It’s all about the data.

The major labels blew the internet. If they didn’t have their catalogs, they’d be moribund enterprises, akin to other titans of the last century like MTV and terrestrial radio stations. The labels were so invested in the old model that they couldn’t adapt to the new. And when they finally woke up to the end of the physical world, the streaming takeover, they relied on their catalogs  to hold up distribution outlets to get paid the most dollars.

Meanwhile, they keep inventing new verticals of monetization, which is why you should be wary of selling your publishing and recording royalties, and you never know when a band might cover one of your old hits and turn it into a juggernaut, raining down cash, like Weezer did with Toto’s “Africa.” The key is to have a stake in the game.

And the major labels were losing their stake.

It’s great to own a catalog, but the business of recordings relies on new acts and new material. The game was to get your act on the radio, jam print and then with television appearances you’d find out if you had something or you didn’t. Most times you didn’t, but the hits covered the stiffs and royalty rates continued to be low, after all, where could the hit acts otherwise go, they needed major distribution and marketing.

But not anymore.

How do you break a record today?

Via TikTok.

How do you do that? Good question. Turns out elbow grease is oftentimes more important than talent. Are you willing to post multiple times a day, can you create content that engenders virality? The majors know how this works but they can’t game the system, and this frustrates them.

Furthermore, majors no longer want bunts or singles, just like the movie business they’re dependent upon blockbusters, so they invest heavily in ever fewer products and…

The movie studios have the streamers to save them. But there is no one who is saving the majors. A stiff is ultimately worth nothing. There is no secondary market. So…

You could seed the marketplace with a zillion different acts and tracks and see what gains traction and then blow it up.

That’s what this Downtown/Universal deal is all about.

Rob Stringer admitted it. You buy the independents to not only feed your distribution arm, but to gain insight into what is gaining traction and then you blow it up (or imitate it).

Imagine this. It would be like Russia getting a peek into Ukraine’s armaments, how many they are and where they’re deployed. And if you see a movement, you put troops there to counteract it.

Yes, the majors are going to build their businesses for the future on the backs of independent acts. Only took them twenty five years to figure out this was the proper model. I told Roger Ames to do this during the height of the P2P wars and wrote about it too and I don’t need a victory lap, but I will say if you’re looking for forward thinking, you don’t find it at record companies.

But you do find it in distribution. Which is why Spotify is now worth more than any major label, by far, nearly three times as much as Universal.

Once upon a time, back in the seventies, the predecessor of Sony Music, CBS Records, owned a chain of record stores, Discount Records. But ultimately they axed it, there weren’t enough profits to make it worth the company’s while.

Meanwhile, the majors controlled distribution. Which is what the creation of WEA was about. And you needed a distributor, to get all that physical product into stores, and to get paid. And indie labels had a hard time getting paid, which is why major distribution ruled.

But traditional distribution is irrelevant in the digital world. You make a deal with the streamer and send your files, you don’t need a slew of sales people to achieve this.

Meanwhile, the costs at Spotify, et al, are de minimis compared to the retailers of yore. There’s no rent, few employees, it’s a digital business just like Apple or Microsoft or Meta. When done right, it scales.

That used to be the paradigm in the record industry. Let’s just get lucky and sell ten million copies of an album, the expenses are already amortized, it doesn’t cost much to sell more records once the album is adopted by the public and becomes a juggernaut.

But now very few albums become juggernauts. And the economics of the album are in the toilet, it’s mostly a singles business and…

It’s the heyday of the indie.

Sure, there are a few acts streaming tonnage, but the independent sector is growing and growing and will own the future.

It’s just like the rest of the world. Tons of niches. Acts can sell out Madison Square Garden and most people have never heard of them.

But this is not the way it used to be.

So now the majors have pivoted and acquired the independent companies. Distributors indie acts need to get their music on streamers, you can’t do a direct deal by yourself, you must go through an intermediary.

And everything is built to sell. So these indie companies keep growing and keep getting sold, like the Orchard and Kobalt’s label services arm and now Downtown.

On one hand you can’t criticize Downtown, it built a business out of thin air based on the new world, and the owners want a return on their investment. But where does it leave all the acts the company distributes?

We’ve heard bitching about Spotify payments for fifteen years now, has there been any change? OF COURSE NOT! Because there’s only a hundred cents in a dollar, to believe otherwise is to evidence your ignorance. But Spotify is nothing without music, and it lives on the backs of indie artists who don’t realize this. They don’t realize their value and who the enemy is. And in this case the enemy is Universal Music.

Virgin, the company under whose umbrella Downtown will sit, says it will not look at the data. Yeah, right. And when that girl or guy is naked in the bathroom and leaves the door open you’re going to cover your eyes. And you’re not going to look at your girl or boyfriend’s bank account. And while you’re at it, you’re not going to check out the streams of your competitors. OF COURSE YOU ARE!

So now the majors will be able to see exactly what is happening in the world of music and be able to capitalize on it, profit on the backs of indies. Meanwhile, the indie acts are too busy complaining they’re not getting paid enough.

It’s about to get worse if this deal is approved.

But there’s very little blowback in the U.S. Because it’s every person for themselves here and the acts are not organized and antitrust is the devil.

Sure, a new independent company could come along and compete, but could they really? It’s kind of like the fifties and sixties into the seventies. The independent record companies which ruled the business were all purchased, there was no longer any there there. They didn’t have the money to compete…

It’s kind of like competing with Amazon or Google… They own their spheres. Every once in a while there’s a change that flips the script, like AI, but in music…it’s always going to be about the music, and it’s always going to be about copyright.

Music is not a traditional manufacturing business, it’s all about rights. And copyright extends beyond the life of the creator and…you can leverage those rights.

And the more rights you have the more leverage you’ve got.

And the more rights you control the harder it is for an indie to compete.

Music is now an independent business. The majors can’t break an act. You break it and then they license it and do their best to blow it up, assuming they’re interested at all. Traditionally they’re only looking for blockbusters, and if you’re not one, they don’t care, but now that they will control EVERY record, they do care.

It’s like the government. It has access to everybody’s tax returns, but the individual does not.

Amazon knows what sells and at what price, never mind having economies of scale, anyone who goes into competition with them…they underprice and put out of business or purchase.

This is the game the majors are now in.

These are not benevolent enterprises. All three companies are public and they’ve got to deliver returns for stockholders, they’re not about music but finance. Which is one reason Robert Kyncl is downsizing at Warner. To make the numbers work, not to make better, more successful music. BECAUSE HE DOESN’T KNOW HOW TO DO THIS!

No one does anymore.

Furthermore, music is about as cottage industry as it was back in the caveman days. You start it yourself in your own market, if you’re looking for a deep pocket to take you there, you’ve been listening to that Staples Singers song too much.

And on one hand, this is a good thing, everybody’s starting from the same line. But the majors want to eliminate this, game the system via their control of indie distribution.

This is happening in plain sight, but it’s not sexy enough to rile up independent creators. They’ll only feel the loss after the fact, when it’s too late.

The game always triumphs, and he or she with the most information has a leg up, which is what Universal’s purchase of Downtown is all about.

The rewards go to the visionaries, which is why Daniel Ek is a billionaire and Lucian Grainge is not. And there’s not enough money in the music business to attract the best and the brightest, but it has been a bastion of entrepreneurs who don’t fit in elsewhere.

The goal here is to control the entrepreneurs or squeeze them out of the system.

No independent movie studio has survived without a catalog and without a catalog, an independent music company is screwed.

But music is much cheaper to make and distribute than film/visual productions. Which means the individual act can triumph.

Distribution is king. The majors want to control it. They want to take a toll from every act out there.

Do you build a new hightway?

Just look at the revenue from your toll.

Should you build EVs or only SUVs…are sedans coming back?

The toll will tell you.

A driver has no option. Sure, they could take the backroads, but it would take forever. They’ve got no choice.

And soon independent acts won’t have any choice either.

Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/album/7bbtCK8bw9afEV9IdjtMM1?si=edS067dpQ_-dQQnGCttEiw

1

There’s a killer version of “In Your Eyes,” but what I needed to hear most and am most satisfied with is another rendition of “Secret World.”

Do you know this new Peter Gabriel live package is out?

I had no idea until dyed-in-the-wool Gabriel/Genesis fan Jake texted me about it. Took me a couple of days to pull it up and I was stunned, because it was totally in the pocket, great, and I was going to write about it but then I got diverted.

By time Peter Gabriel left Genesis most people had no idea who he was. And although “Solsbury Hill” ultimately became an AOR staple most people were still unfamiliar with the man and his history, even though his best album, his third solo, released on Mercury after Atco passed, came out in 1980.

Bob Ezrin created a solo debut that was pure statement, Robert Fripp brought his cred to the second LP, but it was the wet behind the ears Steve Lillywhite who truly captured Gabriel’s essence on the third disc entitled “Peter Gabriel.”

Based on the artistic success of that album Gabriel was signed to Geffen where he promptly shocked the monkey and ultimately sledgehammered his way into the public consciousness, with an indelible song with a boundary-pushing video.

“In Your Eyes” brought Diane Court to Lloyd Dobler, Gabriel steamed up the stage at the Grammys and then…as the centuries flipped he was no longer primary in public perception, after all he wasn’t a rapper, he didn’t make pop records and he wasn’t a fit on Active Rock. Unlike his progressive brethren Gabriel was still pushing the envelope, refusing to rest on his laurels, diverting his attention to tech all the while, after all tech was much more interesting than music twenty five years ago, to a degree still is.

But tech is not music.

So Gabriel continued to release music, however sporadically, playing to the diehards, of which there are many, but not everybody. Gabriel has become a niche, part of the endless sideshow, and either you’re paying attention or you’re not.

Furthermore, Gabriel’s albums require repeated plays to ingest and digest, to fully understand and embrace, and that’s not how people listen anymore. They cherry-pick tracks and oftentimes don’t even listen to most of an LP.

Now Gabriel is not happy with me, because he released his last album over a series of months, a few tracks at a time, and I thought he lost marketing value, as that paradigm worked a decade or so ago, but not anymore, today it’s so hard to reach everybody that you have to bang them over the head with shall I say…A SLEDGEHAMMER!

2

Now if you want to hear the definitive Gabriel live work, you must partake of the 1994 double album “Secret World Live,” which was accompanied by a purchasable video of Gabriel’s unique live show, with the extended telephone cord and…

What made “Secret World Live” so great was not only the opening “Come Talk to Me,” imploring listeners to pay attention, but the extended side ending versions of “Secret World” and “In Your Eyes.” They are utter tours-de-force. Especially the former, it makes the “Us” closer truly come alive. Which is why I needed to hear this new version.

It’s the intro that grabs you, akin to a bagpipe, even though it’s not.

And then Gabriel’s nearly whispered vocal. In an era where everybody’s banging you over the head Gabriel sees no need for this, the music suffices, and it’s best if it sneaks up on you, if you come to it as opposed to vice versa.

“Down by the railway side

In our secret world we were colliding

In all the places we were hiding love

What was it we were thinking of”

This is where Gabriel starts to put the pedal to the metal, he’s on the straightaway engaging DRS. And then he takes it up a notch and nearly caterwauling he sings:

“In this house of make believe

Divided in two like Adam and Eve

You put out and I receive”

And now it’s a completely different track, no longer nearly sotto voce, but in-your-face. It’s like Gabriel has spread his arms wide and lifted the entire audience up into a levitating position, where they’re stunned, amazed and focused, there’s no room for random thoughts, you’re engaged.

And the bombast continues until the entire track quiets down and simple notes akin to those played on a toy piano are played. This is the genius of the long take on “Secret World Live,” it’s what I was waiting for here, it was why I played the track.

It’s nearly quiet. You’re reveling in the sound.

Then Gabriel comes in like an angel:

“Seeing things that were not there

On a wing on a prayer

In this state of disrepair”

And then the intensity returns. At first solely percussion. Then crazy guitar, like someone plugged their body into an electrical outlet. And then it’s like some bizarre carnival, the kind that got us all hooked back in the day, when music was more than entertainment, you’re listening to the music, not worried about chart position, merch numbers, if you’re listening you can’t resist. And it’s not bad on earbuds, but if you’ve got an old school stereo turn it up and it fills the complete room.

“Shaking it up

Breaking it up

Making it up in our secret world”

That’s what it was, a secret world. You couldn’t read about it in the newspaper, you just had to know…you found out from the radio, in the case of Gabriel more print and your friends, and it made you feel so GOOD! This a not mindless drivel, these were thinking people appealing to your intellect as well as your genitalia.

3

“Accepting all I’ve done and said

I want to stand and stare again

‘Til there’s nothing left, whoa

It remains there in your eyes

Whatever comes and goes

Oh, it’s in your eyes”

Unlike the studio version of “Secret World” the studio take of “In Your Eyes” is not behind tempered glass, it’s right in front of your eyes, it’s like watching a movie in the sky.

That’s not how the version on “Secret World Live” sounds, the live take is a celebration.

But the version on “In the Big Room” is PERSONAL. Not only is it live, you don’t feel like you’re in the arena, but up close and personal. You can feel the humanity.

And those initial accents akin to treble cowbells is much more prominent in this take than the “Secret World Live” version.

The “In the Big Room” version is less composed, more relaxed, it evidences confidence, Gabriel is not trying to prove anything, he knows what he’s got, and you know it too.

It’s a 39 year old song kids. It’s not unknown. But here it doesn’t sound calcified, but purely alive, as if Gabriel is doing his first shows after the release of “So.”

4

Is “In the Big Room” a revelation? A pushing of the envelope, a great leap forward?

No. But it will satisfy more than fans. Because of the energy, the life. This is not someone playing to hard drive, there might be electronic sounds, but there’s definitely humanity.

In the middle of “In Your Eyes” it sounds like you’re in the middle of the jungle, music’s power was always its ability to take you away.

You’ve got to dream big to create big. But it costs money and time to execute on this level, and today no one wants to give this kind of free rein to an artist. The label not only wants you to make it cheap, they want input, they want to steer it to commercial success.

But that’s not the way it used to be.

Sure, not every expensive record was an artistic breakthrough, never mind an exploration. But we were regularly wowed with what people came up in the pre-complaint era.

That’s all anyone can do anymore, complain. The system is against them, streaming doesn’t pay, when in truth if you’re a successful artist you’re making more bread in adjusted dollars than you ever have, although you might have to go on the road to earn those bucks, then again it was a very brief period that music went from a live to a recorded medium, the emphasis has switched back again.

But there was a moment in time…

“I want to stand and stare again

Oh, it’s in your eyes”

https://t.ly/tU5nO

The first section of this book is positively mesmerizing. I’m not sure I’ve seen this situation detailed so well previously, at least not recently.

You know how it is, when you feel a connection. And you wonder if they feel it too.

There hasn’t been any conversation about it. You’re twisting in the wind, do they feel the same way you do?

I was riveted.

The best book I’ve read recently is not “Dream State,” but “The Slip,” which is billed as this year’s “Corrections,” and Ron Charles of the “Washington Post” said you’re going to love it or hate it, just like everybody seems to do with Jonathan Franzen books.

HOWEVER, “The Slip” is in no way smug. As a matter of fact, it’s great. Except for two things. One, it focuses on boxing. That’s the not the entire plot, but it figures in pretty bigly, so if you find that a turnoff… (Yet the boxing is not macho, this is not the gym culture of a movie.) And I found the ending unsatisfying.

Therefore, I recommend you read “Dream State” before “The Slip,” but I’m not giving two thumbs way up to either of these books, neither is a slam dunk, but both are a huge step above most of the stuff out there.

These are not genre books, they are not mysteries, never mind romance novels. They’re about life, people and real world situations. Which I find to be the most rewarding reading.

As for “Dream State”…it’s about average people doing average things. What I mean is no one is setting the world on fire to the point where they’re featured in the news. The people are not unsuccessful, but normal, like most, which is what makes the book so interesting.

And your dreams and choices… How do those work out for you? You wake up and one day you realize this is your life, and most of it is behind you, and did you do what you wanted to do, did you achieve what you wanted to, did you make the right choices? And everybody weighs “what if” to a degree, if they’d gone down the other path…

I kinda want to write about some of the plot points, but I don’t want to ruin it. But I will quote a few lines.

“But greatness was cruelty, it was passion, it was Self at the expense of everything else.”

This is what no one tells you, this is what the average person doesn’t realize. It takes EVERYTHING to make it, you can’t have a normal life. You may portray a normal human being in the media, but don’t confuse that with the truth. If you’re not willing to sacrifice everything but your dream, you won’t make it. And if you’re truly trying to make it, if you’re playing on an elite level, everything else is secondary: love relationships, kids… Believe me, this is true, don’t let anybody tell you otherwise.

“…and losing his glove had made him weirdly depressed”

Your good mood can evaporate in an instant. They’re out skiing and the glove is lost and they’re in the mountains on a day it is dumping and everything is looking up and then suddenly it looks down. This is the nature of life, your spirit can crash in an instant. And what’s worse, then everybody criticizes you for being down. You’re in a gorgeous environment, how can you be depressed?

“Life was a long, incompetent search to get back to a feeling you had when you were six.”

Isn’t that it? The sense of wonder and magic?

“If you look for a meaning, Tarkovsky once said, you’ll miss everything that happens.”

You’ve got to jump in, you’ve got to experience. This is the problem with too much MFA writing, the authors are detached, trying for big themes instead of getting into the story. I read for story, I watch for story, the big meaning can be contemplated afterward. This is the scourge of elite education, focusing on analysis instead of experience. What I want to do is experience it like I’m six, like above.

Turns out “Dream State” is an Oprah book.

When I read it, I thought it was a Jenna book, which was why I was reluctant. The stuff Jenna recommends is often a reasonable read, a decent ride, but a bit too lowbrow. Reese’s stuff is one step better, but Oprah always recommends stuff if not exactly highbrow, at least serious…as in the person can write and there’s a level of intelligence emanating from the words, Oprah’s books are never a waste of time. And neither is “Dream State.”

Netflix trailer: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PaE5_704KUo

Did you watch today’s Formula 1 race from Silverstone? It was the best of the year!

Usually I fast-forward through the competition, otherwise it’s just too boring in a whiz-bang world. I keep my eye on the leaderboard and when there’s movement, I slow down the recording and replay it. But not today! Today I watched all the way through.

I’m a Hamilton guy. And his switch to Ferrari has not looked so wise with the results of his old Mercedes teammate George Russell this season. However, Hamilton has been improving and he had a great practice session on Friday and nearly as good a qualifying session on Saturday, but Verstappen squeaked by to take the pole in front of the McLarens, the team with this year’s fastest cars.

I like Lando Norris, but I actually prefer his teammate Oscar Piastri, it’s his intensity, Australian humor  and driving skills this year.

However, what made today’s race so interesting was THE RAIN! The fact that they even drove in this stuff was amazing. I mean the drivers could barely see! And it became a game of strategy, pitting and switching tires and there were two great moments… When Verstappen spun out, falling back many places and ruining his race, and Hulkenberg ending up third.

HOWEVER, this is about bike racing. “Unchained” is similar in format to “Drive to Survive,” but there are differences.

First and foremost, “Unchained” can be more confusing. You see there are many more teams. And each team has many more participants. So it’s a challenge to lay out the series, they bounce from team to team, narrative to narrative, but you get into the groove and enjoy it nonetheless.

Now I’d recommend watching the previous two seasons to catch up on some of the personalities who were focused on in the past but don’t get the spotlight today, it will add flavor. 

And to tell you the truth, I’m not sure I remember who won last year, although I think I do, but…

I’ve come ’round on Tadej Poga?ar. I used to think the Slovenian was a prick like Max Verstappen, but now I think that was a matter of him speaking in English. Poga?ar is not overconfident and snide, he’s got a sense of humor.

As for Jonas Vingegaard… I supported the Dane when he was the underdog, I have sympathy re his comeback from his crash, but now that he’s won…he doesn’t evidence much personality, he can be vulnerable, but he’s more of a machine.

In case you’ve never followed the Tour de France, it’s not that complicated. There is an overall winner and then there are winners of the stages, i.e. the individual races, which are usually twenty one in number. As for the mountain stages… The effort involved in climbing is staggering and the downhills are scary. And then there’s the gravel stage…it ultimately lives up to the billing.

This is a dangerous sport. They’ve got little more than helmets protecting them. It’s kind of like basketball in that equipment is not really a factor, it comes down to the athlete themselves. How good are they.

There’s raw genetics/biology, not everybody can win, you need the right oxygen consumption number to succeed.

But to a degree it’s a team sport just like basketball, no matter how good you are, you can’t win the overall unless your team helps you.

As for the individual teams, each has drama… It comes down to money and results.

But the riders are human. They are not machines like in F1. As for psychology…does it really make a difference, can you really implore someone to win? Doesn’t look like it.

So what you’ve got is these lean riders who are in incredible shape and then these old farts who drive around in support cars or sit in buses, acting like fat cats when in truth, they’ve got little to do with the results. The team principals do not have the airs of Toto and Horner, and since the bikes are not a huge factor, it all comes down to the rider, who has even more importance than he does in Formula 1.

As for the vistas… It’ll make you want to visit France, if not even move there.

I can’t exactly explain why these foreign sports are so fascinating to me. Maybe because in the rest of the world they mean so much. But it also comes down to the way Netflix constructs these shows, the storytelling and the drama, to the point where you can already know the results and still be on the edge of your seat.

I used to watch a lot of sports. Even though my brethren boomers are deep into baseball, I don’t have enough time to watch games. As for the NFL… I watch one game a year, the Super Bowl, as it’s a national rite, the injuries, especially the head injuries, are too bad for me to rationalize.

And one of the reasons the NFL eclipsed the MLB was because of the speed and the intensity, which both Formula 1 and bicycle racing have in spades. These two shows have brought me back from the sidelines, maybe because they’re absent the rah-rah macho of most American sports. They’re intriguing. But like in all sports, the athletes are disposable, they have their moments and then they’re gone. It’s very weird, there’s little loyalty, it’s all about winning, you have your era and then you’re done, it’s cutthroat, you can’t drive or ride into your sixties.

But along the way…