heartbreakers (Who should be in the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame as their own group if the E Street Band is, but being mainly from Florida and living in California there’s no chance. Didn’t you know they only make serious music in New York?) employed Jimmy Iovine and released a blockbuster, “Damn the Torpedoes.” One must ponder whether the LP would have been as big if it were released by ABC, Shelter’s prior distributor, but in any event Petty didn’t like being traded and declared bankruptcy and that story has become industry legend. But the story of $9.98? That seems to have faded away.

Records were an addiction. This was just before MTV was launched. Sure, there were casual customers who only bought one, based on what they heard on the radio, but the business was driven by those who couldn’t resist purchasing two, three or five. I wouldn’t say records were cheap, but unlike in the U.K. they were not ridiculously expensive, one can argue quite strongly that the U.K. remained a “hits” business, i.e. Top Forty, because singles were affordable and albums were not. A trip to the record store was a weekly ritual. You watched the papers for sales. And if you were paying suggested retail…you were one of the very few. The key was how much of a discount you got. The new releases were always cheaper, which is kind of funny, you’d think they’d be more expensive, and the catalog stuff was the most expensive. But you’d wait for the all label sale, when the entire inventory was at its cheapest. Or if you lived in the metropolis you went to certain indie outlets were the albums were always cheap. Fans were aware of the price of records. And were they going to take a risk for a buck more?

Petty, a customer himself, knew many wouldn’t, so he agitated for the standard $8.98 price on his album, which really meant that savvy customers could buy it for five bucks.

Ironically, “Hard Promises” was darker and not as commercially successful as “Damn the Torpedoes,” and “Long After Dark” even more so. Then Petty put out “Southern Accents” and “Don’t Come Around Here No More” ended up being gigantic, driven by a ubiquitous video with Tom in a giant hat. Tom made the transition from the seventies to the eighties, from AOR to MTV, he started to become the Tom Petty of legend, not that everybody was on the same page until the release of his solo LP, “Full Moon Fever,” in 1989. I’d like to be free fallin’ right now!

Not everybody recovers from hiccups in the road. They can stall a career. You want to make it easy for fans to continue to follow and appreciate you. Like Titus Welliver in “Bosch.”

That’s the reason to watch, Titus is so damn good. Tom Cruise is mostly external, Titus Welliver is mostly internal, but there’s an external element too. You know guys like Titus, who go their own way, not caring what anybody thinks, who seem to be plugged in in a way no one else is, who radiate weird loner charisma. It’s more of an anti-star than a star. It’s the difference between Metallica and the Spotify Top 50. What becomes a legend most? Metallica!

So I got hooked on “Bosch” six summers ago, recovering from shoulder surgery. It was like discovering a new band, where you had to go back and devour all of the catalog. And then I waited every spring for a new season.

Yes, it’s a formula. But you can’t stop watching Titus. And the supporting cast too, it’s quite an ensemble.

But now Amazon, in all of its “wisdom,” has moved the “Bosch” sequel, “Bosch: Legacy,” to Freevee.

HUH?

I’m such a fan that I knew that Amazon’s IMDb TV was rebranded as Freevee and you had to go there to watch the new season of “Bosch.” BUT NOT A SINGLE PERSON I INTERACTED WITH KNEW THIS! They were all fans of the show, they were positively shocked, shocked I tell you, when they found out there was a new season. As far as being on Freevee…they’d never heard of IMDb TV!

But it gets worse, it’s not on Freevee all over the world.

And you know how it is in today’s world, you can’t get the word out. And even if people got it, they had to know to download a new app, and that you didn’t have to register to watch it, but you know Amazon wants all your data. To HELP you. Yeah, that’s right.

So since it’s on Freevee, that means there are…COMMERCIALS!

I pay for Amazon Prime, one of the perks is the streaming TV without commercials, and now you take my favorite original show from the service and exile it to the hinterlands and make me watch adverts after having made the journey?

I know some people are cheap. Actually, a lot are cheap. But most of them will pay for convenience. Which is why they pay for Spotify instead of continuing to steal music. Sure, there’s a free tier with advertising on Spotify, but it’s hobbled, it’s not fully-featured, it’s for casual users only, to be able to pick and choose what you want to hear you need to pay. You need to pay for everything good in this life.

I don’t want to see no stinking commercials.

Talk to a young ‘un, they don’t know what a commercial is! Well, they refuse to watch ’em. And where would they see ’em, they don’t watch network, they don’t even have a cable TV subscription! But they do have a Netflix account, even if it might be their parents’.

Clamp down on password sharing, why not. It’s like when cable went digital, you could no longer steal HBO by removing a filter.

So Amazon was building momentum, a catalog, of “Bosch.” Hell, most of the legendary TV shows were not gigantic out of the box, not only “Seinfeld,” but “Breaking Bad.” It’s harder to reach people today, but the key is to hook ’em, which Amazon did with “Bosch,” and now they’re throwing all that good will away, putting “Bosch: Legacy” on Freevee? The people paying for Prime are the same people who don’t want to watch commercials!

Amazon could realize the error of its ways. And put “Legacy” on the main service right now, most people would have no idea it had been previously released.

As for the commercials on Freevee… They’re less in number than they are on network/cable, but that’s like saying five bee stings are better than twenty, when in truth you don’t want to be stung at all!

Commercials disrespect the art.

We can finally air visual product sans reformatting and editing. Yes, the aspect ratio of your flat screen is akin to the one in the movie theatre, that all the producers create for. And, there are no longer time restraints, in streaming a movie or series episode can be as long as you want. This is liberation!

But the powers-that-be, out of touch with the public, think otherwise.

Have you seen “Tehran”?

The first season was pretty good. But I haven’t watched the second yet, I can’t watch anything week to week, you forget too much, it’s not the same experience. And is there any buzz on “Tehran”? NO! Maybe if they had released it all at once there would be. The only damn show with buzz on Apple TV+ is “Ted Lasso.” Meaning they must be doing something wrong. Forget good reviews, there is no word of mouth, because Apple is stifling it. To think that Steve Jobs was about breaking norms, being ahead of the customer, and Apple is going backwards.

But in any event, watch “Bosch: Legacy.” Titus can carry the show alone, but the usual suspects are there too, Maddie and Money, and even cameos from Crate and Barrel. And there’s a breakout star, Stephen Chang, who is so unknown he doesn’t even have his own Wikipedia page!

Eventually all albums were sold for $9.98. And then CDs for twice that price. And the labels were rolling in dough, laughing all the way to the bank after selling catalog all over again and cutting out singles if they hit, forcing consumers to purchase the whole overpriced album, can you say “Chumbawamba”? And then came Napster.

Don’t force the public to do what it doesn’t want to. You only build resentment. And I resent the fact that “Bosch: Legacy” is on Freevee!

Elliott Murphy was one of the new Dylans of 1973, along with his friend Bruce Springsteen. But despite being on three major labels, Murphy never broke through in the States. However, Elliott was big in France, so he moved there in 1989 and has been living the life of the independent troubadour ever since, making records and touring to acclaim all over Europe. Listen to the story of how one man was spit out of the machine but found a way to survive by doing it himself.

https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/elliott-murphy/id1316200737?i=1000565794856

https://music.amazon.com/podcasts/9ff4fb19-54d4-41ae-ae7a-8a6f8d3dafa8/episodes/7cf40a66-ccf2-4020-899b-a9fca10562d8/the-bob-lefsetz-podcast-elliott-murphy

https://www.stitcher.com/show/the-bob-lefsetz-podcast/episode/elliott-murphy-203922764

Subject: Re: The Model Is Broken

RE: The Model Is Broken.

Bob, you’re killing it, mate. Superbly reasoned piece and within it lies the awful truth…or is it that awful? Yes, in many ways, but change is always a new pair of boots that need breaking in.

The message at the heart of even this sea change is the same; write a great song and sing it well. It might not make you rich but then again, it just might and you can probably sleep a little better knowing you don’t suck. Then get up and try to do it again.

Keep firing

JD Souther

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From: Michael Cantor

Subject: Re: The TikTok Backlash

Another testament to TikTok’s influence: My 18yo daughter and I saw Billy Joel at MSG 10 days ago. He played “Vienna” and “Zanzibar” among the usual hits. Even for big fans , those are relatively obscure songs (especially Zanzibar). My daughter knew them both because those are his 2 big songs on TikTok!

Best,

Michael

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From: Matthew Sterling

Subject: Re: Running Up That Hill

RE: Running Up That Hill and other ‘net-driven resurgences…

My kids are 14 and 11. When we’re in the car, I let them play whatever they want on Spotify. The other day, in the midst of a larger shuffle of modern hits they had going on, Matthew Wilder’s “Break My Stride” came on. I laughed and asked where they’d heard it before. They both looked at me, as teenagers are wont to do, like I was from Mars. The following exchange took place.

“Dad, this is, like, the biggest song from the 80s.”

“Ha! No, it’s not. This was maybe Top 40. A one-hit wonder. Guy made more money producing No Doubt.”

“Wrong, Dad. This song is huge. Everybody knows this song.”

“No way. Check the streams. I bet it has 5m-10m, tops. Check out ‘No One Is To Blame’ by Howard Jones. That was probably a bigger hit.”

(Pause for 14yo to check stats. Meanwhile my 11yo is singing along to ‘Stride.’ Knows every single word.)

“8.8m streams for your song.”

“Exactly. Now check the streams on ‘Break My Stride.’ No way it’s more than Howard Jones.”

(Pause for 14yo to check stats. 11yo still singing along to ‘Stride.’ Even knows the bridge!)

“Umm… 289m streams.”

(Pause for me to prevent driving into a ditch.)

“What the fudge?!? How is that possible?!? ‘Break My Stride?’ That defies all logic.”

(Pause for both kids to pull out their phones and show me various TikTok / Memes utilizing ‘Stride.’ I think a deer jumps over a fence in one while the song plays in the background.)

“See, Dad? Everybody knows this song. It’s one of the biggest hits of the 80s.”

(Pause for me to insist we put on ‘No One Is To Blame,’ which they begrudgingly tolerated until the second verse.)

Never underestimate the power of the teenager to dictate the future, and casually (perhaps even unknowingly) rewrite the past. It took me a solid fifteen minutes to explain to my kids that Matthew Wilder, while a very successful musician with an enviable career, is not a household name on par with the biggest stars of the 80s. One of the reasons it took me so long to explain is because Michael Jackson’s “P.Y.T.” and “Rock With You” both have around the same number of streams as “Break My Stride.” Let that sink in.

The power of teenagers. Same as it ever was.

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From: adam barnes

Subject: Re: Distribution Is King

We are moving away from the “importance” of press in an album cycle – at least on an independent level. What’s the point? I know it’s all about clicks clicks clicks. Has been for a while, but even more so now. The new head honcho at Rolling Stone only cares about these, and rightfully so, it is the only business model they have left. Gone are the days of putting the music star on the cover of music’s favorite magazine and being able to slip in some emerging (amazing) artists to discover.

I speak to a lot of publicists and artists about this – and we all were stumped for a while. Where is all the support we used to receive? Well, if only the clicks matter and you’re emerging you better be ready to pay to show you are worth it. There is just too much happening and the publications are trying to pull back and run what they know will get that ad revenue.

We’ve been entering this for a while – but you have to have the buzz before considering a publicist at this point. You are better off tailoring your team with folks that can help you put a plan together to achieve this buzz (whether it be on social media, or DSPs, or just making a HIT) – and if you get to a spot where you have so many journalists and people reaching out that you need someone to filter what is right and wrong and to get your “buzz-worthiness” out there, then pull the trigger.

It’s all changing…same goes for music videos – I’ll talk about that some other time.

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Subject: Re: Re-Billy Strings

Hey Bob,

Thanks for finding Billy Strings,

I’d like to echo Pete Wernick aka Dr Banjo and other’s sentiments. This is a whole world unto itself- Bluegrass. And it’s existed for a very long time. As my friend saxophonist extraordinaire Marc Russo said one time “Oh Bluegrass- the “other Jazz”. People learning Bluegrass music growing up ARE like Jazz artists, they put “20,000 hours” in learning their craft. They/we make for the most part pretty meager wages but that’s not why they/we do it. I was in a band called The New Grass Revival through the ’70’s & 80’s. Our last show as a band was opening for The Dead at Oakland Colliseum ’89.

Two years ago we were inducted into International Hall of Fame. I’ve been touring with The Doobie Brothers now since 2010 so I really don’t tour that circuit anymore. Bluegrass is a world of amazing artists dedicated solely to a truly American art form. Billy is for sure the REAL DEAL as is his band, and he’s as sweet as he’s been described. Now, go check out The Punch Brothers, Green Sky Bluegrass, Tony Rice, Bill Monroe, Flatt & Scruggs, The Infamous String Dusters, Molly Tuttle, I’m With Her, Sarah Hull, Dale Ann Bradley. It’s a world so well worth wandering into.

Kind thanks,

John Cowan

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From: Dan Millen

Subject: Re: Re-Billy Strings

Damn… lost control of my inbox this week.

Adam King summed it up.

Patrick Effing May, Crossover Touring.

Pat is – like Billy – a development story of his own.  Affable huggable and when he says “trust me” you trust him. Slugged it out in the trenches booking $500 jambands in menu venues and did things his way which always involves taking care of his acts AND his promoters.

It says a lot about an agent / agency when an act goes from nothing to six figure grosses and still stays with the agent.

Oh, and one helluva bass player too!

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Subject: Re: Go All The Way 50th Anniversary

Bob,

Thanks for the great Raspberries piece. We heard a lot of similar comments at the reunion shows, how people didn’t listen to their records at first but as their musical tastes expanded really came to love the music. And then when Stevie Van Zandt, Jon Bon Jovi, Paul Stanley, Matthew Sweet, and so many other musicians came to the shows, we started to realize the profound influence the band had on some of their peers. Those reunion shows – basically a series of 16 one-offs, weren’t easy to pull off. Quality was job 1. No rented gear for these shows, so the crew, also the original guys from the ‘70’s – trucked Jim Bonfanti’s original Ludwig drum kit, Wally Bryson’s original Gibson double neck, Flying V and Rickenbacker guitars, all of which were played on the original recordings, and the fresh new Vox amps – to every show, coast-to-coast. The band wanted the shows to be as authentic as possible for the fans, budget be damned! As a result, the vibe and the electricity at those shows was palpable! Throw in 2 hour long meet and greets at every show that included a pic with the band and a ticket for $100, and you had a concert experience for the band’s longtime loyal fans that blew their minds! Again, it was all to thank the fans who waited over 30 years for the “classic” version of the band to reunite. Unfortunately there was never any high quality live video of the band back in the ‘70’s, which fueled their legendary onstage rep for decades, including a mythical 1973 Carnegie Hall show, that of course wasn’t recorded. But now we’ve recently found a 2007 reunion concert recorded in HD that is, well, pretty damn great, and so far we’ve posted two tracks  “Tonight” and “Go All The Way” – on the band’s YouTube channel (RaspberriesOnline). We hope to be posting more video tracks there in the coming year, so the fans can get a very real idea of just how great this band still was live, even 30 years after they last played together! Cheers!

Al Kaston

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From: Joe Walsh

Subject: Re: Hacks-Episode 6

Hey Bob-

Good job looking at 

grand-slam hit songs.

My advice to young artists-

1) If you’re going to write a

song that lasts forever:

RECORD IT DOWN A

HALF-STEP NOW!

so you can sing it when

you’re my age.

Walsh

Have you seen this video?

“We tracked what happens after TikTok songs go viral”: https://bit.ly/3Q8HZhk

Unfortunately it conflates monthly listeners with streams, and the difference is important. The bottom line is if you want to make money it’s the total number of streams, not the total number of monthly listeners. Each listener is unique, but the same listener can listen to a song one time, which is really only 30 seconds, or two hundred times.

I could go deeper, but in truth no one really cares, they just want to make it, get that big record company check, what they’re actually doing, the quality of the material… IRRELEVANT!

Now if you’re sophisticated, you really won’t learn anything in this video. It promises a lot, but ultimately it’s all known, assuming you’re in the game. However very few are in the game, and if you’re not you should check it out. But it costs 22 minutes. Which is an eternity in internet time. But it’s snazzily produced by Vox. But when you get to the end of it you’ll have a completely skewed vision of the music business. You’ll think it’s all about hatching TikTok stars, because all of the ink is on streaming payouts as opposed to overall income, and if you truly want to make bank in music you’ve got to have a career, and a viral video is only the first stepping stone, far from the cherry on top. In other words, you may have multiple millions of views on TikTok, but will anybody buy a ticket to see you play? Even more important, will they buy another ticket after they’ve seen you once and the novelty factor has worn off?

News comes from the bottom-up.

And this is sometimes scary.

If you’re paying attention to the story behind the story of Depp/Heard, you know it was not driven by mainstream media, but online influencers. Who did it for the bread. And the bread was in being pro-Depp, so all these sold-out video makers skewed their productions that way. And they didn’t only post once a day, but many times a day. They became mini-fan clubs. And the purveyors got momentary attention, will it sustain? Probably not. And just because you have one viral video online, that does not mean you can replicate the success, especially on TikTok, whose algorithm allows nobodies to score.

And one of the big questions proffered in this video is whether to take the record company bucks or go independent.

The truth is TikTok stars are almost never going to have any more success, so take the check. They’re doing the math of recoupment, of low royalty rates… Just take the check and try to give up as few rights for as little time as possible.

Of course there are exceptions, but if there weren’t there wouldn’t be any rules!

Bottom line, punters said that the internet would allow the square pegs that didn’t fit into round holes to flourish. In other words, there was tons of unsigned talent overlooked by the major labels and it would come out of the woodwork and…

It didn’t happen. Turns out the labels were doing a very good job of finding who deserved amplification of their musical efforts.

Which brings us back to the point that almost all of the viral TikTok hits are not about music, but COMMERCE! As are most of the Spotify Top 50 tracks, so they have that in common, which is contributing to the second class status of new music.

So, if you’re sitting at home, you’ve got the tools, seemingly everybody does, you can play the music industry game. Doesn’t require much musical talent, and the penumbra is important, i.e. how you look and how you move. Not that innovation is absent. This is something the TikTok creators have that the denizens of the Spotify Top 50 do not. Knowing that the music is not enough to sell them, they come up with wacky ideas to garner eyeballs. Train-wreck value. Innovation is key in popular music, but homogenization has creeped into the halls of the major labels. Don’t make it hard, make it easy. Just sell that which sounds like everything else that is successful. Don’t try and swim upstream, don’t try and do something new. Which means the mainstream is boring and the excitement is on TikTok so the labels are going there to find talent. It’s just that on TikTok the music is secondary, they’re selling video, stupid pet tricks. You can try to capture lightning in a bottle, but lightning disappears almost instantly.

Rather than develop acts which might sustain, the labels hoover up these nascent TikTok acts before they’re fully grown. And the truth is almost none of them will grow fully.

As for cover songs, do it right and you can blow up the original, but we already knew those were hits!

As for acts breaking in more traditional ways, via live performance and full recordings, the labels are tapped into that too, but here’s where you don’t want to take the check, if it’s even offered, which usually it is not. Because if you have an ongoing enterprise you don’t want that million dollars, you’ll be hobbling your future. You can monetize all day long sans cross-collateralization. And the truth is your fans spread the word, not traditional publicity. The major label can do little for you unless you make music in either hip-hop, pop or country. That’s right, the majors are ceding most of the music business. Not most of the RECORDED music business, but that percentage continues to decline. If you’re debating streaming remuneration you’re missing the point. Thank god everybody can hear all your music, unlike in the old days, it’s up to you to make it pay. The recordings are just the STARTING POINT!

So, TikTok is the new radio.

But terrestrial radio has been moribund for more than decade. The labels are chasing trends as opposed to birthing new ones. They’ve stripped those departments from their company, it costs too much money to find real talent and develop it, best to just skim the cream off the top of what rears its head online.

In other words, the labels are making beaucoup bucks while they’re killing their business. Thank god they have those gold-plated catalogs, because otherwise their numbers would look terrible.

So what this means is you’ve got to decide which side you’re on. Are you a stunt player, someone looking to get lucky, or a dedicated musician? Hell, a million dollars isn’t even that much anymore, and it’s the only time you’ll get paid. These viral hits have no legs, they’re not “American Pie,” paying dividends for decades thereafter.

But everybody believes the system is rigged against them and the game is too hard.

Welcome to the world. It’s not only record companies that have sacrificed costly research and development to keep their shareholders happy.

In other words, you’re on your own. You must build it yourself. Your VC fund is your parents. And/or your fans. It’s positively cottage industry. You just need enough money to make music and go on the road. Nothing more, you’re not entitled to make a living.

So it comes down to you.

And sure, you must find a way to nexus with potential fans. But you can’t let this nexus supersede the core elements, like the music itself and your ability to play. The goal is to get to the point where you don’t need any of the shenanigans, where the music sells itself, draws customers. But that’s a long, slow, hard process.

So you need to be aware of the TikTok game, you should know the entire landscape. But TikTok is the land of amateurs, on a lark. Or those with more business-savvy than musical talent.

There are no short cuts.

And nobody wants to hear this.

But you know if you have to continue.

And if you’re making no progress, don’t blame it on everybody else. First, are you in the game? If you never release your music no one can like it. Second, if a fan base for your tune doesn’t grow, you could be too far ahead of the game, or maybe your music just isn’t that interesting to most people and you should pivot or get out of the game or be happy where you are.

But one thing TikTok can teach us about is creative innovation. That’s what it’s based on, the entire service, people at home coming up with new ideas. And ideas are paramount, which is why all the money comes down to songwriting, which is damn hard to do. If you’re doing it just like everybody else you won’t go viral, no one is interested, but when you push the envelope, skew the vision a bit, and underpin it with desirable music, you’re on the road to success. But just beginning.