THE SOCIETY Official Trailer

I never read “Lord of the Flies.”

That’s high school, you try not to read what you ultimately wish you had. All those books they make movies on, by Jane Austen, Charlotte Bronte, you wanted to avoid those in high school, actually, at my high school you didn’t even have to read them. But we did read “Moby Dick,” although our teacher did let us skip chapters, before he was accused of assault and sexual harassment, which I never would have predicted, you never know what goes on inside people, but that’s what keeps life interesting, it’s what’s below the surface that intrigues you, the struggle is to pierce the veil. And, just so you know, there’s a quid pro quo, if you don’t share, other people won’t either. It’s a mutual thing. Then again, there are oversharers, why do you think it’s my job to hear the minutiae of your life? I want a report, not a brain dump of all your anxieties.

“The Society” is based on “Lord of the Flies.” And at this point, even I know what “Lord of the Flies” is about, even though, like I stated above, I never read it.

We were watching “Patriot,” on Amazon. Although it was difficult, because we constantly ended up getting the chasing its tail circle. I’ve come to believe this is Amazon’s fault, not my ISP’s, because it doesn’t happen as much on Netflix.

Now “Patriot” is one of those rare series where the second season is better than the first. The whole series is whacked. It’s just the first season is slow. But you’re invested. And there are some famous actors, and I love the fat Luxembourg detective who looks like Hercule Poirot, but the truth is you don’t have to watch “Patriot,” hell, at this point it looks like there may not even be a third season.

So we needed a new series. To binge.

That’s the only way I will watch, and I will keep saying it until HBO and Showtime and the rest of the cable outlets get the message. I can’t wait a week for an episode, to the point where I have a hard time remembering what happened the week before! And you fall behind and give up. You’re just not part of the zeitgeist.

But when you can binge…

Dedicated fans finish new seasons in a day or two, they’re just that eager.

Casual fans could take a year. These series are time bombs, just waiting to be detonated, and when you see a good one, you tell everybody you know about it. It’s yours, for a while anyway, unlike with HBO, sure, you’ll have water cooler moments, but you won’t own it.

And no one is talking about HBO shows off season.

But Netflix series?

But the media industrial complex doesn’t like it this way. The media industrial complex wants all the hype and then the potential boom to happen in a matter of days. Why not spread the publicity out over time?

But these are the same idiots who take full page ads, billboards even, to hype shows for Emmys. This is kind of like states fighting for filming, offering different financial packages. Why are you giving the papers and magazines all this money? It could be better spent.

So we needed a new series to watch.

I don’t invest my time unless something is recommended by a blue chip source, or the internet tells me it’s great.

But there are very few great series out there.

But you have a yearning to binge.

And I don’t want to watch that which I’m familiar with. I lived through the Central Park 5 story, I don’t have to watch a miniseries about it. Same deal with Chernobyl. Which they changed anyway. And people believe the falsehoods. It’s not only the press that gets things wrong.

So I’m researching and I find this series “The Society” on Netflix. It’s got 82 on the Tomatometer. I live by the Tomatometer. The film industry hates it, it wants us to be rubes, investing our time and money in bad products.

But 82 is usually not enough.

But I couldn’t find anything higher than that that I wanted to watch.

Anyway, everybody but the parents die, and the kids are left alone, how will it turn out?

And the first thing I noticed is none of the cast members were familiar. Like “90210” back in the day. Yup, on that show they got all the faces the Big Three networks rejected. But now that there’s so much production, almost everybody is new, it’s kinda strange, we’re used to looking for familiarity, to prove that it’s just a television show.

And this is definitely a television show, if it were on network I almost definitely wouldn’t watch it.

But nobody else is watching it, I didn’t see any hype in the media, so I could go where no one else risked going, I could own the experience.

Then again, it’s summer, and this is when these unheralded Netflix projects percolate and become monstrous, because kids are home. So maybe “The Society” will ultimately triumph.

Now Cassandra, the #1 girl, who is going to Yale in the fall, theoretically anyway, bugs everybody else, she takes charge, she’s a know-it-all. And she bugs me too! And the question arises, how should you behave in a group? I’m not good at staying silent.

But Cassandra’s little sister rang true from the first note, she stood out. Then I read in “Vanity Fair” that she’s the new It Girl, or at least hot actress, she’s in this, “Big Little Lies” and “Pokemon Detective Pikachu.” I can see why, she’s got it.

Now Allie chafes at being the little sister, and takes risks her sibling will not. Sound familiar?

And boys will be boys. I’m not one of those boys, but some are, Felice asked why boys act this way. I think it’s herd mentality, they want to be accepted, they don’t realize they’re jerks.

And the relationships!

You know that’s a main element in teen projects… Who is gonna stay with who? Actually, one of the best moments is when Allie professes her love for Will and…

You always wonder whether to tell someone how you feel about them. If they don’t reciprocate, it changes the relationship forever, not in a good way.

But why I’m writing this, the question I want to ask, is are you a hoarder or a sharer? Are you gonna grab on to everything that’s not nailed down in order to survive, or are you going to share with your brethren and ultimately find out there’s not enough. Although many times, a solution arises before your hoard dissipates. Like after the earthquake (and in my world there’s only one, back in ’94, I still haven’t recovered from it), when my local market was closed and I stocked up with peanut butter and jelly at the minimart, just in case… But the power came back, the stores reopened before I’d depleted most of my stash.

Better safe than sorry?

But if it’s not only you?

We’re not deep in the series. And this is one I’m not really recommending either, but somehow it’s hooked me, I’m invested, I want to see how it all plays out.

That’s the power of story.

That’s the power of Netflix.

This is the modern world.

Ben Sisario:

A Billboard No. 1 Is at Stake, So Here’s an Album With Your Taylor Swift Hoodie

Counting CD and track sales is like toting up the number of feature phone purchases. We live in an era of streaming and smartphones, why does the music industry insist on holding on to the past?

This is how hip-hop ended up victorious, by moving online, by embracing Soundcloud, by using the new tools and giving away product in the process.

But no, the music industry still sells CDs and files, even though most people no longer have a CD player, they don’t even come in cars, and Apple killed the iPod.

Actually, Apple was famous for killing old formats. Killing ADB for USB. Leaving out the floppy drive. Steve Jobs did not worry about the complainers in the background, he just soldiered on.

And now Apple is the most valuable company on the planet, or close to it, depending on the daily stock market.

Ironically, the present Apple killed the 20 pin port for Lightning, even though every hotel room had that connector built into the room radio, and even switched to USB-C on the new iPad Pro, but…for some reason, their Music app still works with both files and streams, which makes it confusing, which Jobs abhorred. It was supposed to just work, be easy, require no manual, but I still can’t figure out how to make sure my search is of streams not files, and it makes me reluctant to use the app.

Steve Jobs. Everyone says he was anti-streaming, all about sales.

Believe me, Jobs would be behind streaming today, making it even more convenient, because Jobs was willing to admit he was wrong, and change and leave the past behind. But many musicians still refuse to believe streaming has won, it’s been demonized, it can’t be sold after the show…it’s like bitching you can’t sell standard transmissions when even Formula One cars have no clutch.

And the internet/tech works on a different ethos than the traditional music business. The facts are real, and the war is even more intense. Record companies can always depend on their catalogs for revenue, in tech it’s purely what have you done for me lately, and if you haven’t done anything, soon you’re no longer a player. Can you say Blackberry and Gateway and…

Streams can be quantified. They’re harder to fake. Of course people are always trying to scam, but there are algorithms to check that too. Ah, the glory of the machine.

In other words, it’s easy to add up how many streams a track has. They’re even visible on Spotify and YouTube. And streams are raw consumption, a true judge of popularity, whereas if something is sold, you don’t know how many times a purchaser listened to it. Furthermore, with streams you get paid forever, while with sales, it’s one and done. Do you want to invest in yourself or sell out now and forget your future?

The “Billboard” charts have been manipulated from day one. Sure, SoundScan added some truthiness, but still, shenanigans were prevalent.

And “Billboard” could change its chart overnight.

Then again, what makes the “Billboard” chart worth anything anyway, their special sauce? Why do you need Nielsen to tote up what is easily seen online?

So what you’ve got is a trade magazine, servicing the trade.

So, there should be no attention paid to “Billboard”‘s numbers.

But they’re distributed by media outlets as if they mean something, when the truth is they don’t mean anything.

Sure, it’s all about the add-ons, but who was the wanker who approved this to begin with? What are we counting here, marketing efforts or music consumption, this needed to be nipped in the bud.

And “Billboard” could have done it, but NO, it was afraid to piss off the labels and the acts, who do very little advertising anyway, “Billboard” is now a consumer-facing product, why does it keep one foot in the past? Hell, why don’t you pay fealty to retailers, Best Buy doesn’t even sell CDs anymore, not that I’ve been to an outlet in years, why, when there’s Amazon.

We need to wave a wand and immediately go to streaming totals to determine popularity. Leave all sales behind. That’s how Steve Jobs would have done it!

But the truth is the labels like it this way, they kick and scream as they add tchotchkes and manipulate the chart themselves.

Hell, the government nearly eradicated the Mafia, but the music business is still run like organized crime. These are public companies, why so much subterfuge?

Tune in tomorrow, Tuesday June 11th, to Volume 106, 7 PM East, 4 PM West.

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

Twitter: @lefetz 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

What is Happening to Streaming’s Superstars?

My conclusions:

1. The major labels are screwed.

2. Rock isn’t as dead as we think it is.

3. When other genres adopt streaming, hip-hop’s hegemony will decline.

Tim Ingham brings to attention the fact that the top five acts on streaming platforms have lost market share.
In other words, the rich aren’t getting richer.

“Overall on-demand audio streams in the United States in 2018 grew by a very healthy 42 percent year-on-year, to 534.6 billion. Yet in the same year, the top 50 streaming tracks claimed just 0.7 percent of these plays, down from 3.9 percent in 2017.”

Now if you go to BuzzAngle’s 2018 report of consumption:

Consumption Breakdown

you’ll find that Rock is the #1 in album sales. Rock has 26.5% of that market. Pop has 26.3% and Hip-Hop/Rap only has 5.2%.

Rock also dominates digital album sales, with 25.7% to Pop’s 24.9% and Hip-Hop/Rap’s 7.6%. Pop wins the Physical album sales and CD sales, but by a tenth of a percentage over Rock in physical, and 3% in CD sales. Hip-Hop/Rap has over 20% less market share than Pop and Rock in these two categories.

Rock wins vinyl. Begging the question of whether Rock fans are old farts. They’ve got the disposable income and remember when. 41.7% of vinyl sales is Rock, 25.6% of vinyl is Pop, and Hip-Hop/Rap only has 6.6%.

However, Rock doesn’t do too well in Song Sales, with 15.1% of the market, whereas Pop dominates with 25.6% and Hip-Hop/Rap has 14.7%. It seems that Rock fans want to buy whole albums, Pop and Hip-Hop/Rap fans just want the hit. Then again, are Rock fans just old farts stuck in their old ways?

Because when it comes to total streams…

Hip-Hop/Rap dominates, with 25.4%, Pop has 18.5% and Rock only has 11.4%.

So, Hip-Hop/Rap dominates streaming. Will it continue to do so?

One thing’s for sure, the superstars aren’t that super. This is not like the old days, where there was a limited amount of product and if you couldn’t get on the radio, good luck. Everybody can play now, and it causes chaos. We want order, but we’re not getting it. People want more than the hits.

But the major labels are only signing the hits. They’re not exploring new genres, they’re just going for a larger share of an ever shrinking pie.

Furthermore, it doesn’t appear the major labels have any idea how to sell what is not pop or hip-hop, i.e. sounds you can get on the radio and get instant traction with online. Of course there are exceptions, don’t e-mail me about Billie Eilish. But Billie just illustrates the audience is more powerful than the industry. Just like “Old Town Road” on TikTok. The industry keeps chasing trends instead of getting in front of them. The same way they were behind with Napster and streaming too.

More stuff sells, you’ve got to sell more stuff, or otherwise customers will go somewhere else.

All the levers in the major label world mean less. Radio is declining in power and the big stations, as stated above, are just Hip-Hop and Pop.

TV is nearly irrelevant.

And as far as a deep pocket… The majors won’t cough up dough until you prove yourself, then why do you need them? You’ve put years into developing your base, and now you’re going to cash out for one check?

I don’t think so.

As for rock, Jason Flom could be the smartest guy in the business. Ignoring the naysayers, he’s pushed Greta Van Fleet to stardom, eclipsing not only many Pop and Hip-Hop acts, but everyone in the Adult Alternative/Non-Comm/Americana world. It seems that people want something more familiar, less edgy, less far from what they know. At least in the Rock world. And, once again, Led Zeppelin’s debut was fifty years ago. At what point is it okay to be inspired by them?

And, once again, Rock kills on the road. It’s dominated by oldies acts, for sure. But if you go to one of these shows, it’s not only oldsters in attendance, there are always youngsters there, wanting to draw from the well.

Then again, we could be seeing the last gasps of Rock. When it moves to streaming, maybe it won’t make a big dent. But something is gaining ground, i.e. market share/percentage in the streaming world, other than the superstars.

In other words, everybody may have a smartphone, but that does not mean they’ve adopted streaming. Rock fans say they want to own. They’re ignorant and don’t know tracks can live on the smartphone and are playable outside of cell range as long as the device has power. In other words, they’re late to the party, as they were to social networks.

Or maybe there’s a subculture of young Rock fans who aren’t that into streaming. Maybe because there aren’t acts as good as the Eagles and Fleetwood Mac, never mind Zeppelin and Ozzy, and if someone tried to follow in their footsteps, the kids would be eager to stream them.

So Hip-Hop fans are early adopters. Hip-Hop seized the opportunities online. Rock and the rest of the genres saw the internet and streaming as the devil, to their detriment. It’s like those bitching about electric cars, self-driving cars… The truth is electric cars are gonna dominate and it won’t be long before you don’t even own one. Then again, you’ll be in the know sooner when the transition happens, because it’ll appear on the streets. When it’s online…many miss the message.

So it turns out the limited choices of the pre-internet era did not reflect the public’s true desires, they wanted more.

And generally speaking, this more is not aligned with the majors, they don’t think it will scale.

But in the aggregate, it’s bigger than the hits, way bigger than the hits.

Once again, if you want to know what’s going on, you’re probably best off looking at concert grosses. Because that’s where people pony up their bucks.

Turns out there’s tons of opportunity out there for non-hit acts. It’s cheaper than ever to make, distribute and promote and if you’re longing for the twentieth century, before the internet, when it was all different, the truth is you probably couldn’t have gotten signed by a major anyway, you’d ‘a been dead in the water. And if you made money on record sales back then, you’re now upside down, but in terms of ticket sales, you’re making more money than you ever did from record sales, check the grosses. And if you’re bitching about traveling from city to city, doing the work, you’re no different from the coal miner or auto worker whose job disappeared. You’ve got to adapt.

Hip-Hop has.

But everybody else has not.

We might ultimately find out that when it all settles Hip-Hop still dominates, that’s possible, but one thing’s for sure, a plethora of acts will have traction.