It’s a one listen smash.

I was reading this article about the resurgence of dance music in the “New York Times” (did it ever really go away?) and I came across these words:

“Still, dance is eclipsing the pop it has used to infiltrate the mainstream. ‘Move,’ a track released last year by Adam Port, one of the members of the German label Keinemusik, has over 542 million Spotify streams — more than any one song from releases by Charli XCX, Katy Perry or FKA twigs.”

Free link: https://www.nytimes.com/2025/05/11/arts/music/dance-music-boom-nightlife.html?unlocked_article_code=1.GU8.4oXx.aKEckafsdUrI&smid=url-share

Now wait a second, isn’t Charli XCX one of the biggest acts in the world? Didn’t she just headline Coachella? Isn’t her name splashed across the mainstream media ad infinitum, saying we should pay attention even if we don’t care and never will? Wasn’t a year ago the beginning of Brat Summer? Didn’t people call Kamala Harris BRAT?

Maybe that’s one of the reasons she lost. Because most people had no idea what Brat was/meant.

So of course I’ve got to pull up “Move.” And a lot of dance music is…just that, made to dance, not much more. It fades into the woodwork. I mean if you’re high at the gig it’s fun, but for the casual listener…

So I go over to Spotify to check the numbers and damn if the article isn’t right.

And as I’m thinking as to why this should be…

I get hooked on the track.

At first I’m analyzing this as…you know, you put the song on an endless loop because you’re dancing to it and that’s why it’s got so many streams, and this is true, but there’s something more about “Move,” it’s infectious.

Not that there’s much there… I mean the lyrics are…the kind of English lyrics you think would be written by Germans:

“Girl, I really like the way you move”

https://genius.com/Adam-port-stryv-keinemusik-orso-duo-and-malachiii-move-lyrics

Then again so many of the classic rock tracks of yore…the lyrics were not much deeper, then again, it was all about the RIFF!

And that’s what makes “Move” so appealing, it might not be played on a guitar, but the repeated “riff” has you nodding your head just like to a hard rock/metal song of yore. But this sounds modern, much more so than the Active Rock dreck purveyed by the tattooed leather-clad laughable men prowling the stages. (Wouldn’t it be more revolutionary to NOT get tattoos at this point? To leave the leather aside?)

And unlike Active Rock, and unlike so much hip-hop, so much of what we’re told is for everyone, “Move” truly appeals to everyone. It’s primal. It’s the beat. Not that I expect all the dyed-in-the-wool rockers to admit this.

And whereas today’s country music is the rock music of the seventies, “Move” is positively modern, it sounds like today, not like yesterday.

And it’s on the German Keinemusik label as opposed to one of the three majors. All the focus is on the majors, but all the action is with the indies (which the majors sometimes distribute). You don’t need much to start, it’s not like you need the cash of yore, you can make the music on the cheap (even though the oldsters will protest you can’t get something good this way).

“Move” is not belabored. And unlike the “hits” it’s not wall to wall sound, there’s room to breathe in the track.

Meanwhile, everybody doing it the same way keeps bitching about Spotify payments. Believe me, Adam Port made bank on “Move.”

Not that Port is unknown, he’s played Coachella. Then again, you know if you’ve been that all the press is about the main stages but all the action takes place in the dance tent.

And “Move” spread via social media, because it’s hard to keep a good thing down. The old paradigm of radio/print/TV is broken, you go straight to the fans.

If you don’t hear it, you don’t know what a hit is.

It’s been a sh*tty season. One thing about the Brits and the Europeans, they know when to end a show. It’s not only that they leave you wanting more, they stop before the series become clichéd, using the tropes of television that have now been established over seventy five years.

Now if you’re new to the show, you must know that Jean Smart is phenomenal in the role of Deborah Vance. I mean PHE-NOMENAL! Totally believable. A narcissist who has sacrificed everything in life for her career. She lives for the adulation of her fans, but she keeps them at arm’s length. Like almost all professional entertainers. They live for the applause, but they don’t want to hang out with those who clap.

As for Hannah Einbinder… She’s gotten much better over the seasons, but she slips in and out of believability. But tonight!

If you watch “Hacks” and haven’t watched this week’s episode, this is when you can tune out. Then again, what I’m going to say doesn’t affect one’s enjoyment of the episode. But I’m going to go straight for the jugular. Hannah Einbinder’s Ava Daniels quits this week.

Now there is a theme. Of her bonding with her writers as opposed to being the boss. And when she realizes they’ve been taking advantage of her all along, and have always kept her separate from them…she quits.

And Deborah Vance has to go to this fake awards show to promote her show… Never forget, it’s show BUSINESS! Sure, there are some outliers, like Larry David and Don Henley and Dave Chappelle, who refuse to play the game, but most people don’t have the balls. They’re afraid of not working again. It’s hard to stay in show business.

So, in the backstage area Deborrah Vance runs into Rosie O’Donnell, who is playing herself. And Rosie congratulates Deborah for improving as a comedian, when no one gets better, she says it’s like a sports star, and that’s when the light bulb goes off, far too deep into this season, as the war between Deborah and Ava has continued, that she NEEDS Ava. So she goes in search of Ava and finds her at the beach and the final scene is set at an outside restaurant on the sand, a veritable shack, just before it closes. And sitting there, Deborah tells Ava she needs to come back.

And this is where Ava shines, this is where we get the nougat. Deborah promises Ava it will be different, but it doesn’t work, because Ava doesn’t TRUST Deborah anymore.

All relationships come down to trust. And commitment.

But in this case they’re talking about trust. Once trust is broken, the relationship is doomed. We’ve all been there, unless you married your grade school sweetheart. You’ve been through so much together, but when your significant other tells you this time it’s going to be different…

You don’t believe it. Ava can’t be convinced, she’s done.

Not fake done. But absolutely done. She’s spent all day in her mental morass adding up the numbers and seeing that the equation doesn’t fit, this is not the job for her, head writer on Deborah’s late night show, she’s gonna go.

And she stays with this. She actually doubles down.

Even if she did trust Deborah, which she doesn’t, she’s not cut out for the gig, she can’t make TV for millions.

And there you have it folks, the difference between show business and art, between the middle of the road and edge.

Real artists live on the edge, they won’t do what’s expendable. In Ava’s case she tried to play the game, but it’s not her. She’d rather be comfortable in her own skin than play a role that doesn’t fit.

What is so great is Ava is unswayable. We’ve all been there, at the point where nothing will change our mind. We’re not angry, if anything we’re depressed. But we’re one step beyond that, we’ve looked in the mirror and convinced ourselves it’s better to go it alone, to give up the person or the dream.

Now in relationships… Most people get back together one or more times before they truly call it quits. But there comes a point, no matter how painful, where you just can’t do it anymore.

Ava is at that point. And her performance is completely true to life.

Now ultimately Deborah does convince Ava to give it one more shot. She admits that Ava has become her voice, and without her she’s screwed. But Deborah ultimately seals the deal with an inside conversation. You’ve shared a life, and oftentimes the way you get over the hump is by referencing a common experience, a moment of connection. Deborah starts dumping on the HR person who is playing referee and Ava can’t hold back from joining in and they’re laughing, but…

You know Deborah will screw Ava once again, it’s in her blood, she can’t help herself, she doesn’t want to help herself. You think people will change, but they don’t, no matter how much you want them to.

Ava’s still not gonna trust Deborah, no one should, not even her daughter. But this is a job. This is a show business job. And the stars…are not average people, they’re incomplete, they need the aforementioned applause, it’s what you sign up for.

So you go back to the Big Top for another go-round.

But we’ve all been there, licking our wounds after loss, picking ourselves up and refusing to compromise one more time.

And Hanna Einbinder nailed the belief, the feeling to a “t” tonight. She resonated in not only the role, but in the heart of the viewers. It wasn’t phony. The system had beaten her. She’d given it her all. She admitted defeat. She’d live another day to do another thing, but not this one with Deborah Vance.

But now…

Comedy is hard. And sometimes to make it work you’ve got to inject a bit of pathos. As Joni Mitchell sang…laughing and crying, you know it’s the same release.

Tune in Saturday May 10th to Faction Talk, channel 103, at 4 PM East, 1 PM West.

Phone #: 844-686-5863

If you miss the episode, you can hear it on demand on the SiriusXM app. Search: Lefsetz

I discovered her on social media. I can’t tell you whether it was TikTok or Instagram Reels…I think it was the latter, although you have to know the two services are different. Instagram Reels repeats videos, TikTok does not. It all comes down to the algorithm, that’s TikTok’s special sauce. And if you’re looking for serious, you’re much better off on TikTok. HOWEVER, you can turn off the sound on Instagram Reels while you listen to music or something else and you can’t do this on TikTok. Which means I end up looking at Instagram Reels while I do my back stretches. How can you watch clips if there’s no audio? Well, seemingly all Instagram Reels have a concomitant spew of subtitles, which are actually usually centered in the screen. So…

If you’re selling, I’m out. I’m not interested. I can go to the Wirecutter or “Consumer Reports” or even Amazon to find out if something is good, I never buy on impulse and it does not make me feel good to fill the coffers of these “influencers.” Oftentimes they’re little better than beggars on the street.

No, what I’m looking for is entertainment.

There’s a slew of people replicating legendary hits. What they don’t get is playing the song is the least important element. Coming up with the idea, writing it? Good guitar players are a dime a dozen, as are people with reasonable voices. We’re looking for songs.

Then again, everybody is so busy trying to be famous that they haven’t got time to write songs, it doesn’t work on camera so they don’t do it. They need to be famous, quick.

Which Sophie Buddle was not. She started in comedy in Ottawa at fourteen, and that’s sixteen years ago. She won some award and eventually got up the gumption to move to Los Angeles a couple of years back to try and make it.

Yes, yes, you can make it from your bedroom. And sometimes this works. But in many strains of entertainment you need connections, a team, and that happens in the big city. And Sophie said she chose L.A. instead of New York because in the latter the comics were depressed and on the verge of suicide.

So Sophie goes on the road and starves. Or, as she called it, “The Break Even Tour.” There was no money in it. The clubs were sh*tholes. She was in America, but America was not taking notice.

Then she started posting clips. SHE DIDN’T WANT TO! She felt they were cringey. And you don’t want to use up your best material, and when people come to the show the material must be fresh, as if you made it up on the spot, and we all know that is not the case.

And within a matter of months she had six figures worth of followers.

This is what most people don’t understand, or refuse to understand. We are hungry for great, and we can skip right by average and good with no problem. That’s actually what you do on social media, you flick to the next clip, unless you’re intrigued you never watch all the way through. But if you find something that catches your interest…

There was something about Sophie’s sensibility. The way she was intimate, as if you were in the same room together, with a snicker at the end. It’s different from standing there and doing a Henny Youngman quickie. What works best on social media is if we see YOU in the clip.

Her clips were funny. And the algorithm showed me more, and then eventually I followed her, I wanted to see everything she made.

Now just recently I’ve noticed her appearing in clips with Taylor Tomlinson. On TikTok I believe. I wondered how this happened.

Sophie said as a result of the success of her online clips, she got better live bookings. And at these bookings she met a better circle of comics. And she  made friends and enemies with the top tier. She’s not afraid of enemies, it goes with the territory.

And at the Comedy Store she bonded with Taylor Tomlinson, who asked her to open for her after her original opening act got too big for the slot, and then Taylor asked Sophie to audition to be the writer of her monologue for her new late night TV show and…

The instructions said if writing this takes you more than an hour, you’re not the right person for the job.

That’s another thing amateurs don’t get. It’s a muscle, you employ it and you get not only strong, but quick. You’re not afraid, creating is  second nature.

So Sophie instantly got the gig, where she wrote the monologues alone, and if you’re a student of the game you know that Taylor Tomlinson just walked away from her late night show, which I thought was a mistake to begin with. TV dumbs you down. The goal used to be to have a sitcom, but Marc Maron worked his way up to one and it promptly failed.

No, you want to be a star online, you want to generate enough heat for guest appearances here and there, and then people want to come see you. After all, I woke up earlier than I wanted to to hear Sophie this morning.

And she wasn’t great. Because she was reading from a script. She was constantly checking her notes, which breaks your flow. It wasn’t as natural as it should have been.

But still, there was great information. Like how crowd talk works on social media. I’ve been noticing Taylor Tomlinson doing a lot of this online recently, interacting with the audience. And what people say is AMAZING! Usually having to do with dating/relationships. Even Chappelle interacted with the crowd the other night. It breaks the wall, it bonds the audience to you. And it doesn’t always generate laughs, but…people want to watch these clips online.

And Sophie said she could do a whole presentation on her clip philosophy. That I would have liked to hear. If you’re not a student of the game, you can’t win in today’s marketplace. And she said to pin your hate comments to the top, because that will engender defense by your fans and ultimately argument, i.e. heat.

Now I was dying to ask Sophie what she was going to do now that the TV gig was done, but…

They popped out another comedian with much better credits, he’d appeared on Conan and had a special and…

I had to walk out. The guy wasn’t offensive, but I’d seen his routine before. As in talking about your upbringing, putting down where you lived, throwing off asides to make you laugh that don’t.

We’re looking for originals. And there are very few originals out there.

And you can’t teach someone to be an original.

This is what musicians don’t understand. If you’re not original, if I’m not following you of my own volition, like I did with Sophie, either change your act or give up. Preferably the latter.

You grew up wanting to be a professional athlete, but you got over that. Most college athletes, even successful ones on successful teams, can’t go pro. But everybody who picks up an instrument believes they deserve to be rich and famous and bitch about streaming payouts. You’re good at something, maybe even great in something, but chances are it’s not music. And there are so many other ways to become rich and famous today. Look at Scott Galloway… He’s a businessman who teaches. Sound like a road to mainstream stardom? But his analysis is good as is his delivery. Ask him to be a musician and I’m sure he’d fail. But he knows what he can do, and he didn’t find this public niche until decades into his life.

I know, I’m putting musicians down. Why does everybody say you can’t criticize those trying to make music when you can criticize a car, or people’s intelligence or sports skills… What makes attempting music so special?

And that may not resonate with you, but I’m constantly inundated with blowback. Listen to my music, I’m undeservedly unfamous. My kid is thirteen, they’re on the verge of breaking through.

OH YEAH?

And here comes the part where I engage with the oldsters, telling them discovery is made on social media, because that’s where the stars are, if you’re waiting for them to come to TV or print media…not only are you way behind the curve, many don’t even cross over there.

And oftentimes this is because the gatekeepers are calcified… The new talent doesn’t fit a specific niche, they’re too dangerous, their act is not broad enough…

But on social media there is no gatekeeping, just like on SPOTIFY!

But not everybody who posts on social media believes they deserve to be rich, but those who post on streaming music services believe they do!

I guess I’m the opposite of everybody else. I don’t want to give you hope, never ever. Nothing I say or do can affect your inner tuning fork, your inner strength. Either you need to do it or you don’t. And believe me, if you never get any bigger…

The fault is you.

Sometimes your act is so outside or so ahead of the game that this is untrue, but very rarely.

It’s a tsunami of crap. Even worse, it’s hyped crap. Which most people want out of their feed. Believe me, TikTok would not be a success if the algorithm didn’t work. Who wants to see stuff they don’t want to?

But when you come across stuff you do want to see…

You can’t get enough of it.

Like me with Sophie Buddle.