Founder of Elektra Records, Jac Holzman signed acts from Theodore Bikel to Love, the Doors, Queen, Bread, Judy Collins and more and released classical music for the masses on the discount Nonesuch label. Listen to hear how this innovator with an ear built one of the greatest record companies of all time.

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You can’t be old in rock and roll. It’s against the ethos. Aren’t you supposed to die before you get old?

But in country and rap age is not a barrier. I won’t quite say it gives you gravitas, but it doesn’t make your new music a nonstarter.

Then again, rock blew itself apart.

Today I’ve been going through the various radio playlists. The funny thing about radio is it means less than ever but it still means the most to the major labels that manipulate it for success. And have no doubt, the major labels rule these radio stations, your odds of getting traction if you’re an independent… Then again, most independents live in the new world and focus on the internet, on streaming services to build their audience. But few of these acts break into the Spotify Top 50.

But before I hit the charts, I listened to one of the playlists of those whom I trust. It contained a lot of names you’re aware of. Like Phoebe Bridgers, owner of the scorched earth publicity campaign of the year. Sure, they reached everybody but no one could live up to the hype, and Bridgers does not. But I will say “Kyoto” is one of her more listenable cuts.

The best song on this playlist was probably a remaster of the Blue Nile’s “Big Town.” The Blue Nile stopped delivering when they got mindshare. They’d paid all their dues and then…nothing.

But “Old Soul” was a surprise.

I’d read the hype on “Old Soul.” Somebody I did not know working with Sheryl Crow. It stuck in my brain but when I heard the cut it was different from the rest, ethereal, almost as if it was not looking for mainstream success, nearly classical in feel. And then Sheryl started to sing and she sounded different from before, almost akin to Sarah Brightman, whose pop album “Dive” was unjustly ignored. And the funny thing is Sheryl and Sarah were both on A&M.

And having heard “Old Soul” once, I had the desire to hear it again. And I looked up the lyrics. They’re as basic as a midsixties pop hit whose words were dashed off in minutes.

And then I went to All Access to see the Mediabase charts. For some reason, the default is AC, where Harry Styles was #1, with “Adore You.” Then came Post Malone’s “Circles” and…the overplayed Maren Morris’s “The Bones” and Maroon 5’s ” Memories.”

I looked up the Spotify playlist counts. They’re huge. “The Bones” has 207 million, but “Memories” has 909 million. And I’m not a fan of Maroon 5 and I like “Memories” more than what has come before but if this is hit music…then hit music is not what it used to be, because “Memories” is not undeniable.

Then I went to Top 40, which is headed by Lewis Capaldi’s “Before You Go,” which Lenny Beer labeled a breakthrough of radio promotion since the cut was the antithesis of the format in sound but I can’t say I heard it. I can understand if it’s driven into your brain through overplay you might come to like it but this #1 is so far from a one listen smash, and isn’t that what a true hit is? As a matter of fact, I far preferred the next Capaldi cut on Spotify, “Bruises,” I got that, but that’s not the track that made it in the U.S. as opposed to the rest of the world, it only got as far as #22 on Bubbling Under. Maybe the label will work “Bruises” next. Sure, it’s further from the Top 40 but it’s more magical than “Before You Go” but never forget Top 40 is a calculation, with campaigns prepped like a military attack…you work what you think will succeed, not what’s best. Now “Bruises” at the top of the Top 40 chart, that would truly be a breakthrough.

And the rest of the Top 40 was familiar and uninteresting so I switched to the Triple A chart, too often a backwater of the not quite good enough.

And #1 is by an act I’ve never heard of, Matt Maeson, “Hallucinogenics.” It’s got a good chorus, but that’s it. Close, but no cigar, just like the Killers cut behind it.

And the other acts without worldwide fame, like Dermot Kennedy, were reasonable, but not hits. But the Tame Impala track “Is It True,’ it contained a magic absent from everything else I’d listened to on the Triple A chart. It lived in its own world, not worrying about anything else but itself, the sixties and seventies ethos. It was poppy but left of center, but I can’t say I was enamored of the percussion.

“Is It True” has 24 million streams. “Hallucinogenics” 46 million. Lewis Capaldi 585 million. I can’t say that streams reflect quality, but they do reflect revenue. How do these acts with a fraction of the mindshare, a fraction of the impact of the huge hit acts, expect to make big bread on streaming? Most people are not listening to them.

Now I’m getting burned out. I’m scanning the rest of the Triple A chart to see what is interesting before I sign off. And I’m always interested in Elle King, she’s quite a performer and I still can’t believe she’s Rob Schneider’s daughter. But what strikes me is the Semisonic song. SEMISONIC?

I know Dan Wilson. He’s put out some solo work since the demise of the band, but he makes his living as a songwriter these days, with the likes of Adele. And I know he’s always creating, and I knew he had new material coming, but I forgot it was coming out under the Semisonic moniker.

“You’re Not Alone” starts off quiet, bedroom material. But the lyrics are right up front and they resonate. “Everybody knows the world is wrong.” Ain’t that the truth.

So I go to look up the lyrics and while I’m doing this the song hits the chorus. And I’m positively stunned, there’s the riff, the crunchy guitar sound that’s the underpinning of rock and roll but is absent from seemingly everything on Active Rock, a true backwater where acts try to imitate Metallica, usually poorly. But this riff, this power chord, from this supposedly wimpy band Semisonic, has almost as much impact as one from Angus Young of AC/DC. If you know your rock and roll it goes straight to your heart, gets your body moving.

And then back to that intimate melodic verse.

And I’m reading the lyrics, and there’s more depth in one verse than there is in the entirety of “Old Soul.” And “You’re Not Alone” has more changes than all the other supposed hit cuts.

And the track accelerates and is running high on energy. And it’s clear “You’re Not Alone” is closer to a hit than all the stuff I’ve listened to earlier. It’s nearly akin to Eric Carmen and the Raspberries, who packed four songs’ worth of hooks into one track.

Not that I’m saying “You’re Not Alone” will close everybody. Unfortunately, sans that riff the chorus isn’t quite there. But the point is I’m judging on an absolute scale, and on an absolute scale nothing I’d listened to previously was a true hit. They’d been worked by the labels but you could live quite comfortably without ever hearing them and if you happened to chances are you’d push the button for another station, assuming you’re listening at all. Proving once again what is being purveyed, what is being pushed by the majors, is substandard, maybe good, but not good enough. This business was built on innovation, one listen roller coaster rides delivering an experience you could not get anywhere else. When listening to “You’re Not Alone” your brain and body stay focused, this is not background, this is the elixir of life, the essence of music, something you cannot label but changes your entire life, makes you feel good, stuff you want to hear over and over and over again until the feeling finally evaporates and you look for a new hit to deliver that feeling. Yes, that’s right, we were all addicted, and we needed a new fix. Believe me, you don’t need a new fix from Lewis Capaldi or Maroon 5. That’s commerce, not art.

Gaze in my eyes and tell me I’ll be all right
Even if I don’t get what I need tonight

Isn’t that what we’re all looking for, what we all want, someone to tell us it’s going to be ALL RIGHT?

But other times it’s easy as baking a pie
Falling off a log and living till you die
What would even be the point if we knew what comes next

Isn’t that exactly the point, the surprise of the future? It drives us crazy, especially since there are so many potholes, too many bad accidents, but when it all works the natural high blows your mind, it’s so great to be alive!

Semisonic’s major label days are far behind the band. Their new music is put out on their own label, Pleasuresonic, via Megaforce and distributed by RED. Better than doing it all by yourself, but no match for the behemoths working the Top 40 product.

Now “You’re Not Alone” is not new. It came out back in June. I’d say it was like a tree falling in the forest, but with all the forests burning up a single match gets no notice, has no meaning.

And now “You’re Not Alone” is getting a smidge of radio airplay. But that video put out back in July has 38,000 streams. As for Spotify there’s a grand total of 229,000. Demonstrating the relative power of Triple A compared to Top 40 and its cousins AC/Hot AC.

But Triple A does support new bands and it does drive live business. Kudos. But it’s dependent upon what is delivered. The stations don’t make the music. But then they get and expose something like “You’re Not Alone.” Made by a group whose members are pushing sixty.

Maybe “You’re Not Alone” is for boomers. Who remember saving their pennies to buy albums, whose taste was deeper than it was broad but was open to singer/songwriters like Joni Mitchell and modified popsters like Todd Rundgren in addition to the Eagles and the Rolling Stones. You see all these acts delivered an essence, something actually more than the music, a depth, a feeling. And no one is better than Joni Mitchell, except maybe the Beatles. And Todd Rundgren was and still is a wizard, a true star.

So send yourself back to the seventies. Before the internet. When you bought most music on faith, without even hearing it first. Imagine dropping the needle on “You’re Not Alone,” the sound would fill your room, you’d get a smile on your face, and you would be happy that you had not wasted your cash and you’d look forward to playing it again and again in your own little bubble.

Like me.

Viewers 2013-2020

2013: 18 million
2014: 16 mm
2015: 12 mm
2016: 11 mm
2017: 11 mm
2018: 10 mm
2019: 7 mm
2020: 6 mm

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You can’t say nobody was home, that there was competition for the flat screen. The truth is we live in an on demand culture and awards shows are not such and if you want the results you can get them instantly when it’s over, even during the show, so why watch it, and if you’re talking about celebrities, we’re overloaded with them online, it’s not like they’re scarce, and movie stars are not even movie stars anymore, never mind flat screen stars, it turns out two-dimensional is passe, we’re looking for a little more depth, or those who admit they’re two-dimensional whores selling out for the bucks. As for Kim Kardashian…she’s now saving inmates and going to law school, she’s got more gravitas than nearly everybody on the flat screen.

But TV drives our culture!

It most certainly does, but that does not mean we’re interested in awards therefore. They blew apart the center, they got rid of the scarcity, we all watch different shows and are quite happy with that, sure, we pay attention to the scuttlebutt, we’re interested in who won, but all these years later the awards shows are industry scrums, the rest of us really don’t care.

Over the past decade we’ve switched to an on demand world. We want to do it when we want to do it. As for live events, there must be something at risk, in the balance, like presidential debates or sporting contests, with ardent fans on the edge of their seats. As for who won television awards? Didn’t they try once to have web awards, i.e. the Webbys? Do they even have those anymore? They never got traction, because it’s the WORLD WIDE Web, and almost nothing is world wide, nothing gets that kind of traction other than the platforms themselves, and the only advantage of winning is the ability to put it on LinkedIn when the truth is if you’re a star you don’t need a LinkedIn page, you’re turning down work, it comes to you, you don’t have to seek it out, everybody knows where to find you, at no time in history have the prominent, what used to be called “celebrities,” been more accessible. Furthermore, the true stars of today, the Tim Cooks, the Mark Zuckerbergs…they’re nearly impossible to get ahold of, they live in a rarefied world only accessible to a few, you might be able to get on reality TV, but you can only dream of having access to the techies, the people who really run this country, and have no doubt, the hoi polloi know who they are.

Hollywood used to be secret, a LaLa land that required you to move to Los Angeles to TRY and become a part of. But then incentives had producers making shows all over the country, the world, and then everybody got 4k with their smartphone and the ability to post on YouTube for free and the magic evaporated. There’s no magic in Hollywood anymore, at most in its productions. As for mainstream fare…today’s youth don’t even have cable, they don’t see the networks and so much more, they borrow their parents’ credentials to watch Netflix and Amazon Prime into their thirties. They can live without everything. That’s the story of today, everything is at your fingertips but you can live without almost any of it, except that which resides in the tiny niche you’re attracted to.

As for myself, if it’s in English I’m probably not interested, unless it was made in the U.K. In America the stars are beautiful and it all works out, the production qualities exceed the stories, this is what happens when you attempt to please the most people, you end up with something that reaches very few, emotionally, intellectually.

And the public is now the arbiter, we hate gatekeepers. We’ll listen to what our friends have to say, we have our own trusted sources, who cares what the biased insiders have to say. Which is one of the reasons there’s no longer a Grammy bump and chances are most of the shows that won last night you have no interest in seeing, even if you missed them the first time around.

I guarantee you most of the shows I watch would not appeal to everybody. Hell, it seems most people can’t even abide subtitles! This is no longer the sixties, when we had no choice, not even the nineties or the first decade of this century, there’s an unlimited number of channels and there’s too much on and if no one else is watching what I’m watching, that’s cool with me.

Hollywood still believes it’s top down. That it’s in control. That the starmakers are insiders, part of the club. But the truth is control is exhibited online. And the younger you are, the less you pay attention to mainstream media and the more your heroes are those outside of traditional television. Jimmy Kimmel? He’s a nice guy, really nice, but if the Emmys wanted to appeal to a broader audience they should have been hosted by Jake Paul, or Ninja, online stars I doubt those in charge of last night’s show are even aware of. The younger generation has options, millennials and Gen-Z do not care whether they watch it on the big screen or on their phone, they’re drawn to content, and it does not even have to have a traditional narrative style. Hell, there isn’t even a television outlet/channel that appeals to these people other than the smorgasbord behemoths of Netflix, Amazon Prime and Hulu. Kids have no idea what’s on MTV, and that station stripped “music” from its moniker years ago.

Some things you can’t save. You just scrub them and leap into the future. We’ve had twenty five years of disruption yet the “industry,” and in this case I’m talking about both TV and film, believes everybody should still be interested in their product, in their awards shows which haven’t changed in decades. You’ve got to reinvent it. Maybe everybody in Hollywood should read Clayton Christensen’s “The Innovator’s Dilemma.”

You can be sure that Reed Hastings has.

Reed Hastings…dared to open movies on the flat screen as opposed to the theatre, dropped all the episodes of a series at once and the old guard still hasn’t stopped complaining, HBO Max and AppleTV+ are still dribbling episodes out once a week. No one goes to the office anymore, and if they do they bring their own water, they don’t hang out at the cooler. You’re lucky if anybody is paying attention at all, and if they are, people want the opportunity to binge, watch it all at once, that’s more satisfying than a week to week experience.

Yes, Reed Hastings won. Because he got ahead of the public. Going to streaming when people still wanted DVDs by mail. But he had the last laugh. Turns out when you can get it instantly, whenever you want, and there’s new product like “House of Cards” and “Narcos” that no one else will make that is superior to the competition, it’s a fait accompli, that’s what the people desire. And, once again, the road to access is easy. You just need a fat pipe and the price of one movie ticket to luxuriate in all kinds of product. Choice…try and purchase a product on Amazon, you’re overwhelmed!

And people are overwhelmed with television too. The old paradigms, the old tropes, the old awards shows just don’t work anymore. Reinvent them or die.

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Tune in tomorrow, September 22nd, to Volume 106, 7 PM East, 4 PM West.

Hear the episode live on SiriusXM VOLUME: HearLefsetz

If you miss the episode, you can hear it on demand on the SiriusXM app: LefsetzLive