This is what happens when no one trusts information.

Brexit was supposed to free the U.K. from European tyranny, keep the immigrants out, save money at the NHS, everything but provide free sliced bread.

So you had people voting against their interests. Not knowing that European companies were responsible for their paychecks. It all felt good, but the devil was in the details.

The devil is always in the details.

They call it the Information Age. What we didn’t expect was that everybody would make up their own information, to suit their own purposes. To the point where no one trusts information at all. Like in the vaccine debate. Something must have caused the child’s autism, vaccines sound good, because there’s no way in hell I can be the victim of fate, drawing the short end of the stick, someone must be responsible.

And speaking of responsibility, that’s what right-leaning pols are selling. The no-goodniks sucking on the tit of the government. If everybody just got down to work and pulled themselves up by their bootstraps, you wouldn’t even need a government.

So Brexit passes on feel good nationality and falsehoods, never mind a lack of actual knowledge of the issues. But once it passes, everybody wakes up and sees the consequences. It wasn’t supposed to happen. Now the country is in deep doo-doo. How do we fix this?

Turns out you can’t. Nothing can be done. The government has come to a standstill.

The only ones who want a no-deal Brexit are the people who lied to get the exit. Boris Johnson, Nigel Farage… They see the government as their plaything, damn the consequences if it works out for me!

But then we’ve got the fearmongers talking about the disaster of a no-deal Brexit. Is it Y2K or real? One side says it’s no big deal, as the pound falls, and the other says it’s a disaster.

There’s no truth anymore. No facts the public can rely on. They hate the people in government, the government itself, they don’t know who to turn to. And many end up making up their own facts. When it comes to health issues, it’s the educated left with their cockamamie ideas. I said I had cancer and people inundated me with info on nutrition and meditation, saying my blood cancer could be cured if I just subscribed to Goop and believed Dr. Oz and took control of my health care and dissed the industrial medical complex and its quacks. Kinda like Marianne Williamson saying the “power of the mind” could stop a hurricane Dorian disaster. Oh, she deleted that tweet, once she was informed it was looney-tunes, but the truth is that’s what she’s selling, and she’s not selling it to the underclass, but the educated. Meanwhile, the poor go to the doctor and listen to him/her, assuming they can afford to do so.

And then not only the right excoriates Medicare-for-All, but so does the left. And then you’ve got a story like the one in the “New York Times,” where a hospital is suing for exorbitant bills and people are losing their houses. Do you think this would happen in a Medicare-for-All world? Of course not. These people had insurance, but insurance doesn’t cover everything, no way. All those people afraid of losing their employer insurance are just afraid of change, like the people who said files would never supersede CDs and streaming would never supersede files.

You see it’s not only the right that lies.

And then you’ve got the right’s house organ, Fox News, which is criticized by Trump. It’d be like Elizabeth Warren saying not to trust MSNBC. Then who do you trust?

And despite politics/government/Boris/Trump being the story of our age, despite people following it closer than ever before, people still have to work, go to school, live their lives, they can’t sacrifice everything to study the issues. And the outlets they rely on? The right has neutered the “New York Times,” according to Republicans you can’t even trust its sports scores. Of course that’s an exaggeration, but not by much.

And in this social media/influencer world, people believe they can generate their own news, their own spin, it doesn’t matter whether you’re educated or not, you’re entitled to an opinion!

So Brexit does not happen. Been over three years now. And now that people have a greater understanding of its consequences, they want to be assured they’re not negatively impacted. Everybody’s on high alert. And Boris Johnson tries to ram his vision through, and people protest and not only does Labour stand up to him, but members of his own party!

We haven’t had that spirit here since John McCain voted not to get rid of Obamacare. He did the right thing, knowing he was never gonna run for re-election and he didn’t have to pay fealty to Trump, never mind the party.

That’s one thing that’s amazing. In Britain, lawmakers broke ranks. But we’ve yet to see this happen in the U.S. But of course it would have happened if the Democrats had impeached Trump six months ago and actively pursued it.

Now most people don’t even know that impeachment is not kicking someone out of office, it’s just an investigation by the House, and if the House thinks expulsion is warranted, it’s kicked up to the Senate.

And having lived through Watergate… Nixon was innocent until the plethora of evidence showed that he could not govern and the Republicans told him he had to go. If you don’t think this would have happened with Trump, you’re too young. In the face of overwhelming evidence, everybody caves. You just jump to the other side and say you’re shocked, positively shocked that this was going on and the integrity of the government must be preserved.

But Trump passes legislation to increase pollution, i.e. global warming, and now Al Gore and the prognosticators’ predictions have borne evidence. That’s right, no one ever believes there’ll be a payday, but when it’s 90 degrees in Alaska, you know the witching hour has arrived. Yup, the religious nuts think Jesus will save them, but the truth is man has to save himself. You’ve got to plan. You’re not gonna be an M.D. if you don’t graduate from college.

But if you can find one scientist who says global warming is a hoax…

And you’ve got Joe Biden railing against climate change the day before he’s going to a fundraiser hosted by big oil…you know he’s on the wrong track, and maybe too old to know what’s going on. But we’re propping him up, he’s our savior, according to the same people who say impeachment will alienate voters and African-Americans won’t vote for Warren. Didn’t Trump teach us the old paradigm is out the window?

But now the left’s story is it’s all about white nationalism, racism, but if you think that’s the reason Trump got elected you’re probably a big city denizen wondering how you’re gonna make it on 200k a year…how are you gonna pay for your European trips and your Benz, never mind private school? No wonder the underclass has contempt for you.

Taxes are cut to help the little guy and the law only helps the corporation.

And you wonder why people don’t trust the government and the media…

And just because people were nationalistic four years ago, that does not mean they’re nationalistic today. Sure, politicians can’t change their minds, but people do all day long, they learn things, they get educated. So Warsaw goes left instead of right. You learn from the past and then go forward. So what we know is too many have suffered in the race to globalization. So now all these leaders are trying to isolate their countries to their detriment instead of taking care of those who suffered under open trade laws.

Sure, China is gonna cave to Trump. What, are you nuts? They’re operating with a different playbook, if the public suffers, so what? They won’t let the U.S. dictate to them. And now it’s not only farmers suffering in America, but the regular folk, what they’re buying…the price has gone up. And it’s their spending that keeps this country alive. Their entire paycheck goes into the system, whereas the rich hoard their money.

But if you’re not a student of the game, you throw your hands in the air, who knows what to believe?

Who cares if going from the U.K. to Europe is difficult if you don’t go? But that free border benefits you in ways you haven’t been informed of.

Meanwhile, those running the governments are in the disinformation business. Mexico is gonna build the wall? China is paying the tariffs?

Then again, too many people are not educated enough to analyze the issues.

So we’ve got gridlock. Those who want to move forward and those who want to move back. And the truth is in every change, someone suffers, but no one is willing to suffer anymore.

Turns out most people don’t want the Brexit sold to them in 2016. Turns out the issues are much more complicated than they were sold as. But it’s kinda like that Trump tax cut, if we do it fast enough, no one will know what the consequences are. And if you load up the disinformation, and there’s always some pundit to take your side, you can spin it that it’s not castor oil, but lemonade!

Meanwhile, Facebook doesn’t stop lying while it continues to invade our privacy, and now the one to one paradigm Zuckerberg is moving toward will inundate you with updates from people you do know, I mean they’ve got to sell advertising, they’ve got investors, Wall Street is king!

But that’s how Trump got elected… Who is looking out for the little guy?

Nobody, there’s no money in it.

Tune in today, Tuesday September 3rd, to Volume 106, 7 PM East, 4 PM West.

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

Twitter: @lefsetz 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

She didn’t hit a million. But nobody other than Taylor herself seemed to think that was possible. You see the paradigm has shifted, now it’s all about streaming, i.e. consumption, i.e. listening, and Nielsen and the labels have not come up with a way to measure this to their satisfaction. You see if you can’t game the system, they’re not interested. They don’t really care about the number of albums sold, but the impression it leaves upon the audience. Talk to any aged act. Their goal is to get a #1, even if they fall off the chart the following week. They want to brag about it, put it in their bio, cite meaningless statistics that stupid people will be impressed by, like the media. Yup, the media has never understood the music business, it doesn’t want to, it’s too much smoke and mirrors selling sub-literal stuff to young people with no CV. Yup, the media is built by college graduates, paying their dues, and musical stars come out of nowhere. Furthermore, everybody in the business is flashy and most are far from intellectual. Therefore, the brain dead media plays along without realizing it. Yup, all the newspapers print the sales chart, doing the music business’s work for it.

Imagine if there was no chart in the paper, popularized online, do you think we’d have these shenanigans, with ticket bundles and merch and..? Of course not, because it isn’t about the money, but the chart position, the bragging rights, and if you ain’t got those, no one cares.

Now by anybody’s standards, “Lover” made a huge impression, with the equivalent of 679,000 sales. But what are those sales made up of?

Well, you’ve got expensive physical packages at Target, feeding into the mania and fandom of the hoi polloi. These are collectibles, they’re not made to be played, these are souvenirs, merch, just like at the show. There’s a lot of profit, the numbers are high, they show dedication from hard core fans but they don’t show impact amongst everybody else.

The most important statistic re “Lover” is the streaming number.

“Lover” was streamed 226 million times! Whew, that’s impressive!

Until you realize that only qualifies Taylor for number two on this year’s chart. Yup, the biggest streaming week this year belongs to Ariana Grande’s “Thank U, Next,” her SECOND album this year.

Notice the difference in paradigm?

In our attention deficit world, where it’s not only hard to have an impact, but to keep that impact, you’ve got to deliver product on a regular basis, you can’t absent yourself from the scene. Sure, Taylor was in the news, but she didn’t release new music, and people moved on to something else. The scene moves so fast, that if you’re not here today, you could be gone tomorrow.

Furthermore, there’s a good chance that “Lover” won’t gain mainstream traction.

At the present moment, Taylor Swift has two tracks in the Spotify Top 20, the title track at number 7 and “You Need To Calm Down” at number 20, and both of them have a red arrow pointing downwards, as in they’re fading as opposed to rising.

A week ago, Taylor Swift dominated the Spotify Top Ten, but that’s history. Now, the track that everybody is listening to is “Circles,” by Post Malone. It has 1,729,280 daily plays, whereas “Lover” has 879,388, about half. That’s right, “Lover” is already old news.

Now in the old days, the label would try to get a radio single. Actually, during the last legs of “Reputation,” Big Machine broke one.

Then again, radio is falling, the target audience is online, which moves a hell of a lot faster and is not beholden to radio, print, or anything other than the whims of listeners.

Now despite all the hosannas over Lil Nas X’s “Old Town Road,” the truth is most tracks no longer stay at the top, except on radio. Radio is risk averse, tracks play forever, but things move much faster online. So your only hope to stay top of mind is to release more product. Sure, every once in a while you can come up with a blockbuster that will have legs, but that’s very rare these days. People hear it, play it, and then move on very quickly. That’s the game you’ve got to analyze, not the one of a manipulated sales chart.

So, today you cannot have too much product. You cannot oversell. Your fans want you every day, as far as everybody else…they can tune you out. The truth is everybody is paying attention to themselves, not entertainment stars, who have fallen from their pedestals. Individuals are branding and selling just like artists. That’s right, the social media influencers post every day! Or at least once a week. They get the new paradigm, the music business does not.

At least not the major label/mainstream.

There’s a whole ‘nother business in falling under the radar. In these cases, it’s all about the live show, fans will go to more than one, travel, a community is created, the recordings are just part of the mix. And no one has figured out how to measure success in this area. Sure, there are ticket sales. But no one seems to pay attention to the acts that sell out 3,000 to 5,000 seaters and work 200+ days a year. These acts are truly part of their fans’ lives. They’re as underground as the acts on FM radio were in the sixties, or the indie acts of the nineties. And the music they play is rarely like that which is in the Spotify Top 50. Actually, it tends to be rock, whatever niche it might fall in. Rock is not dead on the road.

So let’s watch Swift’s streaming numbers in the future.

Or let’s not. Because we’ll be concentrating on other things.

Movies get a weekend, three weeks at best, now it’s the same with many recordings. Been there, done that, show me something new!

And don’t complain about the system, because the next thing might be yours!

So, once again, the music business is pushing the envelope. It’s no longer about sales but consumption. And live is a better experience than almost anything else. Try charging a hundred bucks for a movie! And sure, Broadway sells at a high price, but tickets were most expensive for Bruce on Broadway, isn’t that interesting.

So don’t think big. The people who are are inured to the old system do so to their detriment. Think small. You cannot reach everybody. You want to create music with lasting power. Chances are you’re best off doing it differently from everybody else. If they’re all on TMZ or Twitter, you should not be. It’s the modern version of mystery. Because now people just don’t care, only your fans do, assuming you’ve got fans.

So managers, agents and record companies are secondary to yourself. All the tools are at your fingertips. And none of the preceding entities is interested unless you’ve got a fan base, which you can build yourself online. Sure, there’s a chance you can blow up what you’ve got by working with a major label, but chances are you don’t make radio-friendly music and radio is a smaller piece of the puzzle every day. The majors control less of the music business than ever before. They’re fighting over scraps, and losing market share.

We live in an indie world.

We also live in a world of disinformation.

The only two statistics that count are streams and ticket sales. Work on those numbers as opposed to the fictitious ones paraded by “Billboard”‘s bogus chart.

Are you listening to this new Tool album?

I can’t turn it off! It takes you into uncharted territory and cares not a whit about the rest of the landscape, what’s a hit, what’s streaming…it exists in its own space.

Now once upon a time Led Zeppelin was heavy metal, I kid you not. And Black Sabbath was considered too far out. But as metal evolved, certainly into the 21st century, it became faster and more incomprehensible and obscure, it was made for a loyal tribe, and everybody else could come along if they were willing to dedicate their lives, but it was not for casual listeners, but believers!

In other words, metal became niche. And oftentimes one listen was not enough, you had to immerse yourself in the music to even understand it, it took full dedication, and in an era of increasing options, most didn’t want to make the journey.

I was introduced to Tool thirty years ago, when Bud Scoppa was an A&R man for Lou Maglia’s Zoo Records, when CD sales were burgeoning and everybody wanted to get in on the action/profits. And the Zoo band that hooked me first was Canada’s Odds, with their great song “Wendy Under The Stars.” But then Bud gave me the first Tool album, before it was released, and I immediately got it. That’s the funny thing about music, to paraphrase what that Supreme Court Justice once said about porn, when it comes to music, you know it when you hear it, it’s this indescribable threshold where you don’t want to lift the needle, but hear more.

And in today’s hit and run world that’s rare, you’re always fearing missing out on something better. Actually, John Mayer talked about this concept in “Playboy” re pornography and masturbation and it put a huge dent in his career, but he was nailing the essence of today, when those with the biggest megaphones, the big time media, often have no idea what is going on.

So to stop somewhere and say something’s great, that’s a huge step.

That’s what we’re all doing in the creative arts, trying to make you stay, get involved.

But people are wary in this clickbait world, if you overhype them they’re not going to partake.
And I was aware that Tool had a new album. I was aware it had been over a decade since they’d released one.

Then I read about the physical package, which humored me, with its HD screen and amplifier, and then the story became about how Tool was going to eclipse Taylor Swift on next week’s chart, which is only interesting because it’s Taylor Swift, otherwise number one is constantly changing, cult bands enter at the top and then instantly fall off after all the fans are satiated.

But with this Tool album…

I’m not saying that the album won’t fall on the chart, but it’s going to sustain, it’s not something you play a track of and then forget about, it’s something you want to go deeper into.

Because it’s unique, it doesn’t pander, it’s a journey to where no one else is taking you.

Everybody in the hit parade is waving their arms, looking for attention, it’s like you’re at the county fair and you’re encountering dozens of barkers… Hell, you know what it’s like when you come out of a big name show and there are people there with fliers, trying to get you to come to their gig, your main goal is to avoid them and for sure you don’t want to take one of their handbills, as a matter of fact, they’re scattered all over the ground.

And rock is supposed to be dead. But what is this Tool sound? It’s kinda metal but it’s also kinda prog, a sound that those at the Rock Hall and other positions of theoretical power denigrate on a regular basis. But Tool doesn’t seem to care about them. All Tool seems to care about is themselves. This is not an act that will pay fealty to its listeners, testifying that they’re keeping them alive, pausing to look at the sky and praise Jesus at the same time, this is a band doing its best to push its own envelope, which is something the youngsters can’t do, they haven’t lived long enough, they don’t have enough experience, they’ve got no frame of reference.

Now “Fear Inoculum” is an eighty minute opus in a world where they tell us to make it bite-sized, otherwise people will pass it by. But the truth is people have an unlimited attention span for what is great, and “Fear Inoculum” is truly great, especially by today’s standards, it’s a tribute to art with no pretension, not worrying about trends, this is the future we’ve been looking for, albeit from a band of the past. While all the has-beens are featured on TMZ, working social media, these guys sans mainstream attention have illustrated the possibilities of the art form.

Other than the relatively brief interludes, every track on “Fear Inoculum” is over ten minutes long. A bad idea if you want to get paid on Spotify, where repetition is everything. But in today’s world there are many ways to make bank other than through recordings. You build an enterprise and try to get people to buy into it.

And the forty and fiftysomethings who make up the band’s primary audience will instantly embrace “Fear Inoculum,” but then younger listeners will encounter it and become intrigued and then invested, because it’s not old, but brand new.

Now listening to “Fear Inoculum” is difficult in this multitasking world wherein you don’t just sit in front of your stereo in the dark and listen. Not that “Fear Inoculum” demands total attention all the time, but you need a couple of listens alone to pierce the surface first, and we rarely have the time anymore. Probably the best place to listen is in the car, but are you in there for that long to begin with?

Now “Fear Inoculum” is not for everybody, every last soul in the world is not going to salivate over it, but that’s also the mark of a true artist, one who doesn’t worry about satiating everybody, who wants an audience to come to them because of the quality as opposed to banging people over the head to listen.

I’m sure on tour you’ll see youngsters in the audience. Because you want to get closer to this sound. And it is about sound first and foremost, you just want to close your eyes and drift.

Now I’m not sure “Fear Inoculum” will completely resonate on earbuds, for this you need accuracy, power, depth, amplification and air to become involved in the sound, to let it surround you. This is music for the big rig, with only you in the room.

If you hate Tool ignore “Fear Inoculum.” If you believe music starts and ends with hip-hop, forget it. If you’re a popster, or a classical devotee, this is not for you. But if you lived through the eras of rock experimentation, you need to check it out. There’s a good chance you’ll hate it, but a tranche of the public will absolutely adore it and will not stop listening to it and talking about it.

Like me.