https://bit.ly/3oE5r8M

I’ve been thinking I was born at the wrong time.

Now I’m not so sure.

On one hand I was born at exactly the right time, I was 10 when the Beatles broke, I was there for the British Invasion, I saw the whole movie, many of my contemporaries were not, if you were born just a few years later, you missed it, you had to read about it, you watched films about it, but it was different from being there.

I love the internet. Social media causes problems, Zuckerberg is single-handedly going to turn the entire world authoritarian, but the ability to connect with people, to go down the rabbit holes of my desires, that’s priceless, that’s not how it was in 1971.

In 1971 not only did we have no internet, we had no cable TV.

But what we did have was records.

Even the youngsters believe it’s the same as it ever was, you make music, you become famous, hopefully you make a bit of coin, and that’s the music business.

But not back then.

Even back in 1971, they were still developing it, still figuring it out. This was when Peter Grant instituted the 90/10 deal. This was when you couldn’t get a ticket to almost any show, they all sold out, this is when if you wanted to know which way the wind blew, you listened to music.

We can argue, compare and contrast as they say in college, 1971 to the years that came after and the years that came before, but that’s not the point. You see the sixties were a youthquake, the oldsters were stunned, we just weren’t staying at home silently, we were revolutionizing all aspects of society, and rock stars were the most famous and influential people in the world, record albums had more power than the Bible.

Meanwhile, we went on with life as usual.

Yes, some people were hippies in Haight-Ashbury. Some moved to Canada to avoid the draft. Others took political matters into their own hands, like the Weathermen, but most of us…we continued to live our lives, we went to school, we graduated and got jobs, not that I would call them careers, economics were secondary to social issues, and the youth were all on the same side.

Chrissie Hynde has got it right about that. You couldn’t find a Republican. To be a Republican meant you rejected the music, the dope, the entire lifestyle, and very few people were entranced by that. That’s another element of the sixties that’s been overlooked, we changed our minds. It’s not like in 1965 every teenager was against the war, we were the United States, we never lost, but as the years went by and the corpses piled up we started to question what our elders, what the authorities had to say.

And if you watch the footage at the beginning of this episode, you’ll realize things were pretty bad back then, heinous. National Guardsmen shooting and killing students on a college campus? They wouldn’t do that today. But race relations…the Black man is still at the bottom of the economic ladder, but now the whites don’t hide, for some reason they feel empowered, believe Black people have had decades to get their act together, and it’s hurting the whites, affirmative action no! And now when education is expensive and the key to power, never mind success, Black people still haven’t been empowered. Whereas college in California used to be so cheap it was essentially free.

So this series starts with Marvin Gaye’s “What’s Going On.” A great album, very powerful, released fifty years ago this week, only it’s a rewrite of history to say it was all encompassing, in all households, a statement we all knew, that’s patently untrue. Sure, we listened to Motown on AM radio in the sixties, but these were not snappy ditties and in 1971 FM rock radio ruled and it played almost no black music, and although the Stones brought Ike & Tina out in 1969, if you went to rock concerts, you saw almost no people of color.

Not that Chrissie Hynde doesn’t get it right. Then again, she starts talking about us all being high and…this is untrue. Was marijuana rampant? Yes. But LSD? One can even argue that was more of a sixties drug.

As for Jimmy Iovine… He’s had great success, but now he’s acting like an elder statesman, an intellectual, analyzing what happened back then and I just don’t buy it. But they cast names in these productions so streaming outlets will buy them and people will watch them.

So what’s astounding about this episode is it starts with the politics, what was going on in society, as opposed to diving straight into the music. Because the truth is the two were intertwined. And when I watched the footage…

I could see myself. This was my time, my era. Everybody had long hair and bell bottoms and everybody lived for music and everybody was anti-war. And no one talked about how much money they had, it was about living life to the fullest, questioning authority, arguing principles with your buddies. We were all middle class, we were all in it together.

But the jaw-dropping part of this episode, the reason you must watch it, is for the footage of John Lennon. He’s dead, but in this episode he’s so alive.

I’ve never seen this footage before. Maybe it’s somewhere online, been in a documentary, but today it’s all about curation, making sense of the morass.

We see John’s house in England. We see him playing “How Do You Sleep?” to George. Yoko Ono looks anything but a pariah, she’s pretty attractive and at no time obnoxious. As for John…he’s very very smart.

There’s a  point where they show John and Yoko in bed reading the newspapers. Yes, information is king, and it’s available, but people would rather just spread their uneducated opinions.

So John’s in the studio, singing “Gimme Some Truth.” And the debate is whether to use his Eddie Cochran voice or not. Yes, the Beatles had influences. And Phil Spector says to hold off. Yes, Phil Spector, before he killed anybody, when he was still considered a wunderkind.

You watch Lennon and he’s both normal and a god. Someone who’s had some experience, but still has a long way to go. Someone willing to stick his neck out for something, to make a difference, hell, it might not work, but why not be optimistic? We don’t have that spirit here anymore. It might have died in 1969, maybe 1979, but the truth is people are downtrodden, they don’t see a way up. There are billionaires, people with more money than the proletariat can ever earn, and those with the money employ it to their benefit, to keep the rest of us corralled and in control.

Now there’s also footage of George Harrison’s “Concert for Bangladesh.” I’ve seen the movie, literally, and this footage might be in it, but it’s so impactful here. Phil Spector and Allen Klein walking together in the bowels of Madison Square Garden? And Leon Russell is young and thin, now he’s dead, George too. As for Eric Clapton…he’s doing his best to eviscerate his legend, lockdown bad, vaccine bad, if we just ignore the virus everything will be groovy!

Yes, if you’re a student of the game you’ll have fun picking out the people, Nicky Hopkins, although they eventually mention his name.

But this was our time.

They’re in a record store, looks like Tower Sunset to me, and you see the prices, and people lined up to pay…

And the people camping out for days to get tickets for the Bangladesh concert, and I remember, I did that, I lived to buy records, you had to go to the show, for a peak experience, that’s the only place you could connect.

Maybe we need John Lennon today, because I’m certainly not optimistic. By time the Republicans get through with voting laws there is no way in hell a Democrat will ever win. Never mind the rigged Supreme Court probably whittling away abortion rights.

But Nixon, who we thought was not as bad as Trump, when you see him in action, you realize he was pretty bad. And he too used and abused the FBI, and he too had contempt for his enemies, only back then…the youth were against him and the Republicans said he had to resign, whereas today Congresspeople are afraid of an ex-President, they’re ruled by an authoritarian in absentia. We watched January 6th on television, but there can be no investigation? Don’t talk to me about politicizing it, can you say “Benghazi”?

And you may have caught the anti-Israel fisticuffs at the restaurant in Los Angeles, or the incidents in the U.K. Yes, everybody says it’s just about giving the Palestinians their due, but the truth is the past twenty years of Palestinian saber-rattling by nincompoops like Roger Waters has fanned the flames of anti-Semitism. Yes, I’ll stand up to Roger Waters any day of the week, I’m not afraid, hell, I’m a child of the sixties!

Yes, it was a long time ago. Fifty years. Classic rockers are dropping like flies. The music lives, it will always live, but it’s nowhere near the hit parade, the acts don’t have the ethos, never mind the credibility, of those of yore. Then again, the joke’s on them, because they have a small fraction of the power of the acts of yore. Kanye West has visibility because we all want to watch the train-wreck, don’t confuse his antics with those of a leader, which John Lennon certainly was.

So my generation is long in the tooth. There have been so many changes, so many generations, that to most of America what happened in the sixties and seventies, never mind eighties, is ancient history. Forget not knowing the days when radio was powerful, they don’t even know the days when MTV was powerful! And also back then acts could say no, because if you wanted to be believed you couldn’t sell out to the man. One can argue quite strongly today’s acts are the man! After all they’re all whored out to corporations or corporations themselves, selling us crap.

Yes, we really thought there was a way out back then. We had hope. Yes, we were disappointed when Nixon got elected, and re-elected, but it wasn’t the end of democracy, which is what we’re arguing about right now.

Now if you go back to 1971, one of the big acts was Elton John. Actually, he got bigger as the years went by, but on his very first American album, the eponymous “Elton John,” he had a track, fittingly the last one, entitled “The King Must Die.” And Bernie Taupin’s lines in that song were:

“And sooner or later

Everybody’s kingdom must die”

Yes, America can’t even rebuild roads and bridges, never mind educate it’s populace. You’re on your own, government is the enemy, no one should pay taxes and then life will be great. Huh?

You can read the article in the “New York Times” about Paul Romer, the favorite economist of the techies who has now switched sides, he now believes in bigger government, greater control of these digital operations: https://nyti.ms/3bLmmB6 Romer changed his mind, he seems to be the only one, America has gone back millennia, it’s now positively tribal.

But if you watch “1971” you’ll be gobsmacked, you’ll see what we lost, and you’ll desire to get back to the garden, whether you lived through that era or are still wet behind the ears.

Today’s it’s different. We’ve got footage.

Sure, now everything is on camera, but back in ’71, so much was lost to the sands of time, films essentially started around the turn of the century, from the nineteenth to the twentieth, and TV essentially started a few years after World War II, in the forties. It’s not like we could go back to footage of the Civil War, it’s not like we could watch the news, gauge the public’s reaction to the assassination of Lincoln, never mind the election of Washington. But through the miracle of technology, this fifty year old footage, this information, is at our fingertips, ready to be put together to tell the narrative of what once was…

If this documentary was released twenty five years ago, like the “Beatles Anthology,” it would be a cultural event, everybody would see it.

Even worse, today’s hype machine is so busy promoting today, it can’t stop to lionize the past.

So you may not even know this series exists. Maybe if it was on Netflix it would have a fighting chance, unfortunately it’s on Apple TV+. But it’s there, waiting for you to check it out, it’s a land mine, like all those classic rock records, just waiting for you to discover them, just because it’s old doesn’t mean it’s passé. There’s wisdom to be gained from back then, scoop it up, when you know the past you can march forward enlightened, ready to create a better world. 

https://fanstudy.byspotify.com

There is more information on this page and in its links than you can devour and comprehend in one sitting, but you should dive in.

All the conversation re Spotify has been about payouts. That ship has sailed, now it’s about building your audience so that it will speed up and enhance the flywheel of your career. In other words, recorded music streaming is only one income stream, please view it that way.

So the story is always about the Spotify Top 50 and the major labels who parade their wares there. But the truth is never have the major labels had less control over the music landscape, furthermore never have hit artists had less purchase in the landscape, the data shows us this, and you might want to ignore the data re your personal beliefs on political issues, but do you really want to sacrifice the insights when it comes to your own career?

If you’re an artist you need to digest this information, you must read it and know it, because now you are your own record label. Don’t dream of getting signed, chances are that’s the worst thing that can happen to your career. If you make pop or hip-hop that populates the aforementioned Spotify Top 50, go for it, try to get the big deal, but if you don’t, don’t even bother, as Fleetwood Mac sings, it’s time to go your own way.

Sure, you can hand the responsibility to a third party. But chances are they can’t deliver more than you can yourself, and they’re going to take a huge slice, for probably no results, don’t get sucked into the indie label game. But do get sucked into the indie mind-set.

Yesterday Lollapalooza revealed its lineup. There aren’t many superstars and the truth is there are other festivals that are genre specific that do extremely well. The nineties paradigm is kaput. You know, the one in which you try to get exposure to become world dominant, where you need  a deep pocket for videos and getting on MTV is everything. There is no center in music, no glue, except for maybe the streaming platforms themselves, and the truth is Spotify dominates and it skews young, it’s where careers are built and expanded. Sure, be on all of the outlets, but Apple skews old and the subscribers listen less and…Amazon is a black hole proffering little information, but don’t count it out, the pricing is just too intriguing, everybody’s got a Prime account, so music is burgeoning there.

But Spotify is a music only company (well, podcasts too…let’s just call it an audio-only company) and therefore it has to double-down and superserve. And if you follow the link above you will find out what works with your fanbase. When to release new music, how it affects catalog, what kind of merch they prefer…and how to make a canvas and how to pitch your music and the truth is if you’re complaining, you’re missing the point, this is how Soundcloud built hip-hop into the juggernaut it is. Turned out giving it away for free was good business. And now, knowing how to use the Spotify tools is good business.

Really, it’s best if the artist him or herself dives deep and comprehends all this information. Once you hand off responsibility something is lost in the process. There’s no phone help on the internet, you’ve got to figure out solutions to your problems yourself, why do you expect it to be any different in music? Sure, if you have a best friend or a manager empower them. But Spotify’s fan/artist information is the complement to Don Passman’s book. Sure, you know the law, you know how not to get screwed, but do you know how to build your career?

Don’t look at it from top down, but bottom up. Don’t compare yourself to Billie Eilish or the Weeknd, don’t get frustrated that your numbers are so low, instead focus on the build…are your numbers going up and what can you do to make them increase? And the truth is spamming everybody does not work, you’ve got to superserve the fans you’ve got, they are the best spreaders of your music, you’ve got to keep them interested, you’ve got to empower them.

Music is in the doldrums.

It was revolutionized in 1964 by the Beatles and the ensuing British Invasion.

Then in the late sixties and early seventies we had FM radio which engendered album rock.

And then in 1981 we had MTV.

And in 1999/2000, we had Napster.

Spotify is over a decade old now, we learned that those who embrace new tools win. But we haven’t yet had the artist who demands those not paying attention do.

Yes, we had the Beatles and British Invasion.

FM brought Jimi Hendrix and Cream and…

MTV brought Culture Club and Duran Duran…

We’ve yet to have the Spotify hit, the breakthrough that is completely different from what came before, which gets everybody interested.

It happens in all media.

In television, it was “The Sopranos” in 1999. A series rejected by network that was better than any movie. And thereafter we got more and more innovative cable shows, Sunday night was for HBO, and then Reed Hastings came along and took Netflix streaming and funded “House of Cards” and we truly hit the golden age of television, it’s the entertainment medium everybody wants to talk about, people will ask you what shows you’ve been watching before they’ll ask what music you’ve been listening to.

So we’re waiting for that new sound.

And you might have it. But now there are no barriers to entry. Sure, you could get lost in the morass of the 60,000 tracks added every day to Spotify, but almost all of them are marginal, made by hobbyists, maybe delusional hobbyists, but they will get no traction. The truth is almost nothing will get traction, but we are looking for the new and different and excellent and…

You can make it cheaply with digital tools.

You can promote it for free via social media.

And now Spotify is helping you build your career and track the engagement!

And the truth is it’s the least verbal artist who is questioning whether they can make it who blazes the trail, usually someone who has paid dues, been kicking around, with minefields in their past. They’ve taken time to see what works and what does not, they’ve honed their craft, and they know it’s about the individual statement.

No one will be as dominant as the Beatles, or even Madonna, ever again, can’t ever happen. But there is room for acts that have big impact, that start a movement. If you’re in it for the money, stop right away, right away, there is just not that much money in music, and odds are you’ll never make it. If you want money, work for the corporation, get a steady paycheck. If you want to go down the road less taken, if you are willing to starve, if you’re unwilling to complain, if you must do the work believing in yourself…maybe you’re what we need. But don’t delude yourself into thinking that just because you have self-confidence you can make it. No, you must look at the data, see if the trend is upward, if not, the problem is you. Yes, the truth is if you’re great there will be action, there’s so little great out there. And then you have to build on that action.

You’ve got all the tools, we’re dying for you to change our world…please change our world!

Shelly Banjo, Bloomberg’s New York Bureau Chief, is the #1 expert on TikTok. Here we cover the company’s birth, its algorithm, how music is picked and used, record companies’ involvement, how much money creators make…TikTok is where hits start today, you need to listen to 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?

Trailer: https://bit.ly/3405a6o

Relationships are hard.

I found out about this show in “The Week,” it’s my favorite magazine, even if I do subscribe to so many of the publications they quote. It’s what “Time” and “Newsweek” used to be, but sans editorializing, it’s almost entirely a compilation of news from other sources. And it’s expensive. But you could subscribe…and give up other news completely and be more up to speed than most people.

But really, I get it for the arts info. They recommend books and movies and music and TV and a couple of weeks back they listed the best Israeli TV shows, and there was only one I hadn’t seen, “The Attaché.”

Israel…they’re winning the battle, but losing the war.

Everybody hates the Jews, and now they’ve finally got a vessel to express themselves, the Palestinians. And I’m not gonna change your opinion, I’m not even gonna try, because you just can’t do that these days. I’d point you to great pieces by Bret Stephens and Tom Friedman in the “New York Times,” but I’m sure you’ve got ammunition saying otherwise. And Israel is flawed, and Netanyahu has to go, but the truth is the Arab world wants Israel to go completely, never forget that. Or maybe you’re happy about that.

So Israeli TV, pound for pound, is the best programming out there. Even if you’re not Jewish. It’s realistic. Genuine. And ultimately it’s not about action so much as personal relationships, even when there is action, it all comes down to the people involved, like in “Valley of Tears.”

So “The Attaché” is about a drummer. Who’s married to a Parisian who moved to Israel. And she’s gotten a gig as an attaché in the Israeli embassy in Paris for a year, so the family moves there.

And…

She’s got a big, all-consuming job, and he’s nowhere. He’s a star in Israel, but nobody in Paris. Or as James Taylor put it so eloquently in “Captain Jim’s Drunken Dream”: “Up here I’m just a whisky bum but down there I’m a king.”

And Avshalom speaks Hebrew, and English, but he doesn’t speak French, so he finds it hard to communicate. The truth is many more French people speak English than they used to. I went skiing there in 1971 and I might as well have been in Japan, there was a wall between me and the locals, but when I repeated the trip ten years ago, almost everybody spoke English, it was not an issue.

But speaking of issues… If you’ve been following what has been going on in France, which I don’t think most Americans have, they’re too self-centered, it’s a hotbed of anti-Semitism, and terror. Muslim vs… There doesn’t seem to be a fix. And this show starts off with the Bataclan explosion, you remember, the nightclub disaster back in 2015. I was on a Summit Series ship, I was clueless, but then they announced it from the stage and it was eerie, to be out at sea with so much happening back on land.

So, if you’re Jewish in Paris. Or even Muslim… You’re terrified. And this is how the series starts out, and the theme returns, but really, you could scratch all the Israeli/Arab/Paris material completely, set this same show in America and…it would be just as haunting. Hell, maybe they’re going to remake it in America, they oftentimes do, it would be easy, you’re a couple living in New York City and your spouse gets a job for a year in Los Angeles, and she very much wants the gig. Do you go with her? You’ve got to sacrifice your work, but you want to keep the family together.

But when you arrive, when you’re actually there, your spouse is integrated and happy and you’re solo all day and resentful and…

Relationships can end in an instant. Something can be said and then it’s all over, the other person just can’t get over it. And small choices are critical. Do you reach in after the dissension, or do you pull away?

These are Jews, these are verbal people, they don’t hold their feelings in…well, actually in this show they do to a degree, but the truth ultimately outs and then what?

You’re rolling along, you think everything is hunky-dory and then one day…your spouse says something completely unexpected, you thought you were on the same page but it turns out you’re not. Where do you go from there? You could say nothing, but that never works, that’s a recipe for death. You’ve got to give your viewpoint, you’ve got to argue, but that does not mean there’s an equitable solution.

Everybody only gets one life to live. And most people are not eager to compromise. On the little things maybe, but on the dream? Isn’t that Marlon Brando’s most famous line, “I coulda been a contender!” You don’t want to quash someone’s dream.

Situations change. Always. Can you adjust?

But if you don’t completely cave, if you put forth your opinion, somewhere in the arguments that are now coming more frequently you realize…this could be the end.

It’s a sinking feeling. You nearly go numb. You can’t work, you can’t eat… You don’t want to believe it, but here you are. You want to hold back the hands of time, you want your partner to be who they used to be, but they’re not. Doesn’t matter what they promised you, that was then and this is now.

So do you hold on tighter?

Amazingly, that doesn’t work at all. The other person considers you clingy and subservient and this makes them feel pulling away is right.

And the truth is ever since the introduction of the pill back in the sixties, divorce has been rampant. And some divorces are necessary, but the concept of hanging in there, working it out, the commitment being paramount? That’s not embraced to the degree it used to be.

Commitment. It’s the essence of a relationship. Bedrock. Commitment can supersede any problem, assuming it’s not drugs or physical violence. And there’s always a way to work it out, but someone is gonna sacrifice, someone is gonna suffer.

Or you could get divorced. But you almost always wake up later missing what you had. The new person is attractive and funny but after a few weeks or months you realize they’re just not your ex. But once the rupture has happened, it’s almost always too late to get back together.

And one person is not always reasonable. You can be, but they can’t see your viewpoint, they don’t want to compromise and then what? I don’t know, I really don’t.

And if Covid has taught us anything, you want to be with someone. Same sex, opposite sex, I don’t care. We were not made to go through life alone.

So “The Attaché” is only ten half hour episodes, not much of a commitment. But at times I had to turn it off, it was just too heavy, I needed a break, I had to get out of that space. Yes, I’m watching the show and I’m thinking about the two major breakups in my life and…I don’t want to go there, but I know it’s always possible, the only person you can ultimately know and count on completely is yourself, if you think otherwise you’re fooling yourself. The fact that two people can stay together for an extended period of time and make it work is almost a miracle, it’s the hardest job you’ll ever do. But the rewards make it worth it. At least that’s what I’ve learned.

So most people will never see “The Attaché,” since it’s on Acorn. The best show on Acorn is “Line of Duty,” it’s one of the best streaming shows out there, worth the price of admission. Sign up for Acorn to see it. Acorn’s only six bucks, but getting someone to spend, to get them over the transom, is the most difficult thing to do. And if you do subscribe, also watch “Keeping Faith,” and there are other good shows on the outlet, but after the exquisite experience of the six seasons of “Line of Duty,” thirty six episodes total, pull up “The Attaché,” it’s nowhere near as heavy as it appears from what I’ve written above, in fact at times it’s light, but I’d highly recommend it, there are better shows out there, a bunch of them Israeli, but it’s hard to find something this visceral made in America.

And once you start watching Israeli TV you’ll be stunned how the same people pop up. The female femme fatale of “The Bureau” is a café owner’s wife in “The Attaché.” The reluctant doctor in “Srugim,” the military commander in “Valley of Tears,” is a musician here. They’re actors, not stars, they’re players, it’s fascinating.

But maybe this is not what you want to see. Maybe you want light entertainment, diversion, your regular life is laden with enough problems. But if you watch the right TV shows, you’ll get insight into your regular life, like you used to with independent cinema, but with TV series you can dig deeper.

So I don’t know what is gonna happen in Israel, it’s an impossible situation. Israel has the Iron Dome and Gaza, firing missiles, does not. Therefore John Oliver blames the Israelis. Let me tell you, if you’re Jewish… It used to just be Roger Waters, now we’ve got members of Congress…you can’t say something about women, Blacks, but it’s open season on Jews. Of course that’s not completely true, but that’s exactly the point. No one is so American that they’re part of a pure majority, the only people who are native are…the natives, and one thing is for sure, the Native Americans have been discriminated against for hundreds of years. Eventually you’re gonna find yourself on the wrong side, everybody is going to be against you. And it’s not going to feel good.

This is where Jews are today.

Hell, I’ll just make this final point, which everybody seems to forget, Israel can only lose once.

So do I approve of everything Israel does? Hell no. The fact that there are settlements at all bugs me. But when they march in Charlottesville and yell “Jews will not replace us.” and when there’s a conflagration in the Middle East and the lion’s share of the public is on the side of the Palestinians…it’s just plain scary.