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The number no longer makes sense.

Forget lying to others about your age, can you lie to yourself?

It was really our grandparents who were the last generation to get old and accept it. It was a natural stage of life. As for our parents, they were flummoxed. The sixties were unfathomable, some got on the bandwagon but most stayed on the sidelines. And then everything their children augured for, believed in, became de facto. The end of the war, casual clothing, music everywhere. I don’t know when your parents started to wear jeans, but I was shocked when my dad showed up in a pair in the late seventies, prior to that, he didn’t own any.

And it’s not so much that we had a good run, but that the run is over.

As Solters calls them, the “civilians” are all retired. And those still in this business are running things, or got squeezed out. You can hire youngsters with more passion for fewer bucks.

We stopped going to the movies, now we cotton to streaming TV. After all, they don’t even make movies for us anymore. We remember the last true heyday, the seventies, which contained the birth of the blockbuster, but began truly in the late sixties with “Bonnie and Clyde” and “The Graduate,” but ended in 1979 with “Kramer vs. Kramer.” Imagine a film like that getting greenlit today! Never mind the younger generations get divorced less than us. Then again, it’s a class thing, the less wealthy and educated often don’t get married at all!

We still go to see our favorite bands live. Not like the younger generations… For them it’s a gathering, an event, the music is almost secondary, it certainly doesn’t strike their soul the way ours did. We want to remember those days.

But we don’t recall video games, and as far as tech… If our generation even knows how to do more than surf the web and text, they decry it. Social media is the devil. Why won’t those damn kids get off the lawn! And while they’re at it, get off the phone too!

But our kids played all those video games and they survived. What makes us think that Gen-Z won’t survive the smartphone?

But really, it’s the feeling that the world is passing you by.

I don’t know about you, but over the past couple of weeks, the tsunami of Trump traffic just doesn’t hit me the same way anymore. I just don’t get worked up about it as much. I know some people cheer on the Orange “Genius,” but they’re not friends of mine. Yup, I’m a college graduate, a member of the so-called “elite,” I believe in facts and truth and I laugh when someone whips out a conspiracy theory.

And the funny thing about being over seventy is you stop correcting people. You realize it’s not worth it. You can send them the report that the government quashed, about the benefits of the Covid vaccine, but this is how people feel powerful, with their own ideas and viewpoints, they’re sick of everybody getting rich and being powerful other than themselves. I mean there are many costs of the plethora of billionaires. Sure, everybody would like to be rich, but they know that most of these guys, and almost all of them are guys, pay few taxes, think their sh*t doesn’t stink and…

That’s another thing about getting older, you no longer have any heroes. You’ve realized everybody is human. I guess when someone my age starts testifying about believing in certain musicians… You mean the one with the plastic surgery, who hasn’t had a hit in eons? I mean give Bob Dylan credit, he’s doing it his way. But giving him hosannas for his shows is literally the Emperor’s New Clothes.

But those are fighting words. Because Boomers have so little to believe in that that which they do they’ll defend to their death, their icons can’t be questioned.

So yes, some Boomers wear blinders and are delusional, and this is hard for me to handle.

They’re still trying to impress. How could they not know no one cares what kind of car you drive, where you went on vacation? You reach seventy and society is no longer fluid, it’s set. If you’ve got a bunch of bucks, feel free to spend them, but don’t tell me that makes you better than me.

But the rat race, society, you reach seventy and you feel strangely estranged. There are those alta kachers who won’t give up their jobs in D.C. Are they that delusional, do they think that’s what their life is about, their title? I mean they’re not accomplishing much. No one is as hollow at the core as a politician.

But there’s so much info coming down the pike. Is the feeling of being overwhelmed the nature of life in the twenty first century or is this a particular side effect of being old? I mean you used to be able to be comprehensive, see all of the movies, know the hit records, now that seems impossible, and you wonder why you’d want to anyway. Meanwhile, the media are like that Who song, meet the new hype, same as the old hype. We literally can’t be fooled again. If something is truly great and it sustains, we’ll find out about it, we don’t need to be teased and foaming at the mouth in anticipation.

So some of us are self-satisfied, some in a good way. They own their own home, they’ve got grandchildren, they’re living day by day.

While they’re not going to the doctor.

And then there are others who just can’t let go of the mores. Is this a function of being a Baby Boomer, or is it just a consequence of getting old?

And no one will admit all this. Everybody thinks they’re as hip and up to date as ever. But unlike when they were young, they pooh-pooh the new rather than embrace it.

And the younger generations want us to move on down the line and we refuse to. We won’t leave politics, and not only that, we’ll denigrate those with youth, they just haven’t lived long enough to understand! Isn’t that what they told us, isn’t that why we got the voting age lowered to eighteen? I mean if you’re old enough to go to war, you’re old enough to vote.

And the whole world changed and we’re frustrated when people don’t know it or acknowledge it. We couldn’t beat the North Vietnamese and now we see how Ukraine is standing up to Russia with drone warfare and the machine is busy telling everybody that we’re the biggest and baddest while we’re running out of ammunition, having spent so much cash to build Patriot missiles to blow drones out of the sky in the Middle East.

And we didn’t exactly declare victory when we left Vietnam, but there’s no way to portray the fracas in Iran as anything but a loss. And as bad as we perceive the religious government in Iran to be, so many did come out this past week to mourn their lost leader.

Begging the question what we know.

Never mind the shifting image of the United States.

Back in the seventies, when we all went to Europe on cheap flights and used our Eurail passes, we had to defend our nation, the locals wanted to chide us for Vietnam. I don’t even hear about college students doing that today, and how many Americans even have passports? We’ve been sold a bill of goods, that America is the tippity top in every vertical, when this is patently untrue.

Socialism is pretty damn good in Scandinavia. Free college? Our national hero St. Reagan changed the California college system from nearly free to expensive. Then again, California is now in the doghouse, a national punching bag. What can you do but throw your hands in the air?

So you can try and go on like it’s the same as it ever was, or you can own your age and get freaked out and try to adjust, even though no one ever talks about this.

Yup, you can get riled up about the issues of the day, from Meta to AI to…they’re endless.

Or you can see that your time on the planet is limited and take an alternative path.

But there’s no context. We used to all be in it together, of one mind, leaning on each other. Now we’re all in our own private Idaho not admitting that we feel lost and don’t know what to do.

And believe me, we know so much of what we see going on is B.S. But we used to care, we used to believe in change, now we see it all as cyclical, we’ll vote, but don’t ask us to believe.

After all, the game is rigged. That’s one thing we’ve all learned. But we’re trying to pull the wool over the eyes of younger generations who know this. Telling them to let us continue to rule, that we know what is going on.

But the truth is we’ve lost the passion.

We just don’t want our power usurped.

Legendary agent Marsha Vlasic represents Neil Young, Elvis Costello, Norah Jones, Iggy Pop and more!

Apple: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/marsha-vlasic/id1316200737?i=1000776100872

https://music.amazon.com/podcasts/9ff4fb19-54d4-41ae-ae7a-8a6f8d3dafa8/episodes/8376c26c-9f7c-4a2c-92e5-b3b01114b6f5/the-bob-lefsetz-podcast-marsha-vlasic

“Why Netflix Is Suffering From a Perpetual Sophomore Slump – Analysis – Long season breaks, increased competition and confusing release schedules have led to shows seeing big ratings declines between seasons. But does Netflix care?”

https://www.yahoo.com/entertainment/tv/articles/why-netflix-suffering-perpetual-sophomore-130000516.html

When was the last time you saw a second season as good as the first? Hell, if you watched the first season of “The Four Seasons” there was no reason to watch the second. I mean if you like this kind of show…but there was nothing special, it was kind of like the endless “Sex and the City” reboots.

And we have this same problem in music.

WHAT?

Let’s start with today’s “New York” magazine’s Vulture post:

“The Best Albums of the Year So Far – 2026’s highlights reach across geographic borders and musical traditions”: 

https://apple.news/A9SoI2Qy5RMq-EJNH5TloaQ

https://shorturl.at/MsxRv

I must ask you, how many of these albums have you actually heard of, never mind actually heard? I mean who is spending all this time combing through all this dreck to find this stuff that has no mainstream traction, never mind probably not deserving of it?

There are no trusted filters.

Except for personal word of mouth and recommenders on TikTok.

Whoa! You say…

This means you probably watch HBO.

If you read the article at the top of this screed you’ll see that HBO’s shows have less of a fall-off than Netflix’s. But that’s because HBO has so many fewer shows! HBO has a creme de la creme policy. Which worked in the days of pay cable, but now… Oldsters love HBO, they’ve had the habit since “The Sopranos,” maybe “Larry Sanders.” But youngsters?

Youngsters need new. Period.

Now think about this. Think of meme culture. What do we know about it? It’s one and done! That lady with the mask. Even the guy skateboarding to Fleetwood Mac… They never have another hit.

As for those who sustain on social media and YouTube, they do their best not to repeat themselves, they’re always pushing the envelope, trying for something new… It’s a dog eat dog world and even the successful people burn out but if you create a bond with viewers and keep pushing the envelope, you can build an audience and sustain.

As soon as you stop producing on a regular basis, you’re toast.

You’ve got to be in the customer’s face on a regular basis, and it better not be repeats.

How much innovative stuff do we hear in the Spotify Top 50? Most sounds like what came before. It’s not must-hear listening. Kinda like NBC no longer has Must See TV on Thursday nights, times change, and you’ve go to change with them.

So you have an act with a written by committee hit, is there any real loyalty to the act as opposed to the song? Furthermore, what are the odds of getting something innovative from these same people in the future? Low.

This is why the Beatles are the Beatles and other than the Stones, the rest of the British Invasion faded. People had seen the movie. They got caught up in the mania for a while, but then…

The Beatles kept changing, from love songs to personal dramas… Did Gerry & the Pacemakers write “Norwegian Wood”? Billy J. Kramer and the Dakotas?

True artists innovate. Commerce is just that, about the money.

So, how many Netflix hits are worth watching a second season? “Ozark” definitely. Recently, “The Diplomat,” and that’s just about at its limit, no matter how good Keri Russell is, the plot has now become fantastical.

We are watching “Scott & Bailey.” An old British police show. And at the end of the second season I’ve realized what makes the show great is not the crimes, the conventional plot, but the behaviors of the characters, their relationships, the scrapes they get into. I continue to watch to see what happens to them. As for murder? Seen a couple and you’ve seen them all.

Which of course brings us to “Law & Order”… But that’s old paradigm too. Do not conflate the old with the new. The fact that oldsters will tolerate a week to week drip does not mean that youngsters will. They’ve been brought up in an on demand culture where they need it immediately.

So if you want to have a career in music, you just can’t keep doing the same thing.

How many acts are changing from album to album today, demanding attention? So the original fan base, to the degree it exists, diminishes, and no one new comes on, there’s no buzz, they’ve been there and done that.

Think of Top 40 in the sixties. Or FM rock in the late sixties into the seventies. And the first decade of MTV… You had to listen/watch, you never knew what you’d encounter, and whatever you did would become the bedrock of culture.

Speaking of culture, no one could predict Culture Club after the corporate rock of the seventies. The public was surprised, titillated, they wanted more.

As for “Stranger Things” and “Squid Game”… You saw one season, you needed no more. I stopped there. I got it. More of the same, in a world where there are so many options?

This is the mind-set of the younger generations. There’s limited time and they want to use it to the best of their benefit.

Whereas Boomers were brought up in the three network world where you had ads and reruns in the summer… Offerings were limited. Now offerings are unlimited!

So people have trouble finding returning shows on Netflix and oftentimes they’re not worth their while. So they don’t watch.

Maybe Netflix could get away with making less product, but the great thing about Netflix is you never know what you’ll get next. I know what I’ll get next on “The Pitt”… It’s a circle jerk for fans of “ER.” 75% of viewers of “The Pitt” are over thirty. They’re old school viewers.

And if you study TV, you know the big issue is YouTube, which keeps gobbling up overall screen time. And almost all of that is short term viewing.

Does that mean youngsters want short term viewing?

No, they have an appetite for that, but what they want is quality. And if it ain’t great, they move on.

In other words, especially in the record industry, the usual suspects, the gatekeepers, the platforms, have little control.

There were all these hosannas about the new McCartney album. Not one person ever e-mailed me about it. Streams are anemic. We’ve been there and done that. Some people are interested, most people are not. I don’t want to make this about McCartney, but the album went to #1 in the U.S. and U.K. and seems to have no cultural impact. That’s fine if you don’t expect much, but…

It’s just like a second season of a Netflix series. Why do I have to watch the second if I’ve seen the first?

As for “brands”… They’re declining in value, look at superhero movies.

No, it’s about content, quality, resonating with the audience. Which is why “Obsession” could be such a surprising hit. The YouTube audience already knew the director, they wanted to see what he’d come up with. And if he repeats himself in the future…

But movies are the smallest market in terms of the amount of product. Then comes TV and then comes music. How do you get people’s attention?

Turns out hype doesn’t work. So what does?

Word of mouth. And to get word of mouth you must have fans. And those fans have to spread the word. Think about that Netflix show “Nobody Wants This,” everybody I know was talking about it. But one episode of the second season was enough and if it ever came up in conversation thereafter everybody said how bad it was.

Too many in power are operating under the old paradigm. Build the brand and milk it. As if when people love it once, they’ll be forever stuck to it. But music and TV are not toothpaste. People think about the music they listen to and the TV they watch. I research before I spend time on a series… That’s how much I don’t want to waste my time! As for the good reviews of the second iterations of series… Like critics aren’t up their own a**es.

The train has already left the station. Stop seeing it as a crisis and get into the mind-set of the younger generation. We see this in all walks of life. The youngsters are digitally native and the oldsters can’t stop crapping on the way they’re living their lives.

But the bottom line is what’s going on on their smartphone is tailored to them, that’s what the vaunted TikTok algorithm is all about. Youngsters are living in the moment, they know how fast culture moves, they do their best to ride the serpent. Oldsters? They’ll tell you to listen to an entire album and render an opinion when the truth is youngsters will press play and if it doesn’t resonate with them immediately, they’re done, oftentimes forever!

Now if multiple friends tell them to go back…

Yes, we are living in a Tower of Babel society. But don’t deny it. What happens next? Is there consolidation, are their anointed projects, or is it every person in their own niche and happy about it.

I will say if you truly want to sustain, satisfy the niche, not the general public, because if the niche is happy, they’ll tell other people about it, and even if they don’t, you’ve got a hard core.

Remember when you didn’t have to tour to be successful? How you could make the record at home and it would go big, like Owl City’s “Fireflies”? It’s just the opposite today. If you want to have a career, if you want to sustain, play live. Stay in the trenches and hone your chops. Because the number of acts that can draw paying customers live is limited, not like the unlimited offerings on Spotify, never mind the seemingly unlimited offerings on Netflix. There are not a thousand bands playing in your town tonight. Maybe just a handful. And if they’re good, you’ll tell people about them.

I know there are fewer places to play. I’m just saying that the script has flipped. This is the best way to get started and to maintain, building a live audience. Because if your success is based on recordings, once the audience has seen the movie, you’d better be able to top what you’ve already done, and that’s difficult.

So a lot of the analysis of this decline of Netflix’s sophomore seasons of their popular series is being delivered by those inured to the old system. They want negative news about Netflix the same way musicians want negative news about Spotify. They want to return to a past that is never coming back.

Get in the shoes of younger generations and deliver great.

There’s very little great out there. But if you’re truly innovative and great, people will find you. Might take a while, but over time you’ll be building a career.

Remember when an act broke and you went back and bought all the records in their catalog? Today there is no catalog and if there is it’s all the same.

And, once again, identity is paramount. Warts and all. Be vulnerable.

The audience is hungry. Can you deliver what people want?

And what is it that they want?

That’s your job.