This is what the internet has wrought.

For fifteen years we heard about recorded music revenue, how the business was being decimated, when the truth is the only people losing power were the labels themselves. Suddenly, the acts were making more. The truth is record deals were a lousy proposition unless you were a superstar and could get it all up front without worrying about sales, for a while anyway. But if you were a developing band, or couldn’t renegotiate, the deal paid you little, but the only way to get noticed was via the record company’s efforts.

That’s now history.

From the Beatles to MTV the acts were in control. But MTV ushered in the era of money, right after the crash of the late seventies, when disco ate rock and then the whole enterprise collapsed. Suddenly, there were few avenues of success, and if you made it, a whole lot of coin rained down. So there was an opportunity cost in releasing stiff records. And the old model of artist development was broken. It made no sense to sit by acts that might make it to the middle at best, you needed to hit home runs.

That’s still the philosophy of the majors, to their detriment.

Because the world got bigger, and they’re not in control of it.

And a record deal is no longer the only way to get heard.

The last decade has been about the transition from sales to streaming. If the labels were smart, they’d kill physical and files tomorrow, because that would force buyers to buy in to streaming, where the label makes so much more in the long run. But despite selling forward looking product, the music business looks backward, and it’s run on a gangster mentality. It’s not what’s good for the business, but what’s good for ME! This is how Paramount lost Marvel, the purchase would have dented executives’ bonuses.

So the majors used their leverage to stall and then finally license streaming outlets. But that’s now history, streaming is here to stay, Spotify is never shutting down, so wielding your catalogues as a threat…that don’t play anymore.

So, the labels control less of the marketplace than ever before, they’ve lost their leverage with distribution and their traditional promotional power centers, radio and television, are on the wane, they mean less than ever.

In other words, you can do it by yourself. All the tools are at your fingertips. From production to promotion to distribution. Can you say PRO TOOLS, INSTAGRAM AND SPOTIFY?

This is the labels’ worst nightmare, but they don’t realize it, they’re too busy trying to make up lost revenue and screwing the artists. But you can’t screw the artists, they won’t stand for it anymore. The labels could have fixed their accounting… How come Kobalt can do it and they can’t? They could have cut fairer deals. They could have been partners as opposed to shylocks, but that’s not the culture at the labels.

But they are a bank.

But now it takes less money than ever to make a buzz.

And the promoter pays you.

Of course the deals are bad when you’re starting out, but if you can sell tickets, you can rewrite them on the spot, and make tons in a digital era where the live experience is everything.

But the promoter doesn’t want to manage and invest in you.

Of course Live Nation has management in-house, but that’s just a remnant of the Azoff days, no one there knows exactly what they’re doing.

A management powerhouse is more akin to Red Light. However, that’s a disorganized outlet where if any manager gets traction, they leave. Can you say Moe Shalizi? Or Ron Lafitte before him?

And then there’s Full Stop, moving into the future under Jeffrey Azoff with his father Irving looking over his shoulder. Pound for pound they’ve got the best, most profitable acts.

Every other management company is positively cottage industry. Maybe very lucrative cottage industry, but way less powerful.

But the point is, who is going to control and direct the acts in the future?

Historically, managers don’t want to invest. Some do, but most would rather look to the label and the promoter.

And it’s true, the promoter develops acts these days, live, where the real riches lie, but they’re not eager to expand their footprint into the act’s business.

In other words, in a world where an act is a bad business person, there’s a vacuum. Unless the labels adjust quickly, they’re going to lose more and more power.

Is the hole filled by a new kind of management company?

I can speculate, but I’m not sure.

But one thing is for sure, the act is in the catbird seat with all the power. You can speak directly to your audience, you can make demands, you’re reliant on almost nobody. And you’re making more bank than you ever were before as a result of increased ticket prices and new opportunities.

Then there are the nowhere nobodies bitching they’ve been screwed. Maybe no one wants to listen or see them. But chances are, they too are using the new tools to play for little cost, even if they may not be winning.

It’s good when the acts are in control, because they create the art.

But they need no league to survive. No NBA is necessary. Each act is its own league.

And acts know best.

It’s an artist-centric world today, the days of Tommy Mottola and CD replacement monies are long gone.

If you want to succeed today, you’ve got to service the artist.

Or you’re screwed.

Tune in tomorrow, Tuesday February 19th, to Volume 106, 7 PM East, 4 PM West.

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

Twitter: @lefsetz @siriusxmvolume/#lefsetzlive

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Did you watch this?

Documentaries have flourished in the Netflix era. And I must say, I love a good one, since truth is stranger than fiction, and ultimately more believable. (I know that sounds obvious, but we read fiction for the truth embodied therein. But when you encounter the unvarnished truth it takes you aback, and makes you question all your preconceptions. THIS REALLY HAPPENED? And the funny thing is non-fiction so rarely contains truth, essence, the nuggets.)

Anyway, this film was made in 2017. Why did it not get distribution for years?

Kinda like Malcolm Gladwell says in “Outliers,” timing is key.

But I feel like I just spent ninety minutes on weekend CNBC/MSNBC or “20/20,” where they have these true crime specials with heavy music that you watch once and then never tune in again.

But “Abducted In Plain Sight” is different because it happened TWICE?

I know, I know, you could consider that a spoiler, but it was in all the reviews.

Bottom line, there’s a manipulative child molester and…

Forget that the kid is susceptible, so are the parents!

You’re watching this flick and wondering what they were thinking. Kinda like you go to a horror movie and yell out to the soon to be dead to WATCH OUT!

But we don’t expect people to be so evil.

And… Does the fact that they’re LDS and live in Pocatello make a difference?

I’ve been to Pocatello. In today’s cheap flight era, where you go to the destination and don’t waste any time driving in between, most people have not. But there’s a vast swath of the west that is relatively uninhabited where real people live and those on the coasts have no idea what transpires there. Used to be they were somewhat off the grid, with three TV networks and nothing else, but now there’s cable/satellite everywhere and high speed internet too but still…

Those places are different.

I lived in Utah. The Mormons look after each other. And they take family and business very seriously. That’s the difference between the people in this doc and those shows on weekend television, these people are not poor. And there have been so many stories about the fact that Mormons win reality competition shows because they know how to get along in large groups, i.e. families.

But still…

The smaller the town, the more people you know. Cities are faceless, that’s one of their appeals. Everybody’s so busy going somewhere that they don’t want to get bogged down with personal baggage. The model here is Madonna, how she kept graduating from/using one person and then another, moving up the food chain to a pedestal where she’s all alone. That’s why she’s clueless, she’s now got no frame of reference. She’s hooked on the adoration and the status but those are empty constructs.

In other words, life is more real in Pocatello than Hollywood.

But why did these people keep letting the offender in?

We had close family friends. But we knew when to say no. There were boundaries. But the level of trust here…

But the perp was manipulative. My father taught me to keep an eye out. But maybe I ended up suspicious of everyone, to my detriment. You’ve got to have a little trust in this world…

And then there’s the issue of the perp getting the parents to do things against their nature. Seems unlikely, but only if you’re sheltered. We’re all in situations where we wonder, if we back out are we missing out?

And then the brainwashing of the girl, with all the alien stuff.

Then again, the Angel Moroni is supposed to have been the last person to write in the golden plates that Joseph Smith discovered and translated and if you believe that…

You’re probably not an atheist.

Once you start believing there’s a little man in the sky who knows whether you’re naughty or nice, anything is possible.

But still, I recommend this show.

It’s no “Three Identical Strangers,” but you don’t have to leave home to watch it.

Oh, that’s right, you can see the triplet movie on demand if you’re willing to endure CNN’s commercials.

Or you can hop on to Netflix, spend ninety minutes with the Brobergs and then move on to Ted Bundy.

Really? I lived through that. But I didn’t know the Broberg story.

I’m glad I now do.

Beware.

P.S. The police can’t protect you. Sure, the Brobergs did their best to thwart the justice system’s mechanics, but if someone is out to get you, it’s rare the police or FBI can keep you safe. When someone tells you they’re gonna kill you, they just might.

Abducted In Plain Sight Trailer

I read two books in two days. Each was unputdownable in its own way.

The first was “Normal People” by Sally Rooney. She was heavily hyped in the “New Yorker” about a month ago, so I read her first book, 2017’s “Conversations With Friends,” and Daniel Glass sent me her second, “Normal People,” from Claridge’s in London, since it is unavailable in the States until April. I wonder if that’s because they’re gonna change it, eliminate the Britishisms. And speaking of Britishisms, you MUST read the story about Dan Mallory in the “New Yorker,” they’ve got a soft paywall and the article is long but it’s all about duplicity. I might be the only person who didn’t love his book “The Woman in the Window,” written under the nom de plume A.J. Finn, then again, did Mallory/A.J. Finn write the book at all? This is a funny world we live in, where facts hide in plain sight but untruths rule because nobody checks them. Kinda like the “Times” expose on Trump’s taxes. The Grey Lady admitted it had been snookered, had never done the research. And here’s the point where I mention Maureen Dowd’s piece on Michael Jackson today, she’s being inundated with naysayers, saying MJ is pure and the HBO doc is heresy. But that’s the world we now live in, one where facts don’t matter and it’s about what team you’re on.

Anyway, I was riveted by “Normal People” until the relationship…

Let’s just say it got a bit unbelievable. But Rooney does capture the ethos of the millennials. She speaks in today’s language, she gets the angst right, and I’d be surprised if it’s not thinly-veiled autobiography, kinda like Pam Houston’s “Cowboys Are My Weakness,” which was my second favorite book of the nineties, which is why I’m now reading her “Deep Creek,” which is non-fiction. And I was yearning for story, for fiction, which is why I interrupted my reading of “Deep Creek” with “Normal People,” but the truth is I think Houston is a better writer than Rooney, she’s a bit more honest even though her time has passed.

Kinda like that of John Simon.

He tracked me down months ago to see if I’d read his memoir, “Truth, Lies & Hearsay.” And I was interested, because of his credits, but he kinda disappeared, and blamed it all on techno-ignorance, but his book finally arrived and I read it in a matter of hours, riveted, because of the story.

You see Simon’s name was in the credits.

And I figured he was another puffed-up oldster, smoking a pipe and living on the fumes of yesteryear.

But that is not the case. Simon is vibrant and alive. Irreverent. His book reads like a long conversation late at night.

And he tells you how he made that Big Brother “live” album, and those first two Band albums too.

If you were around, if those records mean much to you, you’ll eat this up.

Now this is a self-published book with some mistakes, but the story shines through. Of a guy from Norwalk, Connecticut who used creativity to get ahead. That’s how he got into Princeton, based on the musical he created in high school.

You see first and foremost Simon is a musician.

And he’s old. After graduating from college he got a gig at Columbia Records pre-Beatles, and he started producing before the youthquake hit. He’d record Original Cast Albums on Sunday and they’d be shipped on Tuesday.

And then he fell in with Albert Grossman…

Well, after working with the Cyrkle and Simon & Garfunkel.

We need a definitive bio on Grossman. Without him, Dylan is not a legend, Peter, Paul & Mary don’t exist, but the acts get all the credit and the manager is forgotten. And Simon hints that Grossman loved money more than truth, but Albert made things happen.

But when he died and royalties came from Capitol instead of Bearsville, Simon was cut out. That’s right, he doesn’t get paid on those Band albums. This was back before acts were savvy, when the business was developing.

Simon pins it to the Beatles and electric guitars and multi-track recording.

Everybody picked up an axe. The technology let you experiment.

That’s what’s going on with streaming today. You can release as much or as little as you want to whenever you want to. Meanwhile, acts with old mind-sets are still releasing an album to play into the hands of print and radio which mean so much less than ever before.

So if you want to know how those Band records were made…

This is the best explanation I’ve found. Because Simon was there and the writing is not dry.

And when his moment is past, Simon takes a gig playing the piano in a restaurant.

That’s entertainment fame. It’s not linear. Your moment passes, and then you’re forgotten, or playing your old hits forever.

Now I’m gonna finish Houston’s book.

And I’m wondering whether I should get out, engage more. Watch television. Be part of the conversation.

Then again, Simon says he never liked to go out to hear live music, unless he was working on it. Used to be an A&R guy was the producer, now he’s a guy telling you to make it more commercial and keep it under budget.

And I really don’t expect anybody who wasn’t there to care.

But if you were…

“Normal People”

“A Suspense Novelist’s Trail Of Deceptions-Dan Mallory, who writes under the name of A.J. Finn, went to No. 1 with his debut thriller, ‘The Woman in the Window.’ His life contains even stranger twists”

“Deep Creek: Finding Hope in the High Country”

“Truth, Lies & Hearsay: A Memoir Of A Musical Life In & Out Of Rock And Roll”