Beat the Grammys in the ratings. And to make the comparison even more interesting, they shared the same producer, Ben Winston!

Variety shows are dead. People don’t want to sit through anything they’re not interested in. NOTHING! So if you’re producing something trying to appeal to everyone, you’re in a death spiral. Hell, Adele’s special is on a pace to eclipse the Oscar ratings! Think about that, one singer beating out a whole host of movie stars. Then again, one musician singing their own material from the heart is more powerful than any actor any day. As I’ve repeated many times previously, movies when done right are larger than life, music when done right is LIFE ITSELF!

But don’t get too excited. Adele only reached 10 million people. In a nation of 330 million. Last February’s Super Bowl reached 96.4 million viewers, and those were the worst ratings since 2007!

In other words, mass is declining. Adele is a unicorn in a field of mice. She’s bigger than everybody else, but not that big.

However, if you know your music special history, ratings are historically AWFUL! U2 had a special on Fox during the height of the band’s success that not only lost the night, but by a huge margin. So, truthfully, Adele’s ratings are a triumph.

In a completely different world.

Yes, network television has never meant less. And it skews old, especially CBS, the network that aired the special.

And all this is not to rain on Adele’s parade, but to put her and her work in context.

Dave Matthews Band and Coldplay were beneficiaries of music television airplay, they were on VH1 just before that paradigm ended, when videos became an on demand item online, and since that time almost no act has been that big, because they no longer have a platform that reaches everyone.

Adele made her bones at the very end of the CD era. She sold ten times what anybody else did when physical still meant something, now it means nothing.

Forget the “Billboard” chart, it’s completely manipulated. And sales and albums are completely meaningless today, today it’s all about streams, CONSUMPTION!

In the old days it was all about selling CDs and not worrying about whether they were listened to. Today you sell nothing and it’s all about getting people to listen to your music over and over again.

But once again, Adele bridges the gap, and she will sell physical product to oldsters who have not yet bought into streaming and hard core fans who will buy vinyl. And both of these formats are very profitable, but today they’re a poor gauge of demand.

But Adele proves that America, the world, yearns for an all-encompassing superstar. No one puts up her numbers, not Drake, not the Weeknd, NOBODY! Which has you wondering not only what makes her so unique, but why labels and marketers are not developing acts closer to her than the niches in the streaming world.

Then again, Adele started at a young age, was the beneficiary of musical education and writes and sings, with a unique, great voice, never mind having a great sense of humor that she displays in an intimate fashion.

So, where is the music education in America? Almost nonexistent. The two biggest names in music are Adele and Max Martin, who both were taught in the school system of their respective countries growing up. And they both paid their dues before emerging on the world market. They were not fourteen year old phenoms pushed by their parents and complicit marketers on a not yet pubescent public. No, the chances of your young teenager being that talented and experienced and worthy of attention are essentially nil.

Also, Adele lives outside the spotlight for years between albums, gathering experiences she can write and sing about, and isn’t interested in the brand extensions so popular amongst the Spotify Top 50.

But I’ve had enough.

Adele’s show at the Greek was one of the two best I’ve seen this century. And it was about music, not production. But this all hands-on-deck overhype has me on backlash, I feel like her new work is being pushed down my throat. And the dirty little secret is “25” was not as good as “21,” and the odds that “30” will be as memorable…

Then again, she took five plus years to make it, so maybe it’s excellent.

All I know is all the marketers, the radio stations, are complicit in jamming her. Will we care in six months?

We’ll know when we see the streaming numbers.

Now maybe the label will succeed in delivering single after single to radio, pumping streaming numbers, but without said singles, good luck.

Then again, the biggest act of the past year was Morgan Wallen, AND HE WAS BANNED FROM THE MARKETPLACE! Proving that at the end of the day it’s about the music and only the music. As for the supposed right wing support driving Wallen’s numbers…they couldn’t do the same for that Aaron Lewis track, and you haven’t heard anything about the “Let’s Go Brandon” tracks in weeks.

So in truth every act is stepping up to bat with each new project, and we’re waiting to see what they hit, what they deliver.

But the world has changed since the paradigm was set in the sixties and seventies, when loyalty to the act superseded the ups and downs of album quality. Adele benefits from this, she could sell tickets without any new music. Then again, ticket costs far outstrip what they once were. It used to be a show, now it’s an EVENT!

So Adele is an anomaly. Breaking all the rules. Pointing to a future where no one else is going. Sure, you can sing on TV, but do you have anything to SAY? And those incessant beats, sans melody, they’re not omnipresent on Adele’s albums either.

But to develop an Adele takes years, and in a music business where no one has ownership, all the execs take a short term view, they sign that which they can promote and sell RIGHT NOW, they may not have their job years down the line.

But we used to have a slew of Adeles. Acts that could sell diamond, i.e. ten million albums, and they all made different music, the business was healthy, what changed? Well, the death of the monoculture. All eyes aren’t on anything these days. But one thing’s for sure, Adele’s got the most of ’em!

YouTube: https://bit.ly/3noLxQh

There were two new artists on the “Fast Times at Ridgemont High” soundtrack, Gerard McMahon and the Ravyns. Neither of their songs are on streaming services. You can buy them at iTunes, but you can’t hear them on Spotify, Amazon or Apple, I checked.

But I know them by heart.

1982… MTV hadn’t truly gotten traction yet. Teen movies were still a thing, we didn’t yet live in the Marvel Universe. And music had recovered from the trough in 1979 when rock tried to kill disco but the end result was they both sank. The early eighties, the Reagan era, were optimistic, sunny. This was when the boomers sold out, when money was plentiful and no one could contemplate the division our country is now experiencing. The sixties were over, the rednecks in the south now had long hair, we all listened to the same music and we all went to see “Fast Times.”

I’d read the book. It was a paperback original. The amazing thing was that Cameron Crowe had truly gone back to high school, sometime thereafter he actually took the SATs, both experiences I’m glad are in the rearview mirror. But the book had a different tone than the movie, it was more like the real high school, which was boring and riddled with factions that had classes as their only thing in common, I didn’t expect the movie to become a comedy classic, but I had to see it immediately when it came out.

And at this late date, “Fast Times” is most famous for Spicoli, Sean Penn’s breakout role, in which he made Vans famous. Funny how he made his bones as a stoner when he’s perceived to be so serious today. Of course he followed “Fast Times” up with the sorely forgotten “At Close Range,” doing which he met Madonna, who delivered one of her best songs, “Live to Tell.” for the soundtrack.

Not that there weren’t other memorable elements of “Fast Times”…most notably the return of our favorite Martian as Mr. Hand and the introduction of Phoebe Cates and Jennifer Jason Leigh. And although this was the peak of his career, Robert Romanus as Damone, the creepy high school ticket scalper, was priceless.

And the soundtrack was put together by Irving Azoff, who coproduced the movie, who was now ensconced at the top of MCA Records but had history with Crowe, as well as the soundtrack field, having performed his magic on “Urban Cowboy,” and once again he filled the grooves with superstar artists playing new material, a previously unheard of feat. It was one thing to assemble oldies, but new tracks? By stars? Impossible!

And Jackson Browne had the hit with “Somebody’s Baby,” which Jackson perceived as too light for one of his own LPs. And although Don Henley provided “Love Rules,” I actually prefer the excommunicated Don Felder’s “Never Surrender,” with its driving beat. But the songs I played most, that I remember most, were by the original acts.

Oh, there was another newbie on the borderline, i.e. Louise Goffin, who’d previously put out two no impact albums on Elektra/Asylum. Her “Uptown Boys” is precious. And the peak of her recording career. Although it was hard to drop the needle and play a song in the middle of a vinyl album side over and over again to feed one’s addiction, vinyl might be fetishized today but never forget the convenience of files, never mind CDs.

But side two started with the Ravyns and Gerard McMahon songs, so I could just go to the turntable and lift the needle almost mindlessly and play them again. And I did.

“Raised On the Radio,” the Ravyns cut, was a very eighties rock track, slick, with a driving beat, recounting the history of rock and roll. As for being raised on the radio, we were, we identified, we didn’t think twice, the song had a great pre-chorus and an almost as memorable chorus, but the only place you heard it was on the soundtrack, but because of licensing issues unless you own the original product from the eighties you’ve probably never experienced it. No one could foresee all the ways to exploit music in the future, this was before contracts demanded all rights in the known and unknown universe, when you had to go back to the acts who got another bite at the apple, i.e. compensation, for allowing their music to be used in these modern ways. As for why the Ravyns and McMahon cuts were not cleared, I’m not sure, then again, why pay for stiffs?

That’s right, neither song was ever played on the radio, never mind being a hit. But as driving as “Raised On the Radio” was, Gerard McMahon’s “The Look in Your Eyes” was slow, verging on dreary if it weren’t so good.

“Sometimes you’re miles away, babe
Every change, babe, you’re like the wind in my heart”

It was the attitude, the very slight sandpaper in Gerard McMahon’s voice, the song had rock gravitas, you felt like he meant it, that he was singing from the heart.

And then there was that run up the scale, that unexpected change:

“I’m sure as I wake up in the morn
There ain’t no one that I think about more”

Ah, young love, when it means more and hurts more, when you’re beyond the puppy love stage and looking for meaning, and wondering how long you should look before you settle down.

And then the melody twists some more, embedding the song in your heart.

“There’s a place downtown where I’ll be waiting
We’ll meet like strangers that we are, there’s a bar”

And then the deal is sealed with the chorus:

“Each time I look in your eyes
When I make love to you, I know there’s one thing true
And I can’t lose you tonight
You mean that much to me, you’re all I ever need”

He’s in the throes of it, what could be better?

The eyes are the window to the soul but they’re also insight into whether somebody is into you. In concert with their smile, their lips, you can tell. This is what we’re all searching for, which we so rarely find. Beyond flirting, beyond hit and run, true connection.

The Ravyns ultimately made an album for MCA that went straight into the dumper. But a few years later, I was hanging at a gig, between acts, and was introduced to this guy and asked him what he did and he laughed and said he was in this band the Ravyns and I said RAISED ON THE RADIO! And he smiled, we locked eyes, connected, but he had the world-weariness of a musician who’d been through the mill, who’d had a brush with fame but had fallen short, but the truth is millions of people knew his song by heart, like me.

As for Gerard McMahon… He’s hung around, but this was his peak. He was a journeyman and there was little room for such a person in the hit music scene of the eighties. It was all about the stars on MTV. And then grunge came along in the nineties and wiped the slate clean, there was no point of entry for acts like this.

And there still isn’t. The building blocks are irrelevant. Even in hit music you can have a song that’s only one chord, and this is not the breakthrough of the Beatles’ “Tomorrow Never Knows.” As for those still playing rock, it’s loud and bombastic, it might have more melody than hip-hop, but not much. As for the music of the eighties, they call much of it yacht rock today. Which started out as a put-down but is more and more seen as a badge of honor. Just like the Carpenters were resuscitated by the cognoscenti decades later the softer rock sound, which is often quite dynamic, is regaining credibility, hell I heard Christopher Cross’s “Ride Like the Wind” the other day and it was a revelation, an incisive masterpiece outside of context, outside of his dominance decades ago.

But Christopher Cross had hits. And Gerard McMahon did not. But “The Look in Your Eyes” is a hit to me, I sing it in my mind constantly. Why? I’m not exactly sure, maybe it’s the sweetness of the sound, even though it’s not saccharine, it has a bit of an edge, maybe because it’s something I can identify with, I’m not dangerous, I don’t carry a knife, never mind a gun, I don’t wear a leather jacket, I don’t want to be seen as a poseur, I can only be me, someone who would take “Back in Black” and “Blue” to a desert island. And if there’s a screen, I wouldn’t mind having a copy of “Fast Times at Ridgemont High,” for the soundtrack alone.

“And like the fool that won’t die
There’s nothing to explain, girl there ain’t no shame
When I see that look in your eyes”

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

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

Tune in tomorrow, Novemver 16th, 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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You don’t want to be everywhere.

Jam your product down people’s throats and a few looky-loos might become aware of it, but in truth you’re pissing off great swaths of the public, to your detriment. Today it’s all about credibility and longevity, despite the major labels focusing on cartoons like it’s still the heyday of MTV.

The truth is no one has universal market share today, and to try to force it is a fool’s errand. The issue isn’t so much that people don’t know, but that people don’t CARE! With so many opportunities that appeal to them more, they laugh and deride your endless promotion of stuff about which they care not a whit.

It’s the late sixties all over again. There’s a divide, just like there was with AM and FM. The Spotify Top 50 is AM, trying to appeal to the most people. But all the action is on FM, in the niches. We see demonstration of this at live shows. Guitars are dead on the Spotify Top 50, but when you go to the live show they’re everywhere! People want music that speaks to them, not only generic blather with a beat that is good to dance to. Stop going for the top, because there is none and your effort to get there, the push, the hype, will work against you as opposed to for you.

You want to last.

This is a completely different paradigm from becoming a business. Selling perfume and whisky and tchotchkes, bleeding your fans dry. This is the era when music shines. The more you go inside, the bigger you’ll become outside. If you’re busy telling everybody how great you are all over mainstream media, if I can’t click online without seeing an ad for your product, you’re doing it wrong.

It’s no longer the eighties. Which were a shock to those who’d lived through what had come before. Suddenly, there were no longer two scenes, maybe even three if you include late seventies disco, BUT ONE! That’s right, either you were on MTV or you were marginal. We had a monoculture. But the monoculture was blown apart in the twenty first century, it’s now all about the niches, to sign and promote, to want to be an act that appeals to everybody demonstrates that you either don’t care about the music or you’re compromised. If we hear about your lifestyle, where you were, what you did, you’re doing it wrong. Then you’re like a twentieth century movie star, playing a role, feeding the gossip rags.

And the truth is most people today have no idea who those faces in the gossip pages are. No way. And they don’t care!

Think about that, people DON’T CARE!

Every lauded production that is a must-see is not. Today’s public can miss anything. If it’s any good, they’ll catch up on it on demand online thereafter, but chances are if they weren’t interested the first time around they’re not going to bother, because they’d rather spend their time going deeper into their own interests.

If they hear it from you, you’re doing it wrong. They must hear it from your fans! It must be organic. It’s inherently slow. Don’t be impatient, you’re building a career, you’re going on an adventure, you’re not building a springboard to monetize elsewhere, you’re a musician, exploring your art.

And a musician can be very powerful, as long as they don’t abdicate their power to the machine.

Music, when done right, is truth. That’s your goal. Forget the flash, forget the hype, you’ve got to be authentic. That’s what the younger generations want most. Sure, they consume mindless crap, but some still listened to AM radio in the late sixties. Then again, many didn’t have access to FM, certainly not in the car. Today everybody has access to EVERYTHING! Don’t bitch about payments, just try to encourage repeats. That’s where the money is, with stuff that sticks. Which now more than ever is deep, not a novelty, something that comes from the heart, a statement, not something evanescent. If you’re tying in with Amazon and UPS, if your face is everywhere, the joke is on you, people are laughing behind your back.

We’re proud that we’re no longer a number. Today everybody is an individual and they’re predisposed to not want to be a member of the horde. You try to corral them at your peril. People have to come to you.

But you must be really damn good.

Sure, once you’ve got traction you can focus on social media, but before that, focus on the music! Look at Facebook. Misinformation spreads virally and as many people see it, most people never ever experience it. We’re not all in one big happy kumbaya tent in politics and we’re not in music. As a matter of fact, you can ignore the “Billboard” charts completely. The best metric is live, tickets and grosses. But not all shows charge the same price meaning… You’re on your own, buddy. It’s just you. And the truth is there’s a network of people hunting 24/7 for great new stuff. Believe me they’ll find it if you make it. Spamming them doesn’t work. Pros have their ear to the ground, they want to know what is happening. As for the industry rags, sold out to the labels, and the mainstream media, doing puff promotional pieces, ignore them completely, they’re on the downward swing. Really.

It happens gradually. And then you realize how big it is.

Then again, nobody today can wait. But the truth is it takes time to develop. And talk with the icons, they always say their initial songs sucked. You’ve got to jump through the hoops, there are no short cuts if you want to be an artist.

But if you want to be a star… There’s an entire apparatus that needs you to feed it. But they don’t need you, they just need somebody, and when you stop delivering hits you’re out of the news and nobody believes in you, nobody is bonded to you, you were high up the peak, now you’re not even in sight of the mountain.

We’re in the middle of the transition. The machine is too busy doing it the old way to recognize change. If your name is everywhere you’re nowhere, remember that.