Music must be listened to on CDs. They’re a perfect format, a perfect listening experience and we spend a lot of money to make those productions and that is the way the creators want their music to be heard.

HUH?

We heard this rubbish twenty years ago. When the audience yanked the music industry into the twenty first century. Funny, all the youngsters are happy with the new world order, it’s only the oldsters who continue to complain, bitching that the old methods of compensation were superior and they must be restored.

Move fast and break things. Wasn’t that the motto of Facebook? And now Facebook is so big the government wants to break it up while the movie studios fight for survival, at least in the theatrical business. Statistics, they were and continue to be ignored in the music business and now the same thing is happening in the movie business. Theatrical attendance is DOWN! People just don’t want to go to the movie theatre, it’s a crappy experience. Sure, the screen is big, but the audience is rambunctious, talking and typing, and the floor is dirty and tickets are overpriced. Don’t argue with me, you’re just gonna appear to be an old fogey, like those who tried to argue the value of music decades ago, to rationalize the price of a CD. How did that turn out? Recorded music revenues sank until the industry aligned with the new paradigm, provided by outsiders, like Apple and Spotify, it’s always been outsiders, until now, when Warner Brothers wants to jet into the future and the establishment just can’t handle it, is crying like it’s two years old.

Let’s start with Covid-19. The movie industry is run by oldsters. How many of them have left their domiciles to go to a movie theatre? Yeah punk, you want everybody else to go, but you wouldn’t be caught dead there, because you don’t want to be dead. This is the coastal elitism many Americans have contempt for and despise. The truth is America is mostly locked down, and the movie industry could do a service and make shows that reinforce the danger of the virus and the need to take it seriously, but instead it argues for just the opposite. Put that in your pipe and smoke it!

So, let’s hold back the productions until theatrical is flourishing once again. What, do you want to be the touring business, shut down completely, begging the government for relief as its workers starve? What ignorant bozos are protesting the distribution of these flicks. Furthermore, not every movie will survive on the shelf, motion pictures become dated just like food.

BUT THEY’RE SELLING THEM TO HBO MAX, IT’S INSIDER DEALING!

Yes, you’re exactly correct! This is one of the few real issues at play here. But we saw the same thing in the music business, is streaming a license or a royalty and how should artists be paid…when the truth is in the old game they were underpaid in an opaque world. This is still a problem in the music business, low compensation on indecipherable terms, just the way the majors like it. But the youngsters can circumvent the majors and go directly to the distributors, with their transparent payments…yes, all that bitching by artists who are signed to major labels with bad deals but somehow it’s Spotify’s fault? They’re just demonstrating their ignorance.

Not only do people not want to go to the movie theatre, they don’t want to pay for streaming an individual film on the flat screen, that ship has sailed. Would have worked five years ago, certainly ten, but the movie industry waited too long. Now customers are already paying for streaming services and they don’t want to pay the equivalent of a monthly fee just to watch one movie, films must be baked into a service, and not everybody is willing to pay for every service, no way, so it’s a race to see who survives, and not all of them will, this is not cable television, where the provider pays obtuse, small audience channels to keep them alive…in streaming people pay directly, they either want your product or they don’t.

Self-dealing… That’s another reasonable question here…what is the value of said Warner Brothers movies distributed by HBO Max? They’ll argue about it for a long time, meanwhile AT&T/WB/HBO Max will have achieved one of their goals, propping up, hopefully building their overpriced individual system, HBO Max. Yes, HBO is making the same mistake the major labels did, they think their customers are the cable systems just like the majors believed their customers were the retailers, when the truth is in digital the customer is the end user, THE CONSUMER! HBO Max is so overpriced, it’s a laugh. Drop the price immediately or be prepared for death. Disney+ raced to equivalency with Netflix with a low introductory price, which it just raised by a dollar, which is still nowhere close to that of HBO Max… HBO must drop the price today, before any of the films in question play on the service.

So, AT&T/WB/HBO is being vilified for pushing a moribund industry run by self-satisfied wankers into the present, never mind the future. The industry should be lauding AT&T/WB/HBO, those who resist change will be left by the wayside when it finally arrives.

Oh, I know, it’s hard to rationalize those giant costs to produce a film! But, once again, the music industry is a beacon…SPEND LESS! Turns out you don’t have to spend five hundred grand or a million to make an album, that was just allowed because of the economics of the old system.

And the new game allows people to make even more money, there are more opportunities! In music, you have to go on the road, boo-hoo, at ticket prices so exorbitant people’s jaws would have dropped in the pre-internet era, yet the public is lining up to pay them, looking for a unique experience people just can’t get anywhere else! Let’s call a spade a spade, there’s been no better time to be in the film business, BECAUSE THERE ARE SO MANY BUYERS! Netflix makes passion projects, like “The Irishman” and “Mank,” both overrated, when the studios wouldn’t lay down the money. Netflix is commissioning films all day long and what is the complaint? Once again, that they didn’t open in theatres first, they’re not entitled to Oscars… Then again, have you looked at the Oscar telecast recently? Ratings are in the toilet and winning is ignored by most of the public. The ceremony and its statuettes are out of date and out of touch. So, what does the industry do? Enlarge nominee pools to try and satiate those who aren’t paying attention while the films now included have no chance of winning anyway…look where half-measures get you, NOWHERE!

Come on, the standard home screen size is now 65″. And the TVs come with such miniscule speakers that almost everybody has a soundbar or system. And not only can you start the flick when you want to, you can pause it when you need to go to the bathroom… Yeah, how many of these aged movie businessmen can even sit through the lengthy productions they release, their prostates are too enlarged! In an on demand culture, the movie business wants us to stay in the past, get to the theatre at an anointed time to overpay to sit through endless advertisements and previews to get to a high concept film that doesn’t appeal to most people anyway! Is this what must be saved, superhero movies? Turns out “The Mandalorian” was a bigger draw on Disney+ than the recent “Star Wars” pictures in the theatre.

And any true artist will admit that consumption is more important than cash. In other words, they create for their work to be experienced! More people are exposed to your product in streaming, more people see it, this is a problem? As for windows…we live in a world where what happens this morning is forgotten by the afternoon, do you really think the marketing survives for a year, never mind the cost of said marketing?

No, the truth is movies are to be consumed on a flat screen at home as part of an overall streaming service. Done deal. WB wakes up and facilitates this and the industry is positively stunned by the obvious and is up in arms, complaining that someone has moved their cheese when the truth is the audience already ate it.

Meanwhile, the backwards news industry, decimated by the internet, can’t stop reporting this story, as if it’s sexy and everybody cares. NO ONE CARES EXCEPT THOSE INVOLVED! Come on, find me a consumer complaining that they can’t wait to overpay a year from now to see a film in the can today. YOU CAN’T FIND ONE!

The history of the internet is disruption. And if you follow the words of the dearly departed Clayton Christensen, the only way for established players to survive in the new world is to disrupt themselves. Disney is now doing this, it got in just under the wire, just in time with Disney+, and has said its future focus will be on its streaming service, because that’s where the future is, that’s where the bucks are. But the artists can’t stop complaining like David Crosby, who doesn’t understand the economics of streaming and doesn’t understand that most people don’t want to listen to his new work, and he’s lucky to be getting paid on his old stuff, prior to the internet, in the days of physical goods, no one would be stocking all those CSN(Y) and Byrds LPs, no way, never mind buying them. Yup, it’s a disaster, those records are going to generate revenue for the life of the copyright…but since they are, Crosby wants to be paid at sixties and seventies rates, not to mention that he’s got crappy deals with the labels?

But you can never satiate everybody, and the old with an audience are appealing to those who believe in conspiracy theories…hell, it’s just like Trump! Does Hollywood believe that Trump was defrauded and actually won the election? OF COURSE NOT! But it does believe that someone, not that they’re sure who it is, stole their industry, their bread and butter, and anybody who tries to address this issue is part of the problem, not the solution.

Soon we won’t be discussing this, only antiques will complain. The audience will expect new movies to stream just like they expect to be able to listen to every new record in the world on Spotify. THE HORROR! And if you want to make mazuma in the future it’s very simple…garner an audience. Major labels and movie studios have funded creators forever, most especially their losing projects. Now, if you have a limited audience, you create yourself, the means of production are in your hands, it’s inexpensive, and anybody can distribute on Spotify, et al. Same deal with the moving image, if you can’t get on one of the pay streaming services, you can distribute for free on YouTube! Or TikTok, which is even bigger than the movies. This is what embracing the future delivers.

Stop listening to old people wanting the old standards to continue to apply. We’re moving to electric cars. Social media is here to stay. Can we all get on the same page and try to eradicate the problems that do exist in the new world? NO, WE MUST KEEP OUR HEADS IN THE SAND!

https://spoti.fi/3qQXNse

1

Nothing Bowie ever did was as good as “Ziggy Stardust” and “Hunky Dory.” Sure, individual tracks hit peaks, although many will argue “Space Oddity,” his very first hit, was his best, but I disagree.

I started with “Ziggy Stardust.” I was in London in ’72 and Bowie and T. Rex were all the rage. Emerson, Lake & Palmer’s “Trilogy” got slagged. But little of this translated to the United States.

So, when I returned to American soil, after a flight on a Pan Am 747 so smooth that I slept through the landing, I immediately went to Korvette’s and purchased “Ziggy Stardust.”

Actually, that’s not the full name. It’s “The Rise and Fall of Ziggy Stardust and the Spiders from Mars.” You see this was a concept. Albeit loose. It all seemed to be in service to Bowie himself, and his new persona. And eventually there was a film of that fall ’72 tour, but if you were there in person…

You used to be early on things, it was a badge of honor. Then again, we were so hungry for new music, to follow these artists as they pushed the envelope, we needed to get closer, and to see them live…that’s the only place you could see them. This was right before the launch of “In Concert,” then again, at first, when it was brand new, the show never featured anything obscure, anything that hadn’t broken or wasn’t a priority at the label. So I went to the Boston Music Hall, which was maybe half-full, and the strobe lights pulsed and Bowie and his compatriots took the stage in their “metallic” suits and through the magic of the internet, I can look up the set list and see the opening number was “Hang on to Yourself,” which was punk rock before the Ramones, just listen to the guitar, played, of course, by Mick Ronson, it’s a weird world wherein Mark is bigger than Mick, but Mick burned out early and is unknown to the younger generation. But the point is the band started with such energy, with no artificial help, no tapes, no musicians behind the curtain, that you were immediately wowed. Watching the music come alive was positively staggering, I felt like I was witnessing something that others were clueless about, that was important, although I had no idea that Bowie would eventually become a household name.

Actually, the best song was the encore, when the band came out after all the applause with the lights turned up high and performed “Around and Around.” Sure, it was a Chuck Berry number, but the Stones owned it, it was the opening number on “12×5.” But Bowie had a way of making an old chestnut original, solely his own. He exuded confidence. It was like he was channeling history and making history. And there was a way he stood on stage, long arms and legs splayed, almost like Gumby, it’s hard to describe his exact stance, but I’ll never forget it.

2

“I’m an alligator…”

“Moonage Daydream” is my favorite track on “Ziggy Stardust.” Today, people occasionally mention it, but back then…crickets.

It’s the crunchy guitar, the dynamics, but mostly the descending chorus…

“Keep your ‘lectric eye on me babe

Put your ray gun to my head

Press your space face close to mine love

Freak out in a moonage daydream, oh yeah”

And then Mick Ronson cuts the fog once again and the biggest surprise on “Ziggy Stardust” was the cover of Ron Davies’s “It Ain’t Easy,” which I knew from the A&M sampler album, “Friends.” And the funny thing is most people have never heard the original, it’s not on streaming services, but it is on YouTube: https://bit.ly/3oJ6OBZ and I still prefer it to Bowie’s rendition because the chorus in David’s cover is just too loud, too in-your-face. Listen to the original. They don’t make music like this anymore, at least major labels don’t sign it and most of the public is not interested in hearing it, then again the public seems to have lost touch with what a great song is…changes, melody, Bowie knew.

And it’s hard to forget the lyrical lead in the title track, and at this point “Suffragette City” is a classic, but really it’s all about the opener, “Five Years.”

“Pushing through the market square

So many mothers sighing

News had just come over

We had five years left to cry in”

1972 was the year of “A Clockwork Orange.” We were looking into the future and those on the artistic cutting edge were not painting a rosy picture, one of the reasons “Star Wars” was such a hit in ’77 was because of the wear and tear on the equipment, this was not your father’s Hollywood.

“News guy wept and told us

Earth was really dying

Cried so much his face was wet

Then I knew he was not lying”

This climate change thing is not new. California is burning up, there are endless hurricanes on the east coast, but there are still people denying the difference, but they’re probably the same ones who were listening to “Smoke on the Water.” Yes, a lot of mainstream rock was getting heavy and dumb. Not that I could not appreciate a good riff, it’s just that now there was an FM station in every burg, cars even had that band in the dashboard and the rest of the country caught up with the coasts but was mired in the heaviness as opposed to going on the ride into the future, with acts like David Bowie. On one hand, “Ziggy Stardust” was a bit cheesy, this space stuff was more sixties than seventies, but American music had split into dumb or soft, forget what was on Top Forty, yet there was room for experimentation in the U.K., such that you could accept the futuristic vision on “Ziggy Stardust.”

Which contained no hits.

At this point, you didn’t even have to cross over to AM to go massive, but without that one definitive track that programmers all agreed on, whatever your artistic chops, you were second tier.

3

I will always love “Ziggy Stardust,” it was my first, but when you loved something or someone you always went back to the catalog, which led me to “Hunky Dory,” and sure it contains “Changes,” but that’s not why I must say it’s Bowie’s best album. “Ziggy Stardust” was of a piece, whereas “Hunky Dory” was at times loud and at times soft and the lyrics weren’t all on the same theme, and some of them were so vivid.

I don’t think I’ve sat through “Changes” in years, probably decades, but you have to know that it was never a hit in the U.S., and its ubiquitous play on FM was years off.

Subsequent to Bowie’s untimely death, everyone agreed on the greatness of “Life on Mars.” But come on, “Kooks”? That’s the essence of the sixties spirit, which spilled over into the early seventies, there was still a bleeding edge outside the mainstream, made up of free-thinkers, where you felt you belonged when you didn’t fit in anywhere else. And there was a similar sentiment in “Oh! You Pretty Things,” which was a progenitor of “All the Young Dudes.” And “Andy Warhol” ultimately contributed to Andy’s image, with the Polaroid SX-70 and more rock press Warhol was part of the music firmament in the seventies, sure he sponsored the Velvet Underground in the sixties, but that was truly underground, even after Lou Reed broke.

And then there was the album closer “The Bewlay Brothers,” which starts off with the feel of Neil Young’s “Last Trip to Tulsa” and then ventures into a London back alley, shrouded in darkness. That was a feature of music back then, especially in the U.K., acts drove away from the mainstream, they wanted to investigate the underbelly, music was the other, so out there most people had no idea what was going on, but this feel permeated the airwaves back with the initial British Invasion and “Bewlay Brothers” is an extension of that.

4

“Aladdin Sane” was released the following spring, but it too was not a huge sales success, the album only made it to number 17, and there were no singles, but in hindsight, with the overplay of “Jean Genie” in ensuing years you’d think it burned up the airwaves back then…it did not.

“Aladdin Sane” was a disappointment. First and foremost the cover. Yes, Bowie featured the lightning bolt on his face, but the white background overpowered him and the whole effect ultimately looked cheap, especially in light of what had come before, i.e. “Ziggy Stardust” and “Hunky Dory.”

But 1974’s “Diamond Dogs” was even worse. There was a ton of advance press, over the Guy Peellaert cover, and now Bowie played arenas and “Rebel Rebel” was all over the FM airwaves, even if it stalled on the U.S. singles chart. Suddenly, Bowie was playing to the lowest common denominator, those who didn’t get it previously, and if you were on board earlier you winced. You weren’t completely rebelling, but your embrace of Bowie was not as strong.

And then came “Young Americans.”

This is what cemented Bowie’s place in the pantheon. Nothing he’d done previously indicated this is where he’d end up. And sure, the turn two albums later with the electronic “Low” burnished David’s image even more, but in 1975 no one saw the need for a spacy rocker to reinvent himself as an R&B crooner who called himself the “Thin White Duke.” FM rock stations never played black music. And R&B stations rarely embraced white acts, one can ultimately say Bowie paved the way, for Phil Collins and “In the Air Tonight” years later. But there was something winning about the sound.

I quickly burned out on “Fame,” not that I loved it to begin with.

The title track is catchy, but not a home run.

But “Somebody Up There Likes Me” and “Fascination”? WOW!

Nobody ever talks about “Somebody Up There Likes Me,” it doesn’t even rate its own Wikipedia page. But it starts with a swagger, David Sanborn’s saxophone dances all over the track and when Bowie himself finally appears a minute in it’s akin to James Brown taking the stage in front of the Famous Flames. And the most magic is in the pre-chorus and the chorus itself is just the cherry on top, it’s like the band is playing for itself, knowing how locked into the groove it is, how great they are, how the sound is indelible and incredible to the point it’s absolutely irresistible…WHICH IT WAS! I can still remember the first time I heard it, parked behind the Hart ski warehouse in Reno in the dark.

And “Fascination” is nearly as good. The magic is in Mike Garson’s clavinet and the chorus, it sounds like it’s being performed in an smoky club below street level after midnight, the listener feels like they’re on the outside looking in, nose pressed to the glass. This is the highest level, the biggest achievement, when you can cease being obvious, cease trying to grab the audience by the neck and be so confident that you know what you’re doing is so fantastic people will clamor to get a piece of it.

And Mike Garson is the special sauce, the key to “Lady Grinning Soul.”

5

“Watch That Man” was akin to “Young Americans, a solid opener that didn’t quite close you, then again “Young Americans” is superior to “Watch This Man.”

For the title track, “Aladdin Sane” is a disappointment, it was nowhere close to the title track on “Ziggy Stardust.”

The only certified winner on the first side of “Aladdin Sane” was “Panic in Detroit.” It had that futuristic feel of “Five Years.” This was Bowie firing on all cylinders.

The cover of “Let’s Spend the Night Together” was too obvious, and not an improvement on the Stones’ original, it seemed tossed off, not of the caliber that we expected from Bowie.

Then we had the “Panic in Detroit” of the second side, the aforementioned “Jean Genie.”

So we’ve got a whole album with only two cuts that grab the brass ring. If you were a fan of what had come before you were so eager for the album but you wondered how Bowie missed, it seemed like he hadn’t put in enough effort, didn’t care enough. And the truth is few people bought the album when it was released, never mind played it front to back, but if you did, you discovered the final track, “Lady Grinning Soul.”

Garson’s opening piano flourish and what ensued thereafter seemed more reminiscent of Broadway or a thirties Hollywood movie than anything in Bowie’s previous catalog. So much of “Aladdin Sane” is obvious, at times banging you over the head, but “Lady Grinning Soul” was subtle and removed, but if you were open to the sound it rewarded you.

“Cologne she’ll wear

Silver and Americard

She’ll drive a beetle car

And beat you at canasta.”

CANASTA? You can’t be any less rock. What next, CRIBBAGE? And Visa was once known as BankAmericard and the VW beetle was everywhere and…WHAT IS THIS?

“She’ll come, she’ll go

She’ll lay belief on you

Skin sweet with musky oil

The lady from another grinning soul”

This was no rock chick, not someone who followed the bands, but someone the bands themselves followed. But only a few in that rarefied air. These were not model beauties, but those with a pedigree, with titles, who didn’t need the rock stars’ money, who had their own status, this was what you reached for after all those nights with groupies in Holiday Inns, assuming you were culturally and intellectually up to it, and David Bowie certainly was.

“And when the clothes are strewn

Don’t be afraid of the room

Touch the fullness of her breast

Feel the love of her caress

She will be your living end”

There’s always someone richer, better-looking, more connected, that’s the essence of the world, at least for males, they want to climb the ladder, peel back the layers of the onion until they get to the center, they’re looking for the ultimate peak experience, even though that usually only exists in movies and music, but seemingly everybody on the planet has that carrot in front of their eyes.

“She’ll come, she’ll go

She’ll lay belief on you

But she won’t stake her life on you

How can life become her point of view”

You feel inferior. Less than. That’s how you know you’re playing for real, when you’re uptight, when you’re worried you’re not good enough, won’t be accepted. And what those further down the food chain don’t realize is those near the top of the pyramid feel this way too, life is a corridor of successive doors you must pass through to hopefully get to the diamond, assuming you have the chutzpah, talent and flair to open the doors to begin with, most people won’t take the risk, they’re too afraid of failure and rejection. But you cannot reap the rewards unless you play.

Sometimes reality lives up to the fantasy. I hope you’ve had this experience, the night of your life, when all your dreams come true. It almost never lasts, but when you experience it you know, that warm, tingling feeling remains in your brain forever, you trot it out on occasion to feel all warm and fuzzy, sometimes you tell the tale with a smile on your face but your audience can never really grasp the essence, the feeling, for in that one night, that one afternoon, that one interlude, you reached the pinnacle, you ascended to the throne, it was your living end.

Bob, we have been the back-office administrators for a number of catalog investment vehicles.  We’ve seen first-hand how many of them operate.   It’s easy to tout how great your marketing department is if you’re getting a ton of licenses by giving quotes on your newly purchased assets at a third of what they’re worth.   (I’m not talking about any company in particular here).   And we had one client who sold their songs a year ago to one of the ubiquitous catalog buyers, and only just this month we got a note from BMI informing us of the new income claimant.   Writers can expect income to go down if they sell to someone whose administration is done based on the lowest percentage administration cost rather than by finding the highest quality administrator who is going to collect a hell of a lot more money (like us) than the low-cost leader.  90% of a big pie is a lot more than 97.5% of a tiny pie.

Other factors:   Are first negotiation rights to buy additional publishing or writer shares involved in these sales?   Are there back-end bumps to the purchase price if income goes up over the next few years?   And are both of these factors an incentive to the buyer to not collect and/or report the maximum amount of income after they own the catalog?

Read the full prospectus on some of these publishing investment vehicles.   Does anyone have matching rights to buy the assets if they bankrupt the company?   Do any of the fund leaders get a percentage of what they can spend, catalog investment quality or expected return be damned?   How is the track record of the folks who have put these things together, and have they made money for their investors in the past?   What are these companies spending on their own salaries, offices, advertising, parties, PR firms, and overhead compared to the rest of the industry?

And what kind of safe return can your heirs get in an alternative investment (to the extent that you yourself don’t blow it all before you die)?   After you pay 20% in capital gains and (let’s just say) 10% to your lawyers and advisors, you’re maybe getting ¾ of 1% in a money market fund on a balance that is 70% of the value of the appreciating asset you once had.   Is your lawyer or manager driving the sale so he/she has something to charge you a lot of money for that probably wasn’t something he/she should have advised you to do in the first place?

And as Diane Warren pointed out in her comment on the Dylan sale, these songs may be special to you or may even have changed the life of someone you don’t even know.

I don’t know a single person that has sold their catalog that hasn’t eventually regretted it.  I always try and talk clients out of selling, and when they ignore me I feel more comfortable in making them an offer.

Anyway, I hope these thoughts are useful and interesting to someone.   As a person who has built a career out of protecting creators, it just kills me to see people selling their lives’ work in this manner.

Best regards.

Randall Wixen

Wixen Music Publishing, Inc.
24025 Park Sorrento #130
Calabasas, CA 91302

Noel Paul Stookey was “Paul” in Peter, Paul & Mary. Listen to Noel tell stories of Greenwich Village in the early sixties, the folk scene, turning Albert Grossman on to Bob Dylan, having hits, being on the road, embracing Christianity and keepin’ on keepin’ on, writing and performing to this day. Noel is erudite and articulate and it’s a thrill to hear him opine on what once was, he was there, and soon this era will be lost to the sands of time. This is a treat.

https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/the-bob-lefsetz-podcast/id1316200737

https://music.amazon.com/podcasts/9ff4fb19-54d4-41ae-ae7a-8a6f8d3dafa8/The-Bob-Lefsetz-Podcast

https://www.stitcher.com/show/the-bob-lefsetz-podcast