1. DRAKE

Not only does he dominate upon release, he’s constantly stretching the form. His late winter mixtape was a revelation. Forget the Meek Mill beef, that’s just a sideshow, where there’s a hit there’s a writ, and when you’re on top others try to take you down. But Drake keeps lifting others up! He’s the quintessential artist of today, leading, testing limits, but still part of a scene, helping others. Furthermore, Drake knows it’s not about the album, but a steady stream of material, to satiate the audience. Monetization comes last. There’s enough money if people are listening, via streaming, sponsorship and live gigs.

2. KENDRICK LAMAR

Because he’s got hearts and minds. It’s music first, business second. People believe in Kendrick, and he’s not batting us over the head to pay attention, he’s just doing the work. You read about him plenty, but it doesn’t look like hype, you don’t get the idea he’s behind the promotion.

3. JUSTIN BIEBER

That’s what’s great about life, it surprises you. Bieber should have been done, like every other teenybopper act before him, but now he’s bigger than ever. It’s Bieber who takes artistic chances, and no one in the marketplace this often hits home runs so frequently. One smash after another. Bieber made the hit “Despacito” ubiquitous. In an era where that’s nearly impossible. People will remember “Despacito” long after “Look What You Made Me Do” is gone. “Despacito” will be played at weddings and bar mitzvahs… And before that was the collaboration with DJ Snake, “Let Me Love You,” and before that “Cold Water” with Major Lazer and before that his hits “What Do You Mean?,” “Sorry” and “Love Yourself.” You only think you hate Bieber, but listen to these songs and if they don’t appeal to you, you’re just a contrarian with no friends, believe me, the little girls are right on this, they understand.

4. ADELE

She makes records, and live is an afterthought, so the 150 gigs she did were a mistake, the manager and agent should be shot, just because the most money is on the road that does not mean you should gig ad infinitum. Furthermore, her third album was nowhere near as good as the second. She’s wiped out from touring but she should be back in the studio. She’s got enough money, she should stop thinking about cash. Rather she should put out ONE song right now, a top caliber item that will gain press and attendant streams. She’s been too rearguard, she now needs to be up-to-date, like other twentysomethings. It would be great to see her atop the Spotify Top 50, the only chart that means anything today. Just one song. About anything. But if it was about the world situation, she’d have a victory lap heretofore unseen, eclipsing that of Michael Jackson, because she lets the music do the talking, and when she does talk, it’s not phony I love everybody crap, but patently real.

5. TAYLOR SWIFT

It’s all about her. She’s positively Trumpian. Blowing back with falsehood when attacked. Hell, the ticket boosting scam is about neutralizing scalpers? Come on. She’s too old to do “Aw, shucks” and I don’t see any of those purported “friends” coming out of the woodwork to defend her now. She’s got an audience. But Taylor doesn’t stop telling us how successful she is. Her UPS stunt is almost as offensive as U2’s deal with Apple. But that’s hit artists, they think they’re singing about real life but they’re completely disconnected.

6. ED SHEERAN

They turn on you. Too much success and the public revolts. But Sheeran knows it’s about melody and creates singable songs in an era of beats. He paid his dues and collaborates/gives away songs to others, your hatred is misplaced.

7. CHANCE THE RAPPER

Because he illustrated you don’t have to do it their way. For the entire century labels and artists have been bitching about the internet and cash. But Chance makes no deal, gives his music away for free, and then sells out stadiums. Never forget, infrastructure is secondary to the customer. Think about the customer first and then you’ll be all right.

8. MAX MARTIN

Oh, he’s an artist, and the consumer knows his name, despite Max doing almost no press. His work speaks for itself. Max is first and foremost a musician. Second, he changes with the times, he cannot only do one thing. And he knows a song is worthless unless it’s a hit. That’s right, a track has to grab you immediately and stay in your head, you cannot help but play it again, like eating potato chips. Too many people confuse themselves by denying the rules of hits, they satisfy themselves and a few acolytes and then bitch that they’re not bigger. Now, with radio so limited and behind the times, anything will work on streaming services, nothing is holding you back if you make irresistible music. You should beg your fans to subscribe. So if you do something great, the listens will accumulate.

9. KENNY CHESNEY

There are nearly as many happening country artists as rappers. It’s positively astounding. But Chesney sustains, sells out stadiums and has hits. But never forget Luke Bryan, Jason Aldean, Thomas Rhett and Florida Georgia Line. You may think they’re irrelevant, but they can sell tickets up the wazoo. Zac Brown Band too! Right now there are no female artists at this level, which has something to do with radio exclusion (radio still counts in country) and women unsure whether to play the boys’ game or their own. You can rock hard, like Miranda Lambert did a few years back with “Gunpowder & Lead,” or you can be sensitive, but in between is death, chart-wise anyway. Then again, Miranda’s pretty big and so is Carrie Underwood, even though Ms. Underwood is a two-dimensional voice. In country, whether you wrote the music or not, we want to believe you did.

10. CALVIN HARRIS

Because he transcended his relationship with Taylor, because he came back with more hits, unlike Avicii, who stumbled. Electronic music is not quite at the peak it was a few years ago, but to deny its influence is to be wrongheaded. DJs have morphed into producers. And if you don’t think computers are the future of music, you haven’t checked Gibson’s sales.

BUBBLING UNDER

Pharrell

You’re supposed to be done quick in pop, but Pharrell sustains. He seems to have a handle on what is a hit. Sure, it’s a youth business, but by pop standards Pharrell is OLD! You can never count him out.

Sia

Built her career in the internet era, without the benefit of video play on MTV or VH1. Her secret sauce is the ability to write songs, never count anybody out who can. She does minimal publicity, but the audience knows who she is, this is a triumph.

Phish

Because of impact. No, the Vermont band is nowhere near as big as anybody on this list, but their audience is more rabid than any other act’s. You’d think Madison Square Garden held two million people, based on the buzz their Baker’s Dozen shows created. They’re a niche. Which is not gonna get much bigger. But the band has impact, since it keeps changing it up and taking risks when everybody else seems to pray at the altar of the producer, overthinking their work as if world peace was involved.

Coldplay

They should have been done. Who’da thunk Chris Martin would have outlasted Gwyneth Paltrow? Can nice guys finish first? Got to give Martin credit, he makes it all about the music.

Metallica

Metal isn’t as big as it was, but to those who live for the sound, James, et al, are their Beatles. They put out a double album themselves, which did quite well on Spotify, they sold out stadiums, Metallica may be off YOUR radar, but not the target audience’s.

John Mayer

How can he sell so many tickets without a hit? To tell you the truth, I don’t know. He blew up his career, but then went to work with the Dead and stopped boasting and somehow it all works, I guess we do need a guitar hero.

Eric Church

Between projects, but no one embodies the rock and roll ethos in country more than Church, and he seems to be able to write one hit after another and can sell a ton of tickets to boot.

A Ton Of Rappers

There are too many to mention. And it’s unclear who will last. Is Khaled just for today? And maybe it was a mistake to leave Jay Z off the above list, but he messed up by going Tidal only and his songs don’t dominate the chart but hip-hop does, so Jay Z won, as did his compatriots. You see they know they’ve got to reinvent the wheel each day, can’t rest on their laurels, and music is a team sport where you need support and collaboration can pay dividends and you must embrace new technology to succeed not only today, but in the future. You can make music on your laptop and distribute it yourself. And in between there are a ton of choices, but it’s undeniable that music is an on demand item which is portable. If you don’t think streaming won, you haven’t seen the usage and the paychecks.

Since so many say they learned new stuff about me in the L.A. “Times” article, I hereby present the RuPaul podcast, which was recorded a month ago, in a little cafe south of the border, no, in a house turned into a studio just off of Sunset Boulevard. It was early in the morning for me, so there are some loose ends, but I’m sure you’ll get the gist.

You’ll certainly understand who I am.

And it is easy listening.

So…HERE IT IS!

P.S. Listen to the end wherein I get the real story regarding Ru’s contretemps with Milton Berle at the VMAs, and…you get my thoughts on being the subject of a Taylor Swift song.

Soundcloud

iTunes

RuPaul’s site

First one in or last one out? Who do you want to be? It’s your choice. The rewards are at the front end, but so are the risks. And the last to arrive gets safety, if they get in at all, but bupkes bucks.

Howard Stern went to satellite. Since then, twelve years, not a single national radio personality has emerged. NOT ONE! Whereas Stern is ubiquitous (helped, of course, by his tenure on “America’s Got Talent”) and moves the needle more than any late night television appearance, never mind radio.

You see you can’t get the word out.

So you go on Stern. His audience can make your project a hit.

Which is why Adam Sandler was on today. He’s promoting his latest Netflix film. And it turns out his films are the most watched shows on Netflix EVER!

I thought he was over, that he peaked, his grosses were down, but he got into the new world early and is triumphing.

That’s the modern paradigm, views, attention, money comes last.

But Netflix is paying Sandler tons.

The movie companies made talent the enemy. Reducing costs, saying the actors and actresses just weren’t big enough, couldn’t carry a film, and Netflix said just the opposite.

Look who’s winning.

Netflix is overspending on a new paradigm that appeals to talent. We’ll pay you to do what you want and let everybody watch it on demand. As for publicity, it’s all on the home screen, that’s where we’ll give you real estate, where the consumer is. Kinda like an endcap in the old days of physical retail.

The studio buys ads that no one sees. Spots. Billboards. They spend double digit millions and most of their efforts are ignored.

But there’s another way to do it. To go where the people are. Where they want to see you. Where they embrace you.

Used to be the mainstream media anointed you a star. You were nobody until the “New York Times” did a feature on you. Now print plays to oldsters who can’t be influenced anyway.

Kinda like music. Unless you’re on the playlist, you’re nowhere. Kinda like Mick Jagger, with “Gotta Get A Grip” and “England Lost,” both of which have under a million plays on Spotify. He got tons of ink, but no impact.

You play by the new rules. Like hip-hop, which embraced streaming and now dominates it.

If you want a future, you’re an early adopter. You jump off the cliff.

BUT NOT TOO EARLY!

“ESPN Analyst Walks Away, Disturbed by Brain Trauma on Field”

A movement starts with an individual.

I don’t know when our nation moved to groupthink. But maybe it was the anti-disco fervor of the late seventies that was its first visible exponent. When white males got together at Comiskey Park and blew up disco records, they thought they’d won, but beat-driven music survives, more powerful than ever, disco does not suck, it’s the foundation of our nation.

And then came the anti-Iran sentiment of the same era. Our entire nation riled up against a Mideast state, nationalism was evident in a way it was not in the…

Sixties.

I lived through them. Hell, when I was alive they had this program “You Asked For It” and I remember a feature on the oldest living Civil War veteran. Now Holocaust survivors are fading away and it won’t be long before all those who lived through America’s most tumultuous decade of the twentieth century are gone too.

So we woke up one day and we all had crew cuts and our mothers worked in the home and everybody was happy.

And not too long thereafter guys sported long hair, families were torn apart and you went from thinking America was invincible to wanting a war halfway around the world in a nation you’d never heard of stopped. How did this happen?

Through the power of individuals.

People forgotten now. Some remembered, like Martin Luther King. Musicians came last. But everybody who stood up eventually caused more to stand up and suddenly there was a generation gap that could not be breached. This schism led to not only the stopping of the war, but changes in music, style, lifestyle…you see life used to be about questioning precepts.

It’s not anymore.

Except by the techies. Some want to change the world. Most are just in it for the money.

In the former camp we have Elon Musk. GM killed the electric car, they even made a movie about it, and then one guy brought it back. First wealthy experimenters purchased Tesla’s roadster, and then when the Model S was introduced, broad swaths of people bit the bullet.

While the establishment did not stop bitching. You cannot open the “Wall Street Journal” without seeing complaints about government subsidies. But the government pays oil companies and farmers and there’s a long history of inducements to further societal good.

And most people do not understand that electric cars are much more efficient, therefore needing less energy. The same way people keep e-mailing me they buy instead of stream because they’re worried about being out of cell range, about data costs. These doofuses don’t know you can synch thousands of tracks to your handset, as long as it has juice, you’ve got tunes.

And you can credit Daniel Ek. The oldsters keep bitching he’s a billionaire. But he didn’t used to be, he was a guy flying across the ocean in the back of the plane to bring his vision to life. And if you don’t think this vision is beneficial you didn’t read the recent Goldman Sachs report about the skyrocketing recorded music revenues. Spotify didn’t kill music, it saved it!

You’ll realize this.

So, we need leaders, those who will fight the mainstream only because it’s right.

But groupthink pervades. Especially amongst millennials, where fitting in is a way of life. In the sixties you let your freak flag fly, today you wanna be just like everybody else.

So what does it take to go down the other path, to make a stand?

First and foremost a willingness to evaluate issues and make your own educated decision. A skill that’s been lost as America teaches to the test. No, what people need are analytical powers. Unfortunately, these are possessed by the ruling class, learned at institutions only they can attend, and they like the status quo just the way it is.

Second, it’s a decision to do what’s right, damn the consequences. To worry about your heart more than your pocketbook.

Third, a willingness to endure the hate, the blowback. To sacrifice yourself for the greater good.

So Colin Kaepernick kneels for the national anthem and becomes a pariah. It’s only a song! And sitting during the anthem was de rigueur in the sixties. But really Kaepernick was standing up against the cartel. Called the NFL. Old white men who treat their players like slaves. Oh, don’t tell me about their salaries, most are not guaranteed. You get injured and they throw you on the scrapheap.

There’s so much wrong in our country it’s overwhelming.

Oh, don’t load me up with that nationalistic fervor telling me how great the U.S.A. is and if I don’t like it to leave it, I’ve already heard it, from the yahoos saying we had to fight communism in Vietnam. Sure, the U.S.A. is great, but our ethos used to be to make it BETTER! To reduce income inequality, to raise the poor up, but now the best and the brightest want to just leave these people behind. The left is a cadre of overeducated folks who think they know everything when they know so little and the right is all about selling freedom while you lose everything and rich corporations triumph. There’s no one to believe in. Which is how a charlatan like Trump gained power.

But just you wait. Just like Ed Cunningham walked away from six figures a year, did what was right as opposed to expedient, more people will stand up. Just ones and twos, but then many more.

We’ll all be driving electric cars.

We’ll all be streaming.

And if you do your part there will be a roof over everybody’s head and food on the table and peace in the valley.

We just need individuals to take us there.