The Eric Clapton Christmas album is amazing… and I’m a Jew…

I can’t remember when Clapton had a great album… You must listen.. It’s brilliant..

Kindest Cheers,

Jeff Laufer

This is the kind of stuff the papers should be covering, their upper middle class demo will eat it up. Instead I have to wait fully a month after its release to find out about it. I’m not a Christmas music guy, but I am a Clapton fan, and to the degree I’ve checked this out, it delivers. Forget the lyrics, it’s Slowhand playing new material in his signature style, this could be a million seller if the press just glommed on to it, they’re looking for something to champion, champion this! This is what so much of their audience is looking for. And they could own it, promote it, become heroes.
But they won’t.

“Happy Xmas”

P.S. Don’t be such a muso and reject this out of hand. You’re missing the point and proving that you’re still living in the last century when your opinion counted, but that skinny jean, leather jacket ethos is as dead as your iPod, today it’s not about judging someone’s music so much as finding something that works for you, and there’s too much for any of us to fathom, to know about, so we’re looking for pointers. As for one of Jeff’s other tips… Ghost, sold out the Forum this Friday night and you’ve never heard of them, but if you listened you’d dig the sound. Oh, that’s right, they don’t wear skinny ties and gaze at their shoes. This is another act that could be gigantic if the press got its head out of its ass and focused a bit more on what people truly want as opposed to following trends.

The way you do this is you search on an act’s name in Spotify and play their most popular track, the one with the most listens, to see if the music appeals to you. And if it does, you then go to the next most popular track and find out if the first’s a fluke and if it’s not you listen to more. But in case this is too much for you, here’s a link to Ghost’s most recent album:

Prequelle

Oh, you’re afraid of Spotify, of a free tier, you need to own your music? You officially no longer count. Don’t ask me why I’m in such a pissed off mood right now, it’s just that when you deal with the e-mail of wankers every day it gets to you, even though I know so many of you are reasonable.

Maybe it’s not about the horse race but the underpinnings, maybe it’s not about whether the Democrats failed to take over the Senate as much as who got elected.

Like Kyrsten Sinema. An atheist bisexual from the land of Goldwater. My, how Arizona has changed. My, how the PUBLIC has changed.

With two years to adjust to the new landscape, the media continues to get it wrong.

As for Fox News, it’s lost all credibility since Hannity appeared on stage with Trump. It’s no longer a news outlet, but a cheering section. Of course we knew this, but Hannity proved this. They say Roger Ailes would have never allowed this, had held back Hannity previously. All I know is I regularly listened to Fox on Sirius XM, but I won’t anymore, now it’s no more than an appendage of Trump, it’s not worth listening for perspective, there is none.

As for the “New York Times”… What is going on there? So busy trying to appear fair and balanced, female and male, up-to-date, somehow the Gray Lady continues to miss the memo. The reporters are aggrieved at Trump’s actions, but seem categorically unable to decipher the essence, the texture, the meaning. They offed Margaret Sullivan and now she’s functioning as the ombudsman for the WaPo, she took the media to task for blowing the election, turns out maybe you’re better off reading the WaPo than the NYT, that’s what the money of a billionaire and the editorship of Marty Baron will do for you. As for the WSJ, its editorial page is so biased and often uninformed as to be laughable.

So where does this leave us?

With no direction home, in the great unknown.

Trump won and he hijacked the narrative. Last week’s election taught us that some people are still biased, uninformed, voting against their own interests, fearful of change. While others will vote their pocketbook. But that’s not the story of 2018. The story of 2018 is the American experiment is working. Muslim women got elected in Michigan and Minnesota, turns out most of the public has no problem with immigrants, females or gay people.

But the media doesn’t know this. The same way the old Dems wouldn’t come out for gay marriage, afraid of the consequences.

What are the consequences? How should you run in 2020?

Well one thing we know is those who triangulate, play on the old board, are history. They may not know it yet, but if they control the Democratic party’s election they will lose next time. Discounting the progressives and running to the center is anathema. Turns out the public is hipper than the politicians, people want someone honest, who understands their problems. So it’ll be interesting who runs. A new face might take charge just like in ’76 with Carter, who had the musicians in his pocket. That man this time is John Hickenlooper, who told me he can win because he’s lost his job and had to pivot and he specializes in listening in a state (Colorado if you’re out of the loop) where there are divergent interests. You see where you came from counts. Who you are counts. That’s why Bernie did so well. We want to believe you have a backbone, suddenly it’s about character.

But the media keeps falling for the Trump bait. If the man lies and makes up false crises like the “caravan,” maybe the media should downplay his antics. We’ve seen this paradigm in music forever. Alice Cooper specialized in it. Just get them talking, no matter what they say. That doesn’t play in 2018. We need more analysis, and greater distance from the machine. Really, the problem isn’t CNN’s reporter being banned, it’s that there’s little reporting done by CNN to begin with, they specialize in the train-wreck, it’s reality television for those with a bit more brains.

So in case you’ve been under a rock, as the ballots continue to be counted, Democrats are winning again and again, in many races where they were counted out. This is a blue wave of sentiment, if not numbers. And as we learned in Vietnam, it’s all about hearts and minds.

What has the media done to adjust in the internet era?

Forget TV, it’s just talking heads, but print media…NOTHING! The papers’ idea of innovation is soft paywalls. They’re all like ancient rockers, bitching about the new paradigm. But at least the rockers who’ve survived got the memo to go on the road, that they couldn’t count on record revenue. The papers may be switching from physical to virtual, holding on to print for the same people who like CDs, but just like the ancient rockers, they’re playing the same old hits.

Let’s see… Two pages for op-ed. How about four pages for op-ed? How about someone who can analyze what’s going on, really take the temperature of America. Because if the papers are wrong about the election, and they are, the question arises…

What else are they wrong about?

Note: I’ll tell you one thing the media’s wrong about, that the major labels are wrong about, WE DON’T LIVE IN A HIP-HOP NATION! At best we live in a cacophonous nation, where a great swath of the public is being ignored, he or she who addresses it will triumph in the future, that’s the disruption in the offing, not one of distribution but content. If the labels were smart, and they’re not, they’d be developing alternate sounds for the rest of America, these same people who’ve tuned out except for going to the shows of the aged acts referenced above. They want new music that appeals to them, but they don’t know where to find it. None of it is consistently hyped. Funny how yacht rock is successful enough to not only be a term, but a Sirius XM channel, and the labels refuse to make ear-pleasing music by people who can play and sing. You read about acts in the paper and you need a decoder ring to understand them. They oftentimes have imperfect voices, the instrumentation is rough, but if this music turns you off, where are you supposed to go? The dungeon of Active Rock, the backwater of AAA? We need stuff that appeals to many that can gain traction, this is not rocket science, then again, the music business is not famous for being populated by rocket scientists.

Margaret Sullivan “The media’s eagerness to discount the ‘blue wave’ feeds a dangerous problem”

Junk

I’m working my way through the new “White Album.” Unlike Dylan’s “More Blood, More Tracks,” you don’t have to pony up for the CDs to get all the tracks, and who has a CD player anymore anyway? Both my computers don’t have one, then again, these packages are for collectors, kinda like vinyl, which many people buy as a souvenir, or to play on cheap turntables that sound worse than MP3s.

And I like Giles, but I still believe these remixes are heinous, they mess with not only the originals, what you know in your mind, but history. It’s as if we went back and changed WWII movies into color, made some people bigger and released it, and then the new version becomes the de facto version and those who were there originally pass away and…

I ultimately had to skip the remixes, they were too offensive, more bass, more drums, not like I remember, it would be one thing if I sat in the studio and Giles was pushing the faders, but to set these cuts in amber is sacrilegious, and can I say that Jeff Jones and the Beatles should give Steven Wilson a crack at future remixes, he hasn’t got Giles’s pedigree, but when he remixes Jethro Tull and Yes and…the finished product sounds just like the original but cleaner, I don’t know how he does it, but the end result is stupendous, and this is from someone who is categorically against remixing, remastering…that’s okay.

But what you do need to listen to is the Esher demos, then you’ll get the idea of what the sixties and the Beatles were really about. You see they’re imperfect. We think of the Beatles as being self-contained and hermetically sealed. Like they were fully-formed and needed no additions, but these demos truly argue for George Martin being the Fifth Beatle, he added so much, but what is here… The guitars oftentimes sound like what you strum at home… But the voices! You’ll be stunned, from an era back when being able to hit the notes was a prerequisite to having a musical career. We could sit at home and strum like this, but we could never sing like this, but we tried. In the early 1900s you sat around a piano and sang. In the sixties you picked up a guitar and sang along. Now you make beats and…

And “While My Guitar Gently Weeps” was impressive for having its own character, George’s vocal penetrating, it stands next to the studio iteration, it’s not a pale imitation.

But the winner is…

JUNK!

Oh, to go back when, when the Beatles broke up, and Paul McCartney released the first solo LP and was excoriated. George got all the kudos with “All Things Must Pass,” but have you listened to that lately? Time has not been kind. As for Lennon’s debut…positive reviews, but few listens. Then the second LP “Imagine” was released and the title track was ubiquitous and became legendary. And on that album was “Jealous Guy,” of which I think Rod Stewart does the best cover, before his image ate him and he became about the trappings as opposed to the music.

But before it was “Jealous Guy,” it was “Child Of Nature,” written in India like “Junk,” but not released on the “White Album,” but the demo here… Whew! It’s a winner, the tune of “Jealous Guy,” but with completely different lyrics, John is happy as opposed to bitter, there’s no angst, only bliss. Pretty fascinating.

But, once again, the winner is “Junk.”

Originally it was called “Jubilee,” and some of the lyrics are unfinished, a lot of them in fact, but the magic remains, arguably more than the finished product.

I first heard “McCartney” in the middle of summer, stoned in a frat house on the Cornell campus, it was then that the album revealed itself to me. And to tell you the truth, I always preferred “Every Night” and “Teddy Boy,” never mind “Maybe I’m Amazed,” but I certainly knew “Junk” and its partner “Singalong Junk.”

Motor cars, handle bars
Bicycles for two

Sans the excess production, with just guitars and vocals, this Esher demo version is more intimate, more dreamy, it’s the essence of the Beatles’ wizardry, the way they made the basics rise above, be more than seemed possible.

Unlike the other demos, the guitars are more polished, and the vocals are nearly perfect, but the track is riddled with some feedback, but that only makes it more real, it’s the imperfections that make something live. Why are we striving to be automatons, perfect and soulless, when what makes us so attractive is that we’re all unique, with assets and deficits, when you sand off the edges you’re just like everybody else and that’s not appealing.

The “White Album” was not for parties, it was for bedrooms, for headphones, it was a personal experience. And “Junk” is as personal as it gets, like walking down a dark street just after the rain stopped, when it’s not quite cold enough to scrunch your shoulders, when you’re even-tempered and happy to be alive.

P.S. Yes, completists will tell me there’s a version of “Junk” on “Anthology 3,” but it’s out of context and doesn’t have the same magic. It’s when you realize that “Junk” was created at the same time as the rest of the “White Album,” when you hear it next to those other tracks, that it stands out, when you hear it as a Beatle number as opposed to a solo number, when you think about it being rejected for the double album, even though it would have fit perfectly and changed the character of that project just a tiny little bit, giving us a different view, which we now have.

Trump has taken this all the way to the Presidency. Ever notice that what he said yesterday doesn’t matter today? Actually, lying is part of his brand, that’s why we all pay attention!

Used to be music developed. Over time. You took baby steps. Tried to get notice, tried to build a fan base. But that paradigm died with the seventies. But that does not mean baby boomers don’t yearn for its return. Meanwhile, the millennials and Generation Z never experienced this heyday, when an act took five albums to break through. Now everything is hit and run. Nothing is built to last. The world moves too fast. So he or she with the brand wins.

If people know who you are, they love weighing in on you. Not only the press, but the public. Ever go somewhere and try to discuss your newfound fave and find out that no one has ever heard of it? Welcome to 2018!

So you’re better off getting face tattoos and posting on social media and making friends with other talent so, like our President, when you release your music you don’t start off at home, but second base. Ever since Britney Spears, we hear about the act before the music, now it’s only worse.

You see it’s next to impossible to rise above the noise. So the same acts populate the Spotify Top 50 while radio waits for consensus and scoops up the poop from the elephants who were barred from the circus before the whole enterprise collapsed. You enter at the top of the chart, you stay there for a while, then you’re done. If you’re expecting your non-hip-hop tracks to gain any attention, you’re dreaming. Then again, if you worked on your brand, if people knew who you were and you kept on making news, then maybe you’d have a chance.

At this point, Kanye the man is bigger than his music. He’s superseded the music, it’s just an advertisement for his clothing and the rest of his shenanigans. And if you’re playing the home game, trying to go professional, you imitate Kanye, not Little Feat. Who wants to be in a band that struggles and makes no money, we’re all about getting rich here, and music is just a vehicle.

And everybody involved has drunk the kool-aid. No one is crying foul.

This is why AAA and Active Rock music never penetrates, these acts don’t know it’s about the sideshow, not the main show.

You’ve got to be in the game 24/7. If you’re not tweeting or Instagramming, you’ve got to put out new music constantly, or maybe both. I know, I know, it took you years to write that song, but online it’s gone in a minute, or maybe a week. Your only hope is to stay in the game long enough until people discover you and the spotlight is pointed at your catalogue.

It’s all forward with no backward, which is the antithesis of great music. Great music sets you free, apart, you oftentimes dream about the past, but if you’re contemplating the past, you’re now missing out on the future. Just ask the upper middle class kids who work in consulting or finance right after college graduation. They’re not taking time off, they’re not bothering to find themselves, they’re building their legacy from day one.

And for all this tech talk of pivoting, the average person can’t afford to do it. You’re investing in your brand from day one, and if you switch, you’re starting all over again, or close. And you’re lucky to be an employee, the company wants you to be an independent contractor, and how can you get a new job if you don’t build your LinkedIn resume. Hmm… I was a clown yesterday, I’m a computer programmer today? Good luck beating out that person with experience.

Your experience is building your brand. Didn’t you learn this from the Kardashians, famous for nothing, they’re rich! And that’s what the younger generation wants to become. And the joke is on everybody paying their dues in music to ultimately find out no one is listening. You can go to Berklee, but no one wants to hear what you create.

Then again, we’re always open to art.

But art gets a bad reputation in a world where it’s all about the STEM subjects and the liberal arts are anathema.

As for rock stars, Beto O’Rourke is a bigger one than anybody on the hit parade. And for you righties, there’s Steve King, who keeps doubling-down on his heinous statements, did you hear he called immigrants “dirt”?

But King knows the game better than the wannabes. He’s only interested in HIS audience, he doesn’t care about YOURS! You can’t play to everybody, you’ve got to play to somebody.

Now we used to have hype in the pre-internet era and it oftentimes worked. For every failed project like Jobriath, there were other acts that had the button pushed and broke through, many deservedly so. But the funny thing today is the labels don’t build the fan base, the act does. And maybe the act is smart in this case, why depend upon the label which will screw you, better to build it yourself and then cut a better deal, if you want one at all. As for the rockers and those left out…they’re still dreaming of yesteryear, when the label would pay them mucho dinero to play in their sandbox and see what they came up with. Record companies are businesses too, and ever since Tommy Mottola, the executives have been richer than the acts, so don’t expect any change there.

This all is a result of internet cacophony. For fifteen years, the tech game moved so fast we were dazzled, we couldn’t keep up. But now in this endless game of musical chairs there are only a few companies left, and they ain’t goin’ nowhere, and you can’t break their hegemony. So we’re trying to use their tools to greater effect. But now that everybody can message, we only pay attention to the biggest messengers.

But this is not the end. People are starting to realize what is going on, they’re unsatiated. Kinda like Trump. What kind of bizarre world do we live in where politics is ahead of music? Trump consolidated the dissatisfaction and woke up the blue populace, which seems to be doing better every day, hell, Kyrsten Sinema was just declared the winner in Arizona nearly a week after election day. The media had it wrong, surprise? If you take a snapshot, you’re missing the movie, and it’s all about the plot. But everybody’s so busy getting ahead that they can’t get off the moving sidewalk, think about it and chart a different direction.

It’s coming.

And it’s gonna look different.

It’ll be left field. The brand will be secondary to the music. Like Bob Dylan, the performer will have contempt for the usual suspects and will refuse to play the game. What we know is there are always unheralded people waiting to break. We can see their ascension in hindsight, but not while it’s happening.

This vapidity cannot last forever. Music is both easy and hard. That’s what the Berklee students don’t understand. Chops are for classical, popular is about inspiration, which cannot be taught, although it can be nurtured. If you’re practicing all day, you’ve got nothing to say. Meanwhile, today’s “giants” are not practicing at all, unless it’s online.

The horse race is dead. That’s how the media got it so wrong last week. The truth appears over time.

Tech has become ossified, but creativity never dies.

Watch out.