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Netflix makes hits.

Streaming music services do not.

The latest example of this is “You.” A failure on Lifetime, it’s a viral success on Netflix. As of two weeks ago, 40 million households had partaken of an episode within a month of “You” launching on Netflix. On Lifetime, it barely broke a million. Proving, once again, that distribution is king. The show’s the same, the service is different.

You see Netflix promotes its own shows. I don’t only mean the shows it produces, but rather than depend upon outside sources to drum up viewers, it’s a closed ecosystem, it’s self-perpetuating, Netflix promotes shows on its own service.

As do network and cable, but you can’t fast-forward, you can’t shut the ads off, and they end up irritating you, to the point you root against the shows.

So when you sign in to Netflix you see one show promoted. And under that you see what’s hot and you get the feeling you’re on a website as opposed to a service. That you’re in control, that you get to choose, that someone has done the curating for you, and what’s out of sight is out of mind…when locked into Netflix you don’t care what’s happening on the five hundred channels and the competitive streaming services.

But music streaming services are different, they’re just distributors, like the record stores of yore, and that paradigm no longer works today, we need someone to tell us what to listen to, whom we trust, who has a great track record.

Actually, that’s why Tuma Basa and Rap Caviar were so successful. But Tuma left to join Lyor in the black hole of YouTube and has never been heard from again, proving once again that distribution is king.

But there’s only one Rap Caviar…not only has Spotify been unable to replicate that playlist, neither has any competitor.

You see it’s the streaming music services’ obligation to break records. The truth is they are a replacement for both retail and radio. And they’re leaving the public in the dark.

On the home screen should not be the usual suspect popular hit, but a track that people SHOULD hear, that would break if people only listened to it. With a new one once a week, so people would tune in to see it.

And maybe a Hot List, of at most five tracks, of different genres.

Streaming music services are abdicating their power.

And how about consumer ratings?

Netflix screwed theirs up by going from a one to five star system to thumbs up or down, now almost everything gets a great rating, but when you’re interested in a show and it gets three or three and a half stars, you steer away, or go in with your eyes open, ready to grab the remote and tune away.

We need ratings on streaming music services, so we know what to pay attention to and what not to, to add coherence.

But streaming services are afraid of scaring away the suppliers. But the system today doesn’t work for customers, and they’re the gods of all commerce.

We need streaming music services to point the way.

As for Discover Weekly, it’s great, but you get the feeling you might be the only person listening to this track you’ve found, and in the era of social media you want to connect, you want to be part of the group, that’s why I watched the first episode of “You.” Not my thing, I won’t watch more, but now I can play, go to parties and talk like an authority, know what the hubbub is about, never underestimate the appeal of belonging.

And I don’t expect streaming music services to make and promote their own product. First and foremost, it’s a terrible business without catalog. But the truth is they’re much more powerful than the major labels. Wanna mess with a major? Threaten to cut them off, like the government shutdown, we can see how much money was lost, how many lives were ruined. The major labels depend upon streaming music services for survival, they’re the lion’s share of their income, so the services can flex some muscle, they don’t have to be that afraid.

But they’re all techies, who just don’t get soft skills. They’ll tell you about the algorithm, they’ll tell you about efficiency, they just don’t focus on the music itself. As for their vaunted curators…drones who provide the same number of tracks every week, as if music was a production line in China.

So it’s hard to make sense of what’s going on.

But sense will eventually come. When the streaming services own their responsibility and start breaking tracks, of all genres, when they start being active instead of passive, when logging in to see what’s happening is the same as logging in to Netflix.

Everybody does not know your name.

No one is as big as they used to be in the pre-internet era. No one reaches everybody, no one is known by everybody, never have individual stars meant less. Platforms are the stars, from Spotify to Facebook to Amazon.

You can be famous and broke.

If you’re not polishing your star 24/7, it’s fading. Fans can never get enough of you, the only people complaining that you’re publishing too much are those who are jealous, not fans, and want to bring you down.

You build your own star. Sure, intermediaries help, but you record on a laptop and can distribute at no cost and the means of disseminating your message are at your fingertips. If you’re waiting for someone else to do it, you’re gonna be left behind.

Charts don’t count. They’re for insiders and looky-loos.

The money is on the road, so why are you spending so much time in the studio? Every time you hit a town media explodes, both traditional and online/social network, when your album comes out you’re lucky to get a local review, and after release date, you’re in the rearview mirror.

Hits mean less than ever. Lady Gaga toured for years without one. Then again, her ability to sell tickets was based on her previous hits.

Mystery is history. If you’re not airing your dirty laundry, no one can bond to you. Yes, they want to know what you ate for breakfast. Yes, they want to know if your significant other refused sex last night. The twenty first century is a digital age wherein the humans provide humanity, one thing a chip cannot do, let your freak flag fly.

TV works for old audiences. Same deal with print/magazine/major publications. If you do not appeal to oldsters, save your time and money.

True stars can say no. Most stars cannot.

Hate goes with the territory, don’t react. Unless getting into online battles is your thing, but then you become a brand, not a musician, and brands fade faster than music.

You know what’s going on in your own silo, but not anybody else’s.

Cash is king and don’t expect your handlers to say no and forgo their percentage, that’s your job.

Don’t listen to the stories of social media stars. Their fame and income does not last, they are of the moment, their acts do not translate to other media, they are fads. And what we know online is fads eventually fade away and do not radiate. Anybody e-mail you a joke recently?

The audience is online native, connected all the time, you should be too.

Ignore anti-tech screeds. Your career is based on tech.

Major labels are a smaller slice of the pie than ever. They control a lot of hits, but almost none of the penumbra, and the penumbra is where the action is, all the genres that don’t rain down immediate cash with brain-dead youngsters.

Data is everything. It tells you who and where your fans are. You should be able to reach all of them with an e-mail or a tweet or an Instagram post.

Musicians are about content. Posting on social media without it makes you two-dimensional in a three-dimensional world. You’re selling story. A picture needs an explanation. Your whole life is a narrative, surrounding around your music.

Be yourself, don’t worry about offending those who do not care. Most likely the ones with opposite political viewpoints just want to inhibit your creativity and shut you down.

I rarely practiced.

But I think Guy needed the money.

At first I took guitar lessons with my sister at some folkie’s house. That’s what you learned back then, Peter, Paul & Mary were kings, or queens. The teacher was a housewife, my mother heard about her through the grapevine. The smaller the community, the more people you know. But we burned out quickly, she wouldn’t teach us the hits.

And then the Beatles broke.

The folk guitar was no longer useful. You needed something with a narrow neck and metal strings. And I got one for Hanukkah, sans amplifier, not that I cared. And then a case, although its plastic handle ultimately broke, I think that’s one of the reasons I lost interest. And then I started taking lessons across town from this guy in a music store, with hair like Elvis and a big red semi-acoustic guitar, he scared me a bit, his interests seemed to be elsewhere, and one time when I showed up for my three dollar lesson and he’d cross-booked, since I’d been out of town a bunch, that was over.

And that’s when I found Guy Smith. Ensconced in one of those buildings in downtown Bridgeport that hadn’t yet been torn down. My father would drop me there every Monday night, I’d play what he’d given me the week before, then he’d write out something new, and then we’d play it and the lesson would be over. Guy was nice, and he always wrote down the hits. I remember doing the Turtles’ “You Showed Me,” I could tell it was one of his favorites, and one week I got him to write down “White Room.” Guy didn’t want to, maybe that’s why I remember it. He said it was too simple. But he did.

At this point Cream was gigantic, and it wasn’t that long thereafter that they said they were gonna break up. I’d bought “Disraeli Gears,” I loved “Tales Of Brave Ulysses.” And “SWLABR” and “Dance The Night Away.” And nearly a year after it was released, “Sunshine Of Your Love” crossed over from FM to AM and the band became ubiquitous. That’s what changed music, almost as much as the Beatles, FM. Kinda like Spotify, et al, today, they’re making short songs de rigueur, but the streaming services have only amplified the power of hip-hop so far, no new musical strand has emerged. And once something was on AM, the cat was out of the bag, singles and albums sold prodigiously. Acts could sell more tickets. Everybody knew who they were, in an era where AM radio reached everybody. Just like network TV, if it was on, it was known.

And in the fall of ’68, right after “Sunshine Of Your Love” was fading, Cream released “Wheels Of Fire.”

Now if you got in early, and I most certainly did, the album came with a silver foil cover. This was back when we were all collectors, when our albums meant something to us, when we thought they were forever. And on some level, they still are, what with the vinyl revival, but now on eBay you can find everything and life is all about access. If you find a collector, you find someone lost in the twentieth century.

Now at this point, “Wheels Of Fire” is most famous for the tear through “Crossroads,” with its Clapton vocal and searing fretmanship.

But back then, the two highlights were “Spoonful” and “Toad.” This was back when most bands were lousy live, long before tapes/hard drives, during the era of poor PAs. But these three tracks were all recorded live, “Wheels Of Fire” had one studio disc and one live disc.

This is when Clapton became God in America.

And this time, unlike the year before, no time was necessary for the track to percolate on FM before it crossed over to AM, “White Room” hit the airwaves immediately.

Did you know you could talk to the Amazon Music app? Yup, Alexa is there for you. Spotify has copied this feature, but to be honest I’ve never utilized it. And the other night, long after dark, I called out to Alexa on my phone to play the rock hits of 1968, since Amazon Music can create playlists on the fly.

I got way too much “White Album.” And for some reason, I got “Fire And Rain,” twice, even though that wasn’t released until 1970, but I also got “White Room.”

It was a revelation. The majestic full-throttle intro, how were all those sounds created, and then a Ginger Baker drum hit and Jack Bruce vocalizing, everybody involved considered the pinnacle in their world, a true supergroup, they made that movie about Ginger but today everybody talks about Neil Peart and people rarely mention bass players, even though students know Jaco Pastorius was best, as for Clapton….the past few decades have been about pulling him down from his perch, one he never seemed to want.

But Jack Bruce could sing too, his mellifluous voice was an indispensable part of Cream’s success.

I’ll wait in this place where the sun never shines
Wait in this place where the shadows run from themselves

And if I could tell you what that exactly means, I would, but I can’t, but I know this couplet by heart, the way Jack loses all harshness and goes for honesty, becomes almost sentimental, and touches your heart.

Now there was privilege in owning the album, the single version lasted barely longer than three minutes, whereas the five minute album take had Clapton wailing on and on, inspiring wannabe axemen around the world.

Funny how music can bring you back. It’s not a memory of, you’re right in the moment, you’re a teenager once again, when the goal was to be a guitar hero, when we only talked about music, when radio was our religion and music drove the culture.

Jack is gone. Stunningly, Ginger is still here. And now Clapton plays occasionally to fans, seemingly more interested in fishing. Live long enough and you see the whole arc, from nobody to star and back again. You can even book a hotel room under your own name.

But those records…

They’re locked in amber, they’re FOREVER!