TOP 40

Let’s start with #2, since #1, “Despacito,” is a phenomenon.

#2 is Shawn Mendes’s “There’s Nothing Holding Me Back,” with 17,750 spins.

The Vevo video launched June 20th has 111,761,095 views and the lyric video from June 21 has 9,217,720 more.

On Spotify, the track has 301,709,142 streams.

ACTIVE ROCK

Foo Fighters’ “Run” is number one.

Royal Blood’s “Lights Out” is number 2.

The Foos’ track has 1,888 spins, Royal Blood’s 1,845.

The Foos’ video, launched 6/1, has 13,128,817 views, the audio-only has 1,069,153 more.

“Lights Out” has 5,978,672 views.

“Run” has 13,078,974 streams on Spotify.

“Lights Out” has 13,763,032 streams on Spotify.

In other words, Active Rock tracks have one-tenth of the impact of Top 40 tracks, in reality, even less.

ADULT ROCK

#1 is The National’s “The System Only Dreams In Total Darkness”

It’s got 620 spins, the official video has 1,707,927 views and it’s got 4,683,667 streams on Spotify.

The track is a gnat on the ass of popular music. It exists, it has fans, but if you’re wondering why all the focus is on Top Forty, now you know.

LATIN

An ignored format by the mainstream.

#1 is “Felices los 4,” by Maluma. It’s got 2,036 spins, more than the Foos.

The official video has 816,772,616 views. Yes, you read that right, nearly a billion! And you’ve probably never even heard of the act. and the video has only been up since April 21st. It’s got 232,464,529 streams on Spotify.

COUNTRY

Billy Currington’s “Do I Make You Wanna” has 8,938 spins.

But the official lyric video launched on November 22 last year, only has 4,419,195 views. Is it that country fans don’t go to YouTube or there’s no official video with images? And there are only 18,172,565 streams on Spotify.

So country is a dominant radio force, eclipsing Active Rock by a factor of five, but you don’t see the same reaction online. Could it be that country fans are passive listeners? They traditionally get with the program last, but if I were Nashville, I’d get my customers to stream, because sales are tanking and you want your piece of that streaming pie.

CHRISTIAN

“Even If” by Mercyme has 2,053 spins. That’s more than the Foos folks. And the YouTube clip, from February 17th, has 13,610,569 views. On Spotify it has 7,116,043 streams. So it appears that Christian fans are still stuck on YouTube, they haven’t converted to streaming yet, but they will. And then…the hit acts might be bigger than rockers.

ADULT CONTEMPORARY

Let’s go with #5, the least-known act in the top ten of the chart, James Arthur, with “Say You Won’t Let Go,” it’s got 2,151 spins, once again more than the more famous Foos, and I’m not picking on them, it’s just that they’re number one on Active Rock.

Word is certainly out on YouTube/Vevo, the track has 440,595,607 views. But it was released on 9/9/16. But hit tracks take longer to rise and AC is a notoriously slow-moving format and…the track is monstrous on Spotify too, with 603,232,734 streams.

MULTIPLE FORMAT HITS

That’s right, there are some acts that penetrate multiple radio formats. Like the ubiquitous Ed Sheeran, and the denigrated Imagine Dragons.

Imagine Dragons’ “Believer” is #3 on Top 40, with 15,194 spins. But they’re #2 on Hot Adult Contemporary, with another 6,800 spins. And they’re #6 on Alternative, with 2,259 more spins. They’re EVERYWHERE!

The Vevo video, released March 7th, has 165,932,871 views. The track has 347,369,019 streams on Spotify.

Is this a result of multi-format penetration?

Possibly.

But isn’t it interesting that the track is a radio smash five months after online release.

URBAN & RHYTHMIC

I combine them because DJ Khaled’s “Wild Thoughts” is number one on both. With 5,338 spins on Urban and 7,339 spins on Rhythmic. It’s got 263,216,449 views and 231,231,790 streams. And you wonder why your Spotify check is a pittance when you don’t even break seven figures?

ALTERNATIVE

Let’s go with #2, Weezer, since they’re much more famous than #1, Portugal. The Man. Weezer’s “Feels Like Summer” has 2,652 spins, making it bigger than both #1&2 on Active Rock. (Portugal. The Man’s “Feel It Still” has 3,167 spins!)

Well, I guess I’m detailing both records now…

Weezer’s track has 1,972,569 views since the video was released on March 15th, and 11,230,849 streams. It appears their fans would rather listen than watch.

As for “Feel It Still,” it’s got 12,886,531 views since March 6th and 55,113,156 streams on Spotify. Once again, notice that Spotify eclipses YouTube, meaning that the decriers of the video service are as lost as the mainstream media! The mainstream media keeps writing about these old rock acts, like the Foo Fighters and Weezer, when the truth is they’re minor players in today’s sphere, they might as well write about Loggins & Messina, and IFPI and the RIAA are focusing energy on the wrong target, maybe, just maybe, YouTube is a video service more akin to MTV and for repeated listening you go to Spotify…

MORE TOP FORTY

For perspective, let’s focus on the last track on the Top Forty chart, Cheat Codes’ “No Promises,” it’s #15, it just entered the chart.

Now the video was released back on May 16th. But it’s got 48,536,381 views. But it’s got 203,149,877 streams. Turns out Top Forty lives on streaming! The data tells us this, YouTube has been eclipsed!

And radio shows its retardation by playing a track that’s already been proven a hit on Spotify long before. This is a giant problem in our business. By waiting so long to go on tracks and sticking with them radio is clogging the arteries, and signing its own death warrant. Who in hell is gonna tune in to hear that which was a hit months before? NOBODY! Radio is almost like reruns.

REDBONE

By Childish Gambino.

It’s #14 with increased spins on Top 40, with 6,517, and #4 on Rhythmic with 4,199. But the video was released on November 17,2016, it’s got 108,918,575 views, why did it take radio so long to wake up, it’s the same track it was upon release!

As for streams, it’s got 249,96,786, and it’s still got legs.

CONCLUSION

Hit tracks last a long time.

Radio comes last, all the action, all the movement is on streaming services, where the young people are.

Rock acts get a disproportionate share of press, maybe since writers at news outlets are middle-aged white men. But there’s little happening in that sphere. Sure, some of these acts are selling tickets, but so are classic acts who haven’t had a hit in decades.

But many formats are doing business. So, music is healthy.

But all the action is online, and it’s on music-only services, as opposed to YouTube.

Used to be you weren’t a star until you heard your song on the radio.

Now you’re not a star until you see your track in the Spotify Top 50.

Don’t argue with the data.

Greta Van Fleet- Spotify

It’s a Led Zeppelin rip-off.

But didn’t Led Zeppelin rip off Willie Dixon and the rest of the bluesmeisters?

If you lived through that era, you will instantly hear mid-period Zeppelin, complete with Robert Plant screams. Then you remember that was 45 years ago! About the same distance, if not longer, that Zeppelin was removed from the classic delta blues artists.

It starts off as homage. Then you take off from there. Think about all the covers on the initial Beatle albums!

If this was released in 1972, it would be immediately dismissed as a pale imitation, like Klaatu.

But it’s 2017.

And rock is nowhere to be heard on the chart. It’s an ancient sound that appeals mostly to aficionados. We’ve been waiting for someone young to jump off of classic rock, could Great Van Fleet be that band?

The thing is, if you listen, and you should, you’ll be astounded that the songs are good. Full of hooks that make you want to listen to them again. And again. And that’s the essence of music, not radically different from Boston’s debut, which was a distillation of all that had come before, even Zeppelin’s dynamics, the shift from electric to acoustic and then back again. And I’ll argue that Boston was more innovative than Greta Van Fleet, but the guys in Greta Van Fleet are younger, and there’s that multi-decade distance.

Now it’s not like Greta Van Fleet is completely unknown, it’s just that they haven’t broken through. Their EP was released back in April, the day before my birthday, and they were even Apple Music’s new artist of the week, but the band hasn’t penetrated the public consciousness, they’re just playing clubs, they’re readily available, but most of the potential audience is clueless.

But how big is that audience?

We certainly know being the artist of the week at Apple Music is worthless. I’d say that every little bit helps, but the truth is Greta Van Fleet is gonna break on word of mouth, but how big will that word of mouth be?

Now Led Zeppelin’s debut came out in January ’69 and was not an instant smash. It wasn’t until late spring that there even started to be a buzz. And they were still an underground thing until the end of October of that same year, 1969, when “Whole Lotta Love” emerged on the AM airwaves and Led Zeppelin instantly became the biggest band in the land, you couldn’t go anywhere without hearing “II.”

But “Whole Lotta Love” nicked from the aforementioned Willie Dixon’s “You Need Love.”

Now I’m not one of those people who denigrate Zeppelin because of their appropriations, I might decry the lack of credit they gave to the writers, but I’ll argue some of their best material was wholly original, like “Kashmir” and “Ten Years Gone” from “Physical Graffiti,” and the truth is there’s very little truly original stuff out there, and we’ve become too lawsuit happy, come on, giving Tom Petty credit on that Sam Smith song, that’s a bridge too far.

So who knows what Greta Van Fleet will develop into.

But what we’ve got so far…

Works.

First and foremost it’s a four song EP. Which is just perfect. There’s not a loser in the collection, you only want to hear MORE in an era where you’re overwhelmed and want to hear LESS. The music is instantly comprehensible.

But the problem is today when you check out a band you listen to the initial track and if that doesn’t reach you, you abandon it, I did, but the heart of the EP is the middle, the two tracks sandwiched in the center.

The opener, “Highway Tune” has got no melody, it’s got the building blocks of Zeppelin, but it’s sans the obvious hooks in…

“Safari Song,” which grabs you by the throat from the beginning and won’t let go, with the riff and the scream and the drums, you cannot sit still as it plays, your head starts banging to the groove, if you’re an oldster you start to smile, this is a sound you’ve been hankering for. Hard rock is thrash, it’s moved to far from the essence, but “Safari Song”…that riff, it’s enough, but there’s so much more. Really. Check this out.

And I’ll argue the follow-up, “Flower Power,” is even better. It’s more hypnotic, more melodic, something that even non-hard rock fans can appreciate, not quite “Thank You,” but still… It would sound perfect on the radio…

If radio still played this stuff. If we lived in 1973 instead of 2017.

There’s nowhere for Greta Van Fleet to fit.

And there was nowhere for Led Zeppelin I to fit in ’69. Sure, some free-format stations aired the album, but most markets did not have such outlets. It wasn’t until the seventies that you got alternative stuff on the FM in the secondaries.

Today, we live in a land dominated by hip-hop and pop. It’d be like playing Jimi Hendrix in between Tony Orlando and the Osmonds. No way.

But it’s “Purple Haze” we remember most.

Because some sounds are undeniable.

If you listen to Greta Van Fleet’s EP “Black Smoke Rising,” you’ll either immediately turn it off or be hooked. And if you’re hooked, you won’t stop playing it and you won’t stop talking about it, telling others.

Happened to me.

I was worked a couple of months back, not by Jason Flom, whose label it’s on, but by listeners. But I couldn’t get past the initial track. But I got an e-mail from Jeff Laufer testifying about the EP, and he listens to everything new and I trust his taste, so I pulled it up again last night and it took everything in my power to not crack my laptop and tell you about it then.

And the funny thing is, it sounds just as good today, I’ve got no remorse.

So what happens now?

It takes longer than ever for a track to break through the clutter, which is so deep that anybody who tells you they know what’s going on is lying.

And you’ve got to start with tracks like the ones on “Black Smoke Rising,” those that are undeniable.

And then you have to wait.

I’m not saying that a label push is irrelevant, it just has little effect. It’s gonna be a long hard road to supernova.

But I think it’s gonna come.

They’ve been at it for five years. This is not a record made by amateurs.

And the producers are unknown to me. It’s everything it should be. New music made by a new generation, completely free from the constraints of the legacy players.

So…

If you’ve still got a big rig… Stream the tracks through those two or three way speakers, crank it up, and you’ll know what it was like in the seventies. When music was everything, when it clouded out everything else, when it existed in its own private vacuum, completely separate from the rest of the world, which is one of the reasons we were drawn to it.

There’s no place for Greta Van Fleet in today’s world, which is part of what makes their EP so magical.

Active Rock rocks harder and is irrelevant. It’s noise for a club if you’re not a member you don’t want to be in.

Classic Rock stations are just that, Greta Van Fleet is too young.

As for Top Forty, forget it.

But that could all change. Because you play Greta Van Fleet and it reacts. Come on, can you imagine hearing “Safari Song” come out of the car speaker, YOU WOULDN’T BE ABLE TO TURN IT OFF! You’d be pissed it ended. You’d drive straight to the record store to buy it!

But that’s not the way it is anymore.

Today you go directly to streaming services, and that’s where you hear it first.

Now I’m hipping you at the absolute beginning. “Highway Tune” has 2.6 million streams on Spotify, which is a pittance. The other four tracks haven’t even cracked a million. And on YouTube, the numbers are even less. All those people fighting Google’s video service are missing the point, music doesn’t live there, it’s dying there, it’s all about music-only streaming services.

As for the numbers on Apple Music…who knows, they don’t release them.

But the truth is the button is just waiting to be pushed.

And you’ve got your finger on it.

Just listen.

If you get it, and many of you will, you’ll tell everybody you know.

And who knows, going to a Greta Van Fleet show could be like the old days, no dancing, no special effects, only music.

And remember, rock went stratospheric as a result of Englishmen addicted to old, forgotten blues records.

Now rock has been forgotten.

Maybe Greta Van Fleet can bring it back!

Aren’t we supposed to be bitching?

No, the future’s so bright you’ve gotta wear shades.

It’s hard to change the mantra. How the internet ruined the music business, how streaming is the devil, but you can’t argue with the numbers.

Revenue was up 13.3% year over year. Recorded music was up 13.2% to $770 million.

Downloads fell by 27.3%, to $88 million from $121 million. So all you people counting on the iTunes Store to save you, you’re headed in the wrong direction. Files are passe. As for those saying they want to own their music, what if streaming services crater, I must tell you that as the future ensues, you will lose the ability to play your files, just try opening a Word 1.5 document from ’86 today, it’s loaded with gibberish. As for the vaunted cassette revival, what a bunch of PR hogwash, does anybody even have a cassette player in an era where new cars don’t even come with CD players?

Meanwhile, streaming grew 58.6%, up to $360 million from $227 million.

And who says Spotify doesn’t pay.

And streaming was 46.8% of revenue, with downloads 11.4% and physical, which dropped 8.4%, 21.2%.

So it’s over folks. Streaming has won.

As for vinyl, it’s already peaked. Just read the WSJ story:

Why Vinyl’s Boom Is Over

So, Time Warner never should have sold the record company. It was offloaded at a bargain basement price, by a corporation with no vision of the future. Richard Parsons is long gone, with his millions in pay intact, and the company is a shadow of its former self.

But maybe music should stand alone, after all, Universal is the driver of Vivendi.

So what this means is…

1. You’ve got to stop your complaining.

2. Rights holders make tons on streaming. Either go it alone or make the best deal you can with a label.

3. Convince your audience to stream. The sooner they sign up, the sooner you get paid and your scene burgeons. By feeding false facts to your fans, you’re only hurting yourself. And your genre. Oldster music especially. Imagine if all the fans of Jason Isbell streamed instead of purchased, just maybe his music would hit the top lists and not only would Isbell get paid, but more people would find out about him and the whole Americana scene, of which he’s the poster boy, would lift. But too many AAA acolytes and rockers would rather live in their niche and bitch.

4. Consumption rules. It’s about listening as opposed to selling. You’ve got to make music people want to listen to.

5. Album tracks oftentimes do poorly on streaming services, people play the hit and… So make a few great tracks instead of a couple of good ones and a bunch of mediocre ones.

6. Free listening converts to paying customers. When will Apple bite the bullet and join the fun? Amazon has a free tier for Prime members and Spotify is growing at a faster pace than Apple.

7. Online is a winner take all marketplace, one company ends up with approximately 70% of the market. We already know Apple is stumbling, it looks like an Amazon/Spotify competition, although it’s still early, the final chapter has yet to be written.

Yes, songwriter compensation should go up. As for writers complaining that they’re not making money on album cuts, give up, close your flip-phone and join the present.

Just think of the future revenue. Most people don’t have a streaming subscription.

But more will.

Because of the convenience. Because of the business proposition. The history of recorded music for one low price, it’s a NO-BRAINER!

I know it’s been a war, ever since the turn of the century, but it’s time to put down your guns and enjoy the peacetime bump.

Spotify was first. Then came the consumers. The artists have been last.

But the early artists, the hip-hop and pop acts who followed their customers to streaming, have been reaping the rewards so far.

Time for you holdouts to get in on the action.

I was astounded by the reaction. Audience members who knew every word, who whooped upon hearing the introductions. Who had to run down front and dance… HOW DID THIS HAPPEN?

I didn’t expect much of a crowd. There were continuing advertisements in the “Vail Daily,” which had me thinking business would be soft. But that was not the case. The place was about 85% full. And it was a much younger demo than Frampton. Although not that young. A lot of thirtysomethings. As well as people older and younger, and they were there to have a good time.

I guess I’ve been to too many arena shows. I just read the review of Gaga’s opening night in Tacoma in the NYT. She had a dozen dancers.

There were no dancers at the Vilar. Almost nothing distracted from the music. And that’s a revelatory experience.

We’ve been selling music as background ever since the advent of the internet. That’s what Pandora is, background music. There’s music in video games, commercials, syncs in TV programs, the tracks are never foreground, and when you go to the show they razzle dazzle you with elements that have nothing to do with the tunes, which are often enhanced by hard drives, it’s more akin to a circus than a concert, a worshiping of stars as opposed to an experience where the music washes over you and sets your mind free, makes you feel good.

Clarence Greenwood, aka “Citizen Cope,” is 49. You’re supposed to be done at that age.

But he didn’t get any traction until his thirties. And this audience, detached from the hit parade, doesn’t care about age, just music.

He led a peripatetic life. Becoming an artist by accident. A year of college got him interested in poetry. He moved to Austin and thought he’d be behind the scenes, as a producer, and then he went back to D.C. and went out as a DJ, even though he had no experience previously, but his friends in Basehead wanted him to do it.

Then he made demos. And sent them to people and got no response. Because labels are afraid of lawsuits, so they don’t listen at all.

But he got lucky, a scout at Capitol found his cassette at the bottom of a pile and called him up and he was offered a demo deal, 5k, and then an album, which he recorded and it didn’t come out, which confounded Clarence, after all, Capitol had PAID FOR IT!

So it was back to square one. He wrote and recorded new tracks. Cold-called Lenny Waronker, since he was such a fan of Randy Newman. And Lenny’s assistant said he did not take unsolicited calls. But Clarence explained his situation, with Capitol, and he was so nice and so convincing that the assistant told Lenny he had to take the call. Wherein ensued an hour-long conversation about music, not FAME, but music.

But still no deal. Lenny wanted to hear more. And then after hearing more he said he didn’t know what to do with it.

But then the action heated up. Jimmy was interested, over at Interscope, and suddenly Lyor over at IDJ. But Clarence felt best about DreamWorks, even though Jimmy told him he was making a bit mistake.

Turns out he was, or did. There was a DreamWorks album that landed with a thud, but Arista was very interested so DreamWorks let him go for a hundred grand and then Clarence made an album for Arista which was promptly folded into RCA where he was not a priority.

Now I would have given up long before. There was no radio action, nothing other than Cope’s belief.

So he told RCA to give him 5,000 CDs. He believed in the record, didn’t want to tell interested parties to buy it to hear it. He just gave them away, at gigs, to those who were interested, even bodega owners, he got RCA to give him more…

And then word started to spread.

RCA did a good job with licenses, there were a bunch of synchs.

And Santana covered one of his songs.

But there were none of the usual indicators. A few non-comms played the record, but he’d visit stations, like XRT and KFOG, and they wouldn’t add it, he was on his own.

And he’s been on his own ever since.

I asked Clarence if he got this reaction every night.

He said this was tame. He wasn’t sure if it was Vail or because it was a seated venue, but usually the audience is hysterical.

I couldn’t imagine attendees being much more hysterical.

Now I’ve been around. You judge success by the reaction. Anybody would sit there and say there’s something happening here.

And it’s all a result of word of mouth. And Clarence can sell tickets anywhere.

Household names barely break a million on Spotify. Clarence has got one track over 20 million, another at over 15, another over 14, one almost at 7, another almost at 6, and this guy gets no press, you’re not reading stories about him in the media, he’s just plugging along in an alternative universe, where the fans know.

Now he put out his last two projects himself. He was tired of working with the machine, beholden to their schedules. But this time he’s wading back in, he’s got a deal, he wants some of the help.

And he’s been checking out managers, after managing himself.

He’s come full circle.

But the amazing thing is he’s not running on fumes. His music and his career are alive and vital. He’s still creating. He’s an artist.

That’s what the business used to be based upon.