A hit is something you can’t get out of your head, that you have to play again and again. In the old days it meant twisting the radio dial till you could hear it, or running to the record store to buy it, now it involves going online to stream it. A hit may or may not be played on the radio. A hit may or may not be in the Spotify Top 50. But a hit engenders conversation, you tell everybody you know about it, you implore them to listen to it, to feel the joy, to become part of the club. Every musical act should strive to write a hit. You know it when you do it, after you have some experience that is. At first you believe everything you do is a hit. But as you acquire skill you realize hits are hard to come by. Sometimes a hit is in the song, sometimes a hit is in the recording. Or sometimes it’s both. True hits don’t sound like anything that came before, they might be a synthesis of what once was, or reference what once was, but the public is excited by the new and different, that will never change. A hit can be a an album cut. A hit can have no album. People know when they hear a hit, they smile, they become energized, sometimes they dance. The music envelops them, changes their view, the outside world disappears, although maybe the tune might make people think about an old love or an old experience from their life. You can play the radio game, but at this point in time terrestrial stations are lost in the past, like the CD. They don’t go on records unless you have a track record. They don’t play anything but that which sounds similar to what they’re already playing. Streaming focuses on hip-hop, you can follow the trend or go another way. If you go your own way you cannot bitch about people not playing your cut. The goal is to see whether listenership increases. That’s what’s so great about streaming, you can see it, in real time. If someone buys something, you can never know whether they played it or not. Even if a hit is a sleeper, if it’s not adopted by the audience right away, if you know a track is brilliant your audience will ultimately adopt it, even though that may take years. Today it’s best not to second-guess the market, in a world where consumers are in control. Promote the hit, not the song that is upbeat or what is like what middlemen are focusing on. Also, do not bitch if you cannot write a hit, it’s your fault, not the audience’s. The audience is never wrong, if they hear something great they eventually adopt it. And history is littered with cuts that were not chart hits, did not get much radio play, if any at all, and are still hits. People talk about Tesla because it creates hits, no one talks about the Chevy Cruze. You talk about “The Bodyguard,” not the shows the media tells you to pay attention to. And why should anybody in the media be an expert on music? The audience knows. Sure, if you’re cutting edge and different traction might take a while. And there are acts plying the boards making reasonable money who’ve never written a hit. But when you record a hit, your whole world changes, everybody wants a piece of you. Go for it.

There’s not an artist alive who prefers money to reach. Unless that person was never an artist to begin with, or is so far over the hill that they’ve got nothing to say. That’s why you become an artist, to have your message heard by the most people possible. Then again, with all this focus on cash in the media and MTV “Cribs” it’s no wonder the younger generations have the wrong idea, they never grew up in an era where music changed the culture, when it was the most impactful art form, when music led instead of followed, when Warner Music built Warner Cable. You HAD to have the record. Politicians utilized performers to garner big bucks, because the performers were more authentic than they were, garnered more attention and adulation, people just wanted to get closer to them, whereas today Jerry Brown is bigger than anybody in Hollywood, because he got something done. Furthermore, if you’ve got reach there are a zillion ways to monetize. Remember when acts refused to do things because it would hurt their image? When you take money from the man your message is compromised. You sacrifice some of your truth, and all you’re selling is truth if you’re doing it right. The audience wants to believe you dug down deep to extricate these feelings and listeners are privy to your unadulterated personality and thoughts, which is why your star starts to rise in the first place. By being everyman, by having people identify with you and your message, you rise above. Which is why writing songs by committee does not work, you may repeat the formula and make money, but there is no message and you have no impact, and that’s anathema in art, especially music, where truth pays dividends for decades. Movies are one and done, musical careers when done right go on forever.

Then again, most people don’t know any artists. Or judge someone negatively if they are not rich. They impose their feelings on performers, where it used to be the other way around. Anybody can make money, not anybody can make art.

And you know if you’re an artist. And sure, you’d like to pay the bills, but what truly gets you off is when a fan testifies to you, how they relate, how you saved their life. And when you reach so many people so not only can you sell out arenas but impact the culture, then you’ve really won. Don’t listen to Gene Simmons, who says it’s all about the money. Tell him his songs suck and no one wants to see him anymore and you’ll get a rise out of him. Yes, he too is an artist, because he had a vision. Aided by Bill Aucoin and Bob Ezrin, you cannot do it all by your lonesome, but would Kiss have become so big without the makeup, without the theatrics? They were the first to do it, they deserve credit. And the penumbra of money-making ventures never would have come to pass if it weren’t for their audience.

Sure, we all complain about money when we can’t pay the bills, but if an artist is solvent, an ongoing venture, he or she should pat themselves on the back. And figure out a way to expand their reach. Which is my problem with Patreon. Big deal that you can dun your fans to keep you alive. BUT IT’S SO FEW FANS! It’s meaningless in impact. No band, no album ever broke from Kickstarter, never mind Patreon. The question is how do you reach those who are not already addicted. And when you do, there’s no better feeling… When someone quotes you to you, sings your song to you.

So let’s get our priorities straight. Sure, there’s commerce. But the reason this business went nuclear is because the Beatles broke the rules and became about message, they literally moved the culture. It was about playing to everybody as opposed to somebody. They wanted it all, not just cash. And we all bought instruments to play along, and just playing the songs was enough. And just being in a sea of Deadheads was enough when the band was on stage.

It’s kind of like politics. It wasn’t until Trump and 2016 until we learned, until the press learned, that we weren’t one big happy family getting along. And now the country is in turmoil, which is scary, but it’s a process we must go through to get to the other side. The music business is anti-turmoil, but that’s what we need, that’s what made it peak. Not only business turmoil, but artistic turmoil. There was always some new thing scraping away the old, and we came to like the new thing, and now we haven’t had a new thing this century!

But we will. Because those with different values, who are about the work as opposed to the money, are grinding it out as we speak. They’re not manipulating Spotify playlists, not tricking people online, just playing. They are on a journey. But that journey is gonna explode, just you wait. We’ll all want in. It’s fun to be a member of the group, it’s fun to be first, and then we’ll go in search of the next thing. That’s what an audience does, focus on the art, not the money. The cash is a byproduct, never forget it.

What kind of bizarre world do we live in where the hype is bigger than the music?

Welcome to 2018, when ancient artists depend upon the press to do their bidding and their new music has no impact. Talk about adjusting to the paradigm…they don’t. Just like the rockers decrying streaming payments as they fade away into irrelevance.

We’ve got to train oldsters, rockers, to get on board with streaming, it’s the only way to have an impact in our society. The first thing anybody does is look at the numbers, and on YouTube and Spotify, Barbra’s are positively anemic. “Don’t Lie To Me” has been played 281,253 times on Spotify and viewed 582,333 times on YouTube, evidence that when a tree falls in a forest, it definitely does not make a sound. As for sales, which are completely irrelevant, only propped up by “Billboard”‘s bizarre chart formula, Streisand’s new LP released on Friday is now #4, but that’s like saying a horse is number four out of the gate, when the race is over, where is he or she? In this case, way down the pack. In a matter of weeks, Barbra’s album “Walls” will be so far down the chart as to be essentially unfindable. But she’ll get to be on the chart for one week in the newspapers, whoop-de-do! This is the same b.s. trumpeted when an ancient kacher gets another number one and then goes straight into the dumper. Remember the Neil Diamond album that went straight to number one this century? Nobody else does either.

But Barbra broke the number one rule of 2018 music, “Don’t Lie To Me” is not a hit! If you can get through the entire track without shutting it off you’re a better person than me, or work for Barbra or deaf. Mediocre has no place in 2018. It’s either great or we tune out. Forget short attention spans, we’ve just got incredible crap detectors in this overwhelming world where multiple choices are confronting us every day and we don’t even have enough time to watch all the television programs we want to. Fifty seven channels and nothing on? That was a time and place, now there’s too much on. And the Boss has gone small ball. He plays to a few on Broadway every night who overpay for the privilege and he’s going to show it all on Netflix soon, going where the eyeballs are, knowing how the game is played, as opposed to going to HBO, where the average viewer still thinks it’s appointment television, not knowing how to use On Demand or knowing how to download the app, never mind enter their name and password and use it. Kaepernick aligns with Nike, Streisand aligns with the usual suspects. Does her audience, now at retirement age, into their trappings, even have CD players in their late model cars? Did you see that Whole Foods even ripped out the CD racks from their checkout lanes? He or she who plays in the past is destined to remain in the rearview mirror, growing ever smaller until they disappear from view.

Babs still thinks the old model still works. That if she comes down from the mountaintop radio will play her work, even though no one listens to the radio anymore, despite terrestrial radio and the record industry continuing to pay fealty to it. Yup, that’s right, labels are addicted to radio like the brain dead enterprises they are. And Sony has no clue how to sell Streisand’s new work, other than to employ the old playbook. Look at the Chiefs, who with a new quarterback have altered play in the NFL, and I know that even though I haven’t watched a single game all year, it’s in the air, it’s the buzz, everybody’s talking about it.

First and foremost if you’re an aged act you have to know who your fans are. So you can reach them directly. Does Streisand have a mailing list? Her acolytes are addicted to e-mail, and unafraid of coughing up their identifying info. Instead of spending all this money on press, she should have spent it on young ‘uns finding out who her fans are and then signing them up. And if all these fans listened to her music, and there was something worth hearing, they’d tell everybody they know. Word of mouth doesn’t only work with kids, it may be slower with adults, but they need fodder. No one is listening to “Don’t Lie To Me” and telling their friends they have to play it, otherwise they’d lose all credibility. And the President may be full of crap, but on a personal level all we’ve got is our credibility, and we’ve got to protect and nurture it.

Meanwhile, Babs gets credit for standing up to Agent Orange, only her efforts have not moved the needle. She comes from a different era, where acts have power and money is secondary, and it flows from your power anyway. Today’s young stars are all about the Benjamins. They’re not about music, but money. And they don’t want to hurt their career and the records are just a building block to a brand empire. Sure, Streisand branched out into movies, but she started on the stage, but she never stopped doing it her way, not worrying what anybody else thought, she’s a beacon for women.

But beacons emanate from the art. And Babs bunted here.

Now even if she had written a stone cold smash what would have happened?

Not a whole hell of a lot more. You see the system is broken. We keep trying to quantify music success and all those in power focus on the wrong metric. Records are now secondary to live. All the emphasis is still on labels when it should be on agencies. You not only make your money on the road, that’s where we find out who truly has fans, who has impact, who can not only sell tickets but merch. Insiders know this, the press still hasn’t caught on. If Barbra truly wanted to have an impact, she’d SING! LIVE! Pop up wherever there’s a political battleground, singing an anthem, which “Lie To Me” is surely not.

The oldsters don’t remember how they started off. Woodshedding, off the grid. They think they’re entitled to the attention, they’re not willing to go back to the garden and build it again. They just want to remind us who they once were and what they’re entitled to.

The game is gonna change. Used to be multiple genres of music got attention, now it’s only hip-hop, when the truth is a giant swath of the public never listens to it. This is not the MTV era, where if it was on the service all Americans were aware of it, this is the last gasp of an old system of quantification.

So I applaud Barbra Streisand for weighing in on the political situation. But she did not need a whole album to make her mark and have an influence, she only needed one song, which she could promote and fans could bang until it reached public consciousness.

But “Lie To Me” is not it.

Music drove the world. It does not now. But the power remains. If you harness it, if you realize the game has changed.

She’s still Barbra Streisand, but she believes it’s the same as it ever was. It’s not. Bad attempt poorly executed.

But in the modern business your failures don’t hurt you. Here’s how you do it Babs, you cut one stone cold smash. Or you play the easy way, and are featured on a rapper’s track. Believe me, tons of acts would say yes, if for no other reason than they’d want to reach your audience. And what a topsy-turvy idea, instead of utilizing a rapper in a break, use a singer, a legend, one of the best of all time!

But Babs believes she’s entitled to win just like Hillary Clinton.

And we all know how that turned out.

Patriot Act With Hasan Minhaj

What kind of crazy fucked-up world do we live in where a comedian explains the Harvard lawsuit better than the “New York Times”?

One in which an Asian-American gets his own show on Netflix and breaks all the rules. You know, you’ve got to have a monologue of disconnected jokes, a desk and a sidekick as well as a deejay or a band. That’s how Michelle Wolf failed and why all the late night shows are irrelevant, even though the mainstream press keeps telling us they’re cutting edge, and I’m including you SNL, skits without a viewpoint regarding topics we don’t care about no longer float our boat, but Hasan…

Let’s be clear here, one other person is going down this track, John Oliver, but he’s got the imprimatur of HBO, for those who are afraid of streaming and can’t use the clicker, who just leave the TV on one station and sit somnambulantly before it. But Minhaj is a member of a younger demo. And he is not white. And his long pieces are not about explaining obscure stories which are important but not our focus, but what’s on our mind right now, like the Harvard lawsuit. I ain’t gonna explain it other than to point out it’s about Asian-Americans being excluded from Harvard, even though the lawsuit was filed by a white guy with a bug up his ass who has fought this battle previously, most notably at the University of Texas. This is not about Asians so much as it’s about a conservative viewpoint, but Hasan points this out, as well as catching the attorney changing the facts to suit his position. Sound like someone else we know?

And the second episode was a bit different. Unlike Oliver, the long piece came first, the short bits second, illustrating that Minhaj is still playing with the formula. But one thing I love is he’s using references, not as a put-down like Dennis Miller, but to illustrate culture and insider membership. We want to belong, when you’re bland we cannot sidle up to you, play to everybody and you play to nobody.

And the second episode was all about Khashoggi, only it was really about the Saudi Crown Prince. His continuing slew of bad behavior. Minhaj told the story of what’s happening in Yemen in a minute, to the point you understood it, meanwhile the “New York Times” posts stories of starving babies but we don’t really know why they’re starving, although now we do.

And the reason I point out the “New York Times” is because it’s the king, the “Washington Post” is gaining ground, but the “Wall Street Journal” is going backward and as for cable news… All Fox and MSNBC do is comment about what’s in the paper, how often have you heard Rachel Maddow say THIS JUST IN FROM THE NEW YORK TIMES! They don’t do any reporting, as for background, it’s like a soap opera where if you haven’t watched forever you don’t know what they’re talking about, it’s like the Hundred Years’ War on cable news, it’s endless.

But Minhaj just takes half an hour.

Now for those playing the home game, and one day there is going to be a test, for sure, you know that my favorite comedy special last year was Hasan’s “Homecoming King.” I know, I know, all the press is about John Mulaney, but I turned his specials off, I was riveted by Hasan.

And he talks with his hands, and sometimes you can see him reading from the teleprompter, but he’s a millennial speaking to that generation, and despite decrying that generation, all the boomers and Gen-X’ers want to be just like the millennials, they wear their clothes and adopt their slang…

Now I’m pissed at Netflix for not making those movies day and date, you know, “Roma,” etc. I mean SO WHAT! The audience doesn’t even watch the Oscars anymore, never piss off your audience, never sully your brand. But by giving people a chance and letting then do what they want Netflix is pushing the envelope. The first two episodes of “Patriot Act” were not cut to length, they ended at different times. And broadcast TV is not ready for an Indian who pokes fun at other Indians, Bobby Jindal and Nikki Haley, but the audience is.

How come everybody ignores the audience and then pays fealty to them at the end? Why not try to go where the people are to begin with and satiate them!

Now a show can get lost on Netflix. But I’m watching “Patriot Act” and I implore you to too. Because you might learn something. It’s not as simple as preaching to the converted so they’ll nod their heads and agree with you, you’ve got to edify and stimulate people, make them question their preconceptions. And who better to do this than an Asian-American who jokes his dad is glad Hasan finally got his own show so now he can save up for graduate school!

America is all about the upper and lower classes. The middle is avoided. You rarely see people similar to you. But hopefully you went to high school with someone like Hasan, whose skin might be a different color, whose parents might have different customs, but is otherwise just like you.

More like this Ted!