Will we ever have hits like this again?

U2 released its “Days of Ash” EP on February 18th. The publicity had more impact than the music. There are six songs. Two have barely broken three million streams on Spotify, four are in the one million range, and one doesn’t even break the seven figure threshold. It’s like it doesn’t even exist. U2, one of the biggest bands in the world, with more name recognition than almost all of the acts in the Spotify Top 50, can’t get its music listened to. However the act can sell tickets. Based on its hits of yore and a reputation for unique, dynamic, stage shows.

Is this the future?

I was talking to Pat Monahan of Train. He’s a humble guy, but I told him that more people probably know “Drops of Jupiter” than any Taylor Swift song.

Of course the Swifties are going to go nuclear. But that’s not my point. The point is you just can’t reach everybody anymore.

Then again, does the music deserve that attention?

Sure, there are mediocre classic rock hits. Stuff that a youngster might listen to once and then shrug their shoulders. However, there is “Stairway to Heaven” and “Sweet Home Alabama,” time bombs just waiting to explode in future generations’ brains.

Then again, today’s music has changed. It’s harder, busier, reflective of the age we live in, which is hard. The American Dream has never been less achievable in my lifetime. People are frustrated, they need music that mimics their feelings, or is complete escapism. The younger generation loves to dance, DJs and EDM are a culture unto themselves, a significant one, that can draw more people to a live show than most of the aforementioned Spotify Top 50. But the thing about classic rock is it killed dancing. That went out with the twist and the swim and the hully gully. Classic rock demanded respect, attention, you bought the best stereo you could afford to get closer to the tunes, you wanted to get inside them. Today you listen to bass-heavy dreck via tiny earphones, a far cry from the holy grail of yesteryear, when sound was important.

So what changed?

First and foremost there was money. MTV made you famous around the world and double the price CDs threw off more cash. And with visibility you could now have brand extensions. Used to be the cash from being an artist was enough, more than enough. But it’s not that remuneration went down, it’s just that other verticals paid better, finance and tech, and the best and the brightest pursued those. Leaving us with lower common denominator creators in popular music.

People hate when I put anything from today’s scene down. Because they’re such believers.

Despite all the hype about the return of BTS, the dirty little secret is the passion, the mania, is not as big as they’d have you think:

“Why the BTS Comeback Concert Was a ‘Disaster’ for Some Businesses – The turnout for the K-pop titans’ show was much lower than projected by officials, hitting the bottom line of some restaurants. Shares in the group’s management company also fell.”

https://www.nytimes.com/2026/03/23/world/asia/bts-concert-seoul-turnout-hybe-shares.html

It’s in the news, but there is too much news. Such that the truth frequently doesn’t reach the public…it’s not only politics, but popular culture too.

As for BTS… Wouldn’t Frank Zappa call them “dancing fools”? I’ve got nothing against the act, but please don’t tell me to take them seriously, it’s pablum for a subset of the public, a twist on New Kids on the Block.

But I was going to write about “Summer Breeze.”

Do today’s younger generations know “Summer Breeze”?

Now if we go back to Spotify, we see that “Summe Breeze” has 321 million streams. Which is prodigious, but not close to the multi-billion numbers of young acts. But are these numbers distortions? Are the same people listening to this new material over and over again, bumping up the totals?

I mean would people listen to “Summer Breeze” on endless repeat?

Probably not. They’d get a hankering to hear it and pull it up on Spotify.

However, “Summer Breeze” is in the ether, unlike so much of the billion stream club. Meaning it is played on radio, in restaurants, you hear it. “Summer Breeze” is forever, almost all of today’s music is transient.

Of course, of course, a lot of the old stuff was banged into our heads on terrestrial radio, and not all of it was superior. I mean “They’re Coming to Take Me Away, Ha-Haaa!”?

Now Seals and Crofts was not a highly respected act, with rock roots and gravitas. Then again, they did peak in the singer-songwriter/soft rock seventies, which were led by James Tayalor and Carole King. People were open to this sound.

But Seals and Crofts were journeymen. And Bahá?ís. I knew this not only because I followed the rock press like it was delivered from God, but because the people in the next dorm room over were into the band, and exploring that faith.

But never forget, Seals and Crofts were on Warner Brothers. And if it was on Warner Brothers, it deserved attention, there was a reason the band was signed.

And then came “Summer Breeze.”

This was not one of today’s numbers built on one chord, based on a beat, there was a lot going on in the track. The haunting guitar intro, drawing you in, telling you this was serious. And once you were paying attention, there was a melodic construct and…

“See the curtains hangin’ in the window

In the evening on a Friday night

A little light a-shinin’ through the window

Lets me know everything’s all right”

These were not nonsense lyrics filling up space, rather the words set a place, you had a vision, you knew exactly what they were singing about, you were THERE!

And then comes the piece-de-resistance:

“Summer breeze makes me feel fine

Blowin’ through the jasmine in my mind”

And the stinging guitar after the chorus, that’s the special sauce, that’s what puts the record over the top, embeds it in your brain.

In other words, there’s a lot going on in the song. Because the song was everything. There was no dancing, no perfume…

So as soon as you hear “Summer Breeze,” it takes you away. You could be in a group of hundreds, thousands, and you’d be having a personal experience. What I remember most is driving in Westport, CT just before Christmas in the eighties and hearing it on the radio. It was one of those days where the weather vacillated between snow and rain, quite gray, but that song, it took me away, to a place of gentleness, possibilities.

Now Dash Crofts died, and I used to be able to tell them apart, but that was a long time ago… I couldn’t have told you which one he was until I saw the pictures in the obits.

But what truly stunned me was how old he was. He was born in 1938. Almost all of our rock heroes were born in the forties. The Beatles in the early forties. Crofts had been around.

And you read about his peripatetic life in said obits, leaving Texas to play with the Champs, but it is all superseded by “Summer Breeze.”

I hear “Diamond Girl” too much on SiriusXM’s Bridge, it was always B-material to me, I mean how do you reach the heights of “Summer Breeze” once again?

Seals and Crofts couldn’t. But I did like “Get Closer” and “We May Never Pass This Way (Again).” And they never did pass this way again. By 1980, the act was over, expired. But as hard as Elton John tries to stay atop the mountain, most people burn out. They get there once, and it doesn’t have the same meaning thereafter… Being rich and famous doesn’t make most people happy, that comes down to people…family, friends.

But they had this song. And even though I’ve just written about it for paragraphs, truly it is not something you can describe. “Summer Breeze” makes you feel something, an entire movie unspools in your brain, it makes you remember when. I’m not even sure these are the goals of today’s music.

We lived through a peak. At least I did. But these songs remain, some of them are forever.

And one of them is “Summer Breeze.”

The men who made it…the song has transcended them. Now they’re both gone. You could study their history, but it’s not that interesting or unique. But the song is. How did they come up with it? How did they lay it down in the studio? Well, we’re never really gonna know, because the principals are all dead. Except for Louie Shelton, a legendary studio guitarist who became a producer and masterminded the creation of “Summer Breeze.”

But still, online you can see videos of people telling you how they did it, but really no one can articulate it. It was inspiration, something they felt, running on instinct. And you couldn’t reach this peak on a regular basis, but when you did…

It makes you feel fine…

Blowin’ through the jasmine in your mind.

The records that were hits at the same time as the British Invasion.

Tune in Saturday March 28th to Faction Talk, channel 103, at 4 PM East, 1 PM West.

If you miss the episode, you can hear it on demand on the SiriusXM app. Search: Lefsetz

I couldn’t have a conversation with Seymour Stein without him mentioning Mike Vernon.

Oh, that’s a little extreme, but Seymour mentioned Mike all the time, just like he mentioned Syd Nathan and King Records…that’s where he got his start. And once he started he made a deal with Mike Vernon to put out his Blue Horizon records in America.

But now Seymour is dead and there’s no one left to testify.

I’d never heard of Mike Vernon, but it turns out I know his music. I learned that from the few obits I found. Turns out Mike Vernon produced the legendary John Mayall album “Blues Breakers With Eric Clapton.”

Do young people know this record?

Keith Relf was the frontman of the Yardbirds, and their catchy hit tunes were written by Graham Gouldman. Sure, “Over Under Sideways Down” featured the fretwork of Jeff Beck, but unless you’d seen “Blow Up,” chances are you didn’t know Jeff Beck was in the group, or Eric Clapton before him.

Most people didn’t know who Clapton was until “Disraeli Gears,” the 1967 album that featured his guitar work on “Sunshine of Your Love.” People bought that, some went back to buy “Fresh Cream,” “Wheels of Fire” was gigantic and then it was “Goodbye.”

And back then, when you discovered an act, you investigated their roots, you wanted more. There were people who already owned the “Blues Breakers” album, but what truly blew it up was Eric’s success in Cream.

And it wasn’t only Eric who got a boost in status, it was Mayall himself too, he was now seen as a fountain of great guitar players, a veritable farm team. Mick Taylor played with Mayall before he was snatched by the Stones. And before all that, you had Peter Green, Mick Fleetwood and John McVie, who ultimately formed Fleetwood Mac, whose first two albums were produced by Vernon and came out on his label to boot! It was Vernon who produced the single “Albatross”… Never a hit, it has sustained longer than the hits of its era.

Turns out Mike and his brother Richard owned Chipping Norton Recording, which I only knew because there’s a famous photo of Gerry Rafferty wearing a sweater with the studio’s name embroidered on it. “Baker Street” was cut there.

Mike Vernon produced David Bowie, Ten Years After, Savoy Brown…even the legendary “Christine Perfect” album which was released to crickets, but when Fleetwood Mac blew up with her now in it, the album was stocked in every record store…once again, people wanted, NEEDED, more.

Vernon was even a performer. He was in Rocky Sharpe and the Replays…I never knew that.

Oh, I forgot to mention that Mike produced “Hocus Pocus” by Focus!

But not a single person e-mailed me about his passing. Whereas if Seymour was still alive, he would have waxed rhapsodic, sent a lengthy e-mail I could have shared with my readers.

Now in one of the obits Vernon said that it was a time and place, the blues revival…but we’re only a motion away from another wave, this music has feeling, it’s forever.

And there were obits in the English papers, and I was stunned to find one in the “New York Times”:

“Mike Vernon, Who Helped Spark the British Blues Boom, Dies at 81 – He produced albums — by John Mayall & the Bluesbreakers, with Eric Clapton, and the early Fleetwood Mac — that defined 1960s blues rock. He also shepherded David Bowie’s debut album.

Free link: https://www.nytimes.com/2026/03/24/arts/music/mike-vernon-dead.html?unlocked_article_code=1.WFA.EUPE.5T6FFTGj-fyy&smid=url-share

But there were no hosannas, never mind a victory lap while he was still alive. Even worse, he died on March 2nd, weeks ago, we’re only finding out now!

I don’t know if Mike Vernon belongs in the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame, but one thing is for sure, he belongs there a lot more than Whitney Houston and the popsters now being inducted. Vernon’s work was bedrock.

But no one seems to care.

We used to. That was our passion, our lives…we needed to know all the players. And I knew the songs, but didn’t happen to buy the albums Mike produced, so I didn’t know…whereas today all this information is at our fingertips and people know nothing.

Then again, are the people worth knowing about? Are the acts worth knowing about? They might have hits, but they’re usually not the single vision of yore, written by the act itself. And money and fame lead, whereas before they were after-effects.

But what really weirds me out is everybody who knew Vernon, and it’s not only Vernon, is passing and not only are these people forgotten, but the stories too.

It’s extremely weird.

But the music remains.

How much of today’s music will remain?

“Albatross” is forever… The Spotify Top 50?

I don’t need someone to root for in order to enjoy a TV series or movie.

Good is not good enough for me. I want the best, which often doesn’t even cost more. Not so I can show it off, but so I can USE IT! All those features…I explore and use them.

I read the manual. Always. When I buy a car, before I set up a piece of electronic gear…

I don’t care how much violence there is, that won’t prevent me from watching a series or film.

I’m not into entertainment. What they call “popcorn movies.” I’ve never read a comic book in my life. Well, other than “Archie” and “Casper the Friendly Ghost.” Marvel means nothing to me.

I hate fantasy. If there are ghosts, demons, anything that doesn’t happen in real life, I’m out.

And I’m not a big fan of sci-fi either…

I want to go deep. If I like a song, I can literally play it thirty times in a row. Much more than once, I’ve played one album and one album only for an entire week…”Led Zeppelin II.” Nik Kershaw’s “15 Minutes.” As for singles… Gnarls Barkley’s “Crazy” and Paula Cole’s “14” and Paul McCartney’s “Big Barn Bed”… I put the song on endless repeat and revel in the mood.

I hate groupthink. I don’t want to disagree for the sake of disagreeing, but I don’t want to hold back my opinion for fear of blowback.

I like a nice house, but it’s far down the list of what’s important to me. What’s in my mind is what counts.

I hate shopping for clothes. Mostly I just go to the Polo outlet store and stock up when I’m in need.

I don’t take almost anybody’s opinion as the truth, because people are so uniformed. Unless they’re at the center of what they’re talking about, I go online and do research. Yes, my own research, but at trusted sites… I hate when people send me info from blogs that a quick look at Wikipedia will tell you are biased. It just shows how uninformed they are.

I love the news. I love reading the physical paper because I see stories I don’t find online. Having said that, I’m checking the news apps all day long. For breaking stories. NYT, WSJ, LAT, Apple News+, even X…but only the tweets of those people I follow, the “For you” feed is trash.

If I find something great I want to tell everybody about it.

I love to argue a point. Wrestle with the issues. Get into the minutiae and tease out the truth. Sure, a song may be good, but if it had this or that it would be SPECTACULAR!

I’m susceptible to bullies, but I’ve learned over time that my reaction, my cowering, is unfounded. The people who respond negatively first?/ They’re the most invested in putting you down.

I hate when someone reads a missive of mine and then in a derogatory way says I missed this or that, when if they just read what I wrote they’d see I mentioned it!

Also, I hate when people criticize me for not mentioning a minor player when writing about a major one… What I do is not comprehensive, go to the encyclopedia for that…or maybe today, Wikipedia.

I hate nitpickers.

I believe intellect trumps money, you just have to know how to use it.

I hate sour grapes. From unsuccessful people and people who tell me how hard they’re working. Too many don’t know what sacrifice truly is.

If I’m your friend you can count on me, and I hope I can count on you.

When I find someone is on the same page as me, I buzz on the inside.

I’m an alienated f*ck. I’m the one who refuses to call the teacher “professor,” I’m the one who puts their feet on the desk, I’m not saying there should be no rules, but you’ve got to earn my respect, your title is not enough.

When I was twenty one I knew everything, now I realize how much I don’t know.

If you have a deformity, get plastic surgery…but if you’re doing it to stay young, I don’t get it. Charlotte Rampling has had nothing done and she’s more beautiful than the nipped and tucked.

Okay, you don’t eat and you’re stick thin… You might be impressing other women, but I’m turned off and most men are too. Eat something. And just wait until osteoporosis hits.

Everybody’s got a story…their life, and I want to hear it.

I accept almost nothing at face value.

I’m susceptible to people judging me, but I do what I want anyway.

Bugs me that college is now seen as a glorified trade school. Then again, the real learning in college happens outside class, hanging with people in the dorm.

I love living in LA. because the only person who ever asked me my SAT scores was a Boston Brahmin.

My two favorite flavors of ice cream are Phish Food and Chunky Monkey.

I refuse to save money on that which is cheap to begin with. I don’t want Chips Ahoy, I want Entenmann’s, or even better.

There are exceptions to all of the above.