https://spoti.fi/3tESEnD

This album is ASTOUNDING! This is the kind of album Jeff Beck used to make before he insisted on originals and stopped making albums on a regular basis. Yes, there are moments when Frampton uses the guitar sans effects so it almost sounds like a vocal, like Beck did on “Blow by Blow,” yet despite getting some press this album is dead in the water, welcome to 2021 when you can make it, you can even get some publicity, but that does not mean that anybody will listen to it, even hear about it, even if they are fans! Really, if you’re a rock fan, if you’re a fan of these songs you should check it out, especially in a world where the barrier to entry is so low, it’s not like you have to lay down fifteen bucks in a blind effort, just pull it up on your streaming service of choice, I know you subscribe to one.

I started with “Isn’t It a Pity. Frampton played on “All Things Must Pass,” people aren’t quite sure whether he played the acoustic on the released version of this song, but he’s got history and you can feel it in the grooves (the bits, don’t get technical on me.)

And Frampton’s “Isn’t It a Pity” is dreamy, but its pace is slow, so I got it and switched tracks when in truth if you listen all the way through the guitar sound expands and…

The opening cut is “If You Want Me to Stay,” you know the Sly Stone classic, which no one talks about but if you’ve ever heard it you’ve never forgotten it. And listening here you get right into the groove immediately, it feels so good, and sans vocal both this and “Isn’t It a Pity” become unique, something different, taking nothing from the originals but inspiration.

Then there’s “Avalon,” the title track from Roxy Music’s classic. A song you know by heart but have never heard on the radio, you own this album don’t you, do younger generations own “Avalon”? The intro guitar is unique and appealing, so right yet different from the original. And as the track evolves, it’s not rote, this album is not just an exercise, it’s something more, from back when albums were not every three or four year marketing extravaganzas, when they were made by musicians, and that’s what they were back in the sixties, musicians. And unfortunately Peter Frampton ultimately became a teen idol, but that did not affect his ability to play.

But the revelation here, the reason I’m writing this, is Frampton’s cover of Stevie Wonder’s classic “I Don’t Know Why,” the b-side of the single “My Cherie Amour,” plowed under in history as a result of Stevie’s “Music of My Mind” to “Songs in the Key of Life” tour-de-force. Yes, prior to the seventies Stevie Wonder made classic music, and here Frampton gets the funk just right, you cannot listen without nodding your head.

Now on Spotify no track on “Peter Frampton Forgets The Words” has a million streams. As a matter of fact, only one cut has over two hundred thousand streams, Peter’s take on Radiohead’s “Reckoner.” Six of the ten tracks don’t even have a hundred thousand streams, indicating almost no one has heard it.

But you should.

If this were still the sixties, people would know about this album, one of your friends would buy it and you’d go over to their house after school and they’d be playing it on a fall day and it would feel just right and you’d have to own it too.

Everybody’s all caught up in the new and different, trying to impress their friends with their hipness and what they know. But that’s not what Frampton is delivering here, no one is going to foam at the mouth thinking about it, but if you listen to it, you’ll be stunned. This is the music you know, but it’s not old, as a matter of fact it’s positively alive and breathing, and in some cases kicking.

Word of mouth on this stuff starts slowly. And it hasn’t started yet. But once you hear the album, you’ll be talking about it, because you’ll keep playing it, for the mood it puts you in, because it’s not an assault but a companion without being background noise. “Peter Frampton Forgets The Words” could be the sleeper of the year, an award-winner as time goes by. But who cares about trophies, we’re all just individuals. I’m writing this on Saturday afternoon, which is conventionally lazy, Sunday even more so… Immediately pull up “Peter Frampton Forgets The Words,” you’ll be stunned that it feels so right, that it’s what you’re looking for, even though you weren’t even looking.

“Elon Musk is being brought in to save SNL’s sagging ratings. He could sink the show in other ways. – In the entertainment and business worlds, there is an argument in favor of the unorthodox host — as well as plenty of warnings”: https://wapo.st/3nXWs1Q

Trump united us.

Elon Musk is crazy, unsocialized like many scientists. He’s often spouting inanities, but he has changed this world markedly. GM couldn’t get the world to go electric, but Tesla has, it’s nearly remarkable. Furthermore, the government is moribund when it comes to space, but entrepreneur Elon single-handedly moved the ball forward, albeit with an injection of government cash, and government incentives at Tesla, but I don’t want to get into a debate of Musk whatsoever, this is really about SNL.

I’m gonna check out Elon’s appearance on SNL, not that I expect him to be good. His delivery is kind of slow, his speech doesn’t speed up, and it’s kind of flat, all of which argue against comedy gold. But for train-wreck value, I’ll take a peek, almost definitely not in real time, maybe on the DVR, most probably online.

But that’s not what interested me in this article. It’s the ratings drop.

Prior to the presidential election, SNL was averaging 9 million viewers. Which is quite substantial, especially when compared with other network fare. But after Trump was gone, the audience slipped to 4 million, LESS THAN HALF!

It’s not like the show itself radically changed. As a matter of fact, it’s employing the same formula it used back in the seventies, opening skit, monologue, musical performance, news… But the world changed around the show. The concept itself was no longer new, and therefore it was no longer a cultural phenomenon. You can only maintain your status as a cultural phenomenon if you change. If you stay the same, you can run on fumes at best. David Bowie and Madonna changed, they had long careers, almost everybody else didn’t. Even MTV switched it up. Adding a game show and “The Real World.” But much of the old audience hates change, if you try to crawl out of the box the naysayers will go full throttle, most people cannot combat this, they cave, even Springsteen brought the E Street Band back.

So the truth is during the insanity of the Trump presidency, people tuned in to SNL to see its spin. Whether it be Alec Baldwin as Trump or Larry David as Bernie Sanders… We were all exasperated at the behavior of Trump and SNL provided the joke and the water cooler, we could connect, we felt that we belonged. But that paradigm no longer applies.

Mass appeal events are cratering all around us but no one cares to look at the causes, no one cares to look at where we’re going, they just keep lamenting what we’ve lost.

Like awards shows. Not only were ratings declining, but this year they cratered, essentially by half. But little of the analysis was about the audience as opposed to the institution or the show. Turned out when you give people options, they take them. Everybody scattered to their own little niche, which they were happy to inhabit. The truth is the wants and desires of human beings are vast, and if choice is limited they can be corralled, but if it’s opened wide they run free.

Therefore, everything mass has lost a huge chunk of its audience, EVERYTHING! The only thing everybody is aware of and has an opinion on is Trump. But now that he’s no longer president and is off Twitter and Facebook, most people are doing their best to ignore him. Or as Bret Stephens said on Bill Maher’s “Real Time,” it was like a jackhammer was blasting outside his window for four years and now that it’s gone it’s a relief, he can think, he can sleep…and Bret Stephens is a right-winger!

And this devolution of mass has implications in all walks of life, especially entertainment. Turns out there is no mass entertainment, it doesn’t exist, even though they keep telling us it does.

“‘Gutfeld!’ beats Jimmy Fallon’s ‘Tonight Show’ throughout April

– The Fox News program has also scored more viewers than Trevor Noah, Seth Meyers, and James Corden”: https://fxn.ws/3baLUHm

Jimmy Fallon? America’s fair-haired boy, who knows politics should not be discussed at work, yet now goes there, safely, because someone else paved the way?

Turns out Fallon only drew 1.395 million viewers. Whereas Colbert leads the pack with 1.991 with the other Jimmy, Mr. Kimmel, in between at 1.579. And let’s never forget that it was Lorne Michaels who groomed Fallon and ultimately delivered this time slot.

Fallon is a man out of time.

Like so many in the entertainment business. 

Now let’s not go deep into the numbers, the demographics, clips on YouTube, let’s just say Gutfeld’s show, which was universally panned by critics, which narrowcasts, is beating Fallon, who broadcasts! Turns out you get more people when you go for the niche!

So everybody thinking their career is about world domination, that you’ve got to be fearful of pissing off a potential customer, is just plain wrong. As a matter of fact, you’ll probably do better if you do piss of some potential customers! Turns out your edge will appeal to a large enough crew to give you a substantial artistic and economic footprint.

And the way to go into the mass business is to be a clearinghouse, to be a distributor servicing all the niches. This is what Netflix does. It delivers for the brainy as well as the brain dead. Superheroes and foreign dramas. Low and highbrow documentaries. Netflix knows it’s in the mass. Netflix also knows that it’s not about any individual show, just making sure people subscribe for the package and don’t disconnect.

Which means if you’re a musical act, the album is just part of the package. If it’s not generating that much income, even if it doesn’t have that big a reach, it may not matter, as long as you tour and participate on social media and release enough new product to satiate those who do care. You’re not playing to radio, you’re not playing to the looky-loos, you’re playing to the hard core, who will stand by you, you don’t want to alienate them, and you hope they spread the word and you get lucky. But if you try to jam it, try to make everybody pay attention, the audience is turned-off, if they’re aware at all, today you can shoot up a school and it can be off the news in a matter of days!

So, major record labels pursue limited genres leaving the landscape open to competitors in every other genre. To their detriment. Same deal with movie studios, they make mass appeal movies to play around the world and it turns out most people don’t care and tune out, don’t even bother to go to the theatre at all. Sure, the press tells an opposite story, the press is a tool of the entertainment industry, but the truth is the hoi polloi, the average consumer, is totally disconnected from the press. The regular folk get their news and opinions online, oftentimes from individuals as opposed to mass outlets. And you wonder why everybody in America is on a different planet.

This is what the Republicans don’t understand. They believe if they fire up their base it’s enough to win. But that is patently untrue. You need a big tent to win today. The Democrats need AOC and Joe Manchin. You’ve got to get along if you want to build a coalition to succeed.

So the Republicans are now trying to tilt the table, rig the game, with voting restrictions. They don’t realize that most people have lost respect for the game itself, and the more you mess with it the more you lose control. Like with vaccine reluctance, many people no longer trust the government, full stop. Just like lawyers got a bad name after Watergate. Everybody’s looking out for themselves.

And it turns out we don’t have a cohesive government anyway, this is what Covid-19 proved, it’s not only Trump, the government systems couldn’t get it together to enact a comprehensive plan that the public would adhere to, therefore the United States ended up with an untoward number of deaths and ultimately sacrificed the confidence of the populace even more!

We’ve become Balkanized, it’s amazing the United States even works. Which is one reason authoritarianism is gaining traction around the world, many people want someone to make sense of an unsensible world.

But the most interesting disconnect is between those with the communication power, who had a perch in the old world, and the public. Hell, the news missed the rise and appeal of Trump completely. They thought there was no way he could win. They had no idea what people were actually thinking.

Same deal with the Democrats and Bernie Sanders back in 2016.

But it’s not 2016 anymore.

Everyone in America is out for themselves, thinking about themselves, which is why no one else is. Everybody believes they’re entitled to an opinion and it’s just as valid as anybody else’s. Anybody with a profile proffers an opinion and zillions of people come out online excoriating it. Gal Gadot, a Hollywood hero, comes out with an inane “Imagine” and there’s a backlash, it hurts her profile. How can this happen to a movie star! VERY EASILY!

And sure, Trump is still in our peripheral vision, we’re keeping track of him, if for no other reason than the GOP’s desire to depose Liz Cheney, but we wonder is it a sideshow we can ignore or is it a harbinger of future control of all of us which we will abhor?

Yes, people are afraid they’ll have to go back to a three network world. That they’ll have no choice. That it’ll be like communism. But the truth is communism isn’t even like communism anymore. You can be rich in China. And Russia is just authoritarian, there are elections but you can’t get rid of Putin.

And the more you sit at home and watch the shenanigans, the more you’re both enraged and prone to lay back and let it all sail by.

And now with Trump gone, most people believe the imminent threat has disappeared so they’re going back to their lives and it turns out, all those lives are different. They don’t need to tune in to the old stalwarts, they don’t have to follow the news 24/7, they can relax and do their best to satiate themselves.

This is what the internet has provided, a world without boredom, where you can find like-minded people in every nook and cranny, where you can even make a living just appealing to the nook and cranny. The country is no longer top down, but bottom up.

But no one in power seems to realize this. They’re no different from ancient rockers who believe Spotify is the devil, forgetting that they can make the music for free and distribute it online for almost nothing and tour at inflated ticket prices while they stay in touch with their audience online. But that does not mean people will care anyway, if you want to be alive you must prevent yourself from dying, you must innovate.

And for two decades the innovation all came from Silicon Valley, first in hardware and then in software. But the truth is these tools have now been harnessed by the public, to the point where those who own the platforms can’t even control their usage. The public has run away with the conversation, and it’s all about conversation, opinions, no one debates how Facebook works, the pipes, it’s about what you can do with it.

So this is where we’re headed. A Tower of Babel society where everybody speaks a different language and people can’t communicate. Look at politics for a prime example. Why should it be any different in entertainment?

Spotify: https://spoti.fi/3bsN2Xl

YouTube: https://bit.ly/3uwA7uJ

1

I listened to this song seventy five minutes straight last night. And I would have listened even longer if there wasn’t a podcast I wanted to hear, which turned out to be a waste, because talking heads lie and musicians, when they’re in the groove, do not.

I was listening to the new Offspring album, “Let the Bad Times Roll.” I was surprised how good it was. Today you put out an album and then it immediately disappears into the ether, which is why so many new acts put out singles, on a regular basis, trying to maintain mindshare. Put out an album and even fans may not be aware you’ve done so.

Not that I’m that big an Offspring fan. But I’ve got to give them credit, for persisting and existing, which is the hardest thing to do in today’s marketplace. It’s one thing to have a hit, quite another to have another and quite another to be able to draw an audience not only for years, but for decades.

So after my hike, I stopped at the 76 station in Bel-Air. I know gas is more expensive there, but when it’s eleven o’clock at night safety becomes a factor, I’ve had friends who’ve been mugged at gas stations and my life is worth more than five dollars.

And when I pulled away from the station and was sitting at the light I was stunned that the music was still playing, normally it cuts off in this spot, the satellite can’t see through the trees, and it’s quite a long interval before the light goes green, so I know.

And after merging back onto the 405 I was cycling through the tracks on the Offspring album and just after I passed the point where Sepulveda cuts underneath the freeway, I heard a piano. Wait a minute, is this a ballad? This was something they did in the late eighties, in the hair band era, most people wouldn’t listen to the act’s normal music so they cut a track or two to appeal to the masses, the most egregious example being Extreme’s “More Than Words,” the rest of the LP sounded nothing like it, and not long after that huge hit the act broke up, it turned out that’s what people were interested, and that’s not the music Extreme normally made.

And an acoustic piano sounds so different from a raucous guitar, especially late at night when you’re cruising in your car alone.

“Maybe in another life

I could find you there

Pulled away before your time

I can’t deal it’s so unfair”

Wait, Dexter’s not changing his vocal tone, this is akin to one of those Green Day ballads.

“And it feels and it feels like

Heaven is so far away”

This is not the only ballad about death made by a rock band, the previous best example being Slaughter’s “Fly to the Angels.” And on that initial LP there’s an electric and acoustic take and it’s the acoustic take that resonates.

And then the song evolves and there are STRINGS!

In the early seventies strings got a bad name, they were seen as schmaltz. Needless to say they’re not a feature of hip-hop tracks, but the truth is strings add majesty, they set your mind free, I’m listening to “Gone Away” and I’m immediately reminded of this take of “Message to My Girl” that I got on Napster twenty years ago, with Split Enz backed up by an orchestra. That’s a song that never was a radio hit, but is known by all fans, you see the greats ultimately resurface and sustain.

And I’m now parked in front of the house and I can’t turn “Gone Away” off, I’m loving the mood, and I’m getting the feeling…THIS IS A HIT! I don’t mean a successful record but a ubiquitous record, that cuts across all audiences, which everybody embraces. But how come it’s not a hit already? How come I haven’t heard about it already?

So I rush into the house and do research and that’s when I find out it’s an old song, in fact it went to number one on the Hot Mainstream Rock Tracks chart, but that was back in 1997.

After listening a few times while I was stretching I turned off my phone and settled into the couch and got back to my book, but as soon as I woke up the next day I fired up Spotify and checked out the original.

It sounded nothing like this version. It was the same song, but it was loud and in your face, with a strumming electric guitar and pounding snare. It was good, but this acoustic piano version was TRANSCENDENT!

So now I’m intrigued, I do further research and I find out Five Finger Death Punch did an acoustic take of “Gone Away” and I’m thinking this is like Jack Ingram’s quiet version of Hinder’s “Lips of Angel,” but it’s not, the Five Finger Death Punch take starts off with an acoustic piano but not long thereafter it slips into bombast, this is ultimately nothing like the acoustic take of “Gone Away” on Offspring’s “Let the Bad Times Roll,” it’s ultimately bludgeoning, befitting the expectations of Five Finger Death Punch’s audience, which is not the mainstream. But research tells me Five Finger Death Punch’s take was the inspiration for Offspring’s acoustic version, who knows the truth, the web is not always right.

So it’s back to Google, and I immediately find a live version of “Gone Away” by Offspring that starts with the acoustic piano, that’s akin to the ultimate recorded take, and the audio is not perfect but the vibe, the prickly-skin tension is. Especially at a rockin’ concert when the band slows down and plays an intimate number the audience is extremely receptive, this is the highlight of the show. You can hear the audience scream when Dexter takes a short break in the middle. And this live take is very similar to the one on the new album, but it was cut in 2018 and I never heard/saw it, because in the modern world being great is not good enough, there are gems hiding in plain sight it’s just that we don’t have the roads to take us there, we need an infrastructure plan for the music business. And, not long after the three minute mark, this live take evolves into the original studio take from “Ixnay on the Hombre.”

Music… First and foremost it’s not a business, it’s a feeling. And it’s elusive. Oh, a lot can go in your ears but little transforms your body, takes you to a whole new place, where nothing else matters, where it’s just you and the music. And when you’re in this space you don’t want it to end, which is why I didn’t turn off “Gone Away” on my hike last night, listening to it from the moment I left my house until over an hour later.

“Pulled away before your time

I can’t deal it’s so unfair”

Passing before your time. It hurts for those left. Unbearably, the feeling might fade, but it never goes completely away. Which is why “Gone Away” would resonate with such a wide audience.

But when I listened last night I was not paying attention to the lyrics, just the music.

Elton John built a whole career with his piano, and we’ve got some pop stars employing the instrument these days, but the end result is not raw, so much is layered on top that you end up with just another pop record, but “Gone Away” is not another pop record.

“I reach to the sky and call out your name”

When it works, and it was working last night, you lift your arms in the air, you start to conduct the orchestra, your mind pinballs around your past, listening to music at different points in your life, even being brought to young people’s concerts by your parents.

I was hypnotized, I was in a trance, I never wanted it to break.

2

How do you make a hit these days?

Well, the goal is the Spotify Top 50, which leaves out so many styles of music.

You’re searching for TikTok synchs, but that platform skews more towards upbeat, jaunty songs, the dark mood that gave birth to the goth movement, the songs that you listened to alone, that kept you from committing suicide, the social network is not made for those. But those are the ones that mean the most to us.

“The world is so cold”

It truly is. Alienation rules, but our music goes in the other direction, towards commerciality, cash is king and if you’re not pursuing it, taking every last dollar off the table you get little attention, we’re interested in numbers, grosses, not the music itself.

“And it feels like and it feels like

Heaven is so far away”

Boy does it.

If I want to resonate these days I turn to streaming television, not music. Streaming TV is trying to get the emotions right, to reflect real life, that’s not the essence of today’s music. But just when you think the formula is lost, that you don’t even feel the same way about music anymore, you hear “Gone Away” and you’re brought right back to where you belong.

This is not made for musos to analyze. This is not made for fans of other genres to denigrate. “Gone Away” is made for people. You remember people, irrelevant of political persuasion, ultimately equal, irrelevant of their bank account, we’re all on this planet with more questions than answers just looking to feel that we belong, and nothing can make us feel like we belong more than music, but that’s rarely the goal.

This acoustic version of “Gone Away” is one of those tracks that could triumph on all radio formats, played at sporting contests and funerals, something that everybody knows, that they could rely on, a trusted friend when they need it.

But the system has evolved away from providing this. Instead of looking for ubiquity, the music is made for a market.

“And it stings, yeah it stings now

The world is so cold

Now that you’ve gone away”

Where did the music go? Tracks are built dispassionately by the equivalent of scientists whereas great art is always channeled from an unseeable, untouchable spirit, which lands when you least expect it.

“Gone Away” is stripped to the bone. Strings are added for sweetening, for meaning. And the end result is a concoction that distills the essence of life.

It’s what we’re looking for.

“Gone Away” live YouTube take: https://bit.ly/3uvP4xh

“Message to My Girl” Split Enz with the New Zealand Symphony Orchestra” (song begins just prior to one minute in): https://bit.ly/3uwdXbU

Tom Freston was CEO of MTV Networks and then Viacom and is presently Chairman of the One Campaign, as well as an advisor to Vice and other companies. Tom is a fount of knowledge and insight, and he’s down to earth and friendly. It’s one thing to be a manager of people, quite another to be able to deliver live. We cover Africa, Afghanistan, Tom’s upbringing, his clothing company in Asia and, of course, we go in-depth into MTV. He was was so good, I tingled. You absolutely do not want to miss this!

https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/the-bob-lefsetz-podcast/id1316200737

https://www.stitcher.com/show/the-bob-lefsetz-podcast

https://music.amazon.com/podcasts/9ff4fb19-54d4-41ae-ae7a-8a6f8d3dafa8/The-Bob-Lefsetz-Podcast