They’re the North Vietnamese.

Maybe you’re too young to know. But the North Vietnamese were demonized, the domino theory said they must be defended against, otherwise Communism would march down the country and spread even further and… AND WHAT? the younger generation began to ask. They were shipped halfway across the world WHY? Once they thought about it, it didn’t make sense to them. Meanwhile, when America pulled its troops the North ran over the South nearly as fast as the Taliban recaptured Afghanistan. You see the South, just like the lauded Afghani troops, just didn’t care that much, they were supported by those American dollars, and once they were gone, so was their will to fight with all their heart and might, and the North Vietnamese took over.

Now it turned out the domino theory was false, and today Vietnam is seen as a tourist spot. Then again, wages are not that high, that’s where they make Nikes and other products, but China gets all the attention.

So, Republicans want an America that no longer exists, and they’re doing their best to make sure they get it. And if they can’t, which they can’t, progress moves forward, they’re going to do their best to put the brakes on change. Democrats? They just don’t care that much and they’re in disarray to boot.

That’s right, the Republicans are united. Together. They all hew to the same line, march to the same beat. Look at how they’ve all lined up behind Trump. They know it’s about defeating the enemy, the Democrats, they put their individual needs to the side in pursuit of mass victory. And they seem to be damn good at it.

So on the left there is complaint of misinformation, disinformation. But first and foremost, the right is not privy to this analysis. Like in North Vietnam, the message is controlled, in today’s internet world it cannot penetrate. So facts are irrelevant, it’s team ball, 24/7, and it turns out the right needs victory more than the left, it never gives up, it stays on message, it never sleeps. Meanwhile, the left shrugs.

Let’s see, the left… The supposed “big tent.” Well, the left counts on minorities to get them elected, but then ignores them. It doesn’t deliver what is promised. And then these same minorities stop showing up. They’re doing the heavy lifting, like the Blacks in Georgia, and then when victory is secured they barely get lip-service. And you wonder why minorities stop voting. Hell, if it weren’t for Trump, do you think everybody would have been so fired up about going to the polls last year?

Yes, on seemingly every metric, the Democrats are the majority. Even their principles are the majority. Again and again this is revealed, the people want gun control, health care, so many programs. But the Republicans don’t give them to them. The philosophy is different, you’re on your own, it’s your responsibility. I mean who wants to pay for the takers anyway? And all of the right in D.C. is afraid to cross Grover Norquist, taxes are anathema, even the collection of taxes is anathema, the IRS has been hobbled to the point where you can cheat and get away with it, your odds of being audited are incredibly low, and just about the same as those of a poor person. Furthermore, believing in an old America that does not exist, i.e. the American Dream, every poor person on the right doesn’t want higher taxes, because they plan to be rich, this is the hope that’s keeping them alive.

Yes, the switch has flipped. Now a lot of the rich are Democrats and the poor blue collar workers are Republicans. Because the Democrats stopped looking out for them. And if they’re ever coming back, it’ll be years, they’re now embedded on the right.

And every time the Democrats have a victory based on change, they move to the center, alienating those with hope. So why should those on the left continue to show up and vote, why should they care.

The right’s way of life is threatened 24/7, that’s what they believe. Meanwhile, everybody on the left accepts reality and goes to sleep.

Now don’t tell me about the activists on the left. They get shot by the party powers. Like AOC. Irrelevant of whether you believe in her positions, name one other elected official on the left who is speaking to the youth, NAME ONE! It’s the right that has young players, with an endless farm team.

And if you look the wrong way, you’re excoriated and after being pilloried you’re removed on the left, like Al Franken. Meanwhile, Matt Gaetz is still in office. As is Marjorie Taylor Greene. Greene’s main complaint against Liz Cheney…SHE’S DISLOYAL! Where’s the loyalty on the left, let’s ask Joe Manchin and Kyrsten Sinema. Cheney is loyal to democracy, at the risk of her elected position. Manchin and Sinema are loyal to their donors, their pocketbook, and care not a whit about the team, so the team loses.

As for the woke… It seems Democrats care more about trans people than they do poor people, and people of color. Only the Democrats could come up with a moniker that its members reject, i.e. Latinx. The left is so busy hewing to an inane line that they’ve lost touch with the mainstream public. You can want national health care, support a ton of Bernie Sanders’s policies, yet still be angry about trigger warnings and the rest of the ridiculousness emanating from college campuses. Rationality has left the building. But the point here is not reality, but MESSAGING! The left gets labeled and then accepts the label. The right is fighting a war, the left is fighting amongst itself.

I’m not going to even bother to delve deeply into the issues, the point here is the battle. The right is truly convinced that the left is coming for its way of life. The left? Well, they look around and think things are pretty good, and when an issue arrives… NOW they’re concerned about the makeup of the Supreme Court, where were they when Hillary Clinton was the last line of defense here?

The Democrats only show up when it’s too late. They can’t seem to be energized before that. And who are you going to believe anyway. The right is all about true believers. The left is all about compromise with mealy-mouthed candidates who no one can believe in but the fat cats that support them.

And the right is playing the long game. The Federalist Society. The focus on control of state governments. You don’t win on the first day, you can’t just show up every two or four years for elections. And what is going to make you show up anyway?

As for social tropes… That’s what people care about, that’s what energizes them. Trans people in their bathrooms. Bad books in schools. Progress always wins, IN TIME! After all, gay people can get married and marijuana is legal in so many states, but… That’s not the game, the real game is ginning up some issue to make sure people get energized and vote Republican, next time there’s just another issue.

Meanwhile, those on the left who do care have no idea what is truly going on with the right. They’ve excised both their Republican friends and Republican media. They look around and think everything is okay. Everybody they know is on the same page. Or the trouble is in red states, or other places that don’t affect them. But authoritarianism never sleeps, just like rust.

Yes, the right wants someone to make it right, to keep the trains running on time, if not the post office. Then again, they want the trains gone too, at least government support for them. But they’re willing to sacrifice so much, even their vaunted freedom, so immigrants don’t cross the border and darkies don’t move into their neighborhood and take power. If it takes a strongman to achieve this, so be it.

Does democracy hang in the balance?

It does. But try convincing the rank and file voter, who can’t make ends meet. They’re looking at today, maybe tomorrow, but the long view is out of their purview, beyond their vision, their goal is just to live that long, to be housed and fed, never mind shot along the way in unsafe neighborhoods that the right keep crowing about and the left can’t seem to improve.

So even if you’re motivated, it’s hard to believe in the left. We want vision, a march forward, not more of the same. Terry McAuliffe was a flawed candidate. Then again, the left specializes in this, running compromise candidates who no one can believe in. Forget the agenda, can I at least believe in those who are running? Nothing seems to get done in D.C. anyway. How is it the flaw in moving forward is the rogue Manchin and Sinema when the real enemy is the block on the right who won’t participate in government, who refuse to even investigate 1/6? Talk about messaging, talk about controlling the dialogue.

So this is the way it is folks. The Republicans need it more and will do anything and everything to get what they want. They’re even challenging the underlying game. Meanwhile, those on the left believe in an era of government from half a century ago, which is long gone.

There’s no way Biden wins in 2024. And if he doesn’t run, and he probably won’t, there’s no way in hell Kamala Harris can win. I can’t think of a single person to nominate. Trump is on his way to victory. Whether he keeps his hand on the scale or not. It’s hiding in plain sight but those on the left refuse to see it, refuse to believe it can happen, deny the deleterious effects like Jews in Germany.

When do you freak out? The Democrats are like lobsters in a pot. Not even complaining their space is restricted, that they’ve been caught and are no longer in the ocean, and oblivious as the temperature goes up and they’re slowly cooked. Once upon a time they were raw, but self-interest and disinterest allowed them to cede ground slowly and then…

This is how you lose a democracy, slowly, and then all at once.

But I’m not trying to scare you. It’s the unreachable I’m trying to scare. They’re just too somnambulant, down their pleasure pathways on the internet, to be paying attention, to truly get it. Wouldn’t you like to have an enemy like this? The Republicans are hoovering up adherents while the left is in total disarray, no legendary leaders, not even a coherent agenda, not even the ability to enact change.

North Vietnam won.

As did the Taliban.

Because they wanted it that much. They needed it that much. It was all they thought about 24/7.

Just like the Republicans.

Who would you pick to be the bass player of the fantasy band?

This is not necessarily the best bass player, but the best bass player for a BAND!

Tune in tomorrow, Novemver 2nd, 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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OLD ACTS DIE

Don Henley is telling audiences at Eagles shows that this may be the last time they see the band. Whether this is true or not, so many of the legendary classic acts are in their seventies, and despite their plastic surgery nobody lives forever, and neither will they. This will put the nail in the coffin of rock and roll, just like the casket containing jazz was sealed over half a century ago. People will still play the music, but there will be very few rock hits.

PEOPLE WILL STOP COMPLAINING ABOUT STREAMING PAYMENTS

Yes, splits with record companies could be better, but the truth is there are only a hundred cents in the dollar. Once again, it’s the oldsters bitching loudest, and as they sail off into the sunset their cries will die with them. As for younger acts, they no longer see recording income as the end all and be all. When people talk about Drake or the Weeknd they don’t talk about the record deals they sign, or the amount of money they make from recordings, but their income overall, which comes from multiple revenue streams. Youngsters see that there are many ways to monetize today, that being a musical star is an entrée into a cornucopia of revenue opportunities. Their goal is to get enough traction, become a big enough star, to qualify for those opportunities. As for wannabes, they’ve always bitched and still will.

DEVELOPING LIVE ACTS

There’s nowhere to play. So more acts will make it from their bedrooms. Bands are passé. Nothing is universal these days, NOTHING. Meaning there will still be hard rock bands, the kind you hear on Active Rock radio, but people coming up will realize that first and foremost it’s about the track, Lil Nas X being the perfect example. Our entire nation has shifted inside, and it’s not only the pandemic that caused this. The local bar where a band can get started playing covers is nearly gone. Wanna make it? Write and record a hit song.

HIT SONGS

Are tracks that people know, not tracks pushed by the machine. Doesn’t matter if they’re on the radio, in advertisements, it’s just a matter of whether they’re hooky and special enough to penetrate the public consciousness. Sure, those in the top of the Spotify Top 50 can be hits, but not all of them are.

HYPE VS. REALITY

The gap between the two of them will continue to widen. The younger you are, the less susceptible to hype you are, well, at least if you’ve reached puberty. Today so many have grown up in a world where TV is on demand and doesn’t have commercials. They don’t read physical newspapers. Ads are something they tolerate online. But if you want to win in online advertising you must be gentle and truly fit the surfer’s specific needs. To experience this go on Instagram. Surf long enough and you’ll be seeing ads that make you think “this could help me”. As far as big marketing campaigns that shove things down our throat, not only are they less effective, they have the opposite effect, they turn people off.

E-SPORTS GROW

Football causes too many injuries that our nation ignores, at least many parents no longer let their kids play football…baseball is too slow and boring…hockey has never gained traction outside of Canada and Russia…basketball’s hipness seems to be fading, it will be played forever but its arc of popularity will be based on charismatic stars, then again, even these have less impact than ever before…it all comes down to E-sports: the action is fast, the barrier to entry is low, everybody plays them, anybody can make it. The point being if you want to promote an act, attach it to E-sports. Which is why concerts on Twitch are so big.

PRODUCTION IS KING

The bigger the show, the more the production. The bigger the show, the less it’s about music. This is the Broadwayification of the music business. If you’re going to charge this much for tickets, there must be spectacle, the audience must be wowed by what they see nearly as much as what they hear.

FESTIVALS WILL THRIVE

We’ve learned there can only be a limited number of them, but that does not mean they won’t grow in power and revenue. Ticket prices for festivals will go up and up. It’s like going to an amusement park, the roller coaster is what makes the reputation, but many attendees don’t even ride it. Many festivalgoers don’t even see the headliner, but it’s the headliner(s) that sells tickets. Festivals are a promoter’s dream, if successful, they’re uber-profitable. Therefore, headline prices will go up and up. Will headliners share in the gross? That will be argued, promoters will stick their heels in the ground, but just like acts with leverage get part of the Ticketmaster fee, they’ll want part of festival revenue, or festival OWNERSHIP! Especially if you want to start a new festival, those who help you gain traction will want a piece, especially if it’s not promoted by Live Nation or AEG, entities that can take the hit as the festival spends years trying to get in the black.

JOBS

Once it was cool to work at a record store, they no longer exist. Once it was cool to work at a record label, but they no longer divine culture, acts start elsewhere and the majors hoover them up. All the action is in the live sphere. Or on the internet. Online you can make your own destiny, and the younger generations know there is no lifetime employment and no one cares about them so they’re always trying to make a buck online, and traditional industry is behind them. It takes money to be a promoter, but not to be a label. Where you start with no money is online, breakthroughs in platforms, campaigns and acts will continue to thrive there. No one in the music industry saw TikTok coming.

COMPETITION SHOWS WILL EXIST BUT MEAN EVEN LESS

It’s about the panel, the competition, not the music. Which is one reason why music competition shows have only burgeoned on network, which has to cover the widest audience. No music competition show has worked on a streaming outlet, NONE! Because online it’s about the goods as opposed to the penumbra. When you slice and dice the audience, which is what happens in streaming, you’ve got to appeal to a narrow niche, and the truth is very few fans of any genre want to watch these shows, they’d rather just listen to the music. So the big paydays of celebrity judges will decline. Then again, if you’re a star you always have power, because you have REACH! To grow a substantial audience and gain market share is almost impossible these days, so those who break through will be rewarded.

HIT ACTS AND THEN EVERYBODY ELSE

The head of the tail, which will be populated by ever fewer acts, will be where all the rewards are, because of both talent and reach. But music will continue to be overloaded with wannabe acts, the barrier to entry is essentially nonexistent and music is part of the fabric of life. But streaming sites might ultimately put up barriers to getting on their platforms, 60,000 new tracks a day on Spotify is just too much. Then again, Spotify, et al, may realize the negative consequences of disallowing people from their platforms is just too great and just pay for the storage space like YouTube, believing it’s good for the business.

YOUTUBE MEANS LESS FOR MUSIC

People are now seeing a streaming music subscription as a necessity. Sure, YouTube Music gains subscribers, but it will never be a player, and so much of its base just wants videos without commercials. Also, YouTube’s ads may now be de rigueur, but they’ve increased in number, don’t appeal to the audience…it may be free, but it’s a bad experience. Every time I go on YouTube I’ve got to say whether I want to subscribe? Imagine your phone service asking you whether you want to upgrade whenever you make a phone call…or text!

PUBLISHING

The share of streaming revenue going to songwriters will rise. It’s artificially low because major labels also control publishers and they don’t care where the money comes from, as long as it comes. But now so many publishing assets are outside the major label sphere. With sophisticated investors/owners who want a return. This has popularized the plight of the songwriter. And when light shines on inequity, change happens. The U.K. government report said the problem wasn’t streaming service payouts, but label payouts/deals. And now the light is shining on publishing, there will be change. But if you are a songwriter…it’s about the hits. The days of having an album track pay your rent are history. So, like everything else in the system, a very few will make more money and everybody else will be on the sidelines. This is the story of the last twenty five years. All the tech companies are huge in value but have proportionately fewer workers than the old blue collar behemoths like General Motors. As the business continues to be refined it will require fewer workers, not more. But those who survive will be handsomely compensated.

CATALOG

Is what gives you power and revenue, which is why those who own it, like the major labels, will always have a seat at the table.

HITS

It always comes down to hits. And hit acts. That’s the future. Distribution has been figured out, now it’s all about software. If you’re bitching about the platform you’re either ancient or ignorant, or about to be displaced. There’s a dearth of hit songs, and a dearth of magnetic acts. Breakthroughs are always unforeseen, and in a world of billions, there is someone who is always doing it differently. For some, the trappings are more important than the music, the sell, the wow factor is key. But there will be acts that focus on music only, that won’t complain, whose credibility will be key to their adoption and success. Today everybody says yes, tomorrow’s paradigm shifters will have to say no sometimes. These acts will not be brewed, not hatched by the usual suspects, they will come from seemingly nowhere. But to be ubiquitous you need help. Certainly from concert promoters. Online, you can to a great degree do it yourself, but an injection of cash, from a major with relationships, does aid the ascension. If you want to be a star in the future, be different, and not only in marketing. It’s very hard to write a hit song, to make a great record, but that is the starting point, and the competition will get even more fierce. Talent and vision supersede boundaries and rules. Always have, always will.

Sales don’t matter.

Which is hard to believe in an era where seemingly every #1 is based on sales. You can no longer game the chart by giving away albums with tickets, so now there are these vinyl packages, most of which are souvenirs, many of which go unplayed, their owners don’t even have turntables, but that doesn’t mean the purveyors can’t sell them to go to #1 for a week, meaning you should never ever trust the “Billboard” chart…NEVER! Never mind that we’re even talking about sales in the streaming era. We live in an on demand culture, buy any movies on DVD lately?

And then comes today’s propaganda:

“4 versions of scathing anti-Biden rap ‘Let’s Go Brandon’ now in iTunes Top 10”: https://bit.ly/3pQmS8L

If you’re unaware of the “Brandon” phenomenon this article will explain it. Anyway, in a bit of right wing gamesmanship, the conservatives are doing their best to own the libs, even ramping up their publicity machine, with all of their bloviators on social media pushing the message, but…it doesn’t mean anything. Go to Spotify, “Let’s Go Brandon” is not in the Top 50, as a matter of fact it has almost no impact at all. As of this writing the track has a grand total of 565,434 streams on Spotify. #50 on the Spotify Top 50, “Freaks,” by Surf Curse, has 364,314 streams A DAY! As of this writing “Freaks” has 287,974,290 streams on Spotify. In other words, the right wing tried to own the libs and nobody noticed, it had no impact, other than in the echo chamber they reside in. You see today it’s not about sales, but CONSUMPTION!

This is a sea change the oldsters are still upset about and the wannabes are complaining about. It all comes down to how much people want to listen to your music. As for the iTunes Store, sales have been decreasing for years. So it’s no longer about a one time action, BUT A CONSISTENT BEHAVIOR!

Getting people to spend a buck at the iTunes Store is wholly different from getting them to spend hours listening to a song. And if you try to game Spotify by having a campaign of endless repeats of a song, the company’s data can pick up on this and quash it. So, creating a sustained fake hit is essentially impossible. No, IT IS IMPOSSIBLE!

So that’s the music business. Completely transparent, you just look at the Spotify stream count, which usually exceeds the YouTube stream count, because music lives on Spotify, not YouTube…which is really for the incredibly young and the incredibly cheap, not to mention there’s a free, ad-supported tier on Spotify. YouTube is lousy for music, despite the company’s disinformation campaign saying otherwise.

But the music industry doesn’t like transparency, it’s their worst nightmare, so they employ smoke and mirrors to make you think something is a hit when it is not, and then hopefully there will be enough momentum that it actually will become a hit. Sometimes this works, but it’s nearly impossible for anybody but a major label to pull this off, you need money and relationships and commitment, and it doesn’t always work for the big boys either, then again their bottom line depends on tonnage, they’re not interested in a million plays, you’ve got to get about 100 million plays before they even begin to get interested!

As for the news/press… We can debate all day long whether Biden is doing a good job. Then again, there no longer is debate, just two major silos, on the left and the right, which barely intersect. And truth doesn’t even matter. So, if you want to use modern systems to make a difference, look at the end result, not the press story. Did your action truly move the needle, are people listening to the track? BTS fans signed up for tickets to Trump’s Oklahoma rally and changed the outcome, the Trump team thought there was huge demand, they even erected a secondary stage outside, but this wasn’t the case, most of the ticket requests were fake. End result, attendance was low and it looked bad for Trump and those truly paying attention learned that it was motivated youths online who moved the needle, and that demonstrated a new level of power, as opposed to running up some novelty track on iTunes.

If someone in the music business starts quoting iTunes numbers, laugh. They’re really stretching for a metric to make their case. And it gets even worse, someone will tell you their track/album is #1 on an obscure chart you’ve never even heard of, like Caribbean Children’s Music. That’s today, where there’s always a number to support your case, which means savvy people investigate and dig for the truth. But many people don’t really care about the truth, it’s all about team politics, winning. Which is why you’ll hear that vaccinated people are more contagious than the unvaxxed, I kid you not.

So what we’ve got here is a tug of war, between the oldsters and the youngsters, between people who want facts to stand and those who want to manipulate the facts to say something else. And if you’re just a casual consumer, surfing by, you might get a completely inaccurate picture of what is going on, especially in the era where it’s so hard to get people’s attention and deceptive, sensationalist headlines are employed.

The old want the game of the past to maintain. And they don’t understand the tools/methods the youngsters use to manipulate today’s game. We thought the internet would propagate truth, but just the opposite has happened. We have hard numbers in the streaming business, but no one wants to use them, because they’re immutable, they show whether people are listening to a song, and too many make excuses if people do not. “It’s only young people who stream.” “I made so much more money in the CD world”… I’m not saying the streaming world is perfect, but it’s the most accurate we’ve ever had. People bought albums and played them once. Now, in the on demand world, it comes down to whether people actually listen to your music. And in a world where you’re competing with the greatest hits of all time, never mind the hit records of today, that’s very hard to make happen.

Then again, the winners of today mean less than the winners of yesterday, their reach is less, there’s just too much in the marketplace.

Confused yet?

That’s exactly how they want you to be.