“Justice Department Preparing Legal Action Against Live Nation for Ticketing Practices-Live Nation allegedly sought to strong-arm concert venues into using its dominant Ticketmaster subsidiary”

The only money is in the ticketing.

Actually, this is not the most important music business story this week. Also from the WSJ:

“Liberty Media Seeks to Increase Stake in iHeart Media-Deal would put nation’s largest radio broadcaster under same umbrella as concert promoter and satellite-radio giant SiriusXM”

Now using the logic of the SiriusXM merger, Liberty’s control of iHeart should be approved by the government. In other words, satellite radio and terrestrial radio are two different entities, they serve different audiences.

Hmm…

Now if you go deep into the inner-workings, antitrust law is a game of the usual suspects on both sides of the fence, both attorneys and government. And the law is not a practical enterprise, a judge doesn’t look at what feels right, but what the law says, how it should be interpreted, and if you’ve got good enough attorneys, which are always better than those employed by the government, chances are you can get what you want, especially if you donate to the ruling party.

So what is end game here?

Liberty Media has a long history of spinning off and exchanging assets. Liberty is in the money business. And it tries not to pay taxes. Ergo, the spinning off and exchange. In other words, the present-day status is not going to go on forever, there’s going to be an event. History tells us, unlike a hedge fund, Liberty is willing to wait. But a transaction transpires.

Now as for Live Nation…

The problem with Ticketmaster is its basic principles and ethos. Credit Fred Rosen with the original problem. He paid buildings to be the exclusive ticketing company. This is a huge incentive to building managers/owners. In essence, it’s free money. But to pay for that deal, Ticketmaster charges the end client, the everyday customer, fees, which consumers abhor, never mind don’t understand. Now the truth is these fees are not only a way to pay building owners, but for the promoter to make money, because the face value of the ticket…almost all of it goes to the talent. The fees are really the talent’s fault. Under the deals, the fees are not commissionable. And, Ticketmaster is paid to take the heat, the fans refuse to blame the acts anyway. And this has worked well until…

Concert ticket prices went through the roof, becoming the main source of income for acts, in a world where experiences are gaining value in comparison to assets. Furthermore, the ticket sellers are trying to squeeze the brokers, and the brokers don’t want to be put out of business. So, it’s an ugly situation, drawing government scrutiny. And the last thing you want is government scrutiny, which always comes too late and is effected by those unsophisticated with the industry.

So if all the money is in the ticketing… Ticketmaster is more valuable than Live Nation. Furthermore, in its war against scalpers, Ticketmaster is now selling secondary market tickets. And those are even more profitable than primary tickets. Ticketmaster is double-dipping, competitors cringe, but this is what is happening.

So…something’s gotta move.

Now a radio conglomerate already bought a concert promotion company, i.e. Clear Channel’s acquisition of SFX. It didn’t pan out financially, but it was approved. So, allowing Liberty to control both iHeart and Live Nation…that should garner approval too.

Now what you’ve got to understand is concert promotion and radio are mature businesses. And with mature businesses there is consolidation, and usually price wars before prices ultimately are stabilized at a higher point. This is the Amazon paradigm. Amazon puts competitors out of business by undercutting their prices, or it buys the competitor, and then prices stabilize at a higher level.

But concerts are not fungible items. And the truth is many shows are actually underpriced, ergo the secondary market.

So…

Do we let Live Nation continue to use its Ticketmaster muscle?

“Live Nation Chief Executive Michael Rapino said the decree allows the company to make decisions that are ‘right for our business,’ and that booking a Live Nation tour date at a venue that uses a ticketing provider other than Ticketmaster may not make economic sense for the company.”

BINGO! If the only profit is in ticketing, if you don’t control it, you don’t make any money. Not that the government understands this.

So…

Amazon is going to buy Ticketmaster. It’s just a matter of when Liberty can strike a stratospheric price. Once again, the value in Live Nation is not in the concert promotion, but the ticketing. Amazon doesn’t want to own a concert company, but it sure wants to own ticketing, it’s a gold mine. Furthermore, Amazon would do a better job of selling tickets than Ticketmaster could ever do. Amazon knows its customers, it’s one stop shopping. It’s the Google of commerce, i.e. you search for what you want on Amazon, not Google. So…

If Liberty can strike a high enough price, done deal. Then it sells the Live Nation concert company to some mark, just like Sillerman sold SFX to Clear Channel. Or it is broken up, the company being worth more when sold piecemeal.

As for SiriusXM/Pandora/iHeart…. If Verizon and AT&T continue to overpay for content companies that don’t pan out, why not buy this entity! There is a deep pocket who would want control of all these distribution pipelines and content. They could be put to better use by someone with a broader game. Or could they?

But when you’re the only game in town, the price goes up.

So…

Distribution is king, but content counts. Liberty has both, and will sell/exchange/merge what it’s got with something bigger.

In other words, this is a money play.

This is what those on the street, not Wall Street, but Main Street, don’t understand.

Even the government thinks it’s about ticketing.

And when businesses are mature, those with money, those involved in maximizing value, enter the picture. Same in tech right now. The crazy days of individual entrepreneurs are done. Now it’s about the investors more than those who actually work at the company.

Now fees have invaded so many spheres. Have you stayed at a hotel recently? And the public hates fees, but pays them anyway, until it gains an option. Napster was that option in recorded music. Does the public have an option regarding ticketing/concerts? No, so that’s why it’s getting the government involved.

Now let’s never forget that they got Al Capone for tax evasion.

So… The public is pissed about ticketing. It is too opaque. It’s just the way the industry wants it, although its goal is to eliminate the secondary market completely, in a world where the public relies on this secondary market for availability. Sound complicated? IT IS!

Ticketmaster is headed for a brick wall. You remove any element and it doesn’t work. You’ve got to have exclusive deals with the venues, you’ve got to have the fees. As for third party entrants…even if they could pay the venues, the venues would be locked out of shows, since the only profit is in the ticketing!

Live Nation’s stock price has gone up and up, that’s what Michael Rapino is paid for. Buyers and sellers, i.e. money, cares not a whit about the underlying business, just the perceived value, and right now the perceived value of Live Nation is stratospheric.

It’s not about ticketing, it’s not about fees, it’s not even about the government investigation. It’s about raising the value and taking advantage of discrepancies in the market, and companies eager for an infusion/rescue. Soon, Liberty will control it all. And Liberty has a history of exchanging assets.

So…

A change is gonna come.

Lyin’, cheatin’, hurtin’, that’s all you seem to do
Your time is gonna come
Your time is gonna come

“Your Time Is Gonna Come”
Led Zeppelin

Or maybe it’s not.

Turns out the people want strongmen. Officials who promise order. They want to give up power to those who know better, because they no longer know themselves. They’re afraid of self-determination while professing a desire for the same thing. Globalization has stymied them. They want a return to an era of yore, when life was understandable. Can you say MAKE AMERICA GREAT AGAIN?

For a moment there, it looked like there was a leftward turn, like in Poland, a reaction to the far right inroads. So is Johnson’s win a harbinger of things to come, or a one-off anomaly?

I’m not sure.

Then again, the Brexit vote back in 2016 was indicative of rightward leaning in left wing countries. That’s how we got Trump. But one thing’s for sure…NOBODY KNOWS ANYTHING! Isn’t that what William Goldman said about the movie business? Now it’s politics. Nobody predicted Trump would win in 2016, and then he did.

And no one predicted that Boris would have such a smashing victory.

But he did.

So maybe we need insurance, maybe we need to nominate our billionaire against their billionaire. Maybe Bloomberg needs to be the candidate. Sure, he’s a bad speaker, but it appears now that Trump will not debate the Democratic candidate anyway. The left wing in America wants the semblance of order, it wants to be able to sleep at night, it is willing to sacrifice progress for order…or is it?

One thing’s for sure, Scotland is not going to go quietly. Expect not only a secession movement, but there is a very good chance of exit.

Same deal with Northern Ireland. An unforgettable fire that may soon turn into a conflagration.

We live in incomprehensible times. An era where even the proprietors are clueless and achievements do not spread. Mark Zuckerberg has no idea of the power of his platforms, nor how to control them. And no one seems to know that Apple’s Intelligent Tracking Prevention is a raging success, neutering targeted ads on Safari:

The Information: ‘Apple’s Ad-Targeting Crackdown Shakes Up Ad Market’

So is California Scotland, just with a lot more money and power? Yup, D.C. cannot diverge from the Golden State’s agenda too far without an eventual rupture.

And is New York Northern Ireland?

One thing is for sure, the south is equivalent to Labour’s “red wall,” burgs where industry has faded and the people are out of work and frustrated. And it’s not only the south, but it’s the north…Michigan, Wisconsin, Pennsylvania, Ohio… One thing’s for sure, denizens of these states have lost trust that the left, i.e. the Democrats, care about them, while they’re trumpeting technological victories and flying around in private planes. Trump promised them a recovery. Forget that it hasn’t happened, he’s given them something to believe in, while the left has not.

And you can lie and live an unvirtuous life with no consequences anymore. Then again, the poor are drug-addicted and divorced and they don’t care, they just want hope and a return of what they once had. And the Democrats fail to understand that that HOPE Obama promised them was not delivered.

One thing’s for sure, the U.S. is economically screwed, especially at a moment when China is burgeoning and the European Union, sans the U.K., is a true challenge. Doubt me? Look at Airbus versus Boeing. Europe doesn’t accede to the U.S. in lockstep anymore. As a matter of fact, they laugh at Trump and no longer see the U.S. as a threat, or a protector. It’d be as if Facebook asked people to pay to use the platform as it sells their information to advertisers. Trump is trying to get everybody to pitch in, on NATO, on… Not realizing it’s all about dominance.

So now Trump has dominance over his own domain, i.e. the United States, at the same time minimizing the power of the country while telling citizens he’s winning all the while. Talk about duplicity…

Then again, what is truth anymore?

You’ve got to give the Republicans credit. They’ve been on a multi-decade denigration campaign.

They marginalized Hillary Clinton.

They marginalized the “New York Times” and the “Washington Post” and say to believe in Rush Limbaugh and Fox News.

This is like a campaign to undermine Google results. Yup, you just cannot trust the algorithm, what comes up is biased, ignore it. And if you’re smart, you’ll give up the internet and just listen to the Big Boss, he knows better.

That’s the situation we’re in. Number one is not number one. The film business says streaming isn’t movies but the public is addicted to streaming. The music business says we live in a hip-hop word, but the truth is other genres are flourishing.

It’s hard to know what is going on if you’re paying attention. But if you’re working a minimum wage job to try and support your family, who has time to try and parse the truth, you just want someone to promise to make it better, the same people who trumpet full employment, even though they don’t want your hourly wage raised so you can pay your bills.

The same people who want to decrease your health options so theoretically others can’t rip the system off while the medical companies triumph all the while.

And we believe in corporations more than artists. What’s the first thing an act does when it gains traction? DO ENDORSEMENTS, SPONSORSHIPS, PRIVATES! You can’t believe in today’s artists, if nothing else they are not rich enough. And believe me, the mighty buck triumphs in America today.

Which is why we need to match their money with our money.

Yup, we need a real billionaire to go up against Trump, the faux billionaire.

Bloomberg for now, although he is too old and lacks dynamism.

But what we need is someone the people know, who they trust.

Yup, maybe that idea of Oprah wasn’t so bad.

You see Trump was built by Mark Burnett, without Mr. Survivor, Trump is a joke.

So we need Spielberg, all those Hollywood-types, to build the image of someone on the left, hopefully someone who already has traction.

And not Tom Steyer. Being a billionaire is not enough, you need someone the public likes. Even Tim Cook!

Meanwhile, Jeremy Corbyn proved that you can’t be wishy-washy and you can’t turn on pillars of your own constituency. Yup, Corbyn couldn’t even come out for another Brexit election, he couldn’t help himself from making anti-Semitic comments. That’s one thing that’s wrong with Biden, we don’t want a return to normalcy so much as pie in the sky. Promise us a rosy future! Yes, to those who can’t understand economics. Kind of like Alabama promising to rid the state of the undocumented. The public loved it, because the public was ignorant, not knowing factories and other businesses relied on this immigrant labor.

Once again, that’s America. Promise a solution, don’t worry about truth.

The public can’t handle the truth. And people can’t parse it either. They’re too uneducated and ignorant to understand what’s going on, as the fat cats keep saying taxes should be lowered so no one takes unfair advantage, so no one takes money out of your pocketbook. The spoils always trickle down…can you say KANSAS?

That’s right, the left is educated, winners who understand but refuse to sacrifice for “those people,” in this case mostly the whites hooked on drugs.

As for the right… They want you to believe you too can become a billionaire, and you want to keep the spoils, right?

This is what the internet has wrought.

This is what the peace dividend has wrought.

Putin invades a country, right after his private, pocket-lining Olympics, and…the rest of the world does nothing.

Trump breaks the law and his team cries foul, talk about living in a topsy-turvy world.

So what does the public want?

To stop thinking about it all. To complete Brexit so everybody can move on.

The public wants to stop thinking about politics.

But that does not mean people will vote in their own interests.

People believe in the fantasy, otherwise life is just too tough.

Turns out you’ve got to promise control and execution of that fantasy to win.

This is just the beginning.

That’s right, Mr. Foreigner, who also co-produced Van Halen’s “5150,” Billy Joel’s “Storm Front,” and more. Hear how Mick struck gold with French superstar Johnny Hallyday and then conspired to create the chart-topping rock band whose songs are indelibly imprinted upon our brains.

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Hello, you fool, I love you
C’mon join the joyride

I thought “The Look” was a novelty song. Swedish band crosses over for their one hit wonder and then disappears. You know, like Shocking Blue and “Venus.” Actually both tracks are similar, with indelible guitar hooks and simple concepts. Was “The Look” accidental genius, or insight into the human condition from authentic rockers, nailing the essence?

But then came the ballads, “Listen To Your Heart” and “It Must Have Been Love.” Well, there was more to this act than I previously believed, but obviously they were hollow at the core, lightweight, the stinging guitar of “The Look” was an anomaly.

And then came “Joyride.”

This was the era of music videos, the original MTV VJs were gone, but the channel powered on, if you were on you were a success, if you weren’t, good luck, there was a clear delineation between failure and success, and we all knew the successes. And “Joyride” was a success.

I waited for it to come on, and then I taped it, it made me feel good in a time where that was not my mood, my ex had left me, called me, putting a stake in the heart of my new relationship, and now I was alone and broke, with only my music to inspire me.

I hit the road out of nowhere
I had to jump in my car
And be a rider in a love game
Following the stars

That’s all I had left, my car, which I filled three dollars a throw at the Arco, getting such a deal because I paid in cash, even though this cheap gas ultimately burned out my fuel pump.

But that was later.

And in your car, you can forget your troubles, at least you used to be able to, before the advent of mobile phones.

So I’d play “Joyride” over and over. But what were the odds anything else the band did was any good?

I pored through thousands of CDs, this was before the earthquake, when I moved about five or six thousand to the garage, after the towers they were stacked in fell and prevented me from going from the living room to the bedroom.

So this was a project. Long before Napster. When you either had the CD or never heard the music, other than the hits that were played on MTV.

I found “Joyride.”

And the nature of a CD is if you forget to hit the button for single repeat it ends up playing and you become enamored of what follows.

Maybe it was the solo piano intro of “Fading Like A Flower (Every Time You Leave)”, or the scrappy intro of “Knockin’ On Every Door,” I got hooked by this CD, I let it play through.

And this was back in the era of cool, when guys in pegged pants, long hair, all in black, thought they controlled the music business and told us what was good and pooh-poohed everything else, maybe this is why Roxette’s music was not released in the States, even though it was huge on the Continent.

This also demonstrates how labels can be clueless. But the truth is every record company has an agenda, and if someone else signed it, especially overseas, the person running the company frequently wants nothing to do with it, they want to promote what they are personally responsible for, to look good, to burnish their image, demonstrate their chops.

And labels are populated by believers, so if it’s commercial, obvious, perfect, they want nothing to do with it. Rather, you constantly read about acts with bad vocals and indecipherable lyrics clouded in a miasma of sound and acts like Roxette never got a chance.

Until an exchange student brought their music back from Sweden and the rest is history.

Now my favorite cut on “Joyride” is not the title track, but ‘Watercolours In The Rain.”

Going through the motions
Ending up nowhere at all

Like I said, I was newly single, and I hated it, having it and losing it is much worse than never having it at all. And I’d play records to get through. Records that would take me away, to a private place where I could marinate in the music and feel understood.

But what hooked me on “Watercolours In The Rain” was not the lyrics, but the sound, Per Gessle knew the Led Zeppelin trick, going from acoustic to electric and back again. Boston rode this paradigm to success, but everybody else ignored it, just like today, when traditional building blocks like hooky choruses and bridges elude acts.

Come on, you know “Led Zeppelin III,” “Ten Years Gone,” the way Jimmy Page strummed those strings…”Watercolours In The Rain” has that same sound, but Marie Fredriksson is not screaming, but singing, somehow pop and rock sensibilities were merged and what came out was unique. Come on, I dare you to mention another act that sounds like Roxette.

You see they knew the basics. And then flowered therefrom. This is the Swedish paradigm, educated musicians, oftentimes in school, who try harder because they’re in a backwater, trying to make it to the main event, which is the United States (although the game is now more worldwide than ever, credit the internet and streaming services).

And then there was “Spending My Time.”

Spending my time
Watching the days go by
Feeling so small, I stare at the wall
Hoping that you think of me too
I’m spending my time

You can’t get them out of your mind, you wonder…do they feel this way too?

But it doesn’t matter, because they’re gone, and despite your hope, they’re never coming back, ruptures are hard to repair.

My friends telling me ‘hey, life will go on’
Time will make sure I’ll get over you
This silly game of love you play, you win only to lose

That’s the truth. Your friends can only be so supportive, they burn out on your story, and the truth is time puts you back together, but you never forget, you can never forget.

And “Joyride” is full of gems. “(Do You Get) Excited?” “Church Of Your Heart.” “Soul Deep.” “The Big L.” The aforementioned “Fading Like A Flower (Every Time You Leave)” and “Knockin’ On Every Door.”

And “Perfect Day” closes the album on a bittersweet note, the raucousness, the excesses of what came before, are stripped away, down to the pure essence, it sounds like Marie is singing from within your brain, you cannot stay in this space, it’s too uncomfortable being confronted with the naked truth, all you can do is start the whole process over again, drop the needle on the opening track, the title cut, “Joyride.”

And after loving “Joyride,” what came before gained context. “The Look,” “Listen To Your Heart” and “It Must Have Been Love” could be seen as genius, which almost did not get a chance in the U.S.

And “It Must Have Been Love” was part of the “Pretty Woman” juggernaut and then…

It was all over, at least in the United States.

I saw the band at the Universal Amphitheatre, hung with Per Gessle and his manager at the time, Journey’s Herbie Herbert, told Per my feelings about “Watercolours In The Rain,” but then there was a consolidation, the execs at EMI in the U.S. were blown out, a new team came in, eventually the next Roxette album was released, but got zero promotion and then it was all over.

But success continued overseas. Kind of like Queen. We think it ended with the Elektra albums, but the band continued to have huge success elsewhere. Teams matter. Priorities matter. The music doesn’t always matter.

So Roxette soldiered on. I continued to play the “Joyride” album. And then Marie Fredriksson had a seizure, she had a brain tumor. It seemed like it was all over.

But in 2012 the band went on a world tour. Marie didn’t move so well, but the music, the sound, was still there.

It’s always about the sound.

So “Joyride” is almost thirty years ago, it seems like yesterday, but it isn’t. MTV doesn’t even call itself “Music Television” anymore, rock is a niche genre, hip-hop dominates, but the truth is the scene is splintered into a zillion different elements. Read the Top Ten lists being released, chances are you’re unfamiliar with most of the material.

But this is not the way it used to be. We used to all know, we were involved, we argued over this music. Music was not a sideshow, but still the main show, in an era where America was flourishing, greed dominating, we still believed…in the American Dream, in the power of music to save our lives and change culture, before the billionaires, when we felt if we were at the show enjoying the music of our favorite acts nothing could be better.

And now it’s getting worse. But Marie Fredriksson will no longer be able to chart the course of history.

We think we’re gonna live forever.

And some people take chances that don’t play out so well, whether they be physical challenges or drug risks. But you can eat right, sleep right, live a clean life and the Big C, health problems, can still come out of the blue and bite your ass.

That’s how it happens. You’re minding your own business and either your M.D. tells you there’s a problem, or you have so much pain you finally go to the doctor after avoiding visiting for eons and get a fatal diagnosis.

It’s not fair. It takes a long time to own this. To realize life is not really a game, there aren’t winners and losers, no one is toting up your money and achievements…we’re just all here for a short time, and then we’re gone.

Now if you’re an artist, your work might be remembered, you see people don’t forget being touched.

And that used to be the goal of the musician, to capture lightning in a bottle, lay down the essence of life and touch people.

Now all players can do is bitch about the money they’re not making and embrace the lifestyle. Yes, we’ve gotten far from the garden.

But the garden is still embedded in these tracks. Roxette was not a one hit wonder, anything but.

They don’t make this music anymore.

But if you lived through the era, you remember it. When the mellifluous sound penetrated your ears and you followed it like the Pied Piper.

Per and Marie were leaders

I was a follower

And now Marie is gone.

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