You’re gonna get a new phone.

The last time there was a great leap forward was back in 2012, with the iPhone 5, with LTE.

This was before most people were surfing the web on their phones. Sure, via WiFi, but on the network? Speeds were slow. Also, not everybody had a smartphone at this time. But with LTE, web-surfing on the go was enabled, it was nearly seamless, the experience was rewarding, and that’s where you’ve been living until…

Today.

5G. It’s not as simple as it looks. Because there are multiple flavors. Depending upon which spectrum a carrier purchased. So, T-Mobile has nationwide 5G but it’s slow, a mere blip of a speed increase. Whereas Verizon has the high speed 5G you’ve been reading about, but it’s not everywhere, as a matter of fact until today it was almost nowhere. And still, now, it’s only in the metropolis. Even worse, not everywhere in the metropolis. Because for this flavor of 5G you need numerous small antennas, its range is short, and its ability to go through walls is…challenged.

Complicated, right?

But don’t expect the marketers to make it clear to you. America is the land of obfuscation, not only in politics. AT&T is famous for having their phones indicate a speed they do not provide. 4G before true 4G was available, and now 5G. It’s become a marketing term.

Then again, how much money have you got, how much money are you willing to spend?

Today Apple introduced it’s HomePod Mini. It’s vastly overpriced. Its capabilities supersede other offerings, but you’re paying for the privilege. It’s like Apple said you’ve got to pay to be a part of its ecosystem. That it’s only for the elite, or the wealthy.

That was not Steve Jobs’s philosophy.

Remember the iPod? When competitors started to make noise, Jobs kept lowering the price, so it made no sense to switch.

And, just like with smart speakers, Jobs often took existing technology and then blasted it into the stratosphere, not everything was invented at Apple, maybe just polished. But when Jobs did this, he leapt ahead of the competition and pushed the envelope of power and usability. And he also made it for everybody. iTunes was an acquired program that was free to users. FireWire enabled the iPod to transfer files faster than the competition. And, at first the iPod was high-priced, at $400, but it quickly dropped in price.

Apple is way late to the smart speaker race. Alexa is everywhere. And Google Home has a footprint too. Today you can get an Echo Dot for under twenty bucks. If you want the latest iteration, the 4th generation, you’ll pay $59.99. That’s a whopping forty dollars cheaper than the HomePod Mini. And the new HomePod Mini doesn’t even work with Spotify. Apple did not need a HomePod Mini, it need a HomePod Micro, at $29.99. But this is what happens when you focus on margins as opposed to market share. Smart speakers are an ecosystem. And yes, Siri is in all those iPhones and iPads, but conventional wisdom is it sucks, that the Amazon and Google products are superior, if for no other reason than they’re used more, which increases accuracy. Apple needed a great leap forward. Instead they introduced a Ferrari. Sleek and high performance. But not for the average joe.

But, the features of the HomePod Mini, its intercom, the handoff from your phone, those are very cool. That’s Apple’s future, locking you into its ecosystem, and now it’s not as simple as switching from a Mac to a PC, or vice versa, you’ve got a decades-long investment in a platform, switching is like going from English to Japanese, and you don’t want to do this.

But in phones?

Apple is killing it. Because it creates its own hardware.

Are you following the hubbub around Nikola? First and foremost, it was started by a scam artist, who convinced companies like GM to invest. An analyst blew the roof off the enterprise, Nikola may never recover. Nikola’s worst offense? It invented nothing, it was dependent upon suppliers, to provide in some cases stuff that was not yet invented.

Apple is in control of the entire process. As for suppliers, it’s such a big customer, usually the biggest, that suppliers kowtow to it.

But, it’s all about the chips.

Americans like things. In a world where so much has become a service, where you own so little, what you want is pulled on demand, there are very few items that you still own, that burnish your image, that make you feel good. And one of these is a smartphone. And there’s always some top-line Samsung Galaxy, but the truth is the iPhone is the king of image. It’s Louis Vuitton and BMW wrapped into one. You want one. This is another advantage Apple has…selling hardware. Most of the tech companies are purely software, or mostly. Many depend upon advertising, which invades your privacy, Apple can afford to reject that.

So, by designing its own chips, Apple can tweak them for their devices, for power consumption and so much more, no other manufacturer can compete, not a single one!

Oh, it’s not always invented first on the Apple platform, as referenced above. But it’s integrated seamlessly, and there’s no excess baggage, the crapware that comes on all the Android devices.

Android. This war has been fought. You’re on one team or the other. The one true advantage of Android is that it’s more flexible, if you’re skilled you can adjust it to the nth degree. But very few are that skilled.

And the iPhone is more powerful. It will continue to be more powerful. Just like Tesla…which is winning because its battery performance is superior to its competitors, who despite investment are nowhere close in range.

So, you’re gonna want a 5G phone. The hype, the pressure will get to you if nothing else.

And which one are you gonna buy?

The iPhone is not a throwaway, it does more than get the job done. But if you’re willing to lay down, the only limit will be your imagination, not the power. Shooting movies in 4G, employing RAW photography, you’re probably not gonna do either. But one thing is for sure, iPhone photography is state of the art.

And everything just works.

And it’s faster than the competition.

Once again, specs can be manipulated, but the truth is an integrated product will always be superior to one built from off the shelf components, especially when you control the chip, the brain, the engine itself.

As for which phone you need…

If you’re not buying a 12, you’re just cheap. Sure, you can buy a less expensive model, but you’re just hobbling your capabilities. You want to future-proof your purchase. And the truth is your smartphone is your most used device, more than your car, your computer, your flat screen…yes, it might be small, but this is not where you should cut financial corners.

Do you need a Pro?

Why not go all the way?

As for the Pro Max…what you’re getting are photography improvements. If those are important to you, buy one. But, you’ll also want to buy one if you want the size. And the truth is, like with flat screen TVs, you want the largest you can afford. Believe me. The more screen you’ve got the more you can see, the more you’ll use the device.

And despite all the criticism of addiction by the older generation, the truth is the smartphone is a tool we all depend upon. We’re only going to be more connected in the future, not less.

So, if you’re an investor, the future of iPhone sales looks very bright. Everybody’s gonna get a 5G phone. Maybe they can’t afford one today, during the Covid era, but they’ll want one soon, and they’ll prioritize this purchase. The upgrade cycle is about to begin.

As for the penumbra?

Only Apple can spin giving you less as a benefit. That’s right, by not including a charger and earbuds there will be less environmental impact. Hell, if we don’t buy one at all there will be no environmental impact!

But one thing you’ve got to know, despite the oldsters in D.C., everybody who runs a company today knows that youngsters prioritize the environment and human equality, if you’re not focusing on these topics you’ll lose the minds of consumers coming of age, and you don’t want to do that.

As for the presentation?

Once again, it was a rainbow of personalities. Do you really need the most powerful execs to read off a teleprompter? It seems overdone, but someone has to lead the way, and Apple is doing so.

As for the production itself…

Building an entire home? That’s what car companies, traditional Fortune 500 companies do. What did they do with the home set after, burn it? Yes, it seemed like a waste.

But one thing’s for sure, we’re never going back to the Steve Jobs presentations of yore, all on one stage.

Covid is changing our world in unexpected ways. It turns out Apple can do much more with a canned presentation than a traditional live one. They will not go back to the live ones unless they throw it to different locations therein.

The truth is Apple is the world’s wealthiest company. But it always presented itself as the other, the outsider, the cool, the hip. Today’s presentation undercut that, but unlike the one last month, it was brief, it contained the relevant information and if you actually watched it you were wowed.

Get ready to spend. 5G is here. And you’re best off buying an iPhone.

Case closed.

Spotify

Pandora

Tune in today, October 13th, to Volume 106, 7 PM East, 4 PM West.

Hear the episode live on SiriusXM VOLUME: HearLefsetzLive

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

London Spy Netflix

This is a fantastic series.

We’ve been on a losing streak. “Stranger,” that Korean show I was telling you about? It was interesting, but just didn’t deliver, and it took sixteen episodes to get to the end of the first season! The cinematography was great, Seoul was intriguing, but it took so long to get to the ultimate culprit that I wasn’t sure I cared. We started the second season, because sometimes there’s an improvement, but the premise was even more implausible than the first, so we bolted.

To “The Forgotten,” “Les Revenants” in French. Word of mouth was so good that I took a chance, even though I’ve got no time for zombies or fantasy…people recommend these shows to me all the time, and once something comes out of the woods, once the special effects show up, I’m done. I need truth. Gimme some truth.

And there’s a lot of truth in “London Spy.”

Having said that, one caveat, the ending is not as satisfying as the rest of the show. Which is too often the case with these series. Nothing can supersede, or even equal, the buildup. However, when it was all done, and I was thinking about it, I felt better about the ending. But your mileage may vary.

We’re used to entertainments. A night away from this harried life. That is not what “London Spy” is all about. Sure, it’s entertaining, but there’s social commentary and wisdom and they don’t dominate, but they lift this series above the run-of-the-mill stuff that you watch and you forget.

Like how you dress. How you handle yourself. That’s more important than money. I thought I knew money until I went to Middlebury College. Grow up in the suburbs and somebody has a Cadillac, they vacation in the Virgin Islands, they’ve got all the new toys, you think they’re rich, but they’re not rich at all.

Now rich has changed. When I was growing up rich was inherited, now rich is made, and it’s tilted the playing field. But in the days of yore, the rich were not showy, but they were very judgmental. They read the cues. And to play you had to learn how to read the cues too.

Never ever boast. Don’t tell people what you own, where you’ve been, it’s déclassé. Your image is not based on your acquisitions, your car, your house, it’s based on heritage and knowing how to navigate the canals of power.

Which most people never learn. They believe if they’re bulls in a china shop they can succeed. But oftentimes the doors are closed to them.

Who really runs this country?

Used to be they were faceless. Now they’ve come out of the woodwork, in most cases reluctantly, but their goal is to get no publicity, as they move the chess pieces.

This is what Donald Trump hates. He’s spent his entire life trying to be accepted by this group, and he has not. They abhor crass. And they’re smart enough to know if you venture into the public eye you’re going to get scrutiny, which is never wanted. Would the “New York Times” be looking into Trump’s taxes if he wasn’t president? Of course not, they never had previously.

“What county in the United States has the highest rate of tax audits?

The answer is Humphreys County in rural Mississippi, where three-quarters of the population is Black and more than one-third lives below the poverty line.”

“Who’s the Tax Cheat: The Lady in Jail or the Man in the White House”

They demonize taxes, tell you it’s your money, as they demonize the broke for not paying income taxes, although they’re paying a wealth of other taxes which sustain our society. But the rich and faceless are the real winners here. As evidenced by the quote above. It’s laughable on its face. But the IRS has been neutered, by elected officials beholden to the wealthy class.

And Danny shows his sketchbook to Scottie, it evidences a wealth of talent, but Scottie criticizes him, for bouncing around from image to narrative to poetry… Scottie says to pick one and double-down on it. He tells Danny he’s waiting for someone to recognize his talent, and that’s a fool’s errand, you’ve got to focus and blaze your own path.

To this day most people have no idea how you gain success. They think talent is enough. They butter up the underlings with big titles who are unable to make a decision. Very few can make it to the top and the road is so hard that if most actually saw it they’d stop.

Relationships… Do you want them so much that you avoid them? Do you privately pray that someone will notice you while you try to perfect the image of needing no one?

And how many people can you truly count on. If you’re lucky, one.

And most people don’t make it to the top anyway. Because of a misstep, because those in power don’t want them to. The game is oftentimes bigger than the players, like the music business, they don’t need your music to succeed, they just need SOME music to succeed!

And how important are you anyway? Does your little life truly matter in this fast-moving world?

And is it about truth or expediency. If you stand up to the system can you win?

And what are you willing to risk. Danny’s got nothing, so he’s willing to take chances that someone with a big CV will not. And some of those chances lead to big rewards and some of them ultimately prove fatal. But when you’ve got nothing, you’ve got nothing to lose. Which is why today it’s the broke who break down barriers. Those in the upper middle class and above are so inured to their education, are playing it so safe, that they’re ripe for being blown out of the water.

But don’t underestimate the power of money, never.

So, “London Spy” can be slow. But just as you start to get bored, there’s an unforeseen twist.

And Danny may not be educated, but he’s street smart, he trusts his intuition, and that’s often the key to success more than education.

The system is stacked against you. And if you raise your head, anything can happen. Get press and you can lose your job, never mind the press rarely getting it completely accurate, after all that’s not their business, their business is selling ads, papers and subscriptions. They just need grist for the mill. They’ll swarm you today and forget you tomorrow.

And if you’re in a pinch do you have someone to call? Who’ll call up an attorney to show up and keep your ass out of jail? You can’t make it in this life without friends, literally, no way.

So there are only five hour-long episodes.

Oh yeah, I forgot to mention Charlotte Rampling. With no plastic surgery, she’s better and more believable than all the Hollywood actresses who’ve ruined their faces out of peer pressure, believing if they don’t look young they cannot work.

Like I said, “London Spy” is not a huge commitment. But you’ll find yourself plowing through the episodes. And unlike a typical American, you won’t be talking while the show plays out, you’ll be riveted, you’re drawn into the mood, the life.

Hell, watch one episode and then make your commitment, or not. That’s what I hate about recommendations. If you don’t know the kind of show I like…well, I told you above…supernatural, zombies, they’re not my thing. But they may be your thing, and you might hate “London Spy.”

But if you’re a student of the game, of life, of choices, of getting ahead, you’ll be transfixed. You’ll think about the show after the screen goes dark. You won’t be able to resist clicking to the next episode.

Oh, and Alex revealing his truth to Danny?? That’s what we’re looking for in a relationship, in life, someone to tell our truth to, who will accept us, not only warts and all, but inexperience and all.

“London Spy” was a surprise. The “New York Times” recommended it eons ago, it’s on the list I keep in Apple Notes. It wasn’t even in my must-see category (yes, I do that much research). But there was enough positive response to give it a chance.

I’m so glad I did.

Dua Lipa/London Grammar

I got stuck in a Dua Lipa loop.

You’re probably aware that “Rolling Stone” just published their updated “500 Greatest Albums of All Time.” It’s a complete waste of time. A way to draw attention to a dying empire hurt by the lack of advertising that is charging up the yin-yang for magazine and online access, SEPARATELY! As a matter of fact, “Rolling Stone”‘s music news is top-notch, far superior to “Billboard”‘s, which is a vast wasteland of wanker writing appealing to a public that’s not interested, a true trade magazine no more. But once you put up a paywall, you inherently lessen your audience. And tycoons and wannabes can pay for the “Wall Street Journal,” and most other highfalutin’ publications have a soft paywall, but the hoi polloi are notoriously cheap, people don’t want to pay.

However, “Rolling Stone” is baked into Apple News+, both the magazine and the online news, but I’m vastly disappointed in Apple’s product, because too often the pages turn slowly, you’re waiting forever, it’s not equivalent to reading in print.

But the “Wall Street Journal” is where I want to start. Referencing Mark Richardson’s article on “Rolling Stone”‘s “500 Greatest” list.

First and foremost, these lists are just a way to grab attention. Buzzfeed built a whole business on lists. But now they’re devalued and seen as clickbait and most people ignore them but since it’s music and “Rolling Stone” there’s been attention, if for no other reason than the re-ranking of legendary LPs, like “Sgt. Pepper.” That breakthrough album was #1 the last two times “Rolling Stone” did this, now it’s #24, and that’s positively insane. It creates controversy just for the sake of controversy. For if you were alive back then, you’d remember the huge breakthrough “Sgt. Pepper” was, an album long statement with no singles, all the rest of the albums on this list would not be there if it hadn’t been for “Sgt. Pepper.” As for comparing albums from the sixties to today, that’s like including Frank Sinatra and Tommy Dorsey in a similar listing in the heyday of the Beatles. Times are different. The Beatles tested and surpassed limits. Inspiration is the essence of creation. Doing something new is what we look to, what we cherish, that we drown in accolades. And then there’s public acceptance and so many other reasons this 500 list is a waste of time but I’d recommend Mark Richardson’s article, even though it too is behind a paywall, because he says something I’ve been saying for eons, to seemingly myself. But now that it’s in the WSJ, maybe the public will accept it.

We no longer live in a monoculture. There is no longer one music business. The major labels and the Spotify Top 50 are one business, but only a sliver of the overall business. They’re getting disproportionate ink.

But here’s what Mark Richardson has to say:

“In 2020, we’re living in a shapeshifting musical world filled with many possible histories. Today, two serious music fans can have lengthy year-end lists of favorites that have zero records in common. The sheer number of releases on offer – tens of thousands of new songs are uploaded to streaming services each week – and the proliferation of new genres and sounds mean that everyone who devotes significant time to listening to and following music is a specialist.

The website Every Noise at Once provides a list of almost 5,000 genres, each of which might have hundreds of subgenres beneath it (the site was started by an engineer at the streaming platform Spotify). When you sort genres by popularity, at the time of my writing this Brooklyn Drill, the aggressive style of hip-hop defined by the rapper Pop Smoke, was the 140th most popular genre; grunge, most associated with Nirvana (the group’s 1991 “Nevermind” is No. 6 on Rolling Stone’s recent list), came in at 266.”

Rolling Stone’s Canon Fodder

BINGO!

5,000 genres? No one owned 5,000 records in the last century, before the internet, before file-trading and streaming. We’re all listening to different music. And the news is a fiction. Nothing is as big as it used to be, and everything is smaller than the media hype tells us it is. The manipulated “Billboard” chart is almost completely irrelevant. There can be a festival that sells 100,000 tickets and none of the acts even appear on it.

Which brings me back to Dua Lipa.

I stumbled upon the Tensnake remix of her track “Hallucinate.”

And I couldn’t turn it off.

From the very first moment it’s got that EDM sound, that disco beat. Which is anathema to mainstream rock fans, even though Prince employed it to incredible success on “Dirty Mind,” even though seemingly everybody likes the “Saturday Night Fever” soundtrack, even though disco never died.

“Hallucinate” was not a hit in any fashion in the U.S. This disco sound does not work on Top Forty, and it certainly does not fit on Hot AC and it brings up the sign of the cross at AAA. But…

Keep your ears open. Let it play. You will not be able to sit still. You don’t have to tell anybody you’re listening, that you like it, this experience is just for you. This remix is a monster. Not a breakthrough like Avicii’s “Wake Me Up,” but a distillation of all that came before into something undeniable.

And this is how I like to listen. Over and over again. It’s kind of like the short attention span that everybody accuses the younger generation of having. NO WAY! We’ve just got no tolerance for average, even good, but when we find something we love, that rings our bell, we’ve got unlimited time for it.

So, I decided to go to the original track. “Hallucinate” before the remix, from Dua Lipa’s “Future Nostalgia” LP that’s such a smash. And the basics are still there, I like it. But the Tensnake remix elevates it. Blows the roof off the joint and jets listeners into the stratosphere, the remix takes over your body and mind, permeates your physicality, if not your soul.

And what I’m really doing is checking myself. Finding out if I’m behind the curve, if the Tensnake remix is really that good.

So I go to Dua Lipa’s “Club Future Nostalgia (DJ Mix)” remix album, because I listened to it and I don’t remember being stopped in my tracks by “Hallucinate.” And there are two remixes on the album, but neither are by Tensnake. As a matter of fact, they’re a bit generic, in their own genres, neither are as good as the original studio version on “Future Nostalgia,” even with Gwen Stefani’s “Hollaback Girl” inserted into the Blessed Madonna remix.

So, to check my ears, I went back to the Tensnake remix and once again I got that feeling, it was just ten or fifteen percent better than the original studio version, but that made all the difference.

But I could not write about it. Because I’d be inundated with hate, put-downs. The rockers would decry the disco and the Dua Lipa/pop fanatics would tell me I wasn’t immersed enough in the scene to comment.

But then Felice came into my office, where the Tensnake remix of “Hallucinate” was blasting, and she started to dance, it was just that infectious. But was it just for me?

And then I listened to London Grammar’s “California Soil.”

I was a fan, but I was not impressed live, the band did not touch me in quite the same way. But “California Soil,” I couldn’t turn it off! It reminded me of Air’s breakthrough “All I Need,” but it was its own independent concoction.

This could not be more different from “Hallucinate,” in any incarnation, other than for the 808/fake drum sound, which always offends me. But not enough to overlook this dreamy track, which had me floating above the ground, like listening on headphones in the dark fifty years ago, not that it sounds anything like the music I liked back then, that anybody even made.

I left my soul
On California soil

This is not the troubled California of the news, this is the California dream of the English, the non-Americans, who are mesmerized by the freedom and weather of California.

Not that “California Soil” is about the lyrics. Rather it’s about the feel, the sound, the ethereal vocal. It’s hypnotic.

I wasn’t gripped quite as immediately as I was with “Hallucinate,” but then I played “California Soil” so much I started hearing it when I wasn’t listening to it, it was playing in my brain, I couldn’t get rid of it, I needed to hear it, I put it on my phone as I stretched.

And just like with the albums of yore, “California Soil” slipped into “Baby It’s You,” not the old sixties nugget but something brand new. And “Baby It’s You” was more upbeat, more optimistic, and I got hooked on that too.

Honestly, I discovered “Hallucinate” from a playlist this guy sends me, there’s always one or two good tracks. But I was reluctant to mention that for fear I’d be inundated with recommendations from people whose taste is suspect.

And I discovered “California Soil” from Jeff Pollack’s weekly playlist. Nothing else resonated, but I immediately heard “California Soil,” that’s how it is, the greats jump out.

But what would my audience think of what I was into. I knew I’d be judged, negatively. That’s just how it is.

But then I read Mark Richardson’s article in the “WSJ” and I realized just like in the sixties, it’s about letting your freak flag fly. You can feel comfortable being into what you are. It’s those stuck in major label/Spotify Top 50 land who are suffering, who are left out, as well as the rockers who cannot be open to a synth, to a new sound, their ears are closed.

The “Future Nostalgia” “Hallucinate” has 93 million listens. The YouTube clip has 32 million. The Tensnake remix doesn’t break a million on either platform. It’s like it doesn’t even exist, yet I’m hooked on it, it’s superior to all the other iterations.

“Hallucinate” is the most streamed track from “Future Nostalgia” in the U.K. But in the U.S…CRICKETS!

As for the London Grammar tracks…”California Soil” has a million streams on Spotify, “Baby It’s You” has got five million. As for YouTube, “Baby It’s You” has just over a million, “California Soil” about half of that.

These are the numbers the acts of yore bitch about, that they’re not getting paid enough for. But London Grammar knows all the money is not in streams, but fans! Who’ll come to see you live, who will invest in the act’s culture, irrelevant of whether the band ever breaks into, probably doubtful, the Spotify Top 50. And chances are London Grammar fans never ever listen to Top Forty radio, never. Chances are they don’t listen to terrestrial radio at all!

So I’m wandering in the wilderness just like everybody else, assuming you haven’t given up as a result of the tyranny of choice and the labels and the complicit media hyping a very narrow sliver of what’s available.

This is the new world. We are never going back to a monoculture. There are more genres, more sounds than ever, we just need a way to establish coherence, expose those who are interested in what they very much might like.

YouTube links:

“Hallucinate”-Tensnake Remix

“Hallucinate”-“Future Nostalgia” original

“California Soil”

“Baby It’s You”