https://spoti.fi/34IItr2

Spotify is never going to get rid of Joe Rogan.

The truth has now outed:

“‘In 2019, our music and podcasting catalog was not that differentiated, and because of this we were locked out of deals with some critical hardware partners like Amazon, Google, and even Tesla,’ Ek said. ‘They had or were working to build their own streaming services with essentially the same content, so there was really no reason for them to integrate our service.'”

https://lat.ms/3LiO1cO

As I always say, distribution is king. You may have the greatest product extant, but if no one can consume it, or if it’s hard to find, you’re dead in the water.

These tech titans are evil. For a while there they were exalted. But most people today know that they are cutthroat operators. My best example of this is Bill Gates, who insisted Dell and other computer manufacturers pay for Windows EVEN IF IT WASN’T INSTALLED ON THE MACHINE! Yes, maybe you wanted Linux. You could get that, but you’d pay for Windows anyway.

And now, it’s taken nearly forty years, but Bill Gates is a pariah. Turns out he’s a creep. A nerd who never learned the boundaries, since he had bread and status he thought he had sexual power, he started hitting on everything that moved, EVEN THOUGH HE WAS MARRIED!

Karma, it’s a bitch.

Will karma kill Mark Zuckerberg? Well, he took a hit last week, and the pile-on has been incredible, people were just waiting for this moment.

But of all the tech titans, the one with the smallest footprint and the least amount of power is Daniel Ek.

You can get his music from multiple platforms. He can compete on algorithms and playlists, but that’s not enough of a differentiation to dominate.

Although Spotify does dominate in a way, that’s where the most listening transpires, it’s where the biggest music fans are. But now some of these fans are pissed and are ankling the service in the wake of Neil Young and his compatriots removing their music from the platform. That’s right, CSNY & Nils Lofgren, who plays with Young. And India.Arie.

They’ve achieved their goal. You’ve got to know when to hold ’em and know when to fold ’em. The concept of getting rid of Rogan is a specious one, because of the above. Spotify needs Rogan for DISTRIBUTION! If you control the most popular podcast in the world, exclusively, other platforms need to make a deal with you. People want to hear Rogan via Alexa. And Tesla owners may not be that angry they’ve got no AM, but no Rogan? Why? It makes no sense to them.

So now these other platforms need to make Spotify available. They’ve got no choice, you can’t get Rogan and other exclusive Spotify podcasts anywhere else.

Exclusivity. Apple was asleep at the wheel. They had first mover advantage, after all, they call it a PODcast! But they let their platform languish, and then Spotify came in, which needed podcasts, which Apple did not, and the green logo company bought the sphere in plain sight.

Everybody else saw podcasts as an open platform. Daniel Ek saw the power of exclusivity.

And he finally has a foot in the door and he’s going to pull it out? NO WAY!

Not that Spotify should not be considered a publisher. Along with Facebook and the other social media platforms. Someone’s got to take the tech titans’ fingers out of this dike, let the water flow, leave them no choice but to admit they’re publishers and need to oversee the content on their platforms.

But for now…Joe Rogan is on the run. He’s going to think twice before he hosts a misinformation spewing nincompoop. He’ll never use the n-word again. And if he does, HE’S TOAST! All those people defending Joe…once the n-word story came out they reneged, or went silent. You can’t be aligned with the n-word unless you’re Black, you cannot explain your usage of the term away, you’ve just got to shut up and be silent, AS IT SHOULD BE!

As for further misinformation, what Neil Young and his compadres should do is put their music back on Spotify and with the funds they now earn pay someone to listen to each and every Rogan podcast, and then blow the whistle if Joe crosses the line. That’s how you win here, hold Rogan’s feet to the fire. Because Ek is not giving him up unless he crosses the line, and when someone does this, after being warned, they’re abandoned, repeat your bad behavior when the whole world is watching and there’s no forgiveness, YOU SHOULD KNOW BETTER!

And believe me, Joe Rogan hasn’t been sleeping too well, and is thinking about who he is booking and what he says in the future. You may not know this if you’ve never been in the public crosshairs, but anybody who has does.

As for all the b.s. about Spotify payments… CAN EVERYBODY STFU?!!

There are only a hundred cents in a dollar, Spotify is already paying seventy to rights holders, they can’t pay you more than they take in, NEVER EVER!

And let’s stop talking about penny rates per stream…THAT’S NOT HOW THEY’RE CALCULATED! It’s a percentage, which changes based on the number of subscribers. It’s not written in stone, never was.

And if we’re bitching about the value of a Spotify stream, why not the payment for a terrestrial radio spin…which presently is NOTHING for the recording in the U.S. And this shouldn’t be so, but in truth all online outfits pay for use of the recording, including Spotify, and terrestrial radio keeps fading, it may end up being mostly talk.

So let me see… You want more money. And Spotify’s got no more. So where is it going to come from? OTHER ARTISTS! Yes, why don’t you go to Drake or the Weeknd or Bruno Mars or Lady Gaga and say…you worked your butt off, you made it to the top, you sacrificed so much along the way, and now we’re going to PENALIZE YOU for being so successful. Do you think they’re going to buy it? NO WAY!

Yeah Kanye… You’re too successful, you’re taking up all the air, give a big chunk of it to us, the ones who’ve never broken through, because we’re working really hard and we DESERVE IT!

Huh? Exactly why??

As for songwriters, they were screwed by the major labels, who own their own publishing companies, best to take less for songs and screw the rest of the songwriters. And this is on EVERY platform. As for Spotify agitating against songwriter increases… Like I said, there are only a hundred cents in the dollar, most quarters Spotify LOSES money. If you want more money songwriters, get in the face of the major labels!

That’s right, all the artists bitched about streaming payments in the U.K. and the government held hearings and found out the main culprit was the major labels, paying a small percentage of what came in to artists. If songwriters want more money they need to protest against the majors, but they’re opaque organizations which are famous for hoarding what they’re not entitled to, do you really think they’re going to give you their money? But that’s where it would have to come from.

Daniel Ek is not saving Joe Rogan, he’s saving HIS COMPANY! The same company that is THE MAIN DRIVER OF RECORDING INCOME! You want Spotify in business, believe me. Pressure got Ek to publish guidance, content rules, focus on those who break the proffered rules going forward! Forget the past, it’s set in stone. Neil Young doesn’t remake “Harvest” and post it online instead of the original.

So I’m posting my playlists on Spotify…

And do you know why I do so?? BECAUSE OF THE FREE TIER!

That’s right, ANYBODY can listen to the above playlist, ANYBODY! You don’t have to subscribe to Spotify. And none of the money from music subscriptions is given to podcasters. It’s the free tier that built streaming into a behemoth, that saved the record business, get rid of it and watch revenues stagnate. And that’s right, you can listen free on YouTube, and for years the recording industry has been fighting for higher payments and what have they achieved? BUPKES! In truth, despite all their b.s., Google could give a damn about music, it’s a small part of the company’s overall revenue. But, turns out dedicated music listeners have abandoned YouTube for Spotify, AND THIS IS A GOOD THING! YouTube isn’t great for music, but Spotify and the rest of the streaming platforms are.

But Bob, WHAT ABOUT THE LITTLE GUY?

SCREW ‘EM!

This makes me crazy, want to make some money? Jobs in America are going begging. Why are you entitled to make music from recordings? Give me one good reason. Because you WANT TO? It’s a competition, and only the best win. And if you’re not winning, your music doesn’t appeal to most people. So either convince them to listen or deliver what they want. If you want a subsidy, talk to a museum, a nonprofit, not SPOTIFY!

I’d like to play for the Yankees. I like baseball. They should let me play. At least in the minors. And pay me enough to take care of all my bills. And I don’t want to ride in the bus, give me a limo.

You can go to all these sites making a TON more money than me and get false hope. They’re feeding you b.s. so you’ll pay to use their platform, telling you you can win when you can’t. That’s an entire business, giving false hope to wannabes. How many of these wannabes break through? CLOSE TO ZERO! But they all want to be paid. They’re “professionals,” they deserve to make a living in music. Drake, CAN YOU HELP A BROTHER OUT?!

Once again, Spotify should consider itself a publisher and Joe Rogan should not be spewing misinformation. Now we’ve drawn attention to the behavior, now they’re under the microscope. Mixing metaphors, once again, hold their feet to the fire, it’s the only way progress can be made.

Turns out the other acts don’t want to follow in Neil Young’s footsteps. Own it Neil. For your own credibility. Stop spewing nonsense that people should quit working for Spotify. ARE YOU GONNA PAY THEM?

It’s what they told us in the sixties, if you want real change you’ve got to go inside, run for office! If you want real change you want to stay on Spotify, you want to continue to use Spotify, TO MONITOR THEIR BEHAVIOR!

So tonight when you chase the dragon, listen to the above playlist on Spotify.

You might want to tour the southland in a traveling minstrel show, but that’s a hard road to go down. I mean you’ve got costs, and you have to sell tickets…

Some people are listeners and some people are players. Some people are professionals and some people are hobbyists.

And if Rogan touches the third rail once more, go back Neil, and do it again, wheel turnin’ ’round and ’round, go back Neil and do it again!

Tune in today, February 8th, to Volume 106, 7 PM East, 4 PM West.

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

Twitter: @lefsetz or @siriusxmvolume/#lefsetzlive

Hear the episode live on SiriusXM VOLUME: siriusxm.us/HearLefsetzLive

If you miss the episode, you can hear it on demand on the SiriusXM app: siriusxm.us/LefsetzLive

And now the odds of her winning five gold medals are history, her odds of winning ANY gold medals are very long.

Makes you hate American media. They need a face for the Olympics, they decided it was Shiffrin, just like they decided it was Bode Miller back in 2006 in Torino. And not delivering, despite being the overall best in the world, Bode was forever branded a loser, when in truth the Olympics are just one set of races, subject to the vagaries of the system, and the fact that Bode went on to win three medals in Vancouver, one of each color, was not good enough, the focus was now on Lindsey Vonn.

Vonn won gold in the downhill, and a bronze in the Super-G, so she became America’s sweetheart. Julia Mancuso’s two silvers in Vancouver, to go with her gold in Torino and bronze in Sochi…Julia WHO?

If you’re a student of the game you know that Shiffrin has not been as dominant since her father died. But life intervenes. You also know that Annemarie Proser-Pröll, probably the best women’s ski racer ever, not that anybody recalls, never mind remembers history, took a year off to take care of her sick father, otherwise…we wouldn’t be talking about Lindsey Vonn challenging Ingemar Stenmark’s record of 82 victories. Moser-Pröll won 62 times in 11 seasons. She won the gold in the downhill at the Lake Placid Olympics. Whereas Vonn won 82 times in 19 years, and there were two more events, the super-G and combined. Unlike Vonn, Moser-Pröll could win in all three events of the time, instead of today’s five. But at first Moser-Pröll was not photogenic, she was significantly overweight. She ultimately slimmed down considerably and still won, but most Americans have never heard of her. The machine needs a new face, and they got it with Vonn, and they expected it with Shiffrin.

Shiffrin was a machine. She finished seemingly every race and won in slalom again and again. Once again, if you watch ski racing, you know this is essentially unheard of. Hermann Maier wasn’t as good. Marcel Hirscher was the closest thing to Shiffrin, but he didn’t ski downhill, with its higher odds of injury.

Now you can’t completely count Shiffrin out in super-G and downhill, but the odds are very long, especially in the latter. As a matter of fact, Shiffrin skipped the speed events recently to concentrate on the so-called technical events, slalom and giant slalom, in preparation for the Olympics. After she recovered from Covid. She had to deliver for America, she was the great blonde, white hope!

But along the way, a new contender came along. She’s just as good as Shiffrin in the slalom, AND NO ONE HAS EVER COME CLOSE! Petra Vlhova has already won five times in slalom this season, Shiffrin only twice. Psychologically, this is very difficult for Shiffrin, who always knew she was better, she could hold back on the first run and cruise to victory in the second, knowing she had just a little bit more in the tank than anybody else. But now she’s got to go all out, all the time, which increases the odds of mistakes, like today.

Let’s see… Today. A steep, icy course. Vlhova herself bungled. Shiffrin got past the first problem area, where others had fallen and bungled, but further down…she went over.

I’m sure Shiffrin’s mind was now in front of her skis. She’d gotten through the hard part, she was on her way. But she lost her edge, her skis slipped out from under her.

Now if you watched it on TV, you were stunned at the angle she was at to begin with. Everyday skiers don’t even come close.

But there’s no joy in Mudville tonight, the mighty Shiffrin has gone down.

And if it were the normal season, Shiffrin would shrug and move on. Everybody makes mistakes. Never mind this race being on a new hill covered in manmade snow which is notoriously icy. Good for later skiers, but a bit tougher overall.

So the odds of Shiffrin delivering like Lindsey are very long. You won’t see her on late night TV, she won’t be on the cover of magazines and newspapers, she disappointed America, she’s nothing but a LOSER!

Anything but.

It’s one race out of the season. But America only pays attention to the Olympics.

Everybody knows that Shiffrin is a legend, superior in her skills to Vonn, even Bode testifies as to Shiffrin’s talent. But she disappointed America, she blew it when the light was upon her, forevermore she’ll be known as the woman who didn’t deliver.

Forget her victories in the past, even gold medals. Doesn’t matter, she was not in the spotlight, she was not carrying the weight of the entire country onto the slope.

Now in Europe, they know how good Shiffrin is. Bode too. They’re heroes. They’re Americans, but their legends really live overseas. And Shiffrin is one for the ages. But in the eyes of America, she’s no Lindsey Vonn.

Shiffrin is 26. She could regain her edge and break Stenmark’s record of 86 victories in 19 seasons. And sure, when Stenmark competed there were two fewer disciplines, but he, unlike Shiffrin, doesn’t ski the downhill. But Shiffrin has even won in the downhill. She’s a five event skier, like Bode Miller, a true oddity in this era of specialization. And Shiffrin has won 73 times in 12 seasons. Quite an achievement.

Now in truth ski racing is no longer the sport it was in the sixties, when Billy Kidd came out of Stowe, Vermont to challenge and beat the Europeans. Kidd was slight. Today everybody works out in the gym, year-round, something Kidd never did. Today’s ski racers are jocks, they’re about as similar to the average citizen as an NFL player. Because if you’re not in the absolute best shape, you have no chance to win.

And in truth, almost all sacrifice their education to compete on the circuit. And when their careers are over, they can trade on their fame, or they could go back to school, but when they finally get in the groove they’re a decade behind everybody else.

And no one is more regimented and focused than Shiffrin. Which is what makes her so great. She famously skied gates on powder days at Burke Mountain Academy, which is like showing up at school on a snow day, unheard of. That’s what it takes to be a champion.

But no one sees all that, especially in today’s world where everybody’s hyping themselves online ad infinitum.

The fact that Shiffrin can compete at all with the weight of expectations upon her astounds me. You’ve got to be loose and flexible in ski racing, anxiety and pressure make you tense.

So I’ve got no problem with Mikaela Shiffrin falling in today’s giant slalom, none at all.

Unfortunately, America does.

Is not yesterday’s fandom.

Every other day I have people attacking me for what I said about Taylor Swift’s performance at the Grammys over a decade ago. When I research further, I find that most of these people were barely born when this happened. But they need to defend their hero.

But Taylor Swift was not like her contemporaries. She was a teenager singing from the heart. She was perceived to be genuine. She represented the demo. AND STILL DOES!

A week or so ago, Damon Albarn of Blur/Gorillaz, attacked Ms. Swift, saying that she did not write her own songs. The blowback was instant. Ms. Swift responded and then her minions piled on and Albarn retracted his statements nearly instantly.

This is also different, stars of yore didn’t bite back. Nor did they have the communications methods to do so. As a matter of fact, most hatred went unnoticed and unread, the internet amplifies hate today, but there are so many more things to hate in the channel.

And hate is the word. There is nothing subtle about it. Not only are you wrong, you must be excoriated, intimidated, the goal is to get you to crawl back into the hole you came from and be silent. Which keeps many people from playing at all, or playing once and then giving up. But unless you’re part of the maelstrom you’ve got no idea what is truly going on in America today, because it’s a war.

Now Taylor Swift has been around for a long time, she broke in 2006, over fifteen years ago. When MySpace was still a thing. And not only was Facebook not dominant, Instagram and Twitter, the entire social media world of today, didn’t exist and had no traction. So really, Taylor Swift is an outlier, her career began in the aughts, under a different paradigm, because today no one can have the footprint of Swift, NO ONE!

This is what the music industry media disinformation machine obscures. Rihanna revealed she was pregnant last week. But she hasn’t had a record in half a decade, she’s in the rearview mirror. Most people shrugged, even though the story is everywhere. In truth, Rihanna gave up music for the mainstream, the penumbra, the opportunities that stardom has delivered, she’s no longer a musician. And she broke the year before Swift, and although she was in the spotlight, she had no rough edges. And sans rough edges you can’t grow a fan base today.

This is what those on the way up don’t realize. That they will never become ubiquitous, not even world famous. Oh, people might know them around the world, but not MOST people, even though the publicity machine will hype them to high heaven. But in today’s multifarious world you don’t have to pay attention to any media that doesn’t appeal or agree with you.

Which is why pop stars come and go. Their fans are not dedicated, it’s all about the songs, it’s momentary. To have a dedicated fan base you have to think smaller, like a metal band.

Metal is thriving. It never ever crosses over to the mainstream, it puts up poor streaming numbers, but its fans are some of the hardest core extant. They relish being outsiders, they’re not just fans of the music, but the whole ethos. You go to the show to be with like-minded people. It’s us versus them. The fact that people outside this world can’t even understand the music, never mind the fandom, only bonds believers to the act and the scene even more.

Used to be people were fans of the system. Now they’re fans of INDIVIDUALS!

It was AM radio in the sixties. Then FM. Then MTV. Now there’s no overarching distribution medium that bonds people to it. Certainly not a streaming service, nobody believes in Spotify, never mind Apple or Amazon. If these outlets were smart, they’d try to gain adherence from their users, akin to the “I Want My MTV” campaign, but they’re run by techies, not marketers, if you don’t understand fandom you cannot create it, never mind nurture it.

It must be an identity. Not only are you a fan of the person and their output, you’re against anything that intrudes upon it. So, one can’t believe in a streaming music distributor, because if it has everything, there’s nothing to hate. You need context.

And fandom can be of a scene, like with metal above. Kind of like the jam-band scene, listeners may be mellower, but they will tell you they listen to nothing else, and everybody else’s music is crap.

Which is what the Joe Rogan story is all about. Forget the content, it’s HIM versus the WORLD!

What’s the first thing a Roganite will say in his defense? HAVE YOU LISTENED TO HIM? Because if you did, you’d instantly become a believer, otherwise you’re the enemy. You either love him or hate him, and his fans will defend him to their death. If you think this is about content, you’re missing the point.

Not that content hasn’t built Rogan’s rep. He’s hosting the outsiders, the people who get traction nowhere else. Which appeals to his outsider fans. What do they say, Rogan has 11 million listeners? That’s a drop in the bucket, especially considering it’s a worldwide number, and Rogan does have fans around the world, and Rogan’s podcasts is the BIGGEST!

Everything is niche. Except maybe the Super Bowl. Then again, America puts on blinders as large men hit each other and cause brain damage. But everybody else is watching football too, we can root for our home team (the idea of the Dallas Cowboys being America’s Team are long gone), and watch a contest which is essentially a fight to the death. It gets our ya-ya’s out. We can yell and scream. We don’t have to hold back. Letting go is approved, whereas every day your behavior is limited by society, what you can do or not, there’s a psychological cloud atop every American, limiting their behavior. This may or may not be true, but people feel it. Because their teams have amplified the message and there are no refs in real life. The word police. The sexual behavior police. People feel constrained and they cannot escape it, nowhere is off the grid, everybody’s connected, so they REACT!

And in order to react, you must have something to believe in. And it doesn’t matter if what you believe in is right or wrong, or if the person delivering the message is heinous, they’re INVESTED in this person and their message, and to show weakness is anathema.

Older people who grew up in the last century, yesteryear, just don’t get it. They think we can all get along. NO WAY! Because for me to get along I have to give up my fandom, my allegiance, and it DEFINES ME!

Otherwise what defines you?

Certainly not your job. It’s low-paying labor or service or else you’re a cog in the machine at the tech company. And the rulers of this country, the billionaires, believe you should be happy, since you’ve got a flat screen, alcohol and maybe even legal marijuana. I mean what else could you want?

TO BE HEARD, TO BE CONSIDERED!

For a while there, people were fans of corporations, especially tech corps. But that was before solidification of the sphere. When Apple was an upstart, an underdog doing it differently, you could align your beliefs with the company. But then the sun shined on the company and its manufacturing and labor processes came into view and no matter what was said in the company’s defense, it didn’t wash. The truth is everybody wants the cost efficiencies of cheap labor, America has voted for lower prices even if it means people have to get on the plane last and take no luggage, and if you go against this you lose.

And Amazon has got its warehouses.

And Google and Facebook have manipulated the online advertising world.

And we get inane doublespeak, like Mark Zuckerberg railing against Apple’s iPhone privacy/anti-tracking options by saying the customer will be hurt, they won’t have as targeted ads. HUH? The users want NO ADS! And Zuckerberg also said this would hurt smaller merchants. Do you really think Americans care about these people? It’s everybody for themselves in America today, and these small companies don’t have enough FANS!

And how do you gain fans?

By being different. It hasn’t been this way since the sixties. The more unique you are, the more different you are, the more you speak your mind, the more people love you. If you post and no one reacts, you’re doing it wrong. As for veracity? Most of the myths of rock and roll are just that, they were manipulated publicity stunts. Rogan knows if he hosts outsiders, his fan base will go rabid, for they feel like they’re outsiders, everybody feels like an outsider today. And the truth is there’s so much in the channel that most egregious statements and behavior never get widespread attention anyway. It’s not like Rogan has just started pushing the envelope of accepted science, he’s been doing this for years! But now with the pandemic and Neil Young’s focus a light is shined upon his behavior and we find…he’s not a prince. But this guy has been in the marketplace FOR YEARS! The biggest podcaster, essentially unscathed. Who else has not been exposed? Spotify quietly removes over a hundred Rogan podcasts, but it can’t cancel him, for one thing his fans will go INSANE! And when your future is bleak, you’ll do insane things to defend your hero, you’ll even show up at protest rallies with a gun. Whereas if you’ve got something to lose… That was the amazing thing about 1/6, all those people entering the Capitol, it didn’t even occur to them that their behavior could come back and bite them in the ass. After all, Trump continued to get a pass, why shouldn’t they?

And people fight over that which doesn’t even affect them, because it’s part of that team ethos. Like that woman who ran for the school board (and won!) even though she HOME-SCHOOLED her kids! This never would have happened in the past. But there’s this feeling if we give just an inch, they’re gonna take more from us, and our backs are gonna be against the wall.

The acts of the late sixties and early seventies realized this. They wanted to be on FM, they didn’t care about AM hits. That was a derided club. “Stairway to Heaven” didn’t have to be a single, it didn’t even have to be SHORT, it wasn’t made for that market, but for the band’s fans and FM. You could believe in the bands of yesteryear. Embracing exploration of your mind when the establishment said to close it. And what really put the antiwar movement on the map was when the acts got involved, in songs, in statements and at protests. They took a side. If you don’t take a side you don’t have hard core adherents. And the lesson we learned from Woodstock was primarily THERE WERE SO MANY OF US!

That was the revelation. That 400,000 people had to be there, they couldn’t be left out, that was the power of the music. Country Joe made a whole career based on his antiwar cheer and song.

Do you see this today?

Mostly not. Musicians yearn to be brands. They’re fearful of pissing off a potential audience member. What they don’t realize is pissing off customers IS GOOD FOR BUSINESS! That’s right, the Dixie Chicks were stars in the country ghetto, but once they came out against George Bush the rest of the nation became aware of them and to this day, almost two decades later, they’re heroes, icons to people who didn’t even know their music before Natalie Maines made that comment.

On a national level, it’s scary. But on a musical level, the opportunities are rampant. Why do you need to be in the Spotify Top 50? That’s a race if you win you can only lose, because unless you keep putting up numbers on the board listeners fade away, and since you hit the heights once, people think you don’t need their fandom, their support, so they fade away, follow other interests. One of the main drivers of hip-hop is the battles between the scenes and the acts. East coast versus west. Kanye versus essentially everybody! Kanye is akin to Rogan, an ongoing train-wreck. You’ve got no idea what he’ll say. And oftentimes it’s loony tunes. And you’d think he’d lose his entire audience, but his believers stand by him, even when he puts out mediocre music, they still think he might deliver in the future.

And Van Morrison and Eric Clapton chose sides too late. Turns out their fans were not as hard core as those of the acts today. Back then the scene and its music were paramount. You might argue who is best, Clapton, Page or Beck, but you’d still listen to all three. But today? NO WAY! You wouldn’t want that chink in your armor

The only reason Neil Young’s anti-Rogan statements had any traction was because of his hard core fans. From day one he’s gone his own way, and not always admirably, like abandoning his already booked tour with Stephen Stills. But his iconoclasm is addictive to his fans. You never know what Young will do, you’re always watching him, you’re a believer even if you don’t like half of his output. Because he aligns with your identity. He’s taking a stand for YOU! He’s not compromising where you’re told to, FORCED TO, compromise all day.

That’s right, you work in the warehouse and your breaks are timed and your output is monitored, you feel more like a machine than a human being. Which is why the STEM people ultimately lose, the battle is fought with the heart, not the head. Otherwise why would people continue to support candidates who support legislation that’s against their interest?

Now there’s another paradigm shift yet to come. When the boomers fade away. Perception is the boomers had it good and screwed it up for everybody else. Also, the boomers are invested in the past. The boomers are responsible for the chains.

Will the whole system blow up, will democracy die before the boomers?

That’s quite possible. Because as you can see above, the underpinnings of our society are broken. We live in a Tower of Babel society when we keep being told there’s one government, with our interests at heart. NO ONE BELIEVES THAT, except for people like Biden and Obama and the rest still living in the past. Trump channeled the anger, he stoked the belief of his adherents and didn’t care about those he pissed off. But on the left? They still think it’s the twentieth century.

So when Joe Rogan crosses the line…

The first question is whether he did or not. And we can’t even agree on the rules to judge his behavior, it’s open season, all the way around.

And Spotify, the host, is hands-off. It wants no part of this battle. It hopes it fades away. And Rogan built its now dominant podcast platform and they don’t want to let go of their flagship podcast.

No one wants to touch this, except for the fans on both sides.

The establishment hopes this fades out, just like so much gets plowed under in today’s tsunami of information.

But one thing is for sure, Rogan’s fans are never giving up, NEVER!

As for Young’s?

To a great degree they’re asleep at the wheel.