It’s educational.

If you want to know what is going on with the drug war, you’ve got to read the Sam Quinones books. Start with “Dreamland,” which delineates the beginning and growth of the opioid epidemic, from rural Kentucky to south of the border, and his new one, “The Least of Us,” which is all about today’s fentanyl epidemic, as well as the meth story. One of the bottom lines is Quinones believes the surge in meth use is causing a surge in schizophrenia. Actions have consequences. You may survive a Covid-19 infection, but fifty percent of the infected have ongoing symptoms, I know two people who still don’t have a sense of taste and smell eighteen months on. So beware. Then again, we live in a country of “winners,” and if you fall by the wayside, either through some misstep of your own or sheer luck, you’re forgotten. Hell, you don’t see the vaccine deniers supporting those who’ve been infected, never mind died, and you don’t see the anti-health insurance troops coming out in support of those whose families have gone bankrupt as a result of illnesses they had no hand in causing,

Ain’t that America.

And if you know the story, heroin exploded in America because everybody got hooked on opioids, doctors were handing them out like candy. Purdue Pharma said OxyContin wasn’t addictive when nothing could be further from the truth, and then when the hooked could no longer get scripts for legal opioids, they turned to the illegal one, heroin. Which for years has been a far cry from the street drug you were afraid of in the last century. Heroin is cheap, and it’s delivered to your door, but too often now it’s laced with fentanyl…a super-powerful synthetic opioid that can kill you right after you’ve taken it, just ask Tom Petty. Oh, that’s right, you can’t. Fentanyl is a boon for those truly in pain, but if you’re taking the street version, you’re truly taking a risk. Well, the truth is you think you’re taking something else, but it’s got cheap, powerful fentanyl in it and you die. The cartels love the economics of fentanyl, but those won’t help you if you’re lying dead in bed.

So, the first three seasons of “Narcos” were the well-known Pablo Escobar story. They dragged it into a third season, but it was pulpy and entertaining and…

That’s not “Narcos: Mexico.” The story of the Mexican drug cartels is much messier, with more people involved and constant clashes. And unlike in the Colombian/Escobar version, the star of one season doesn’t necessarily make it into the next one, BECAUSE THEY’RE DEAD!

That’s what “Narcos: Mexico” does so well, demonstrate not only the risks of being a drug dealer, but the collateral damage of their business.

So, the third season is a bit hard to understand, unless you’ve read “Dreamland.” You see the cartels have different “plazas,” with different entrances into America, and they’re fighting over access and supply, constantly.

But it gets even better, BECAUSE IT’S REAL!

They constantly interlace historical footage amongst the TV series drama. This all happened. These families were at war. The government was corrupt and…

This is where we’re heading in America. Believe me. And also believe me there will be collateral damage. This is what happens when you lock out opportunity for the underclass, they find a way to get rich.

And believe me, the drug dealers love the adrenaline of the action. But when they’re not doing business, they’re partying. Seems like a sad life if you went to college, if you’re an educated person. But that’s not who these people are. If you want to get rich so you can party, I feel sorry for you. That’s a very empty life. I’m never going to underestimate sex, it makes the world go round, it’s more important than any business, any amount of money, but when it comes to drinking and drugging, it gets very old very soon, and the conversation attendant to it…may be novel at first, but then it’s endless repeats.

And the truth is that’s why today’s musical stars are seen as second class by the cognoscenti. They’re not that rich, and they’re not that educated, and all they want to do is party. So they can be manipulated by the rich when needed, and dropped thereafter. That’s right, you can get a sponsor, a private, but if you think you’re ripping off the man you’re sorely mistaken, your pay is a pittance to them and if you don’t toe the line you’re out, and chances are your window of dealmaking is very short, your fame doesn’t last, whereas the corporation is forever and the execs get paid double digit millions year after year after year.

Not that the uneducated are inherently dumb. That’s what makes “Narcos: Mexico” so interesting, Amado and Chapo are so damn smart, especially the former!

You can reinvent the system, you’ve just got to be able to leap forward in thought and then convince the powers-that-be you’ve got a better way. When it comes to music, the creators of Napster didn’t even ask, and at this late date, more than twenty years later, those in power back then still haven’t gotten over this. Not the execs, they fired the high-paid boomers, replaced them with low-paid Gen-X’ers and Millennials, and got more from the acts as a result of 360 deals. But really, the labels were saved by Daniel Ek, and if you’re legacy talent you’re still bitching about this. But instead of complaining, you should look at today’s Grammy nominations. Recognize the names? Probably not, time is always marching forward, and time passes you by and then your time runs out.

So, drug dealing is a game. Which requires a lot of thought, a lot of mental effort, along with some muscle. You’ve got to get a supply. You’ve got to establish a chain that brings it to the ultimate customer. You’ve got to pay off law enforcement, and you’ve got to battle for turf with your competitors. And there is no court of last resort, this isn’t about fairness, but smarts and brute force. No one helps you win, it all comes down to you. But the price can be very high, your life. Then again, you can make so much money you could compete with third world countries. And with money comes all kinds of power.

So in this new season of “Narcos: Mexico” we have the stories of multiple plazas, and the evolution of their power. Amado gaining, the Arellanos losing. The Sinaloans going up and down and…

The whole story being chronicled in “La Voz,” which is true! And they, the cartels, kill not only their competitors, but journalists, elected officials, if you’re going against them, you probably won’t survive.

So the series is building up to the ultimate power of El Chapo, that will play out in coming seasons. But at first he’s got no way to get his drugs across the border and…

There are loyalties and alignments but can you really trust anybody? And if you’re further down the food chain, should you stay loyal to the end or at some point do you switch sides?

As for America and its DEA, it’s a fruitless effort. “Narcos” is the best advertisement for the legalization of drugs ever, but that won’t ever happen, because there’s too much money in it and the drugs themselves are vilified as opposed to the reasons for taking them. I mean if you’re uneducated, working a low level service job, never mind manual labor, what else have you got but getting high and hopefully sex? Nothing. And drugs are glorified by the entertainers and everybody is smoking cigarettes, especially in “Narcos.” You think you’re immune, that the actions of your youth will never catch up with you, but Billy Hinsche died of lung cancer over the weekend, all that smoking caught up with him, at 70, which may sound old to you today but when you get to that age, believe me, you’ll want much more time.

So, the third season of “Narcos: Mexico” is a commitment. There is an arc, but it is multifarious and confusing. But that’s life, it’s rarely linear and ordered like it is in a movie. And speaking of movies, they never go as deep as these extended streaming series do.

So…

Either you’re watching “Narcos” or you’re not. It’s one of the progenitors, not as early on the scene as “House of Cards,” but it predates “Stranger Things,” never mind “Squid Game.” “Narcos” arrived when people still thought movies were king, which is certainly no longer true.

And if you want fantasy, go see the Marvel epics. But if you want reality, which when done right is always stranger than fiction, always more educational than fiction, always more riveting than fiction, watch “Narcos.”

And if you’re caught up, if you watched season 2, I recommend season 3. It’s an investment as opposed to a delightful trifle. The stories are not as clean-cut. But they’re real, you’ll get a peek into the way it was, and the way it still is. It’s happening today, it looks like it will never go away. And you can rarely identify with the protagonists, as DEA agent Walt says, he’s not a good guy, but real life is not a comic book, it’s complicated, with many more losers than winners, and the truth is everybody wants to play the game and win at some level. Just like the Narcos.

I don’t like having to wait so long for a new season, but I’d rather they continue to take the time to get it right. “Narcos: Mexico” rings true, which is the most riveting and scary thing about it.

Songs with “thanks” in the title and/or lyrics

Tune in tomorrow, November 23rd, to Volume 106, 7 PM East, 4 PM West.

Phone #: 844-6-VOLUME, 844-686-5863

Twitter: @lefsetz or @siriusxmvolume/#lefsetzlive

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He knocked us out. It was his Prince at the Super Bowl moment.

I can’t watch this stuff in real time, I’m not even sure if I care anymore. You’ve got white girls and Tom Hanks blandly testifying as to the greatness of Carole King, who is truly the G.O.A.T., and then Dr. Dre comes out and hits the ball so far over the fence my jaw is still dropped.

Come on. Dre was speaking from the HEART! This wasn’t some star du jour, some entertainer booked for marquee value, this was a superstar of hip-hop laying it down for a guy…

Who most of us thought didn’t belong in the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame.

But in this performance he proved that he deserves a spot.

Let’s see… Hip-hop crossed over to white radio, on KROQ, with “The Message.” It was an underground east coast scene that couldn’t be held down. And then the west coast got involved and by time Snoop Dogg and Dre came together, it killed rock and roll. Hell, I haven’t seen a rock performance as good as LL’s in EONS!

But this was a different era, this was when music was still dominant, when it truly defined the culture, the last time this happened. Yes, rock started in the fifties, flowered in the sixties, cleaned up in the seventies and went global in the eighties and by time we got to the end of that decade we had hair bands singing ballads in spandex and then hip-hop came along and wiped the floor.

Of course we had Nirvana. But no one could keep Kurt Cobain down, he was a rock and roll original, a combination of Carole King and the punk of both the U.K. and England distilled in bite-sized hits and the public couldn’t hold back, they were infected. But after that…

Of course we had hit rock records. But in the last ten years rock died because it lost its essence, its truth, its sense of melody, its belief that the music is paramount.

Although this is even worse in hip-hop, where becoming a brand is more important than what’s in the grooves. But LL Cool J predates all that. When to paraphrase Max Yasgur, it was about the music, and only the music, and we could all pay fealty in happiness to it.

Well, not the east coast and west coast, but that’s a different subject.

So today we’ve got Kardashians who sing. You can bump your ass to the music, you can shoot selfies, you just can’t be saved. When once upon a time music saved EVERYBODY!

So to tell you the truth, I can fast-forward through anything. Like I needed to see Jennifer Hudson pay tribute to Aretha Franklin one more time? I mean WHY? She’s not the one being inducted, it’s Carole King, who thankfully got her time at the piano, but everything else, Ms. Hudson, was superfluous, she’s not in the Hall and never will be, BECAUSE SHE’S NOT AN ORIGINAL! We don’t want singers, we want something more, people who deliver life itself, who are embodied in the songs, which they make their own, whether it be through their own lyrics, music or both.

So…

The white elite Democrats believe it’s all about education, manipulating the system to stay on top. And then along comes this guy in a silver suit who takes everybody into space. I mean you’re sitting there watching and all you want to do is get CLOSER! This is what music used to specialize in. This is why Chris Stapleton wins all the awards every damn year and the poseurs playing to the lowest common denominator, singing about babies and church, do not. DON’T PANDER! If you can’t risk going into the wilderness, following your own muse, if you need twenty other writers to put it together, you’ve missed the point, we want you to channel GOD, and that’s what LL Cool J did tonight.

I mean the energy, the power, there was more than you get in a rock show. I haven’t yet seen the Dave Grohl parade that closes this show, but there’s no way it can compete with LL Cool J’s performance. Grohl smiles, he strums his guitar, LL WAS the music. You weren’t distanced, you were drawn in, you wanted to get closer, which is why Black culture runs this country, despite the denigration of the people of color’s power. I mean you don’t want to be so afraid of your girlfriend getting pregnant that you won’t have sex, all the mores, the viewpoints of the scared white people, can’t hold a candle to the message of LL Cool J and Dre and…

Eminem.

Travis Scott brought Drake out at Astroworld as a special guest. Drake is the biggest star in America, maybe the world, but he’s not dangerous, there’s no edge, he’s selling entertainment. LL Cool J was not about entertainment. And just when you thought the roof couldn’t be lifted any higher, Eminem came along and blew it right off.

I mean Em’s got a dark beard, he’s wearing a hat, you’d be forgiven if you didn’t recognize him. But once he opened his mouth, once he poured his words into the mic…the two of them on stage together, it was the musical highlight of a very sad live music year. We think about Covid, and politics, and then LL Cool J and Eminem come out and transcend both, and demonstrate that words and attitude are everything, and if you believe in what you’re doing we can TELL!

Meanwhile, the audience’s heads are exploding as if Oprah gave everybody there a Lamborghini.

And then J.Lo appeared. Why? We all know she can’t sing, we all know her vocals were fixed in post. Carole King comes out looking her age and lays her hands on the piano and puts her mouth to the mic and the years fade away, because when done right music is timeless, and there’s nothing Jenny from the block has ever done that will stand the test of time.

But then thankfully Ms. Lopez left the stage and LL goes right back into it, without missing a beat. He’s not slowing down, he’s got Kiki Dee’s music in him, he’s delivering, all you can do is stand at attention and MARVEL!

And that’s what everybody in the arena was doing, standing. And those who were infected by this music the first time around were mouthing the words, they knew them all by heart, however fast LL was spitting them.

And then, he stopped and the arena EXPLODED! I mean as great as Paul McCartney is, and we saw him in the audience, there’s no way he could have generated this heat, we’ve all seen his trick, experienced his magic, but LL Cool J was a REVELATION! Some knew, not everybody, but now they’re aware, they’ll never forget it.

I mean remember Prince at the Super Bowl? He came with something to prove, and he did, he superseded the game itself. Quick, who played, who won? I doubt you know, but you remember the purple one delivering on stage.

And even the peripheral dancers worked. BECAUSE OF THE ENERGY! That’s a building block of rock and roll, it’s part of the ESSENCE!

And when the noise quiets down and LL comes to the mic, what does he talk about? HUMILITY! I mean it’s supposed to be the rappers who brag, but LL’s playing it cool. And then he pays respect to the rockers, says how hip-hop was built upon their music. Sure, he thanked God, but not as much as he thanked his mother, you need someone to believe in you, and he mentioned his family, because fame is not enough.

And he also referenced hard work. You may have the dream, but are you willing to do the work? Very few are. LL talked about the rejection before Def Jam took a chance on him. Can you handle it? People have no idea how hard it is to make it, without a safety net. It’s not like LL could have gone to graduate school, gotten a job at his father’s firm, no, this hip-hop thing had to WORK! And he made sure it did.

I’m positively blown away. Do you know how hard it is to impress someone, anyone, with music on TV? Nearly impossible, which is why live music TV ratings are consistently awful. And then LL Cool J comes along and blows all the carbon off the valves, cleans out the pipes, in just a handful of minutes demonstrates why he deserves to be a member of the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame, convincing even naysayers like me.

LL… WELCOME!

They’d do boffo at the b.o., but the only people who were interested in a new ABBA album turned out to be in the media.

The media thrives on hype. And it prefers entertainers who already have mindshare. It’s a comeback story, there’s an arc, the reunion, the cutting of the album, the cataloging of their prior work, the character studies, and then the music itself, which no one wants to hear.

Of course people checked out “Voyage” just to see what it sounded like, to see if the magic was still there, but there was no way in hell “Voyage” could be a hit, NO WAY!

First and foremost ABBA is a singles band, and to sell an album they’ve got to have a hit, but it’s absolutely impossible for ABBA to have a hit today, the only way they can conquer the chart is by aligning with a hitmaker du jour, as Elton John has done. But their music is out of touch with today’s scene, youngsters aren’t aware of them and the avenues of mainstream exposure are more limited than ever before. Look at the Spotify Top 50, does ABBA belong there? OF COURSE NOT!

That’s the world we live in. To have a hit you’ve got to make hip-hop or beat-infused music, with the 808 king and melody oftentimes absent. And if this is not your forte, don’t even start, just build a body of work, and build your career on the road.

Yes, the paradigm has flipped. Music is now a live medium, not a recorded one. Of course there are records, but they mean less than ever before, hits reach fewer people than ever before, and no one expects hit music makers to last and they’re only as good as their last hit. Then again, in the modern marketplace you can have a few stiffs and it doesn’t matter, you can still have another hit, which was previously impossible. But today failure instantly disappears. As does greatness too frequently. Yes, you can record a great track and it can stiff. The era of cream rising to the top is over, it ended back in 2012 or so.

As for creating a new hit if you’re not already firmly in the marketplace, having had hits already, it’s going to be very damn SLOW! Think of it this way, hits are oceans, vast and broad. But rivers feed those oceans. And there are a zillion streams dripping into bigger rivers, gaining momentum until they hit the ocean. That journey takes time. Which is why if you’re not aligned with a hitmaker du jour, be prepared to slug it out. Of course there are overnight hits, like Lil Nas X’s “Old Town Road,” but they’re extremely rare. And, Lil Nas X’s hit was the first big TikTok breakout, and that can only be done once. Which is why we only had “In Rainbows”/name your own price once. The first time it’s new, a novelty, a story, after that it’s de rigueur and almost instantly passé.

Acts are out of touch with the marketplace. But those on the other side of the glass understand it, not only the label employees, but the producers, like Max Martin. Max Martin’s career would be toast if he was the act, the market would not accept all his twists and turns, the different kinds of music he made with various different people. The market labels you and it’s nearly impossible to broaden your appeal, to change to do something different, you’re lucky if you’ve hit with what you’ve got.

And, the music is an accessory, promotion for the tour, whereas it used to be vice versa. Don’t think about making money from your recordings, but how you can use those as an element in your marketing plan for your tour. Either you’re in it for the long term or you’re rolling the dice, and the odds are long. It’s nearly impossible to crack the Spotify Top 50 for most genres of music, don’t complain, go the other way. The key is to bond the audience to you, to generate fans. Fans of the act, not fans of the track. People who like a track are not convinced the act is worth paying attention to. But if you have a body of work of a similar caliber, they’re interested.

This isn’t going to change. As for those complaining about the low payouts for recordings on streaming services, the truth is in between the old paradigm and the new, a whole hell of a lot of other product and diversions flooded the market. You used to compete against 5,000 other albums a year, now you compete against 60,000 new tracks a day, as well as the history of recorded music. So attention per product, per album, goes down. Look at TV ratings, they’re the same. And same at Netflix. They aren’t in the ratings business, they’re in the business of getting you to continue to cough up your subscription fee every month. This is how Disney+ faltered. Disney+ appealed to children and “Star Wars” fans, there are only so many of them, so signups this last quarter were anemic. Netflix appeals to EVERYBODY, and its subscription numbers went up beyond expectations. And Netflix not only has a broad swath of genres represented, it’s got a huge number of shows! And the truth is, it’s never clear what will resonate with the audience, which is why you must make a lot of product, no one could foresee “Squid Game” being an international monster. And speaking of international, all those Latin acts, like Bad Bunny, would have previously been ghettoized, they’d find it impossible to conquer the marketplace and sell out arenas and stadiums. But now their target market can be reached, and in addition new people who were unaware of the music previously can be exposed.

You’re alone out there. If you’re depending upon the machine to carry you, you’re delusional. The machine has endless choices, it doesn’t need any specific act, it just needs hit acts, and there are always enough of them.

So, ABBA put out an album to hype their virtual live show. Well, the word got out, but I’m not sure a new album was the way to go. It has now tarnished the act’s image a bit and taken the focus off the live project, where all the potential money is.

So, if you’re a heritage act, forget the Spotify Top 50 unless you tie up with an act with Spotify Top 50 success. And if you want to make money, create/jump on/be first in a new paradigm. The Eagles did this with Walmart, “Long Road Out of Eden” didn’t penetrate radio, it was a sales event that entered millions of the homes of boomers. And today the band rarely plays a track from the double album live. The audience doesn’t want it. And this is depressing, but it’s reality. So, make new music for yourself, to feed the hard core fans, because the hit marketplace is closed to you, CLOSED!

And then you had U2 and Apple. They got paid, although there was huge backlash, the music being driven down the throats of people who didn’t want it. There are people who don’t want to be forced to get vaccinated, and there are people who don’t want U2 on their computer or phone EVER!

But both of the above were sales games. How can you get people to actually listen to your new music?

Well, first don’t make a lot of it. You need to go track by track, trying to have a hit. And you need tie-ins with television and so many other outlets. Still, it’s hard to get anybody but a hard core fan to stream your new music again and again, if for no other reason than there’s so much in the marketplace, they’re fans of what you did, not what you’re doing.

And on one hand this sounds bad, but on the other it sounds good. The truth is there are more live shows than ever before. People are hungering for live music. And sure, there are huge productions set to hard drive that fill arenas, but there are many acts sans production who play live, who evidence humanity, who are doing endless business on the road, and the young acts’ business increases in proportion to the quality of their live show and their recorded music in concert. Which is why metal is thriving but it’s nowhere in the Spotify Top 50, and metal is not the only genre.

ABBA employed a twentieth century plan in a twenty first century world. Maybe you could come back in the aughts, but as far as new music, it had better be the early aughts, when music television still meant something, when VH1 could bang your track.

Now, if you’re a classic rocker planning your comeback/reunion tour, it’s too late, unless you’re a giant, like ABBA, which is not going on the road, or Pink Floyd and Led Zeppelin, who are not getting back together, they’re the biggest of the big. If you played the Fillmore and sold some records long ago, chances are it’s too expensive for you to tour today, the numbers don’t work. You can go play house concerts, solo, but the costs of production at a bigger building require high ticket prices from an audience that’s starting to stay home, with many on fixed budgets. Elvis’s merch is going down, BECAUSE HIS AUDIENCE IS DYING! And now it’s going to happen with the boomers, and classic rock acts. They were everything, and not long in the future they’ll be nothing.

It won’t go on like this forever, with only young acts in narrow genres owning spots in the Spotify Top 50. The decline of terrestrial radio will broaden acceptance of other genres. But the truth is, youngsters stream most. But as I said above, stream counts are not everything. It turns out if you give an honest show and change it up on a regular basis it doesn’t matter what kind of music you make, you can build an audience and grow. Can you become as rich as a techie or banker? No. But you have more power than they do, because you touch hearts and minds, never underestimate the power of music, because when done right it’s got SOUL!