https://bit.ly/3slTJ2K

Somewhere Keith Richards is smiling, if not outright laughing. Without him, Mick Jagger appears completely out of touch with no soul. Mick may be the front man, but who is behind him turns out to be the essence of his success.

This is not the first time Mick has tried to go solo. And he always fails, even with the biggest push behind him. His Columbia albums of yore were too slick, anything but down and dirty, as if made by a posh guy who went to the London School of Economics… Whew, that’s what he did, right? Is that who he is? Has he been hanging with the rich and famous so long that he has lost his perspective?

Even worse is Dave Grohl. This track reveals the flaws of Mr. Rock Music up front and center… Dynamics? THERE ARE NONE! So, it’s loud and in your face, but it’s easy to reject, easy not to pay attention, furthermore, it’s all so SAFE! Rock and roll used to be dangerous, but Dave Grohl is the guy you want to bring home to mom, explain that to me please.

Of course this track has no traction, not even a million plays on YouTube as I write this, the fact that he’s a Stone is irrelevant in a marketplace where status and hype are secondary, if relevant at all, to the music itself. The penumbra has never meant less, can you deliver the goods?

Where has Mick been camping all these days? We’re looking for something gritty, insightful, that captures our feelings. Instead we’ve got a rich guy playing the guitar expressing emotions…not at all. Yes, the lyrics say something, but the delivery is all one note.

As for the lyrics… He almost appears to be pulling a Van Morrison, anti-lockdown. But upon further reflection it appears… Well, it’s not exactly clear what he is saying, other than lockdown is ending. But I’d rather dance in the streets to Martha and the Vandellas than this crap.

And it’s not the 1960s anymore, where I’m forced to listen to what I don’t like until maybe I do, like it that is. It’s painful to make it all the way through “Easy Sleazy,” I only did because I wanted to make sure I didn’t miss something, so that I could write this screed with full authority, but you aren’t missing anything if you check out early.

And “sleazy”? That’s not a word I think of when I contemplate the covid lockdown, nor emergence from it. Sleazy is late night in the dark high on drugs, it’s never sleazy with the bright lights on, and this track is nothing if not bright.

Come on, listen to the intro to “Gimmie Shelter”… “Easy Sleazy” is just the opposite, but one can argue today is darker than yesterday, now is not the time to be mindless.

As for singing about what is happening now… It works with gravitas, just ask Neil Young, with “Ohio,” never mind Marvin Gaye with “What’s Going On.” As for more recent numbers capturing the zeitgeist…it’s hard to find them, at least successful ones. We’re told by the successful to write a song with a score of people and dress well so you can tell the audience what they’re missing out on, so they can envy you, when the truth is they should run in the opposite direction. There’s no truth-telling like there was with N.W.A. and Ice-T and the seers of yore. I mean the cops just killed somebody in Minnesota, shouldn’t the song be about that instead of partying?

Once upon a time Mick Jagger captured the zeitgeist, now it’s nowhere to be found in his life or his lexicon, he’s lost touch. Now is when you make a statement, this track no different from George Bush telling everybody after 9/11 to go out and shop, to keep the economy humming, the real issues? Oh, of course “Easy Sleazy” goes deeper than that, but its message is so confusing, there’s so much irony, that it goes straight over the heads of those who do listen, and it’s not like the focus is on the lyrics anyway, they’re overwhelmed by the buzzing guitar sound.

A sound Keith Richards never employed.

Keith Richard was the anti-gunslinger, the anti-guitar hero. Forget playing a lot of notes in a small period of time, he frequently played no notes at all! It was about chords, sound, closer to the Edge than Yngwie Malmsteen.

You see most of creativity, most of excellence, happens between the ears. That’s the essence of rock and roll, that’s the essence of the Ramones, you don’t need to be highly skilled to get your message down, to make a great record, but you certainly have to think about it. It’s about channeling God, capturing lightning in a bottle, if you do it right the zeitgeist is right there in the grooves. If you find the zeitgeist in “Easy Sleazy” you don’t know what it is, do you, Mr. Jones.

Come on, compare Nirvana with Foo Fighters, Cobain with Grohl. And this is less of a put-down of Grohl than an exaltation of Cobain. Anybody can go through the motions, but to ascend to the pantheon you need a certain vision, a certain attitude, a willingness to push buttons and test limits…can you say “John Lennon”?

You can also say “Keith Richards.”

Keith has led anything but a perfect life. Better to watch the movie than live it. But he’s never wavered from his focus on creating the best music, with the essence of life, attitude and truth involved. Has he always succeeded? No, but he’s never failed on the level of Mick Jagger.

Mick needs Keith’s pull to keep him in line, to focus him, to bring him down to earth. Just like Bono needs the Edge. It’s Edge’s guitarwork that anchors U2, not Bono’s lyrics, they’re just the cherry on top. Bono goes out and tries to save the world, but he’d have no voice if it weren’t for the Edge, who’s got almost no voice at all.

Mick thinks being a rock star is being famous. Riding the crest of the wave, being held up by the people. But if he did a solo show he wouldn’t be able to crowdsurf, no one would hold him up! Especially the ancient who are only going on name value.

“Easy Sleazy” is drivel. And the best thing about today is drivel can be completely ignored, can fall out of sight nearly instantly. Which this will do.

Mick… Check with Keith, check with someone with their feet truly on the ground before you take action, make another misstep.

As for Mr. Grohl… So you played with a Stone, who cares? At this point we’ve all had brushes with greatness, this song is barely better than a selfie. Now it’s about the work.

And you’ve got to work harder.

“We Stand For Democracy”: https://nyti.ms/3tmZK0o

This cements Michael Rapino’s stature as the most powerful man in the music business.

That’s right, for decades the power laid with the labels. But now it’s all in touring, the events business, where people can have a human experience in a land of impersonal digital. You may see a list of top-streaming songs and scratch your head, but if you look at the acts grossing the most on the road, they’ll be much more familiar. Sustaining is hard, but it’s what it’s all about. Having enough mindshare that people want to experience your music again and again and again. And so many of the big grossers never even had a hit! You see they’re selling an experience, they’re in tune with the times, unlike those running the record companies.

Risk. Boldness. Those are cornerstones of not only corporate preservation, but creative activity. What did Bob Dylan say…”he not busy being born is busy dying”? Where is the birth at the three major label groups? They sign very few acts and in most cases only sign that which has established itself. The acts take the initial risk, by forming and playing, staking a claim online. But really it’s the touring industry that comes next, the agents and the promoters. And CAA and UTA signed this statement, but not WME… Why? You’d expect Ari Emanuel would be there first, after all his brother Rahm worked in the White House and was mayor of Chicago.

Was Rahm too busy? That’s no excuse, politics, democracy, is the story of today, not corporate profits and entertainment. When you’re fighting for the soul of your country you pick up a rifle, you don’t stay home. But you might offend someone, a potential audience member. But if you’re not willing to offend a potential customer, you’re not willing to bond to another. As for being passive… Come on, even corporations making inert items signed on, why not those who base their revenue on creative activities?

Maybe Michael Rapino is out front because he’s Canadian, where the American dream is more alive than it is south of the border. There’s less of a sense of elitism in the Great White North, more of a sense of being in it together, never mind the country supporting its people with health care and its musicians with grants. Yes, Canada knows the power of music. The U.S? Not so much.

So here’s the story. All these new voting laws are based on misinformation spread by our old fabulist in chief, Donald Trump. The lieutenant governor of Georgia even said so! https://cnn.it/3wUnFXi Yes, that’s the world we now live in, where legislation is based on a lie. It was the most secure election in history, Biden clearly won, but Trump refused to accept this and via the disinformation portal known as Fox, never mind Newsmax and underground online outposts, the falsehood was further disseminated, to the point where people believed it, and still believe it. That’s the country we now live in, where emotions trump facts, never mind facts being fungible.

But it gets worse. Are you following Tucker Carlson’s recent promotion of replacement theory? And then he doubled-down when castigated by the Anti-Defamation League. Then again, you’re not Jewish. But very few are pure white, you came from somewhere, and they’re eventually gonna come for you, just you wait. The same way you’re against masks and vaccines until papa gets Covid-19, or anti-abortion until little Janey gets pregnant. But then you’re on your own, no one is listening to you. After all, isn’t this the essence of freedom, having the state tell you how to live your life? Yes, the contradictions are plentiful, don’t try to make sense of them, because you can’t.

And the Republicans learned that they could not overturn Roe v. Wade in the Supreme Court, so they attacked on a state level. You may live in a blue state, but all the meanies are red, and in so many red states it’s essentially impossible to get an abortion. The clinic is far away, you’ve got to go twice, you’ve got to be able to afford the procedure… These are the exact same hurdles these laws are trying to put in place for voting. Sure, you can get abortion… Sure, you can vote… We’re just making sure it’s all official, that no one slips through the cracks. But the end result is the procedure is impinged upon, there’s a huge attrition factor, of people who just don’t have the time and the money to jump through all the hoops. In other countries they vote on Sunday, when most people are off work. But if it’s Tuesday and you work all day and at the polling place you go to there’s a multiple hour line and the governor doesn’t extend the voting hours…are you really gonna stand there? Which is why you could vote by mail, but that’s un-American, you must vote in person, on Tuesday, the same way you must listen to CDs and watch network television. But even the right have streaming outlets and smartphones… Can’t we at least live in the present?

Innovation… We’ve learned that you lead the audience, that if you get ahead you are safe, if you’re behind you’re constantly challenged. This is how the labels missed disruption twenty years ago, they chafed at it, tried to stop it, railed against it. But did they win? Of course not! It wasn’t until Spotify came along, a product that some people still cannot understand, and the people came to it and streaming won and revenues went up.

Which is why Live Nation keeps trying to push the envelope. Tickets on smartphones. And there will be vaccine passports, just you wait. The point being that this is best for the AUDIENCE! As for being best for the acts… Live Nation gives almost all of the ticket revenue to the performers, this is the reverse of the major label model. Furthermore, the company gets heat that Ticketmaster is ripping off the public with its fees when everybody inside knows the only profit is in the fees, because the acts take all the ticket money. And Ticketmaster doesn’t take anywhere near all those fees, the building must get paid, and the promoter, and sometimes even the act itself! But we live in a post-truth society. And it’s the acts who want it this way, they want the blame to go to Ticketmaster. And the fans are even worse… StubHub built in the fees and sales went down. People always want to spend the lowest amount, even if it turns out they’re paying the same damn amount. Crazy. As for developing acts playing clubs… At least Live Nation books them, as for the fees…at least the band is still getting paid, and the club has to stay in business or there’s nowhere to play. But never underestimate the ability of a wannabe or those on the way up to complain that the world is unfair and they’re not adequately compensated. We see this with streaming/Spotify daily. Yes, major news outlets keep saying Spotify should pay less successful acts more. HOW? You can’t pay a penny a track. Why don’t you pay a penny to your cable company for every minute you use the internet? Add it up, you’ll go broke!

So in a world where the acts are mercenary, it falls on the corporation to do the right thing. And now, more than ever, it’s the edifice that remains, not the act. I mean how many tickets can Lil Nas X sell? It’s a train-wreck, a novelty act. I’m not disrespecting it, I give him credit for pulling an Alice Cooper and pissing off the ancient populace, but you slow down to see the commotion, and then you accelerate right out of there, you’ve seen it, there’s no reason to see it again.

And there’s all this news about Universal going public. Now let me see, are the acts going to participate in this upside? OF COURSE NOT! Work in Silicon Valley and you get stock options, sign to the label and you get a bad deal and the company ends up owning your work in perpetuity. There’s no manufacturing, no shipping, no returns…but the labels still pay crappy royalty rates. Furthermore, they want 360 deals. Which is why they have less power and less impact than ever before. A ton of their market share comes from distributing indie labels.

So, the labels’ business circles the drain while Live Nation throws the long ball. Without their catalogs, the labels are moribund, that’s their true asset, and despite all the hoopla about the Spotify Top 50, the profits are in the catalogs. But there is no catalog in live performance. You’re fighting the battle each and every day, you can’t rest on your laurels. Also, in the live sphere, the company willing to pay the most gets the act. You can steal any act from Live Nation, just be willing to pay more!

AEG didn’t sign this letter, probably because Phil Anschutz is a right winger. But just like they out gay people, now they out right wing people, who think they can fly under the radar as they donate money to politicians to pay fewer taxes as they fly these elected officials around on their jets and load ’em up with perks so they can never say no. It’s called leverage. And in a world where no one wants to sacrifice… God, even Jeff Bezos endorsed higher corporate tax rates, but the record labels on democracy…CRICKETS!

We waited for an antiwar anthem, then we waited for an equal rights/BLM anthem…and they never came. It’s hard to write something universal when your entire appeal is niche. And the truth is the acts are smaller than ever before, their reach is nowhere near what it was in the pre-internet era. You can hype people, but that does not mean they’re paying attention, that they’re listening…

So it falls upon the umbrella organization to make a stand. It falls upon the company which reaches everybody to stand up and do what is right.

And what are the risks really?

Sure, a radio station can survive without playing the Dixie Chicks or Morgan Wallen, but are fans really gonna stay home and go to no shows because the promoter is Live Nation? Hell, Ticketmaster is the most hated company in America and that hasn’t stopped the live industry from booming, at least before Covid. That’s the truth… You can talk about deleting your Facebook account, or stopping purchases at Amazon, but the reality is those companies are too embedded in the national fabric for people to give them up, boycotts don’t work… Like Trump saying to boycott Coke with a Diet Coke on his desk!

You’ve got to push to get what you want in this world. You’ve got to take a stand. You’ve got to be informed, you’ve got to do what is right. It’s the Democrats who are asleep, not the Republicans. Yes, Biden won and has a left wing agenda, but the statehouses are overwhelmingly red, and the Republicans increased their numbers in the House of Representatives. And Moscow Mitch single-handedly tilted the Supreme Court to represent a minority of the population, just like the red state officials in the Senate. And now these same “losers” are tilting the playing field even more in their favor, in plain sight, but self-centered unwilling to risk wankers are so afraid of offending the ignorant that they refuse to stand up for what is right, to protect their business interests in the future! Yes, this country falters and your business will go downhill. You think chaos/a revolution can’t happen? Did you believe a virus could shut down business in excess of a year?

Used to be we relied on artists to tell us the truth, to pull us in the right direction. But today’s artists are all about money and lifestyle. They’re vapid. In petty conflicts. The message is be mindless and try to get in bed with a brand that will pay you. It’s hysterical, no, it’s sad when you pull back the lens and see the landscape. The well to do, the elite, the upper middle class and beyond, all buy insurance via education and relationships, they’re not only ahead, but they’re never left behind. Meanwhile, those without hope, at the bottom, are playing the lottery, wasting their money trying to become rich and famous, doing their best to sell out to the elite. And when they don’t succeed, instead of looking at the game, they pounce on straw men like Spotify and Ticketmaster, which are really just fronts for more heinous players paid by them, like the labels and promoters and the acts. And it’s not like the story is not out there, but people just won’t believe it. Which is why you’ve got so many people believing the last election was riddled with fraud. If things don’t go your way…it can’t be you, it can’t be your message, it must be the system and those in control of it, how can you lose?

Very easily.

“When Anti-Asian Parody Targeted BTS, the Boy Band’s Fan Army Mobilized”: https://nyti.ms/2OKoZe3

What kind of crazy, fucked-up world do we live in where a boy band singing in a foreign language has more credibility than all the American acts in the hit parade? One in which a foreign power realizes you build fan bases from the bottom, not the top, and you superserve those who care and not those who do not.

It’s like today’s hit music is a missile site. All these wankers shooting off every damn day to get us to pay attention, to the point where their names turn us off. We’re never gonna listen to their music, we don’t care, we no longer live in the monoculture of eighties MTV, but these acts and their purveyors believe we still do. I’m not sure all publicity is good publicity, unless you’re an airhead Kardashian ripping off the brain dead. Music must represent something, say something, to stick.

Like BTS’s.

HUH? You mean those dancing fool Koreans?

ABSOLUTELY!

This is about culture, the culture of the act itself. All the members of BTS have personalities, they have rough edges, they express themselves, to the point that fans feel they know them and become attached to them. We all need something to believe in, and what we believe in most is humanity, that which touches our souls. But in America today it’s constantly tribal warfare, a zero-sum game, I hate what you like and vice versa, and you must like what I like or you’re a worthless piece of shit. And we see this argument not only minute by minute online, but second by second!

But the most powerful army in the music world operates in stealth mode. You remember stealth, when the U.S. wanted to hide its jets so that they could go unnoticed until they bombed the landscape, made a big impact, they designed stealth aircraft, that’s a much better strategy than constant carpet bombing, the music model of the last few decades, make me puke. Come on, there are acts that we hate in principle, because of overexposure, even though we’ve never heard a lick of their music.

Now a fan base can become one of the aforementioned warring tribes. What they do is spam and insult everyone who speaks ill of their master, it’s scorched earth, and also laughable, because these fans are operating in a knee-jerk fashion, there’s no thinking at all, that’s one of the big problems in America today, the lack of thinking, analysis, we don’t teach it in school and most people believe they can function and win without it, but it’s nearly impossible.

So, the BTS team, i.e. Bit Hit Entertainment, now called HYBE, takes a classic construction and reformulates it for the present. Why does vision always come from outside? He may have been a crook, but Lou Pearlman was absolutely brilliant, he built the biggest bands in the land, in the world!, outside the traditional system, he saw a hole when no one else did. Then we had One Direction. The band didn’t win the “X Factor,” proving that winning is secondary, a false triumph, that it’s the talent, the songs, the je ne sais quoi that puts something over the top. Unlike ‘N Sync and the Backstreet Boys, One Direction didn’t dance, but that’s one of the reasons it succeeded, the members were perceived to be three-dimensional, to the point where Harry Styles is still a giant today. And One Direction wasn’t built on radio, but online, there were almost no hits, but they sold out stadiums. So BTS comes up with an act that grows online, that does not depend on radio, whose members evidence rich identities while dancing…AND THEY BECOME GIGANTIC!

Think about that, Big Hit/HYBE is making an act for today.

And unlike all the American labels signing the prepubescent and trying to have them hit on their first vapid track, Big Hit/HYBE plays the long game, there is no credibility unless you play the long game, you make fans one by one, they spread the word, if everybody knows about it no one talks about it, fans want to own the group, and in today’s world it can be huge but appear small, because it’s not constantly self-promoting in the media. You trust another fan, you don’t trust the media, not only in music.

And since the BTS Army is operating online, which major news outlets still don’t understand, it’s a stealth operation. It’s off the radar until there’s a surgical strike, like the demand for tickets for that Trump rally back in Oklahoma. Everybody, I mean EVERYBODY, thought that many Trumpers wanted to brave possible Covid-19 infection to hear the Donald’s words, a secondary stage was even constructed outside the arena for overflow. But it was far from a full house, and big media didn’t realize what had happened until after the speech was over, when the BTS Army told them.

This isn’t an I hate you, no I hate YOU Twitter war, this is a campaign more akin to the sixties than the twenty first century. Remember when part of being a revolutionary was having a sense of humor? Not only Abbie Hoffman, but the “National Lampoon”…you had to question authority, make fun of it, and only the hip people got the joke. Once everybody can get the joke, it loses its power.

So, needless to say, BTS is Korean. And when a Chilean TV program made racist, anti-Asian comments, their army swarmed in. Yes, all the fans are linked, unlike in the pre-internet days, a campaign can be organized and executed nearly instantaneously. Old people have to call, and you wonder why young people never talk on the phone…WHO WANTS TO WASTE THAT MUCH TIME!

For far too long rappers’ beef has been with each other, come on, they’re shooting each other and…those in power just don’t care, they truly don’t. But if said rappers focused their ire on those in power…whoa, just you wait.

The truth is you can organize online and your ranks can be instantly visible, illustrating the power they truly have. Forget polls that get it wrong. Powerful people in the straight world are all about holding on to power, they look backward, not forward. But the youth have no allegiance to the past, no assets to protect, especially in an on demand world where so much is virtual, and they can strike power’s vulnerable hot spots and make a difference.

Come on… Elected officials first and foremost must be elected. And to run a campaign, they use data. This is what is happening in Michigan right now, Covid-19 is raging, but Governor Whitmer is afraid to lock down because of the vocal backlash she received from right wingers the last time. But if there were a bigger, more organized army…

This is one of AOC’s points, and dismiss the message at your peril, you advertise online now, that’s how you reach people:

“A ‘Super PAC’ Says Spending By Democrats Was Unwise”: https://nyti.ms/3dfDtvV

Old thinking is you make it obvious, you dumb it down so anybody can understand it…and anybody can ignore it. You don’t cry in plain sight, you don’t bitch to the powers-that-be, you organize your fans for a surgical strike…your fans are so dedicated to the cause that they can form their own agenda, off the radar, that ends up surprising people, demonstrating how those who have been disregarded previously are huge in number, and as a result wield power and change hearts and minds.

We are living in the 2020s, and the music business and mainstream media are still operating in the 1980s, complaining ad infinitum that someone is moving their cheese. It’s time these enterprises decamped to today.

No one has universal mindshare. Everything happens online. Look at Trump, he lost his Twitter power and now most people don’t even get the message. It’s the personal tools online that have power, the one to many. If you’re not singular, if you don’t own your own identity, if you don’t think for yourself, you’ve got no army, at best you’ve just got a bunch of blind followers, and others shrug when they deign to wield their “power.” But it’s different when the fan base represents a thinking enterprise, that cannot be dismissed out of hand. It’s the difference between AM and FM…but both mean little today, it all happens online, did you read the latest research? Read it: https://bit.ly/3a4gTEH It’s the antidote to all the self-serving press radio puts out that it’s still king.

We need more BTS armies. We need more acts that generate this passion. And you may laugh at BTS, but the past always comes back, but with a twist!

Maybe there is hope. Maybe music still does have power.

But it’s got to be done completely different from today.

Money is secondary to power, and if you have power there’s plenty of money. But in greedy America, no one seems to realize this, but it’s still the truth. The BTS army has power, and unlike the army of most nations, it can turn on a dime, take action without endless debate. This is the future, whether you want to go there or not.

Joel Selvin has a new book, “Hollywood Eden,” which investigates the genesis of the Southern California sound. Stunningly, after all this time, Selvin has excavated stories about Jan Berry and Nancy Sinatra and others in the early to mid-sixties that have never been told before. Tune in to hear some and more!

Tune in today, April 13th, 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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