Data killed smooth jazz radio. When Arbitron employed Portable People Meters, when they could track what people were truly listening to on the radio, it turned out the filled-out diaries were wrong. People lied about what they were listening to. And once it turned out they weren’t listening to smooth jazz radio as much as they said they were, the stations flipped format.

The same thing is happening in music today. People have the idea that record companies are cultural institutions beholden to the arts, but the truth is they are businesses, beholden to the buck, just like you, who will shop at Amazon despite declaring that Wal-Mart hollowed out your city square. Turns out cash is the biggest motivator. And what is driving cash in music today is hip-hop and pop. Despite seeing reviews for jazz and rock and all kinds of genres in the newspaper, in the news, the truth is we now have listenership data on streaming services, and they’re anemic there. You can complain that fans of these sounds don’t stream, but their fandom is unquantifiable. It certainly doesn’t translate to sales, not in any tonnage, so those in the production business are going to follow the money, which is in streaming, which is in pop and hip-hop. These other genres will die because there’s not enough money in it, no one with marketing bucks, with cash on the line, will produce them. Big band music died, why can’t rock?

And it becomes a vicious cycle, the younger generation makes hip-hop and pop because that’s where the money is. That’s ALREADY happening. So other genres lay dormant, become stagnant, and then fade away to marginality.

Now this can all flip. But it requires innovation, excellence, a reaction from fans. Marketers, i.e. labels, will go wherever the cash is. If klezmer starts appearing in the Spotify Top 50, there will be a run on those acts. So, hip-hop and pop may not be forever, certainly not in their present forms, but what will replace them is not something from the past, but something brand new, maybe a mash-up of previous elements, and it will appeal to the youth, because they are the active consumers, streaming and going out to the show in prodigious numbers. So if you think you can make it with three chords and a guitar, with a mediocre voice and repetitious lyrics…

Think again.

“Here’s what happened the last time audio producers got better data”

That’s what I don’t get about the libtards, THEY TAKE THE BAIT!

Kid Rock is not playing to you, he doesn’t care about you, and neither does his audience. You’ve got your knickers in a twist, saying the country’s going to hell in a handbasket, you’re denigrating Rock’s looks, age and music and he’s laughing all the way to the bank, because he knows his audience is EATING IT UP!

The Democrats have to get a new strategy, just bitching about the right wing isn’t working. It’s like a Gen-X’er yelling at a boomer, telling him Pearl Jam is the best band ever and the boomer shrugging his shoulders. Better yet, a millennial raving about Migos to both of those elder groups. You don’t win by yelling at somebody, changing hearts and minds is a long term process that the Republicans have been good at, with the Federalist Society and right wing talk radio and Fox News, and now the Democrats believe they can sway the converted in an instant, by telling them how inane and stupid they are?

Not gonna happen.

Meanwhile, Kid Rock, i.e. Bob Ritchie, is not stupid.

This is one of the great publicity stunts of this era. A guy who’s in his forties, who works in a moribund format, i.e. rock, suddenly got the whole nation’s attention when that’s nearly impossible to do. I don’t care if he runs for Senate or he doesn’t, that’s not the point, he can decide later. Kinda like Trump, he just wanted your love and attention, but he tapped into something that appealed to people. As does Rock… It’s about the underclass celebrating their uniqueness. Yes, it is a dying tribe, the white uneducated blue collar workers, but the truth is Rock has always employed a multiracial band which is better rehearsed than most and he gives 110% at his shows and if you think you can convince his audience otherwise, you must be a Democrat.

Meanwhile, Rock is smart. Literally. And upper middle class. His father was a Lincoln dealer. It’s all an act. Sit down with him long enough and you’ll find he’s almost a Democrat, it’s just that he’s got a brother living on welfare who doesn’t work and it drives him nuts. All I’m saying is if you’re bitching about the rube, you’ve missed the point. Rock is smarter than Trump, and he doesn’t want to be in politics, but he wants to sell tickets, in an era where I told someone I was going to Dodger Stadium tomorrow to see the Eagles and they were unaware they were playing. Yes, that’s the challenge you face, awareness, and Rock just broke the bank, by sticking his finger in your eye and having you do his work for him. Especially in an era where politics is more important than music. Rock got more traction than the biggest acts in the world, Drake, Jay Z, Beyonce, and you’re continuing to talk about it, articles are being written about it, and he’s not only playing along, he’s pushing back! Saying the press has got it wrong, he’s not on Warner Brothers and he’s got fifteen days to file. He’s doing it modern style, which is getting down in the pit and fighting it out, while you’re at home plotting a year-long publicity campaign for your album that’ll go Top Ten and instantly disappear, I hope your accomplishment keeps you warm at night, because the truth is your money won’t, because you’re upside down.

Rock was CREATIVE!

Every other has-been musician from the turn of the century is running on fumes. Putting out music that sounds just like what they made before. So, he’s criticized for mashing up Zevon and Skynyrd. But it went to number one, didn’t it? Isn’t that the game, while you sit at home and bitch about art and the culture?

This is like the Globetrotters beating the Washington Generals. And Kid Rock is Meadowlark Lemon. If you’re not laughing, you don’t understand the game.

Stop being so serious.

And go to Rock’s show, you might enjoy yourself!

It’s not about the money…

It’s about the money.

That’s a music business aphorism. For those who didn’t go to college, that means, according to the Oxford Dictionary, built into my Mac, “a pithy observation that contains a general truth, such as ‘if it ain’t broke, don’t fix it.'”

You don’t have to go to college to make it in the music business. You don’t even have to finish high school. You just have to have a burning desire to make it, and the ability to make and maintain relationships. It’s a hard business to stay in. People are lining up to work for free. People my age are either running the company or retired, it’s a young person’s game. And while the baby boomers were alive, the whole thing flipped. It went from being THE game, to an also-ran.

So what did all the execs do?

Fund startups, do things that had nothing to do with music. Scratch someone in Hollywood, not only in music, but the moribund movie business too, and you’ll find they’re invested in startups, they want to play the Silicon Valley game, because what attracted them to Hollywood wasn’t the music or the movies, but the money. And the longer they’re in it, the more important the money becomes.

You at home don’t understand this. You run into a famous exec and demonstrate more knowledge about their wares, about their scene, than they do. But you don’t get it, that’s not what makes them successful, it’s their drive, their ability to view the landscape and make the hard decisions. They don’t call it show “friends,” they call it show BUSINESS! And believe me, if Jimmy retired tomorrow, many of those people at his wedding to Liberty would not show up. That’s the music business, that’s ALL business, you’re the job, not the person.

Unless you’re an artist.

But rare is the artist who sticks with the same team throughout. They’ve got a new manager, not the one who brung ’em here, but someone who can be trusted, who knows the finances, who will book the live gigs and…

That’s about all you’ve got.

That’s right, make it on the hit parade and your fame lasts forever, if not your money.

Start off behind a desk… And you’ll probably have a longer career than most acts, but most of all you want the money.

Did you see Dre take the stage at Wembley? Where else can you get that roar of adulation? You can’t as a businessman. Hell, we’ve got a couple, the dearly-departed Steve Jobs and Elon Musk, maybe Bezos and Zuckerberg too, but that just proves the point, there’s not a single musician who has that kind of traction, that kind of purview, that kind of reach today. You may think Drake is ubiquitous, but not only is that untrue, he’s nowhere near as big as Eminem.

That’s palpable, watching Eminem. You’re reminded of the early aughts. When MTV still counted, when CDs could still sell, and we still lived in a monoculture.

That’s been blown apart.

Forget the hype machine. I was listening to the Bret Easton Ellis podcast, which is about movies, and he admitted…no one goes to the movies anymore. And as far as TV…everywhere he goes people are talking about shows that he’s never even heard of! Mothers and fathers were outraged by Eminem, they don’t even know who Kendrick Lamar is. And if they do, chances are they’ve never heard one of his songs. Hell, the news clip in this show says Suge Knight is in the ROCK business. If they can’t get that right, what are the odds the hoi polloi can?

So what we’ve got here, other than the bit about Marshall Mathers, is hagiography. And once again, for those who didn’t go to college, the Oxford Dictionary says that’s: “the writing of the lives of saints.”

But neither Dre nor Jimmy is.

Dre’s an uber-talented musician/producer/creator.

And Jimmy is an uber-talented marketer.

And together, they made billions.

They won if you’re playing that game.

And everybody in America now is. It’s solely about the cash, whether you’ve got it or not. You want to get ahead, you don’t want to pay for anybody else, and D.C. reflects this turmoil, it’s in our blood.

So Jimmy takes a lame headphone and puts it on the ears of musicians and athletes and starts a lame streaming service and lays it all off on Apple. Laying it off is the triumph here. Beats headphones were a fad, no different from a pet rock, well, at least they transmitted sound, but poorly. Sony and Sennheiser are forever. Beats headphones? Give me a break. And no one can forget that Beats Music failed as MOG and failed as Beats Music and if Apple hadn’t rescued them, it’d be Tidal time. Jay Z got an infusion from Sprint, even dumber than Apple, but that’s the Hollywood game, getting someone to pay, laying it off on somebody else, taking your money and going home.

We hear nothing about the death of Dre’s son. As for Jimmy’s initial marriage…there are enough holes in that story to fill the Albert Hall. You’re watching at home and you believe it was an endless march to the top.

Only it wasn’t.

You think you too can make it.

But you can’t. Because the skills it takes to get there not only weren’t in this series, in most cases you’re born with them.

And if you’re not willing to make the hard choices, you’ll never make it.

And, like they say about managers, anybody can get lucky once, but can you break TWO acts? I give Jimmy tons of credit for Beats, but I’d like to see him do it again. As for Dre, he did do it multiple times, on record, which is why the chances of him being remembered are much greater than those of Jimmy.

But you’ve got to get up and do something every day. Lifestyle only goes so far. Why is it all the rich inheritors O.D?

So this final episode resembled nothing so much as “Behind The Music,” only with less failure. This targeted the neophytes, the nobodies at home who’ve got no idea how the game is played. The rubes who believe they can get off the bus in Hollywood and make it. Kinda like Axl Rose in that video.

But he DID make it.

That’s the upside, the machine needs talent. You’ve got a chance, only it’s marginally better than playing the lottery, if the odds are even that good.

So we venerate those who win. We tell ourselves if we just try harder, we can too…

We don’t see the blowback from the U2 giveaway. We don’t see Bono singing thirty year old hits to aged fans. We don’t see Tim Cook introducing a boffo new product that blows us away. Like I said, this final episode is hagiography. Without Apple’s muscle, its brand mystique and credit card numbers, the streaming service is a nonstarter. As it is, the post-Jobs Apple has yet to show us breakthrough innovation. They’re like a record label repackaging catalog. Yes, we need to hear the Beatles, we need to use a mobile phone, but every time you see a Tesla on the street, you wonder, HOW DID THEY DO THAT? How did they create a car from scratch?

HOW DO THEY MAKE THE MUSIC FROM SCRATCH?

Our country runs on culture. Money is just currency. Despite this show, despite the media, despite “Billboard” telling you who made most, the truth is…you start with nothing, only your wits. Your degree won’t help you, but experience will. But even the most experienced people run dry.

You want to create a hit. And don’t lie and say no. You want the recognition, you want the accolades, you want to be KNOWN!

Jimmy and Dr. Dre are known.

Not because of Beats headphones. Not because of Apple Music. But because of what comes out of the earpieces. You don’t have to spend a lot of money, you’ve just got to create magic.

That’s one tough job.

But some people are up to it.

I know you’re gonna try.

There weren’t that many people who were in the room where it happened. And in time these stories are gonna disappear.

And we want to hear them.

You see once upon a time life was boring. And the way you dealt with that was to go out. Now it’s nearly impossible to get someone to go out, and I understand that, after the hour plus it took me to drive from Santa Monica to downtown. I used to go to the Valley for a movie on a whim! Now WAZE has created gridlock in my own damn neighborhood. I reminisce about when traffic was only bad, when it was one hour to Hollywood in rush hour as opposed to two, when rush hour ended at 7 instead of 9:30 PM.

So you’d go to the club to a hear a band, to throw back a couple of beers, to try and get lucky, to have a life. And most times the experience didn’t deliver. But that was the old days, when you stuck it out, knowing that if you kept going one time you’d mine gold. You’d see a band that blew your socks off. You’d meet the love of your life. Now people won’t go unless the act is already famous, they don’t want to waste their time.

But Jack Tempchin met Glenn Frey and J.D. Souther at a club in San Diego. He had them sleep at his house. Long before Airbnb, when we trusted each other, when we were all middle class and in it together. They became buddies. And when Jack played “Peaceful Easy Feeling” in Echo Park, in Jackson Browne’s apartment, with the windows taped over, to create that creative feeling, Glenn was enthralled, he wanted it for his new band, with the best singers, the best writers and the best players. Glenn called Jack from the studio days later, played him the hit recording over the phone.

And Jack wrote “Peaceful Easy Feeling” in a club in El Cajon, he’d sent the band along, he was gonna wait for the waitress to take him home, but she never returned, he was lying on the linoleum trying to sleep and… He showed us the flier with the lyrics written on the back, whew!

But there was still one verse to go. He finished it at der Wienerschnitzel, which has now lost the “der,” but they put a plaque in the table and gave him a golden hot dog and…

If you lived through the era, these stories are priceless. About his dearly departed friend Glenn. About hanging at the Troubadour. Driving cross-country with his wife in a VW microbus and hooking up with Jackson Browne in NYC who said he had to get back to the garden, but first he truly had to go to the Garden, as in Madison Square Garden, he was playing there that night.

And I own that Funky Kings album. I bought it because of Tempchin’s name, as well as Richard Stekol’s, of Honk fame. Back when the world was smaller and you graduated from sports scores to liner notes and you bought albums based on credits without hearing them first.

And there were stories about writing songs, getting in the mood, how they do it in Nashville, how Frey liked to do it, and Jack needs to be in the mood, he got up and wrote every day and found out it was crap. Then again, everything doesn’t come to him in a flash, he reworks the words.

And then Jack played.

“You Belong To The City.”

“Already Gone.”

“Peaceful Easy Feeling.”

He’s covering his classics for a new album coming out in August.

And then he started telling a tale. Of seeing a legendary performer whose life ended poorly who you won’t know anyway, whose shtick was to call up his girlfriend on stage and argue with her, and Jack noticed that people only danced when the music was slow. And he thought about his desire to press up against the opposite sex, he thought about his new girlfriend, ultimately to become his wife, and he looked to the ceiling and sang…

Slow dancing, swaying to the music
Slow dancing, just me and my girl

And I flashed back to that high school dance, I went with Debbie.

And then I thought of my law school girlfriend. We’d gone through a rough patch, but this night was better and I put on the newly-released “Rumours” and when “Gold Dust Woman” came on we embraced like we hadn’t, like I thought we might never do again…

And my life is vividly flashing before my eyes, like at that HillBenders show on Friday night, hearing “Tommy” and then…

No one else in the whole wide world

No one cares. About you and your foibles. Nobody’s paying attention. You get out of school and you’re on your own. And if you can find one damn person you can count on, who you can slow dance with…

You’re lucky.