OK Boomer!

Now that was a waste of time. I bet more people sat through Sondland than this dreary, mostly self-congratulatory so-called debate.

It is not business as usual. Trump has proven that. So what do the Democrats say, what does the establishment say, what does the media say? Let’s go back to the old rule book! It’s almost as if Trump is Napster and the Dems are the labels. And you know what? CDs never came back. That’s right, streaming replaced files, and reinvigorated recorded music revenues to boot!

So who is complaining?

THE OLD PEOPLE!

The boomers who think their doody doesn’t stink. Who believe since they lived through the sixties and can wear skinny jeans and own smartphones that they know what’s going on. But they don’t!

As a matter of fact, boomers are retiring in droves, passing the baton, but they want to give one more middle finger to those younger than they are, they want to keep everything they’ve gotten, all the spoils, and screw the rest of the public.

Now this is America. Where no one can sacrifice. Carter said to wear a sweater to stay warm during an energy crisis and he was excoriated, you can’t mess with the American way of life, which is all about raping the environment and pillaging while you’re at it. But if you speak to the younger generation…

The younger generation that’s into experiences, not assets.

The younger generation hobbled by student debt.

The younger generation with even fewer opportunities for upward mobility than their contemporaries in Europe…and they’re PISSED!

So what do we get during the debate?

ALL THE THINGS THEY’VE DONE! As if nothing has changed.

I’ll tell you what’s changed. We need passion. Trump is a great salesman. Amy Klobuchar starts talking and my eyes roll into the back my head. It’s a new day, talk about new day problems.

That’s why I’ve been excited by Elizabeth Warren. You can see she believes what she’s saying, the passion underneath, the refusal to play to the polls.

Now Mayor Pete had a pretty good night. I’m stunned that no one attacked him, since he’s supposedly winning in Iowa. And why is Buttigieg winning? THE ADS!

That’s right, at this late date, many people are unfamiliar with the candidates. Because they’re overwhelmed with information and in some cases disillusioned by the circus in D.C.

Trump says he’s gonna drain the swamp?

Dems say let’s go back to what once was, kumbaya, HUH?

So it is all about Trump. All the candidates saying it’s about issues are wrong. Trump makes it about his opponents and Dems say it’s about the issues. Trump calls Hillary a “nasty woman” and the Dems say the polls say that impeachment and name-calling works against them. It’s as if their schoolbooks are out of date, as if they were published in 2014.

So here’s the scoop.

It comes down to Warren, Mayor Pete, Bernie and Kamala. Biden is a joke. Yup, marijuana should not be legal. What’s next, parietals at party schools? I mean sometimes you’ve got to get out of the way for the future, isn’t that what Bob Dylan sang?

Kamala had a relatively good night. Because she was pissed. I’m pissed, AREN’T YOU?

Now Tom Steyer was right when he said is it’s not about convincing Trump supporters, but getting Dems to actually vote. Which requires a candidate that speaks to them, who they believe has their best interests at heart, who can move the ball forward.

Working with the Republicans?

Don’t make me laugh.

So what we’ve learned is the most powerful person in politics is Mark Burnett. He made Trump a star. I’d link to the “New Yorker” article delineating this, but you won’t read it if you haven’t already, it’s long, you don’t have the time. It turns out everybody in New York thought Trump was a joke, but Burnett made him into a star!

That’s what we’re looking for, stars. If you’re not one, get out of the way, you can’t succeed. You’ve got to have the goods and then you’ve got to be marketed. Yup, in 2019 cream does not rise to the top. As for TV…the only people watching are oldsters, the younger generation will just catch the clips, the spin, that’s all they have time for.

But the DNC and the establishment are afraid of pissing the boomers off. They want to keep their medical insurance, even though they’re already on Medicare. They don’t want any changes. They want evolution, not revolution.

But the last twenty five years have been all about revolution, tech revolution. Uber and Lyft killed the taxi business. Who wants the taxi business to come back other than the drivers and the shysters who have them paying for worthless million dollar medallions?

Of course Trump should be the issue!

My money is behind Warren. But Mayor Pete or Bernie would be o.k. Just someone who can stand up to Trump in a debate. Someone who can go for the jugular, no, someone who can go for the balls. Go high when they go low? No, you’ve got to play their game to win, even though they’ll be howling all the while. It’s a street brawl I tell you, and the old establishment doesn’t get it, they’re afraid of the UFC, they’re afraid of hip-hop, their idea of danger is staying up after eleven.

Gavin Newsom refuses to buy automobiles from the companies who sided with Trump. Gavin is employing his leverage. Maybe California should secede. Maybe the issues have to be defined, how the red states get disproportionately more from the federal government, how their two senators overrepresent their population.

But no, the Dems are playing to the media and the pollsters. The same ones who got it wrong last time around.

Oh, Nate Silver will say the polls were right. Yeah, it’s like a hundred to one shot. Yup, there’s a chance the horse could lose, but even Trump himself didn’t expect to win.

Just like the Democrats in Congress. Who keep going on TV and telling us the Senate won’t convict Trump. Why? Sondland flipped, they all flipped against Trump, but somehow the senators won’t?

The reason you play the game is you never know who will really win.

And just like in football, the rules keep changing. But there’s no NFL in charge of elections, as a matter of fact, even the government doesn’t have a hold on elections.

So I’m done with the debates. This one was billed as a barroom brawl. Instead, we mostly got niceties, at least until the end, after eleven on the east coast, when the aforementioned boomers, the only ones watching, were already asleep.

So…

1. Get the message out. That’s the hardest thing to do today. And the message is…ANYBODY BUT TRUMP! If you think it’s about the issues as opposed to Trump, get out of the way, put down your megaphone, you’re clogging the channel.

2. It’s about stars, not issues. God, if the Dems were smart, they’d hire Mark Burnett to do a “Voice” for them, get everybody to watch, let people see who has got it.

3. It’s about who can stand up to Trump in a debate. It’s not about building the best team of all time, it’s about forming the one that can win the World Series against the opposing candidate.

4. Ignore the polls. We won’t know what is truly going on until there’s voting. The truth is I won’t answer a poll, you won’t either, and I can cite chapter and verse where I’ve been right and the polls have been wrong, because it’s about guts, not intellect, it’s about what you feel in your soul, what resonates.

5. Fox News, MSNBC, NYT, WSJ, WaPo…they’re for the lifers, for those truly interested, mostly old people. The younger generation lives online. Call in Mark Zuckerberg, Evan Spiegel, have them advise you. Or maybe even Sheryl Sandberg, she’s a Democrat. These are devious people who will do anything to win, they know how the web works, time to get them on board.

6. It’s a movement, not an election. You want people to feel included, and today the rank and file are the stars, elevate them, that’s one thing good about Warren shooting selfies.

7. They blew up the music business, they blew up the television business, they already blew up politics, but the only people who seem to know are the Republicans.

8. Hearts and minds baby.

Dance Monkey

I didn’t know what they were talking about.

Everybody in Australia was asking me about Tones And I. Why hadn’t she broken in America. After all, she had a billion streams!

It became relentless. To the point where when I finally played the track I was unimpressed, just another poppy dance tune, another confection, meaningless, here today and gone tomorrow.

So there’s a conference circuit. You go anywhere in the world and you see the same people. Actually, that’s Millie’s job. She works for Sounds Australia. Which is funded by APRA AMCOS and the government. I could go deeper, but I stopped listening when Millie explained it at dinner.

Actually, I didn’t recognize her. She’s lost in the neighborhood of a hundred pounds. Her mother sent her a fat picture and that was it, Millie fired up a calorie counting app and shed the weight. But her face was familiar and then I remembered that conversation we’d had in Barcelona, just before I flew home, even though she thought I was bluffing.

So Millie’s been working for the organization for ten years, which is kind of surprising, because in the U.S. you get blown out, it’s someone else’s job. Also, who wants to be on the road that much?

So since I’ve been home Millie keeps e-mailing me info about “Dance Monkey.”

And then I got another e-mail today.

Doing my Sirius show earlier, I debated whether I was gonna have to tell Millie to cool it. These relentless naggers bug me. Especially those who send PR notices whom I don’t even know. No wonder everybody’s moved on from e-mail, you just can’t keep your inbox clean.

But just now I decided to tackle the mail, and when I got to Millie’s missive I clicked through to see an article from Down Under saying Tones And I got a standing ovation on Fallon.

Yeah, right.

I’m glad Jimmy’s tanked in the ratings, his show has no edge, trying to please everybody he’s pleasing almost nobody. Furthermore, the applause is always phony, you’ve been to a TV taping, the light goes on and you light up, the person who warms you up tells you to. You feel privileged to be in the belly of the beast, so you act like a trained seal.

In other words, a standing ovation on television means nothing to me. And you no longer break acts on late night TV, no one is watching, certainly not the younger demo that spreads the word.

But when I looked at the video…

Tones And I (Toni Watson) looked completely different from my mental image. Like Billie Eilish, her frame was swathed in clothing so you couldn’t see her body. As for the puffer vest…is that hip anywhere? And I say that as someone who wears a vest in the winter, love those pockets!

And the sweatshirt and…she starts to play. That’s right, she’s actually PLAYING! Got to give props to those Australians, they’ve got the chops!

But this is not the record, which hops from the beginning, rather the playing is slow and meaningful, closer to Laura Nyro than Mariah Carey.

AND BOY CAN SHE SING!

Everybody’s been faking it for so long that we no longer believe anything is real. Come on, photos, videos, even an elementary school kid has the skills to compile fakes.

And we’ve got all these singing competition shows, but they evidence skill and no talent. You see talent is in-born, you can’t teach it to someone, not in art. You develop your voice because you have something to express.

And in the old days, prior to Pro Tools, prior to comping, you had to be able to sing to make it.

No more.

So Tones And I is a revelation!

They say you’ve got to see the acts live.

But today most of ’em, at least the pop ones, those in the Spotify Top 50, can’t perform. It’s all on hard drive.

But Toni Watson’s voice is so pure your eyes bug out. You mean someone really has a voice like that?

Then Toni gets up from the piano and…the hard drive goes wild and she starts to move and sing and it’s not quite the same dramatic effect, but one thing’s for sure, she can most definitely sing and emote and just like that old Kiki Dee song says, she’s definitely got the music in her.

She’s moving to the music, your skin starts to tingle you’re privileged to be experiencing this, a star is being born right in front of your very eyes.

Now I must say I went back to the record and I didn’t quite get the same feeling, and what about those lame lyrics? But I went to Genius and it turns out there’s a story behind “Dance Monkey,” it’s not mindless at all. It’s the story of Toni busking, and feeling the need to perform for the short attention span audience.

Now “Dance Monkey” is #22 on the Mediabase Top 40, the only radio chart that counts. And it’s stalled at that number to boot.

But it’s #11 on the Spotify United States Top 50. With an upward green arrow, just two spots behind Lewis Capaldi’s “Someone You Loved.”

Capaldi is #3 on Mediabase.

Lewis is #1 on “Billboard”‘s Hot 100.

“Dance Monkey” is #23 and holding on the Hot 100.

So, maybe “Dance Monkey” just ain’t gonna make it in the United States. Yup, we’re the defining factor, we rule.

NO!

“Dance Monkey” has gone to #1 in 27 countries!

Sure, it made it to the top of the chart in Poland and Slovakia, but it also went to #1 in France, Germany and the U.K! It seems like we’re the only country left out, hell, it’s even #2 in Canada!

Something is wrong with our system. “Dance Monkey” is an undeniable hit, but it’s stalling here.

Then again, after this video…

P.S. Toni Watson learned to play in school. If only we had money for music classes in the United States.

P.P.S. Tones And I is getting 714,993 daily plays on Spotify in the U.S. “Dance Monkey” is #1 on the Spotify Global Top 50 with 5,721,918 streams a day. The Spotify cume is 515,652,626. The official video has 198,038,725 views on YouTube.

P.P.P.S. Maybe we need a Millie Millgate for American music.

P.P.P.P.S. There’s no 808!!

Keep/Sell/Buy?

Tune in tomorrow, Tuesday November 19th, to Volume 106, 7 PM East, 4 PM West.

Phone #: 844-6-VOLUME, 844-686-5863

Twitter: @lefsetz or @siriusxmvolume/#lefsetzlive

Hear the episode live on SiriusXM VOLUME: HearLefsetzLive

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

Is it about catalog or originals?

Verizon gave me a free year of Disney+ since I’m an Unlimited customer. I’m always wary of these deals, since you end up being charged and not realizing it, and oftentimes it’s hell to cancel. But I wanted to see what was going on.

Not much.

We used to get a thrill from hardware, now we get a thrill from software.

I went through the prompts. From the text to the Verizon site to Disney’s.

Then I turned on the TV and pulled up the Roku. Entered my e-mail address and password and I was inside. It was kinda like buying an iPod or iPad, but virtual. The aughts were about hardware, the teens have been about software, even though oldsters just can’t understand how you pay for something you don’t own.

But ownership is passe. Especially if you’re old. You realize you can’t take it with you, and in truth no one is counting. You can gather all the totems, believe you’ve won the game, and then find out you’re the only one playing it. Especially today, when everybody is in their own silo.

On paper, Disney+ sounds interesting. IRL? Not so good. You see you’ve seen everything, at least all you want to see. And the new product… I mean come on, “Star Wars”?

And then I went back to AppleTV+. You’ve got to hand it to both Disney and Apple, their interfaces are slick, but when you dig down deep their new offerings are thin. As for Apple…it seems they want you to buy things. Who came up with this model? Build your library? Weren’t we supposed to get rid of our libraries? With digital books, Felice wonders why we should keep the hard copies. And the truth is, I never reread a book, I put them on the shelf to demonstrate an accomplishment, what I’ve read. But the truth is the only people impressed by physical libraries today are the ones out of the mainstream. With everything at your fingertips, it makes no sense to own. Furthermore, digital is easier to search!

But if you went to an east coast college, it’s hard to let go of this old paradigm. Hell, it’s what’s driving the vinyl comeback. People want to own something. But it’s akin to Civil War re-enactment, a hearkening back to what once was. And if people even play this vinyl, so many of them have “stereos” that will kill it in one spin, they’re better off listening through hundred dollar headphones.

So what do I want to watch?

SOMETHING NEW!

Hmm… But the media keeps telling us the most popular show on Netflix is “Friends.”

Then again, at this point “Lucy” is nearly burned out. All the sixties shows on endless reruns, “Mayberry R.F.D.”…turns out they don’t interest the young ‘uns.

But they do want to watch “Seinfeld.”

Hmm… Probably the best sitcom ever. But once upon a time it was created out of thin air, did you see the NBC exec who pushed for it just died, how he took money from his specials budget to pay for it? And now, Jerry and Larry are rich.

New products keep the flame burning, the cycle going.

I never watch a movie again, life’s too short.

Then again, I know people do.

And I’ll be honest, oftentimes Springsteen’s “57 Channels (And Nothin’ On)” goes through my brain when I’m searching for a streaming show.

Because I don’t want to waste my time, I only want greatness.

Most of the new shows on Netflix are not great, but there are more pickings there, I can find something to watch. On Disney+ and AppleTV+?

But ain’t that the establishment…studios, distributors and the media. They’ve got an investment in the past. When what excites people is the future.

So right now, Netflix is looking stronger. It’s got the most production. It’s not hobbled by relationships with cable systems.

As for those worrying about profitability, now is not the time. Netflix needs to produce and produce and end up on top, win the war.

As for Apple dripping out episodes of “The Morning Show”…that’s a failed strategy. The theory was if you drip it out, you create water cooler moments. But the truth is everyone agreed the initial episodes sucked, and now they’ve got no interest in seeing the rest, even though word of mouth is better on the later episodes. Proving even Apple has no idea how the customer thinks, how word is spread. You’ve got to let people FINISH! So they’ll testify! Yup, if someone has watched the whole series and says it’s great, the odds are better you’ll tune in too. It’s like Malcolm Gladwell’s “The Tipping Point,” these early adopters live to spread the word. And this word reaches mainstream media LAST! Everything is off the radar before it shows up on the radar.

Tech has taught us you innovate or you die.

Right now, Netflix is innovating the most. Disney and Apple not so much. Don’t look at today’s dollars, but tomorrow’s. Right now, Netflix is winning the battle.

Right now I recommend “The Devil Next Door.” I lived through the Demjanjuk scandal, even remember it, but I was riveted. By the stories of the Holocaust survivors. By seeing the participants thirty years later. I know that has little to do with the story, but when you see the people from the eighties today, and see how they’ve aged, not only do you realize that everybody you haven’t seen in that time period has aged/changed, but you too!

“The Devil Next Door”