This should be the television hit of the summer.

My only anxiety is the five night a week stripping (as in TV, not clothing, but that will happen too) and the practice of U.S. television to focus on the surface as opposed to the essence. This is not about who is the best-looking, this is about the best at coupling up and having sex.

Yes, that’s an integral part of “Love Island”… The f…ing.

Admit it you watch porn on your computer, imagine if it came to real life, on the flat screen, would you check it out? OF COURSE YOU WOULD!

This is for ladies and gents. After all, it takes two to tango. And everybody’s curious.

I saw a billboard for the show today. I wondered if it was the U.K. one I was familiar with. After all, the names are so similar, “Temptation Island” and…

You see “Love Island” caused conversation in the U.K. By demonstrating how vapid the contestants are, how they’re ruled by the physical as opposed to the mental, how they smoke and break traditional societal mores…it’s hard to take your eyes off a train-wreck, especially when that train-wreck is you!

You see we live in a puritanical country. Last week on Sirius XM I asked people to tell me their favorite album to make love to. CRICKETS! I got tweets the week before about not letting callers expound, but those same callers refused to weigh in on this topic. Of those who did call in, most were women. And Volume is dominated by guys, albeit not in the percentage you see at a Rush show. Women are portrayed as meek and shy and…the truth is, they’re not. And what did I learn? Most couples put on music less for the inspiration than to drown out the sound, so their children can’t hear. For others with older children, it’s a sign that they should not open the door, they might not, probably won’t, like what they see. You see sex is a taboo.

But not on “Love Island.”

This is just the first season, so they’re not stacking the deck, like they used to do on “The Real World,” with Puck and other pot-stirrers. You’ve got no trans-people, switch-hitting is not a factor, and too many of the people are beautiful and white. But…the sex remains.

And the audience participates. People no longer live tweet awards shows, they’re boring. And voting at the end of the series is de rigueur, but voting in the middle of the show? To change the cast?

And that’s one thing different from the usual reality series. They keep injecting new contestants.

People don’t really have sex, right? On Volume I remarked that on the radio no one knows who you are, you can even employ a fake name…but the same public watching porn inside refuses to reveal its peccadilloes outside. Hell, there was that suit in Utah, a few decades back, the officials wanted to get rid of porn. But then the cable company revealed that its customers in the Beehive State were huge porn viewers, and porn remained on TV.

But you probably don’t know about “Love Island.” And it’s not like CBS has done an incredible job of promoting it. Actually, I can applaud them for depending upon word of mouth. But the truth is, CBS is its own echo chamber. Netflix does a better job of promoting its shows. They appear every time you log in, and more people watch Netflix than CBS.

This also demonstrates the failure of advertising. First and foremost, youngsters hate ads, so even though networks charge a fortune for the largest audience, it’s a fallacious concept. And even if you promote the hell out of something, you can’t reach people. Actually, today the promotion is done after a show hits. That started with “The Sopranos,” moved on to “Game of Thrones” and now “Stranger Things.” Once you’ve got a base of fans, then you pile on the stories and the tie-ins and the ads.

So, the initial “Love Island” promo won’t draw in outsiders. No, CBS is dependent upon traditional TV viewers to spread the word. Then again, there will be live streaming, but once again, that gets traction after the fact.

So it all comes down to execution and word of mouth. Can CBS execute as well as ITV? And will the show be titillating and engaging enough to engender word of mouth?

The story of “Love Island,” the U.K. version, has been all over the U.K. press and the elite press in America. Yes, you can read the international press here in the U.S.A., hell, you can read “The Daily Mail” on Apple News. But, the stories are not as good as the TV show is. The TV show is a view into the psyche of the population, a visual demonstration of the human condition, and too often writing is just the facts.

And on “Love Island” the facts are important. But it’s the penumbra that makes the show garner ratings. You see, life runs on nuance. And sex.

And there’s plenty of both on “Love Island”!

Love Island

She’s not using consultants.

And she raised $19.1 million dollars last quarter, nearly as much as Biden and Buttigieg. Even more dramatically, she’s not doing the fat cat fundraisers and phone calls.

How did she do this? Via message, via credibility, via eschewing the conventional wisdom.

Message. That’s the song. It always comes down to the song. And if you’ve got one good enough, that’s not the usual dreck, when people hear it, they resonate.

In other words, the infrastructure doesn’t get it, but the public does.

The infrastructure has decided it’s all hip-hop all the time.

At this point hip-hop has had an almost forty year run, nearly as long as rock. Rock faded, will hip-hop?

That doesn’t matter. Although they are different. Hip-hop is about culture. It is oftentimes like professional wrestling. The players/wrestlers come and go, it’s more about the game. And some people, like Kanye, are so outrageous they draw in viewers. And there are beefs and…

Rock was never this kind of lifestyle, it was sometimes about attitude, but mostly about songs.

Sinatra and what came before…all about songs.

So, is there room for genres other than hip-hop? Don’t forget, the mainstream media, the infrastructure, said that Elizabeth Warren had no chance. But now there’s a good chance she’ll be the Democratic nominee.

Warren continued to hammer ideas, i.e. release new material, when no one was listening/paying attention. But her tsunami of policy proposals caught fire, and when attention shifted to her, she had a catalog. You always want a catalog, when people love your hit, they want to go back and check out what you’ve done before.

Then there comes credibility. This is a matter of ideas and behavior. Your message must hew to a consistent philosophy, message is always first. But then, you can do nothing that undermines that message. This is where music has lost the plot. First and foremost, what is the message? Furthermore, musicians are always willing to sell out to the highest bidder. Most usually the corporation. And the infrastructure says it makes no difference, but it does. When you sell out to the man, you become a professional wrestler, willing to do anything and everything, which screws up your message, and you’re not outside the system, but inside. Corporations are not your friend. Your goal is to stand up to them. What kind of bizarre world do we live in where Warren knows this, and “musicians” don’t.

And then it comes down to money. Conventional wisdom is you need the deep pockets of the label to break through. But Warren did it based on her fans.

And you need a slew of high-priced consultants to get the message out. I.e. the label and its radio promotion people and the indie promotion people and the video/TV person and… They’re bleeding you dry. Not only do they own your copyrights, they’re charging back most of this “work” to you, decimating your royalties.

And the label does it the old way in a new world.

Instead of buying TV ads, Warren spent the money on the ground, one to one, because that’s how you infect an audience today, by getting down to their level, by not talking down to them.

So Elizabeth Warren becomes a sui generis rock star. The kind we used to make in the music industry. Someone who is outside the system doing it her way.

They always say you don’t have the right look, the right presentation…Warren can’t win because she comes across as a schoolmarm. No, she appears dedicated and enthusiastic, she’s doing her act and her act only, she doesn’t care what others say. She’s a rock star. She pivoted in her early life, she developed over time, not like the nitwit twelve year olds we think will save music, will go to the top of the chart.

This is how it always happens with something new, something of substance, something outside that becomes inside. It begins off the radar screen, when no one says you’ve got a chance. And then, while the mainstream isn’t paying attention, it becomes an overnight sensation.

As for the Pocahontas thing… On the internet, there are new memes every day, almost nothing sticks. You just keep powering on. As for youthful behavior you now regret, have you seen this Cream ad for Falstaff beer?

Falstaff Beer Commercial

Elizabeth Warren don’t need no stinking label.

And she’s not complaining that the system is rigged against her, just that it’s rigged in general. You’ve got to speak truth, you’ve got to be an agent for change.

This portends the future of the music business. There won’t be a lock on the game by the usual suspects in the future. Maybe there might be new usual suspects, but not the same ones. The majors got Spotify to stop direct uploads, the streaming company’s investment in the marketing of acts. They call that leverage. Too often the old man employs it to keep the status quo. But still, in an era of change, there are ways around this.

That’s what the internet delivers.

We keep hearing the internet broke music. Quite the opposite, it provided a zillion opportunities! You can make your music cheaply with technology, post it online, and market it via the internet for free.

But you can only gain traction this way if you’ve got something to say.

Like Elizabeth Warren.

“Can Elizabeth Warren help break the political consulting cartel?”

“Lefsetz Live,” Tuesday July 9th, on Volume 106, 7 PM East, 4 PM West.

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

Twitter: @lefsetz

Hear the episode live on SiriusXM VOLUME: HearLefsetzLive

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

My inbox is inundated with questions about the David Crosby movie. The name, where they can see it…

This proves to me three things:

1. The ineffectiveness of mainstream media.

2. The inability to Google.

3. The belief that if someone hears about something, they can see it immediately.

The name of the movie is: “David Crosby: Remember My Name.”
This is a link to the trailer:

David Crosby: Remember My Name

I read about the film in multiple publications, “Rolling Stone,” “The Wall Street Journal,” I must have seen it in six or seven places at least. Then I reached a breaking point and e-mailed Cameron Crowe for a link.

I truly believed my audience was aware of it. David Crosby is not an unknown. And, like I said, there’d been a good amount of press. Then again, I thought none of it captured the essence of the film, of Crosby, of his uniqueness, intelligence and willingness to go on record. Yes, I hoped my impassioned review would stimulate people to check it out. But the truth is that’s how I felt watching the movie, riveted, by someone who is still alive when the scene is not. What I mean is a “rock star” is something completely different today. First and foremost, rock stars are not rich, like they used to be. And it’s rich execs living the rock lifestyle, flying here and there to party and destroy stuff, not knowing the musicians did it to cope with boredom on the road. That’s right, people imitate the trappings, they can never get to the essence, which is why we have true rock stars to begin with! Secondly, most of today’s hit “acts” are doing it for the money and the fame. They’re eager to sell out. Crosby couldn’t sell out because first and foremost it was about the music and he was too edgy for any corporation to tie up with. In other words, the penumbra would detract from the music and the music is everything, music is love. Thirdly, today music doesn’t represent the same place in the universe. Back then it was everything, truth, today it’s background, for video games for selfie-taking, for…

So if you think your print campaign is working, you’re probably wrong. And it turns out the target demo for this flick is not reading “Rolling Stone” and other mainstream publications. Especially if they had to hear it from me.

It’s all trusted sources and word of mouth. And the truth is most of the usual media outlets have squandered their credibility, trying to be everything to all people, to be hip.

And today people never click through. As in a Google search would have immediately coughed up the info on the Crosby film. But that would be too much effort, you’ve got to make it easy, simple.

And the truth is this movie is being released theatrically on July 19th, in New York and L.A., When it will get to your burg…will it ever get to your burg?

And it’s played multiple film festivals, trying to drum up heat. And…

The big story of the summer in film distribution is the failure of “Booksmart.” It opened wide and instantly collapsed. Despite viewers adoring it. Would it have been a success if platformed? Maybe a bit more. But the truth is everything but comic book movies is best on TV. Then again, on TV you can reach everybody, but everybody can also ignore you. Maybe, if like HBO, Netflix released a new movie every Saturday night at 9, people would be accustomed to tune in, it would give these films attention and possibly legs.

So we’re in a moment of transition. Old school promotion is used because no one has really figured out new school promotion. And the hope is that by rolling out slowly, word will build on the Crosby film and therefore deliver eyeballs/attention/revenue.

Of course it will eventually hit streaming services. But I’ll tell you my own personal little dirty secret. I never watch these movies when they hit streaming services, it’s just too late, there are too many other things to watch, I’m already behind the buzz, why now? So I never see the blockbusters, even though if they were day and date on TV, even if I had to pay for them, I would, when the heat is hot and I’m able to be part of the discussion.

So, in other words, you can make it today and it can be great and still few know about it.

And people will only make a limited effort to search for something.

And it comes down to trusted filters. Which is why all those corporations are paying influencers. But who wants to sell out to the corporation, none of these influencers are originals willing to walk into the wilderness, they’ll do anything for a buck.

But David Crosby won’t.

Which is why people want to see this flick!