Were terrible.

“Grammys Viewership Edges Out Last Year’s Record Low With Minor Gain”: https://bit.ly/3r3zw3V

And that’s putting a positive spin on it.

The story of the last two plus decades in the record business has been disruption. But the Grammy organization keeps on doing the same damn thing and expecting different results. A woman was brought in to run the place and the criticism was she wanted change too fast…if that doesn’t sound like a bunch of old men afraid of their cheese being moved I don’t know what does.

The record labels tried to hold back the future with lawsuits, while they extolled the quality of CDs. Then they said track sales were the future, halting the slide in revenue as a result of Steve Jobs’s proactive measure. And then Daniel Ek came along and saved the industry. Apple was famously against streaming and bought Beats to try and solve their problem, even though Beats Music was not of competitive quality and the software had to be rewritten and the execs had to be furloughed.

And at this late date there are people who want to resist all of the above. They want streaming halted when it saved the business! Someone always loses and someone always wins when change happens. The key is to get on board, to get ahead of change and ride the wave. Yelling at people to bring back the past never works.

So CBS thought it was inviolate. As did all the established Hollywood companies. Even the public resisted Netflix streaming. But Reed Hastings saw the future and executed and not only did the public play into his hand, but so did Hollywood. The studios didn’t wake up for years! They loved the license fees Netflix paid. And now they’ve all started streaming services, but Netflix has first mover advantage and is now the undisputed champion. Sure, the studios have their libraries, and that’s important, but Netflix has poured billions of dollars into new production, which drives the television industry as well as the music industry. Just like the rearguard labels wield their catalogs to make profitable deals with anybody in the tech space. If anything, these old companies want to hold back the future, but it comes anyway.

But there are legacy deals, like the one CBS has with the Grammys. And so inured to the CBS cash the Grammys are not preparing for the future whatsoever. Who is going to rescue the Grammys? Certainly not Harvey Mason Jr., who’s part of the club. Only outsiders can clean house and jet the organization into the future, but outsiders are not allowed to play in the entertainment industry, the established players do their best to keep them out. It’s a club and you’re not in it. And who would want to work with these wankers anyway, especially after the Deborah Dugan debacle.

Awards shows are dead. Come up with something different. I could give and have given multiple ideas, but the Grammy organization doesn’t listen.

As for the under 10 million people who saw this show…

We live in a country of 340 million. Less than 5% tuned into this show. Think about it, if you were a concert promoter and the act was booked in a stadium and they sold the number of tickets they would have in a theatre, would you book them again? As for the act, no one likes to play to empty seats. They lie and pull down the show and try to reinvent themselves, come up with something better. What does the Grammys come up with? More nominees! In some of these categories you can win the trophy with far less than half the vote, a quarter of the vote, are these the real winners anyway?

Which brings us to the bullseye. Most people don’t want the acts the Grammys, the recording industry, are purveying. Hell, Spotify told you, the rate of catalog streams is going up and up, which means the old music is more palatable than the new. Music used to drive the culture, now it’s a sideshow most people shrug their shoulders at and don’t bother to participate in. The business is moribund, being driven right off the cliff. Radio was disrupted by on demand online. And now even streaming services are being disrupted by TikTok. Notice nobody in the music industry came up with TikTok. Someone could have bought musical.ly, but it took the Chinese to purchase it and blow it up. The music industry has historically been anti use by the public. But the world has changed, remix culture is here.

And then there’s the dreaded variety show format with commercials. This is kind of like when they blast heavy metal as punishment in prisons. To watch the show is torture. Turns out almost nobody wants to.

So the recording industry pats its back and evidences that it’s completely out of touch. Last night’s Grammys were a disaster. The ship is heading right for the iceberg and they keep on partying. Believe me, if someone owned the Grammys heads would roll, but everybody’s sucking at the tit of the nonprofit organization and they want no change.

Historically it’s been a new musical sound that’s disrupted the old one. But that hasn’t happened in two decades. Maybe the labels have to be more proactive, more creative. Turns out most people don’t want what they’re selling. There’s a much bigger business trapped inside but no one sitting at the controls has any idea how to tap it. Music is a street business. And it’s all about the money. Which means the only smart people involved are hustlers, and outsiders are denigrated. That’s the criticism of Daniel Ek, he doesn’t play an instrument, he’s never made a record, he doesn’t understand…but that’s why he does understand! He started with a fresh slate, wiped off the detritus and built Spotify from the ground up. I’d tell you how hard it was but you won’t believe it, the same way you won’t believe vaccines work for Covid.

So what is gonna happen here?

NOTHING!

Clayton Christensen said the innovation starts cheap and imperfect but then gets better and trumps the established players. So his advice is to disrupt yourself. That that’s your only hope, otherwise someone will disrupt you. The VMAs disrupted the Grammys because MTV knew it was irrelevant who won, they were creating a show to be watched, and there was a spirit of irreverence as opposed to gravitas. Someone needs to throw the proverbial bomb into the Grammy building, metaphorical, of course. But in truth outsiders will create their own game with its own mores and triumph. It’ll look like it happened overnight, but one thing is for sure is it will happen, it’s just a matter of when. The Grammys need to disrupt themselves, they need new blood, and by that I don’t mean musicians with credits, but people familiar with how to change organizations. Nothing is forever, you either change or die.

The Grammys are on their way to death. 

The producer can only do so much.

At least the Grammys are smart enough to get an outsider, as opposed to the Oscars, which constantly use someone from their industry with ties to the past and no skill putting on a TV show. But Ben Winston can’t control the voting.

Everyone agrees that last night’s Grammy telecast was a vast improvement over those of the previous decade plus. First and foremost it was decided to wipe the detritus of the past and focus on the new. But that just made it more confusing for the aged Grammy viewers unfamiliar with the acts and their music, as for the youngsters, who in hell could sit through all those commercials? I guess they’re going to run this paradigm into the ground. In a world where you can do your best to never see a TV commercial to watch the Grammys in real time is torture.

Not that I watched much.

I wasn’t going to watch any at all. But my friends had it on and I watched forty minutes, a good chunk of which was commercials, and the final ten minutes, wanting to say good night to said friends.

And I won’t give a whole review of the show, the little I saw or that which I read about, because I really don’t care. There’s a whole publicity industry built around these awards shows and I’d like to know who eats up this information. Hype does not pay the dividends it used to. And as far as reviews, if you saw it you don’t need to read about it, and those who didn’t see it don’t care.

As for a memorable moment, I haven’t heard about one yet.

But what gets me to put fingers to keyboard is the Jon Batiste victory for Album of the Year. It undercuts all credibility for the Grammys. The dude gave a great speech, talking about how competition in the arts is not a factor, but reaching those who need the music is, however…HOW IN THE HELL DID THIS GUY WIN?

It’s not like the Oscars, lauding a good picture that no one has seen. It’s out of touch members voting for their personal preferences, screw the rest of the world. And I wouldn’t care, except the Grammys keep telling us how hip and on point they are, in bed with the labels to put on a happening TV show and then…

Yes, are the big Grammy awards for popular music, or are they an inside baseball affair for the voters?

Have you heard Batiste’s album? I doubt it, it barely made a dent on the charts, and two songs have nine million streams on Spotify, but six of them don’t even break seven figures (which is a million, for the math challenged). And don’t think a million streams is much, a Top 50 song can easily do a million streams A DAY!

But it’s hard for oldsters to comprehend the new metrics. A million used to be a lot. A million albums, wow, you’re platinum! But the metric has changed from sales to plays and those who’ve lost in the process, because their music is not listened to that much, can’t stop complaining. It is commerce, not art. It is a business, it’s not a charity. And if you don’t put up the numbers you make less. However, in today’s internet world there are many possible streams of revenue, but chances are if you have low streams you have little business elsewhere. Why does everybody continue to believe they deserve to be monetarily successful in the arts? Study the bands from the heyday of the classic rock era, in many cases they didn’t give up their day jobs until after their first tour after their album was a hit. But today, if you decide you’re an artist, you believe you deserve to be able to make a living by only playing your music. Insane. Then again, in today’s world no one can handle the truth. In a world where truth is fungible anyway. Conventional wisdom is Spotify is the devil stealing from artists and Ticketmaster keeps all the fees and the artists have been screwed. Today it’s all about emotions, feel, and that does not mean truth, no way, and it’s not only in music.

So, by awarding Jon Batiste the big trophy, the Grammys have undercut their credibility.

Credibility. That used to be key before it all became about money. Yes, Reagan legitimized greed, the boomers sold out and ever since it’s been about the gross. And the oldsters in control of the levers of power keep telling us young people don’t care about sponsorships or endorsements when the truth is they just want their percentage thereof. Credibility as a concept never dies, it’s just that few people embrace it. We are looking for credibility, especially in the arts, where honesty prevails, a cousin of credibility. Sans credibility you’ve got disposability, like so much of today’s music, just like the Grammy telecast itself. One great credible thing can survive the ages, trump a ton of hype and endorsement, but it’s hard to deliver honesty from the heart and stand up to the man, the system.

The system. I saw Harvey Mason Jr.’s speech. At least they pre-taped it, so there would be no faux pas. And the roundup of musicians saying they were the Academy was well done. But then you give the big award to Jon Batiste? It makes me think the Academy is made up of the people testifying who’ve never made it, and probably never will. The Motion Picture Academy is exclusive, not anybody can join, they still haven’t let Rob Schneider in. But the majority of the Recording Academy is people who’ve never had a hit, who’ve never had commercial success, and that’s fine, but should they be voting for consumer-facing awards?

Of course not.

The public is led to believe these are the best records out there. They know there are vagaries in the system, but when something totally left field wins a big award, they scratch their heads and move on.

Which is exactly what is happening to the baby boomers. Once again, give Ben Winston credit for breaking with the classic rock past. But the business is still run by boomers, and they’ve got to go. Gen-X’ers too. Everybody who remembers music before the internet is tied to a paradigm that no longer exists. Metrics that no longer make sense.

Which comes down to the Grammy telecast itself. A variety show? Network TV will air anything that garners eyeballs, and they gave up on variety shows decades ago. Yes, we used to huddle around “Ed Sullivan” on Sunday nights, but that was just to see the Beatles, it was an interminable wait to get to the musical acts, and although we can remember Topo Gigio, we would have rather just seen the five minutes we were interested in. Which is what we have today, hallelujah!

But those on the selling side hate this. Listen to my album! Yeah, back when music was scarce and albums expensive you’d get free product and take a chance. But in today’s overwhelming world you’ve got to deserve the time, you’ve got to weasel your way into the brain of the consumer and that’s the hardest thing to do. But somehow in music we should lay down our defenses, give time to those who call themselves “artists.”

And now I realize I’m going off the rails. But I keep getting e-mail saying I should support artists, that I should be positive. There’s a whole industry for that, which will beef up your false hopes. End result? NOTHING! It’s like giving a kid a trophy for competing. You don’t expect to see that kid in the big leagues, he finds another line of work, only a very few can make it to the show. Ever been involved in athletics? You’re always fearful of the cut. Your name is not on the list. Even in the NFL. But in music everybody should play?

I guess they do, because these are the people voting for the Grammy awards. The public is smarter than that. The public can see through the ruse. The public knows to ignore the Grammy anointments, because one false move can undercut the credibility of the entire operation.

I’ll close with a story told to me by Tony Wilson, a name well-known in Britain but not in America. Tony was an Oxbridge educated man who was a TV presenter and a record company ruler. He was the majordomo of Factory Records, in Manchester, the epicenter of dance music. They even made a movie about him, “24 Hour Party People,” watch it, it’s very good.

But forget the bio. Before he got involved in the music scene, not long after school, Tony was the weekend news presenter for ITV. Tony says that a researcher gave him inaccurate football scores, whatever the case, Tony went on TV and delivered inaccurate sports scores. The next morning his boss came in and was this close to firing him, and after giving Tony another opportunity he said “If we can’t get it right on the sports scores, people won’t trust us on the big issues.”

Bingo. That’s what the Album of the Year award to Jon Batiste represents.

Case closed.

(However, the Grammys will self-congratulate and nothing will change. Old boy networks never die, they just fade into the sunset until no one can see them anymore.)

I saw it.

My inbox is inundated with punters laughing at and criticizing me, if only I’d watched the Oscars, I would have seen the slap.

But right after it happened I got a text. And then an e-mail with the uncensored Japanese clip. So in fact I was more up to speed than those watching the telecast, their version was censored, I got the full effect.

In other words, today you don’t miss anything. And this is hard for oldsters to fathom and others want that badge of honor, of paying their dues, of being there. But that doesn’t mean much anymore.

I mean if you want to watch a sporting event… Sure, you can miss out on the action. But anything else? If you really care you can DVR it, but one thing’s for sure, if anything happens you’ll be able to watch it ad infinitum indefinitely. As for the surprise? It was still surprising when I found out. As for the meaning?

That’s another thing people are e-mailing me about, my take. But my take doesn’t matter. Nobody’s take does.

This is how it works. The Academy does its best to evade responsibility. And pushes into the future any change. I mean coming out days later saying they told Will Smith to leave? Why wasn’t that in the initial press release? Makes it hard to believe, seems like a cover-up.

As for Will Smith, he resigned from the Academy, which ain’t much of a loss, and there’s no reason he can’t get back in. He apologized, which is what public figures do when they commit a faux pas.

The public? Has been whipsawed. First reaction was positive, a man defending his wife, we need more testosterone, like Zelensky. And then as the days went by conventional wisdom flipped. Smith was guilty, it was heinous behavior. He must be punished, to set a precedent, so this can never happen again.

Now this isn’t Trump signaling his troops by saying there are good people on both sides. This is one actor who lost control. Which begs the question whether anybody can be forgiven today. I mean I wouldn’t jump on stage and slap someone, but I don’t come from the same background as Smith, and I’m willing to give him a pass.

This is what is wrong with America, the one strike and you’re out policy, the gotcha game. You cannot touch the third rail and survive. And it seems like the third rail is always nearby. I’m not saying there shouldn’t be consequences, but am I willing to tar Smith’s reputation for all time? No. Because I’d like to be forgiven if I cross the line. People freak out and do crazy things.

But now you might be thinking I’m endorsing Smith’s behavior, but I’m not. The best analysis of the slap was given by Kareem Abdul-Jabbar:

“Will Smith Did a Bad, Bad Thing – Slapping Chris Rock was also a blow to men, women, the entertainment industry and the Black community.”: https://bit.ly/3K555lC

Once again, the sideshow has become the main show. The hoi polloi focus on the micro while those who truly run this country are above the fray, do not pay attention and commit their crimes willy-nilly. The slap sells ads, for papers and TV stations. It gives people something to talk about. It will be remembered, but how about who won? I bet you can’t name most of the winners only a week out.

The only person who played the game right here is Chris Rock. You don’t respond. Chris is smarter than politicians and seemingly every public figure. If you’re in a Twitter war you’ve already lost the plot. Stay above the fray, let the haters have their way, if you respond you will only look bad, which is exactly what they want. By not pressing charges and moving on Rock represents the twenty first century ideal. If you get caught up in the craziness you can never win.

But here I am responding to readers.

But I really just want to make the point that no one misses anything today. If anything good happens on the Grammy telecast you’ll find out immediately and be able to view it just as fast. And you won’t have to waste three plus hours to do so.

Time. Even babies are scheduled. There are so many opportunities, so much  I want to do. The entertainment industry still acts like scarcity rules, when that hasn’t been the case for two decades. You accept that you cannot reach everybody, you superserve your core audience and forget about everybody else. And if you’re lucky, you might have a viral moment, but those are rare, you can try to manipulate them but surfers are savvy these days.

And if the Grammys were a business someone would be fired. And if you put in a placeholder you’re doomed. This is what happened to Apple, it was going into the toilet, until Steve Jobs came back, revolutionized the software and simplified the product lineup. Then again, Steve Jobs was not only a brilliant businessman, he was more of an artist than anybody taking the stage tonight. Did you see that Scott Galloway quote?

“Hollywood used to be the cultural center of the universe. It’s fallen to a close second behind the tech community. The two have a lot in common: Both mix fame and money to create a brazen lack of grace and self-awareness.”

That’s all you need to know.

It’ll probably be a good show. But does that mean you have to watch it?

Last year Ben Winston threw out Ken Ehrlich’s “Grammy Moment” playbook and created an intimate affair that seemed to live in the present as opposed to the past. But that does not mean the show will reflect people’s tastes.

Prior to the MTV era the Grammys were a sideshow. They didn’t know how to get it right. If you were a true music fan it was a badge of honor not to watch the Grammys. At that time your fandom was a badge of honor. You wore the shirt of the obscure act, you didn’t want to be seen as a me-too follower. But AOR radio consolidated its playlists, corporate rock reared its ugly head and the record business imploded, only to be rescued by MTV. Yes, there was a disco component, but it’s best to say dance music has always existed and still exists, and the frat boy whites just couldn’t handle the change, even though dance music is a staple of that same cadre today.

So the eighties were an era of consolidation, of a monoculture. The independent FM stations…suddenly were taking their playlists from MTV. The tail was wagging the dog. Suddenly all of America was on the same page, the entire world was on the same page. The Police blew up on MTV and then toured the world, where there was demand. This was new, as were the amounts of money thrown off by overpriced CDs. This was long before the CDs only contained one good track. Albums were still short. Sure, there was filler, but it was still about the complete project.

And then in the nineties labels got greedy. AOL discs were free, but CDs were still expensive. Oftentimes the CD only had one good track, but if there was a single, it was cut out as soon as the song got traction. The business was profiting, but the customers were angry. The internet ethos had not yet taken hold. Which is one in which you follow the customers, give them what they want, let them participate, or else your business is decimated. True seers give the public what it doesn’t even know it wants, like Steve Jobs with the iPod, and Daniel Ek with Spotify, but these disrupters are rarely in control of the industries that are affected. Even though Clayton Christensen said you must disrupt yourself, few companies are willing to do this. As a matter of fact, it’s only tech companies who seem to push the envelope, record companies have a constant stream of income from legacy product, and the goal of being a label president is to make bank, especially now, when the role has almost zero gravitas.

So, Napster came along and blew a hole in the record business. Which complained, and kept to its playbook until streaming came aboard. Then it was those looking to the future, most especially the hip-hop artists, unconstrained by prior restrictions, who could record at a minimum cost and oftentimes delivered their music for free, who gained hold and started to dominate.

The labels shrunk their staffs. Came to bat much less frequently. Wanted giant hits. Remind you of the movie business? Exactly. The movies lost their power to television. And the labels…lost their power to a zillion different acts. The record companies would swoop down and swallow the cream, like Lil Nas X, but the rest of the world’s recorded output they wanted nothing to do with, but that’s where the public’s interest lies, assuming the public is interested at all.

We haven’t had a record that woke everybody up and made people pay attention in years. Don’t talk about Adele, that was promotion of a preexisting product. As for Silk Sonic… Like “Blurred Lines” it’s got the feel right, it hearkens back to the past, but the songs are so substandard as to hook almost no one. This is the world we live in today, where no one involved is willing to say a negative word. Whereas criticism ruled prior to MTV, you’d argue about acts. Now everybody just parties 24/7 and shoots selfies and posts them on social media.

Yes, the cutting edge is TikTok, I’d rather watch a three hour exposé of that than a smorgasbord of acts that are far from universal, most of which don’t appeal to me. Yes, they’ve got Billy Strings, but that’s tokenism. And, once again, Strings lacks the hit material necessary to reach a larger audience. And Chris Stapleton, who does it differently from everybody else in Nashville, yet is the most beloved act in Music City, and successful to boot. Stapleton went back to the garden, not retro, but influenced by the past, and delivered an authentic sound that resonated, and far beyond the country base. You’d think that would be a beacon, but so far no one  of significance has followed in his footsteps. It seems everyone wants to be famous for the trappings as opposed to the essence. They want to be famous. As for the rabid fans of some acts…it’s like the Sharks vs. the Jets, a sideshow only interesting to those involved.

So what we have here is an industry that has lost its hold on the national consciousness. However, live events are burgeoning. Festivals are must-go-to events, and sure they’re based around headliners, but the undercards sustain them, where is the undercard on the Grammy telecast?

Nowhere.

Yes, we are returning to the pre-MTV days. It’s the unheralded that people adhere to and follow. They find out about these acts organically and then tell all their friends about them. It’s no longer a top-down culture, but a bottom-up one. And by trying to be universal the Grammys are missing the point. There is no universal anymore. Used to be everyone knew the performers, I guarantee you a large portion of those watching tonight will be unfamiliar with the acts, and this was unheard of in the Grammy heyday from the late eighties into the beginnings of the twenty first century. Music can cross languages and borders, but there’s not enough music that does this, except for Latin, which used to be ignored by the suits, but now is embraced by the audience. The internet set Latin music free. And I doubt most Latin music fans would be thrilled by the Grammy lineup.

Yes, we’ve gone niche. And the Grammys are broad. Made to play to everyone. Which is why network TV has lost its audience, people went to that which was more vibrant, first on cable and now on streaming. And every once in a while there’s a streaming phenomenon, like “Squid Game.” We haven’t had one of those in music in years. Because there’s nothing so innovative, so out there, yet so right, that everyone needs to talk about it and discuss it. And still, there are people who haven’t seen “Squid Game.” Because the universal is passé.

Now I’m talking about the Grammy telecast. Not the organization and its multitude of awards. It’s a circle jerk of musicians who believe they should be rewarded for their work, even though only their peers are aware of it in most cases. Awards never worked in music, because the best stuff is ahead of the voters, they only catch up after the fact, which is the way it should be. Go on YouTube, find the endless news reports making fun of the internet, didn’t they miss the point.

So if you don’t watch the Grammys, you won’t miss anything. You’ll see a show constructed to appeal to all tastes when the truth is active fans have no desire to see it. Music is on demand now. Talk to a youngster, if you say they listen to terrestrial radio you’re lying. No way, they don’t want to sit through commercials and they don’t want to be spoon-fed what they don’t like to get to one or two tracks they do, which is exactly what the Grammy telecast proffers.

But it completely misses the point that we no longer live in one big tent. Maybe if the show was comprised only of up and coming acts. Maybe if it didn’t try to be a roundup, but just an exhibition, a learning experience. If only it wasn’t self-congratulatory, but more of an adventure. No one has to watch the Grammy telecast anymore, they have umpteen options, they can cater their life to their whims, their desires. This is what the oldsters don’t get about smartphones, they’re genius, they’re the best thing that ever happened, you have the world you want to experience at your fingertips, and guaranteed it’s not the one anybody else has at their fingertips. You customize your world. And it’s only the old wankers who complain about this. They want you corralled into their world, the Grammys, when you’ve given that up long ago.

Music is gaining health because the mainstream push continues to lose audience share. People are sick of holier-than-thou nitwit artists. Come on, you’re feuding online, you’re looking for endorsements, what is there to believe in? Why should the audience take the music seriously when the performer does not? Want an interesting TV show with legs? Break down the income of every performer, from records, live, endorsements. That, people are interested in, that they’ll talk about, whereas this three hour extravaganza will be forgotten right after it happens. Oh, the straight media will write about it, but especially when it comes to the arts, straight media has never meant less.

So expect reams of publicity after the fact. Expect the involved or brain dead to talk about it. But really, it’s become a badge of honor not to perform at the Grammys, not to be involved. Artists are unique, they don’t scramble for awards. They’re the anti. And the public propping up music knows this. They’re listening to and going to see acts far from the Grammy mainstream, they’re passionate about them, they are living in the future while the Grammys are living in the past.

If you’re watching the Grammys to be educated, the joke is on you. Today you must be active, not passive, you must find your own desires, just like on social media, you must get involved to gain the full experience.

If you’re watching the Grammys for business reasons… You’re missing the point. The big is no longer so big, and that which is promoted is too often hollow at the center. Yes, you can pull the wool over the eyes of the young, but the older you get the less you want to be a lemming, you kick the tires, decide if something is worthwhile before you dedicate time to it, since time is your most precious commodity.

So the Grammys are a TV show and an organization out of touch with the times. Old farts who don’t want to lose control.

But they already have.