Lefsetz Letter

Seventeen Going Under

Spotify: https://spoti.fi/3rbSynA

YouTube: https://bit.ly/36LMIzP

Listen to “Seventeen Going Under” twice and you’ll listen to it ad infinitum. In fact, it sounds like forty years ago, the Alarm mostly, but the truth is the human condition never changes, being a teenager is the same, and although we’re happier as we get older we’re all still seventeen at heart, ask all the boomers getting plastic surgery trying to look young.

It’s not like it’s a hit. “Seventeen Going Under” has got 724,926 streams on Spotify and only 341,529 YouTube views in the week it’s been out. Then again, everything happens slowly these days, you can be unknown, bubbling under for over a year and then WHEW!, suddenly your track catches fire. Not that I expect U.S. radio to play “Seventeen Going Under,” there’s nowhere for it. It certainly isn’t hip-hop or pop, it’s rock, and even Miley Cyrus could not get traction with the retro sound. And I’ll give Olivia Rodrigo’s lyrics kudos, but musically most of her album is uninteresting, then again on one level “Seventeen Going Under” is a rap track as in there are essentially no changes! You’re waiting for the chorus, the break, and it never comes, but boy is there ENERGY!

That’s the essence of the metal/Active Rock sound, THE ANGER! But as that audience and its music have become less accepted it’s driven headlong into the oblivion of noise, if you’re not a fan there’s no way you’ll cotton to the sound, you’ll want to take it right off, but not “Seventeen Going Under.”

Then again, there are people who now hate rock in principle.

Then again, Sam Fender is not a teenager, at least not anymore, he’s 27, old enough to have some perspective, and you can hear it.

So I’m angry. I’m much happier than I was at 17, then again I still feel like I don’t fit in, am not part of the mainstream, and somewhere deep inside I want to be, or really I want the rest of the population to change and be more like me, but that’ll never happen.

“So I spent my teens enraged

Spiraling in silence”

Imagine being a teenager today, the parents can’t stay out of your business. Telling you what you can learn, telling if you have sex there will be no abortions, abhorring everything you do, TikTok, influencing, telling you to get off of the damn phone when the truth is that’s where your community is, your friends, the like-minded people.

“And I armed myself with a grin

‘Cause I was always the f—–g joker

Amongst the white noise and boys’ boys”

People cover up their true feelings, even though in truth we all want to be understood and this is the key to human connection, and relationships and sex, but people, especially guys, feel if they’re honest and open they’ll be ostracized.

“Locker room talkin’ lads’ lads

Drenched in cheap drink and snide fags

A mirrored picture of my old man”

The music business is a boys club. The Fortune 500 is a boys club. Sure, inroads have been made, but I’m talking less about numbers here than attitude, the in-jokes, the laughing, the sexual innuendoes, if you don’t participate you’ve got no future in the corporation, you’re immediately off the track, far from the mainstream. They say America is about individualism but if you’re an individual be prepared for heat, assuming anybody cares at all. And god forbid you’re a nerd, you’re bullied online and the truth is online bullying far exceeds real life bullying, it can be hard for anybody to take, did you see Valerie Bertinelli broke down in the face of it?

“Valerie Bertinelli tearfully hit back at an Instagram troll who said she needs to lose weight: ‘Not f—–g helpful'”: https://bit.ly/3wJLWyb

But really it’s not about “Seventeen Going Under”‘s lyrics, it’s about its SOUND! It’s loud but not offensive, you’re drawn to it, you want to immerse yourself in it, you want it to consume your moving body as you forget about the injustices of this world, knowing, thank god, that someone feels the way you do.

And there are no brand names in the song. No featured artists. “Seventeen Going Under” doesn’t sound mannered, overworked, overdone.

But that sound, that ENERGY!

You’ll catch it the first time through, when the song fills out, when the vocal becomes even more intense, but if you listen to it again you’ll feel a bubble forming around your body, you’ll start to get that feeling of happiness, when you relax and smile and don’t worry about what anybody else thinks.

Maybe this will get some traction in the U.K., where they embrace more genres of music. But, once again, the start is so slow.

But for those who are too young to have lived through it, THIS IS THE SOUND!

P.S. Play this on the big rig, the speakers with some bass, you want to feel the room SHAKE!

2021/07/15 | Radio - The Music | Trackback | No Comments »

The Aaron Lewis Track

“With help from Fox News, Aaron Lewis tops country chart with song bemoaning statue removal”: https://lat.ms/3rbcsPE

Morgan Wallen’s “Dangerous” is the biggest album of the year. Statistically, that’s what the MRC half-year report says.

But you don’t see this trumpeted in the newspaper. Instead we get all this crap about flavor of the moment pop and hip-hop acts that are all flash and no substance. There is a hit music business, but it has never been more out of touch with what is really being consumed than ever before.

So starting a couple of weeks back, people started e-mailing me this Aaron Lewis track “Am I the Only One.” It’s HEINOUS! This middle class, right wing wanker has recorded a song that should have been played at CPAC, in between speeches by nitwits like Lauren Boebert saying to refuse the “Fauci ouchie.” Frank Luntz, FRANK LUNTZ!, the guy who came up with right wing epithets like the “death tax,” has thrown his hands in the air:

“‘We always ask, what will be the last straw? What will be the moment that we lose the ability to communicate and cooperate and get things done?’ said Frank Luntz, a longtime GOP pollster whoâ€™s been working to encourage vaccinations. ‘Well, weâ€™ve reached it. This is it.'”

https://wapo.st/3knqEDH

Why does Valory release such crap. Come on Scott Borchetta, David Geffen dropped the Geto Boys over their odious lyrics and now you’re marketing this junk? And for those who don’t know, all the execs idolize Geffen, and communicate and consort with him too. That’s his role today, elder stateman with a hand guiding all the players, young and old, Scooter Braun calls Geffen his rabbi and Jimmy Iovine doesn’t make a move without talking to Geffen first. You see Geffen made billions and they all want that money too. Come on Scott, get your head out of your rear end. How much money are you gonna make here anyway, and it is all about the money at this point, right?

But even worse is the music business is so screwed up that they consider this record to be #1 Country, and #14 on the overall Hot 100.Â Lewis’s track “Am I the Only One” sold 58,622 downloads and was streamed 4 million times…IN A COUNTRY OF 320 MILLION! There are scores of TikTok influencers who dwarf those numbers, names you’ve never heard of, but we’ve got the lame music industry trumpeting the ascension of this ignorant bloviator when the truth is almost no one has heard the song!

Downloads? Only old people download. And you know those who saw Lewis on Fox News bought instead of streamed. As for streams, streams of a single, 4 million times? Number one on on the Spotify DAILY chart got 7,467,066 streams. And interesting that it’s a rock song by an Italian group, Maneskin. #2 is Justin Bieber with 6,674,819. #50 on the U.S. daily Spotify chart had 394,813 streams. And that’s an instrumental version of a fading Cardi B track “Up,” which if you do the math is 2.7 million streams in a week, but this detestable Aaron Lewis cut is considered to be #1 country, #14 overall? And that’s only on Spotify, which is 40% of the market, which means really the projected weekly Cardi B number is 6.7 million. WHO CAN TRUST THESE NUMBERS?

The truth is the music business is opaque. Soundscan added some clarity, but in a truly digital world the manipulated chart based on passÃ© metrics deliver numbers that satiate no one but those who are featured.

But it gets even worse. Spotify told us that the overall market share of hit music is declining. But major labels are signing ever fewer acts in ever fewer genres. What about the rest of the music? This is especially clear when you look at the touring numbers. Not to mention that so many of today’s “hit” acts can barely sell a ticket.

I’m not even going to bother printing the “Am I the Only One” lyrics, if you’re interested you can find them here: https://bit.ly/3kkkcxq As for listening to the track, you don’t have to, because no one else is. But if you’re interested you know how to find it, unless you’re part of Fox News’ target demo and still use a flip phone.

The recorded music business is driving straight off a cliff while promoting how well it’s doing. The music itself is ripe for disruption. The only problem is you can’t make enough money in the field so everybody with a brain has gone elsewhere, leaving these inane singing “brands” tying up with anybody who’ll give them a dollar, they’re influencers, not musicians.

This is hiding in plain sight but getting no ink. It’s kinda like the Trump surprise, the victory in 2016. Who knew all these people felt this way? Who knew 74 million people would vote for Trump in the 2020 election?

Lewis is appealing to them, with Borchetta’s help. Without it, Lewis’s track is dead in the water.

We’ve seen this time and time again. The movie business only focused on worldwide blockbusters, superheroes, and now the business is failing, superseded by streaming TV which offers more than cartoons to the brain dead.

Morgan Wallen has the #1 album of the year because it is GOOD!

Just give it a listen. It’s comprised of SONGS! Did the guy use the “N-word,” absolutely, and he’s been banished as a result from everywhere but the court of public opinion, where he reigns, on streaming and sales platforms. They even canceled his live gigs. Is his crime really worse than those of all the wankers who say Donald Trump won the 2020 election? As for only right wingers buying “Dangerous” to give the middle finger to the left…I don’t believe that. Especially when there was no rallying cry, nowhere to celebrate, with no radio play, no news, they consumed it because THEY LIKED IT!

What should Wallen’s penalty be? How long should he be in jail? Let’s not even debate that, but let’s point out that a country artist singing songs is bigger than any of the supposed stars the music industry keeps telling us are so big, like Aaron Lewis. Lewis’s song sold because he was on Fox. Wallen is nowhere, but people keep listening. People like music. But imagine if the industry delivered something palatable like Wallen as opposed to all the junk it purveys?

It will never happen until they’re disrupted. But it’s going to happen, it’s just a matter of when, the field is just too wide open, the industry is just too busy promoting very narrow dreck.

2021/07/15 | Live Shows - Music Business - Radio - The Music | Trackback | No Comments »

Harry Wayne Casey-This Week’s Podcast

Harry Wayne Casey is “K.C.” of K.C. and the Sunshine Band. He co-wrote and co-produced the first worldwide disco hit, “Rock Your Baby,” and then followed it up with five number ones and a number two with his own group. K.C. worked his way up from record store clerk to label employee to international hit artist…on an independent label! Here we get the history as well as insight into the whirlwind of international stardom and an update on what K.C. is doing today.