There is no brass ring. There is no gold star. All the trappings of making it in the past are gone. Today, you make it in your own mind, and that’s all that counts. The scoreboard has been blown apart. And we don’t even pay attention to the same statistics. You’re charting your own course. If you’re in it for the glory, for the world domination, you’re delusional.

Let’s start with the Oscars. They lost touch with the public to such a degree that they had to institute a new “Popular” Oscar, aka “The Popcorn Oscar.” Baby boomers, who control the Academy, were operating on a past paradigm, one wherein movies drove the culture and winning was an acknowledgement of your peers that you were great. Today television drives the culture, and unless you make superhero flicks you’re gonna have a hard time getting financing. The studios want something dumbed-down, that will play around the world, in multiple languages. So you can go for the money or…make a movie that might receive awards that no one sees. Kinda like all the recent “Best Picture” winners.

And then there are the Grammys. Forget Neil Portnow’s tone-deaf comment about “stepping up,” anyone can make a mistake, but the fact that Portnow was not up to speed on #MeToo, could not read the changing of the guard, could not see that women need to be respected and included, is a demonstration of how out of touch the organization is. But that’s secondary to the awards themselves. Used to be you got a bounce, in the age of streaming that’s nonexistent, everybody who’s interested has already heard your music. Furthermore, the Grammys have a long history of giving the awards to the wrong acts. Always behind the times, anointing name recognition rather than artistic merit. As for those competing in the lesser categories, they are truly delusional, they think that Grammys make a career, but the truth is you make a career in your mind, as I stated above.

And then there was the story in “The New York Times.” But today forty percent of the public believe the “Times” is biased and evil. And forty percent believe the same about “The Wall Street Journal.” There is no paper of record in the public’s mind. And only a few million people are paying attention to either of these outlets. Youngsters don’t read the newspaper, whether it be physical or virtual, they get their news on the fly, from multiple sources, where it originated does not matter. The point being a great review in a major newspaper has to satisfy you only, because the rest of the world is unaware and doesn’t care.

Same deal for TV news. Most people don’t see it, check the ratings, they’re miniscule. And the entertainment programs…people know those are bought and paid for talking heads, they’ve got no credibility. Hell, TMZ has more credibility than “Entertainment Tonight” or wherever you get your gossip on the flat screen today, at least TMZ is unafraid of offending anyone. But it’s a small subset of the public which tracks the gossip anyway.

And then you’ve got the “Billboard” charts. They’re adjusted for reality, only their adjustment remains years in arrears. The only thing that counts is total number of streams, but that’s not what they count. As for albums, if you trust that chart you make ’em, because it’s got little connection with the real world.

And the Spotify streaming chart, true data, shows what is popular on the service, but it doesn’t necessarily correlate with what’s happening live, where the true bucks are. Spotify won’t truly tell you the hottest acts in America.

As for road grosses… Not everybody’s on the road, not everybody plays the biggest buildings and not everybody charges the same for tickets. Furthermore, people lie. They paper the house, all kinds of shenanigans so they can say they’re the biggest, but the public has realized there’s something rotten in Denmark, and MSG and Staples too.

As for a record deal… Labels don’t sign you and keep you, unless you’ve got continued success. Furthermore, you’ve got to prove you’re worthy on your own before they’re interested!

All the trophies, all the achievements of yore, mean very little today.

And if this depresses you you’re missing the point. The point is we’re only going into the future. If you complain about streaming, if you complain about high ticket prices, if you bitch about the way things are and argue for a return to the past…the past is never coming back. And the ball always moves, the landscape always changes, fifteen years ago it was all about piracy, heard much about piracy recently?

So, if you want to know if you’re on the right track, ask yourself.

If you’re compromising to appeal to others, stop, they don’t really care.

Your goal is to gain an audience of a size that satiates you and take people on a trip.

You get to decide how many people is enough. You get to decide how much money is enough. You get to decide what to play. There are no rules, especially in a world where the gates are wide open. If you don’t make hip-hop or pop music terrestrial radio doesn’t care about you, and you should not care about them.

This is a complete change from what came before. Used to be it was a pyramid, with a very defined, narrow top. Now, get in the game and you realize the top has been blown apart, there are a zillion roads and they don’t meet at the same center. It’s not doing blow in the eighties, where it’s all about getting into the bathroom with a small coterie, no one even knows who the coterie is anymore, it doesn’t exist, there are many coteries!

And you’ll hear contrary opinions, from those propping up the old game, being paid by the guards of the old game. But they’re to be ignored.

Used to be you could promote yourself to success. But today, when everybody’s being spammed to death, that doesn’t work.

As to being famous for nothing, like Paris Hilton and the Kardashians, they did it and you can’t repeat it. Kinda like Radiohead’s “In Rainbows” name your own price promotion, one and done.

You create your own game and decide whether you’re winning at it.

It doesn’t matter what people outside your game think.

And people will inundate you with markers, compare you to others, don’t fall for it.

This is the new normal. Endless choice. Endless routes. Endless cottage industries.

Don’t mistake this for the “long tail.” Everything might be available, but that does not mean anybody is interested. You can create it and no one cares. You’ve got to be great, you’ve got to resonate, this is no time for amateurs. And the amateurs drop out and are forgotten anyway. Even the social media/YouTube stars. That paradigm is dead. It’s too hard to maintain attention when there’s nothing at the core, you’ve got to set yourself on fire for people to care, and you’re working around the clock. So you’ve got to have a talent, that’s hopefully unique, and you’ve got to build it brick by brick. This is not the eighties, when if you got on MTV you’d made it. Now you can be on MTV, Fallon and the nightly news and you still haven’t made it!

Think about that.

And know you’ve got to go your own way with your own markers and you can succeed, but only a few do, in any enterprise. It’s easier than ever to play, but harder than ever to succeed.

But you start by knowing the landscape.

That’s the first thing they teach you in sports, the rules.

These are the new rules.

Abide by them.

I didn’t see you there.

This band is completely under the radar, yet their entire tour went clean, the upper deck at Staples was full, what was going on?

I’m not sure I can tell you, but the girls got it, they understand, they were in attendance and…

They knew every word.

It’s not like the band’s been hidden from view, but it’s been eons since they had a big hit. What’s driving this?

I don’t know.

Could be Brendon Urie’s appearance, his sexuality, he could be a fantasy.

But the music is definitely rock and it definitely has melody and…

If you went you’d get it. Even if you were unfamiliar with the material, about halfway through the nearly thirty song set you’d find yourself singing along with the choruses, shimmying.

What gives?

Baby boomers are no longer in control. Sure, they go to see the aged acts but not only do they not break bands, they’re unaware of new bands and can’t fathom that decades have gone by and young ‘uns are developing favorites of their own.

It’s not like Panic! is brand new, they’ve been around in excess of a decade. We think of modern acts as evanescent, but that’s untrue, how long have Jay Z and Beyonce been around? Then again, we hear about the twosome constantly, we never heard about Panic!

It’s an internet act. That’s right, you can play to your fans and do quite well. Actually, if you’re playing to everybody you’re missing the point, everybody is not paying attention.

Not that Brendon did not give them their money’s worth.

Sure, there was production, but it was clear who was the star, twisting and dancing at the end of the runway that protruded from the stage.

The band was like one you’ve never seen.

There was a male guitarist, a male drummer, but…

A woman bass player and three women string players and three male horn players.

I’ve never seen a conglomeration like this before.

Then again, Brendon starred in “Kinky Boots”… That used to be a role for those with no traction, those who could not sell tickets, but ever since Billy Joe Armstrong appeared on Broadway, not only does it sell tickets, it’s seen as a feather in your cap. Forget the Boss on Broadway, that’s a victory lap, Brendon Urie on the Great White Way is part of the ascension.

But how do they know every word?

THEY LISTEN!

That’s right, we keep hearing that kids today have short attention spans, that could not be more untrue, they have incredible shit detectors, but if they find something they like, they’ll play it, spend time with it, ad infinitum.

It wasn’t very much different from the rock shows of yore. Filling the Fillmore. There were three acts, I’d never even heard of Hayley Kiyoko, and she’s never had a hit, but all the tracks from her new album “Expectations” are in seven figures on Spotify, plenty are over twenty million. And for the record, there are fewer plays on YouTube, that’s right, the behind the times music industry keeps talking about the “value gap,” but the truth is kids are on the paid streaming services, and don’t forget that Spotify’s only one of them.

Could Panic! have made it without a label?

Doubtful, since they were so young when they started and it was a different era.

But the label is not sustaining the act, the fans are, and it all happens on the internet.

The future is here.

Hey nineteen
That’s ‘Retha Franklin
She don’t remember the Queen of Soul

That was recorded by Steely Dan in 1980, when Aretha already appeared to be in the rearview mirror.

But she wasn’t.

Forget the forgettable Arista hits, but remember her appearances on the Grammys, at Obama’s inauguration and the Kennedy Center Honors. Aretha Franklin transcended the hit parade, she was an icon as big as the music business itself. She forged her own path, and we loved her for it.

Now you’ve got to understand it was a different era. That’s right, the baby boomers had it best, they lived through the Beatles and the explosion of soul. Back when you owned a transistor radio instead of a smartphone, when we were all excited by what emanated from the single speaker in the dashboard, when if you wanted to know which way the wind blew, you listened to music.

It started with “Respect.”

1967 was the Summer of Love, it was also the year before the deaths of Martin Luther King and Bobby Kennedy. There was a brief respite before the darkness overtook the light. Not that the light never shined thereafter, it’s just that we always expected the other shoe to drop, and it did. Tell a denizen of the sixties that racism is now prevalent and minorities are excluded on the voting rolls and their heads spin. We fought for freedom, the sky was the limit, we were on action, not reaction, and ultimately we all got on the same team, rednecks grew their hair, they were ultimately against the Vietnam War, and the twin pillars were Motown and rock.

And then came Aretha.

She started off on Columbia, which didn’t know what to do with her. Sometimes you’re too early, sometimes you’re lacking chemistry, sometimes you need someone to midwife you to success.

Like Jerry Wexler. Used to be the Jews and the blacks walked side by side. Why African-Americans find fault with the Semitic people today I do not know, we’re both minorities, both fighting to end injustice.

And Columbia was part of a conglomerate, whereas the more nimble Atlantic had a long history in black music. Aretha was finally home, at least when it comes to record companies.

What you want
Baby, I got it

Talk about girl power, talk about the beginning of the feminist revolution, Aretha’s place in the pantheon has not been elucidated. It was women who embraced Aretha first, they could hear the power in her voice, her message.

And overnight, “Sock it to me baby” became par of the vernacular. On “Laugh-In,” hell, even Richard Nixon uttered it on television.

That’s the power of a hit single, that’s the power of music, at least back then, can you imagine Trump quoting Kendrick Lamar today?

No way.

But “(You Make Me Feel Like) A Natural Woman” sounded completely different, we shouldn’t have been surprised when she subbed for Pavarotti at the Grammys and hit “Nessun Dorma” far over the fence, she could sing anything, she could make it her own. That’s the mark of a great artist, one who has breadth, who is not one note. Arguably this number is the one that made Goffin and King household names, and it was only a few years later that Carole cut her version on “Tapestry,” but even King would admit that Aretha owns it.

As for “Chain Of Fools,” once again it was a new twist, unconnected to what came before, other than it had soul! Aretha may not have written these songs but she owned them. And unlike Michael Jackson, she did not coin her own moniker and she did not fight for the spotlight, she was quiet about her career, she just kept making hits. Whether it be 1972’s “Rock Steady,” from the album “Young, Gifted And Black,” or the surprise “comeback” hit from 1973, “Until You Come Back To Me (That’s What I’m Gonna Do)” in an era where FM ruled and AM was a backwater. I heard this on the jukebox at the Alibi in Middlebury, Vermont and I had to buy the album, to be able to play it at will, it’s all about the chorus, not that there isn’t so much more.

And then came the victory lap. Aretha’s triumphant appearance in the “Blues Brothers” movie, where she blew every other musician off the screen, owning the movie in a matter of minutes, back in an era where musical performances onscreen were still rare, unavailable, this voice that emanated from the radio, the performance was every bit as energetic and believable and then…

Aretha disappeared.

Well, there was a bit of MTV action, especially 1985’s “Freeway Of Love,” but the recording was overproduced, a relic of the early MTV era, when the oldsters still had traction before the popsters and the rappers took over. Aretha’s performance was stellar, but she didn’t star in the song like she did in previous numbers and the metronomic, rhythm machine track didn’t swing like the hits of old, it lacked an element of soul, not that the verse was not catchy.

But Aretha suddenly became unavailable. Especially at the turn of the century, when seemingly every classic act took to the boards since they could no longer have radio hits, in an endless dash for cash, to the point where the younger generation became unfamiliar with her, she certainly was a legend, but they didn’t realize she was a living, breathing person who could still deliver. She was a diva, she had to do it her way, but when you saw her her magnetism attracted you and then you found yourself hovering over the arena, able to fly on the notes alone.

She knew she was that good, that great, that phenomenal, truly above everybody else. But she didn’t have to advertise herself, the penumbra was irrelevant, all she had to do was open her mouth.

For her last famous public appearance on the Kennedy Center Honors. You didn’t want to follow Aretha, you couldn’t! She came out playing the piano, people aren’t supposed to be trained, but Aretha paid her dues in church, she didn’t burst on the scene with no backstory. And when she stood and shed her fur and sang… You could say belted, but this was not Mariah Carey, Aretha was always in service to the song, she showed off without trying to, all she had to do was perform!

And there you have it folks, she was here and now she’s gone.

Too many of them are gone. From Bowie to Frey to those who O.D.’ed before their time, like Prince. But pancreatic cancer got the Queen of Soul. There’s really no treatment, it’s a death sentence, a couple of months and you’re out, done, finished.

And in this case Roger Friedman gave us advance warning, so we weren’t surprised, today these deaths come from seemingly nowhere, like records.

But still…

76 ain’t young, but it’s not old either. Paul McCartney is 76 and he’s got a new album, he’s still touring, he’s still alive, we expect these musicians to live forever.

But they don’t.

And when they’re gone they’re never coming back, like the era they dominated.

But most of the classic acts have been forgotten, touring sans original members, there are only a few giants, superstars who can still sell every ticket, but no one lives forever and at some point this era will fade.

Will the music survive?

It appears so, because it was built on a different foundation. When you could not be famous for nothing, when you had to have talent to make it, when you had to pay endless dues to break through. We baby boomers lived through the Renaissance, they painted and sculpted after Raphael and Michelangelo, but at no time thereafter was there such a burst of genius, such dominance. Same deal with music. I know, I know, you want to believe it’s the same as ever, but change happens, and it has.

So certainly spin the records. But if you ever had a hankering to see these legends, go now. It was joke that this was the last time for the Stones, that you had to see them before they died, but at some point Mick and Keith will truly go, then what?

It’ll be like today. Aretha was here, always in the back of our mind, the records still as vital as they were yesterday, and now, pfft, she’s gone!

Kinda funny in a country focused on youth. We only give legends their due when they pass.

But that’s not true of Aretha, she was always here, those records are forever. Just go to a wedding or bar mitzvah, you’ll hear ’em, everybody knows them. As big as Michael Jackson was, Aretha was bigger. But she lived her life privately, with fewer shenanigans. And she tried to live it for herself, but there were endless tragedies and mistreatments. But still, we were and still are the beneficiaries of her fantastic talent. She ultimately suffered for us.

And we still remember the Queen of Soul.

The script has flipped, record companies no longer drive the business, they get all the press, but the question is not how many streams you have, but how many tickets you’re worth, then the industry knows if you have real fans. Better to play to the local promoter than the A&R guy. And if you don’t play live, you’ve got no chance to cement your bond with your audience. That’s where it happens, on stage. At the beginning sinews are formed at the merch table. Never underestimate face to face, give someone the time of day and they’ll support you forever.

I don’t want to denigrate Lucian Grainge and Rob Stringer and whoever really has the power at Warner, but the truth is promoters lay down much more cash, they’ve got much more at risk, the road is where you really get paid, the true majordomos are Michael Rapino and Jay Marciano, even though neither is a household name, the average person still can’t understand the touring business, they know if you get social data online you can interest a label, especially if it’s accompanied by streaming stats, but none of that means much to a promoter, a promoter is not interested in the penumbra so much as the core.

This is antithetical to everything you’ve heard, but that does not mean it’s untrue.

Forever, the label was the bank, the label built careers, the tour was the advertisement for the record. Now it’s vice versa. The label’s payments are de minimis compared to the promoter’s. And you build careers on the road, not on streaming services. Streaming is like swipes on Tinder, people are interested, but it doesn’t compare to a successful date.

Now the funny thing is streaming is dominated by hip-hop, but live a cornucopia of genres do well. And unlike in the sixties or seventies or the MTV era, we do not live in a monoculture, no act is dominant. As big as Drake is, many people have never heard his music. But they are listening to music, are they listening to yours?

In many cases they’re listening to oldies, heritage music, which the labels pooh-pooh, because there may not be a record deal anymore, there may not even be new recordings, furthermore, no one at the label was there when the original recordings were made and they’re uninterested, they’re focused on the new, they want the glory, and this doesn’t square with reality. The reality is numerous fans are married to the legacy artists, the new ones? Not so much.

And it’s not sexy to say the Eagles are selling out another building, so there’s little press on the heritage acts. They do call it the NEWSpaper! So what is really happening frequently goes undocumented. This is not politics, where the loser is forgotten, seemingly no one is forgotten in music, especially if they’ve made their bones on the road.

Playing live and garnering an audience is much more difficult than shooting a video and posting it online, much more difficult than spamming everybody to pay attention. And the road is black and white, either you can sell tickets or you can’t. People lament paying to play, but the truth is you’re paying because you have no audience and the promoter is running a business and once you do have an audience you’ll get paid, although few do.

The bar is so high these days. You can only fail in your basement, in rehearsal. Once people are paying attention, you’ve got to deliver, which is much more difficult than tweaking your product in Pro Tools. And it’s hard to fake it live, and those who do tend to have a short shelf life. You’ve got to know how to play, how to deliver. And if you do this well, you’ll eventually blow up, probably when you write a hit tune, which most acts can never do. The landscape is littered with acts that can play but can’t write, who can never concoct the single that puts them over the top. And the single comes last, if it comes first, none of the above applies, you’ve got no fanbase, you’re just flavor of the moment, if you don’t follow up the recording with something equally as good, forget it.

Now road people are lifers, from top to bottom. If you’re good, you keep your job, because experience is everything. Once again, it’s less sexy than working at a label, but you have more power. You see the promoter is making bets every single day, or every single week. This is not a record label throwing stuff at the wall, hoping a record sticks. The shows have to pay, otherwise the company goes out of business. And promoters are always interested in what youngsters have to say, because they believe they’re more in touch. Until you get to the superstar level, everything’s up for grabs, it isn’t a negotiation solely between agent, attorney and promoter. Input is key upon development.

And live there are sellers and buyers.

Sellers are agents, promoters are buyers.

You need an agent, someone who will get you gigs. It’s harder than getting a record deal and the deal is clean, the standard is 10%. And the agent won’t work unless he or she can make money. Sure, they’ll work for bupkes if they believe in you, but if you don’t pan out, if they don’t think you’re working hard enough, they’ll drop you. Meanwhile, the opposite is true too, you can fire your agent.

If you’re in the hip-hop game, labels are big players. They advance you money, get you playlisted and on radio and TV. But if you’re not a rapper, radio and TV that count are not really interested, and neither is the label, you’re better off going it alone. Used to be the label was your only choice, but the truth is those complaining about millions of streams and low payouts all have major label deals, where the lion’s share of the money goes to the company.

Meanwhile, Chance did it without a label.

So the wheel has turned. You use the internet to connect with your fans as opposed to spread the word, it’s about infecting those at the show, mobilizing them to spread the word, there are just too many messages online, yours gets lost, it is not heard, but when a real person, a friend, testifies, people pay attention.

I know, I know, this is a much rougher row to hoe than playing the label game. But it pays many more dividends. Used to be you needed a label to play, not anymore. The nineties saw the growth of the indies, since MTV played so little product. The aughts were about using the net as a tool to get noticed. But in the teens cacophony rules and you’re better off with a subscription to “Pollstar” than “Billboard.”

Think about that.