Not A Hit In America – Spotify

“Miss You”
James Hersey

Hang in there, through the one minute mark. Before that the song is good, but it doesn’t grab you. But then the electronic sounds go wild, your mind is set free and you feel good all over, the way you do when you’re alone in the middle of a field, feeling how great it is to be alive and needing no one to confirm this sensation.

Hersey is from Vienna, Austria, and the truth is there’s been almost no radio play anywhere, but despite that, as of this writing “Miss You” has got 46,273,109 streams on Spotify. An official video went up on YouTube on October 20, 2016, but it only has 438,793 views, could it be that despite all the carping by the international recording organizations YouTube is already in the rearview mirror? Could it be that YouTube is just for the casual fan, of a young age, and that the true music zealots are on Spotify?

As for the Spotify/Apple Music debate, I refer you to the following article that details how Apple Music’s adoption rate trails Spotify’s:
“Why Apple Has a Steep Hill to Climb in the Streaming Music Business”

Now I don’t see this fitting in on Top Forty radio, and that’s the problem, ever since MTV we’ve had a Top Forty mind-set. It’s just that Top Forty has gotten narrower and narrower. The huge stream rate of “Miss You” illustrates the public is hungry for something beyond the fare being delivered to them over the airwaves.

We have an international business, a veritable global village, it’s astounding that tracks stop at national borders. You’d think if something worked one place it would work elsewhere, after all we’ve got the same phones, the same clothes…

Spotify is breaking records, via its playlists. But we still need further curation, of gems like this.

Put this on at your holiday party and watch heads turn. It’s subtle, but it works. The more you play it, the more you play it.

And for those without Spotify subscriptions (which I can’t understand, since they’re free, although I have sympathy if you live in one of the few markets where the service has not launched, and once again, I have no ownership interest in Spotify, get paid in no way, it’s just that it’s a dream come true, it killed piracy, it put all the music in one place for one low price and it allows us to share it, as I’m doing here) this is the YouTube link:

James Hersey – Miss You (Official Video)

“Lost On You”
LP

This has 30,721,426 plays on Spotify. But unlike “Miss You,” it’s had a ton of radio action, of course, outside the United States. It came out over a year ago, November 20, 2015 to be exact, and has already reached number one in fourteen countries, but in the U.S…crickets.

It doesn’t sound anything like what’s presently on U.S. Top Forty radio, and that’s a good thing, its magic! Remember in the heyday of Top Forty, back in the sixties, when it was just the best of the best and it all sounded different? This is more akin to “Winchester Cathedral” than anything by the Weeknd, not that LP comes from a foreign country, she’s written for everyone from Rihanna to Joe Walsh, but most people still don’t know her, showing how hard it is to get traction these days.

There’s a disconnect between the makers and the consumers, and the middlemen are at fault, they’re so far up each others asses, thinking that only certain stuff will work, that they don’t give elixirs like this a chance. Remember when they’d play a record and it would light up the phones? Well, radio’s done doing that job, it’s not like we’re all paying attention to the same stations, but if people only heard “Lost On You,” it would be embraced.

YouTube links:

LP – Lost On You [Official Video]

(with 58,240,705 views, the reverse of the situation with “Miss You” above, who knows!)

And you might be interested in this live take (with 30,118,262 views and it’s stiff in America?):

LP – Lost On You [Live Session]

Actually, this live take is a career-defining moment, it’s just that the tastemakers did not get the memo, used to be a performance like this on Letterman minted stars overnight, but that was before late night became a cesspool of hijinks and feel good moments as opposed to evidencing any authenticity. Usually the live take pales in comparison to the studio version, but this is the same, yet different, be sure to hang in there ’til 3:39 when LP starts to wail, you’ll immediately forget the TV competition shows and your vision of what talent is will be re-centered. (And this video was posted on January 12, 2016, almost a year ago…)

“Shine”
Mondo Cozmo

Ironically, this reminds me of Collective Soul’s “Shine,” not because it’s a rip-off, but because it’s ANTHEMIC!

You’ve got to hang in there, until he hits the chorus.

“Shine” has been in the marketplace since September 16, 2016, and it’s no better now than it was then, but buzz is beginning, sometimes when nothing happens it’s not because you got it wrong, but because most people haven’t heard it.

“Shine” only has 968,864 streams on Spotify. But it’s just one push away from getting traction. And that push will not be on alternative radio stations, which have played it a bit, those are backwaters that don’t matter, tracks are broken on Spotify, statistics say so, just ask BuzzAngle.

What kind of ridiculous world do we live in where you have to start a song in some minor format to prove to Top Forty that it’s worthy? That’s like trying to convince grandparents to like it before you can feed it to babies, like seeing if it sells at a local shop in Peoria before you can put it in Wal-Mart in the metropolis, boy do we have a screwed-up system.

I’m not saying that “Shine” is an instant hit, but I am saying that most people who might like it aren’t hearing it.

(Meanwhile, Mondo Cozmo just dropped a new track “Higher,” last Friday, proving that you can’t wait for everybody to catch up, you’ve got to keep on producing, feeding the muse, testing limits, satiating those who are paying attention, the old stuff is hiding in plain sight for the johnny-come-latelies, “Higher” is more electronic but it’s definitely the same guy, it chugs along, you listen to these two cuts and you become a fan, and isn’t that what we’re trying to do, get people to stick to acts, and the easiest way to do this is to be unique, to write the stuff yourself, or with your own little group, as opposed to the song doctors du jour, whose music all sounds similar and whose efforts don’t rub off on acts, they’re just one stiff single away from disappearing, but Mondo Cozmo…it doesn’t sound like everything else, it’s got rough edges that hook you, that intrigue you, that make you eager to hear more as the sounds satiate you along the way…)

YouTube links:

“Shine”

“Higher”

Snapchat is banking on it.

For the past fifteen years we’ve heard that kids don’t care about selling out, that tying up with corporations is a badge of honor.

But Evan Spiegel thinks different.

Turns out Snapchat’s value may not be dependent upon a technological breakthrough, but a philosophical one.

Snapchat is anti-influencer, anti-celebrity and anti-metric. In other words, the company is saying everything we know is wrong.

For years we’ve been hearing about nobodies triumphing on social media. Gaining a slew of followers and then selling them stuff. It’s the new American Dream.

And then there’s the quantification game, played not only by said influencers and celebrities, but you at home. That’s right, how many followers have you got?

Snapchat won’t tell you.

It’s positively un-American I say!

We’ve been hearing for years that bands are brands. But there are few terms more diametrically opposed to art. Art should be ever-changing, testing limits, pissing people off, elating them. Art is amorphous, brands are stagnant.

Your identity used to be evidenced by your art.

Now you build your identity online and your art is a small part of your endeavor. Maybe the key kernel, but really just a way to get rich.

Snapchat wants to get rich too. But it does not want to play the typical social network advertising game. For those of you scoring at home, you know that ad rates keep dropping. Which is why you see more link-bait. They’ve got to entice you to click through. But you end up pissed off, and the ads are ineffective, so the price keeps dropping, it’s an endless circling down the drain.

But not on Snapchat. On Snapchat ad rates are sky high. Because the service doesn’t allow this detritus to enter its platform.

Hollywood, that purveyor of junk? If you watch their movies you can see the product placements.

There are no product placements on Snapchat. A few slip through, but Snapchat does its best to eliminate them. Because they ruin the experience.

How can one startup get the experience so right when the rest of entertainment gets it so wrong? Not only the web, with its fake news and link-bait, but movie theatres with their ads and the music industry with its opaque ticketing…

Snapchat is jetting us back to the past.

If you’re not playing the metrics game, if there’s no ranking of followers, you must create the art for art’s sake. There’s no gaming the system. There’s no point. Snapchat is where you go to connect, where celebrities are just like regular people, where if what they’ve got to say is worthwhile people will pay attention, otherwise not.

So Snapchat is about trust and innovation. Key elements in the entertainment business of yore, but long gone today.

And being famous for nothing? Snapchat puts a crimp in that too. Because all those people are doing it to sell, and you can’t sell on Snapchat.

This is a revolution folks. This is the undoing of everything we’ve known for decades.

In the music business it’s all about sponsorship.

But there’s no sponsorship on Snapchat, celebs cannot tie in with corporations to make bucks. Of course, Snapchat makes bucks, the service has sponsors, but this is the way it used to be. Sure, you’re playing Staples Center, but do you have an alcohol logo on stage with you, one that you’ve been paid to display?

Evan Spiegel is banking on authenticity selling.

Authenticity… Are you speaking from the gut or saying what’s expedient? Are you willing to take a stand on the issues of the day? Do you have rough edges that thrill some and piss off others, as opposed to being a wishy-washy wimp?

In the classic rock era acts testified.

Today all we’ve got is crickets. The artists are too afraid. Of not only pissing off fans, but corporations.

And that’s just plain wrong.

People know what’s real and what’s fake. And you might be able to fool some of them some of the time, but never all of them all of the time.

But that’s the paradigm the entertainment business is banking on. Let’s just do the same old thing with the usual suspects and tie in with every corporation known to man and we’ll be richer and the public will be none the wiser.

Absolutely wrong.

Could be that Evan Spiegel and his team revolutionize art/creativity the same way Shawn Fanning revolutionized distribution. We’ve been ripe for disruption. Hell, we haven’t had a new sound in music this century. The record labels are looking for insurance. No one’s willing to take a risk. And the primary risk should be with the art.

What if it was about the music as opposed to the clothing line? What if as a result of Snapchat’s policy sponsorship completely disappeared from music?

Snapchat is banking on it. That authenticity emerges victorious. And so far, the service is winning. Youngsters have flocked from other social networks to Snapchat, its valuation is through the roof, because it’s not all fake image and sales pitches, nincompoops on Instagram trying to sell us their lifestyle.

So once again, the techies, the outsiders, are willing to do what none of the usual suspects is willing to. Snapchat is willing to leave all the celebrity/influencer crap by the wayside to deliver a better experience. The Beats paradigm of selling crappy headphones by getting sports stars to wear them? That may be left in the dust. Because right now Snapchat is winning, by playing a game none of their competitors will.

Success always comes from taking a risk, by doing what’s in your gut as opposed to what others tell you to do.

Sponsorship is the enemy. Selling out is a travesty. Art and commerce do intersect, but for years commerce has swallowed art.

That might not be the future if Snapchat has its way.

“Snapchat Plays Hard to Get With Celebrities and Influencers”

A feel good circle jerk promulgated by those out of touch with economic realities. And tech ones too.

Remember when Congress held hearings over Napster? What killed illegal P2P was technological solutions, i.e. Spotify, with its free tier. Want to kill ticket scalping? Charge what the tickets are worth or tie them to the buyer, neither of which the sellers are willing to do.

Let’s start with the musicians, so worried about their image that they will not charge what their tickets are worth. They parade their lifestyles in social media, the private jets and the island vacations, and then we’re supposed to believe they truly care about the little people, that ticket buyers see them as other than the mercenary tools they most certainly are.

Or you could go paperless. But then you might find out demand is de minimis. Miley Cyrus taught us this lesson. Attorneys general were up in arms that their constituents could not get tickets for her tour. So, she went paperless the next time out and found…the overwhelming demand was artificial, created by scalpers, the same people employing these bots.

Come on, when you leave eight billion dollars on the table do you really expect hackers overseas to be afraid of some silly U.S. law? Especially when the government can’t even keep its own house in order, when its servers are infiltrated by foreign governments?

This is not a legal issue, this is an economic issue, one which the purveyors would prefer to go unsolved. Because the truth is sellers don’t care about customers, they just care that someone else is reaping the revenue. The upside on StubHub does not go to them. But can you blame someone for shopping on StubHub when the ticket game is so opaque? You’ve got to get every credit card known to man, from Citi to AmEx and beyond, you’ve got to join the fan club, and for those waking up at ten a.m. on Saturday, they haven’t gotten the memo that by time the public onsale takes place oftentimes fewer than ten percent of the tickets remain.

So they bitch.

But nobody cares.

As for being unable to buy a ticket to “Hamilton”… Try buying the hot new Christmas toy. Or the hot new car. You overpay, it’s simple supply and demand. Which is why the “Hamilton” producers now have multiple productions in other locations. Come on, you can’t get a Tesla Model X on launch date but everyone should be able to go to “Hamilton” whenever they want at face value? Give me a break.

“Hamilton” could go paperless. But then how would those fat cats who traipse through New York get in at the last minute? The producers always talk about the little guy, but the person they protect is always the big guy. There’s always a ticket for the big guy, who might overpay for it, but it’s available.

What’s our goal here? To get the public in at a fair price or…

And it’s only getting worse. Acts are scalping their own tickets, talent agencies too, they skim the best and sell them as VIP packages, everybody’s in the ticketing game yet they’re pointing fingers at the anonymous bots as the problem… Give me a break.

And the truth is the employers of those bots, the scalpers, are often in cahoots with the purveyors themselves, the promoters, the acts, the buildings… They want to make sure they meet their nut, they want some of that upside.

If you want transparency, the BOTS Act won’t get you there.

But enough people pissed that they weren’t getting the upside leaned on the government to the point this inane act was passed. Makes you lose all faith in our system.

Some things can’t be regulated, they’re solved by the marketplace. One thing’s for sure, by time the government gets involved the train has already left the station. To ask the government to understand ticketing is like asking your tot to understand quantum mechanics, it’s impossible.

Everyone wants to jet back to the past, when you lined up and every ticket went on sale at one time.

But that was back when the money was in records, not tours. When tickets were three, four or five dollars, maybe ten, certainly not a hundred. Before convenience ruled. Before everybody in America believed they were entitled to whatever they wanted at list price immediately.

But that can’t happen. Drake can’t play enough dates to satisfy demand. Beyonce either. You’re lucky if you can go.

Which is why most people love scalping. The bots make it so they can buy tickets from third parties. Of course they overpay, but it’s not only the rich doing this, but the rank and file, it’s worth it to them to pay five hundred bucks to sit up close, they scrimp and save and in an era where experiences are everything, it’s worth it.

Otherwise StubHub wouldn’t exist. There aren’t enough fat cats to fill every seat.

So what I’m saying here is there’s a gap. Between what we’re charging and what the tickets are worth. And those most unhappy about it are the sellers, they want that gap, that upside, for themselves. Which is why they’re not attacking the underlying problem, just those keeping them from this extra revenue.

Pass a law making senate seat holders unable to resell tickets.

Pass a law putting every seat in the building on the manifest.

Pass a law eliminating holdbacks.

Address the real problem.

But the government won’t. Because it doesn’t even understand what’s going on.

And believing the bot makers and users will be afraid of this law is believing dope laws will eliminate drug use. Ain’t ever gonna happen. There’s too much money on the table and the public wants to use drugs. Legalize it and sell it at a fair price and you eliminate crime. The same paradigm works in ticketing… Put all the tickets on sale for what the traffic will bear and bots will disappear overnight. This is what the Stones do, they flex price, depending upon demand, no one scalps their tickets, and they have the biggest gross.

This act is just evidence of how wrongheaded the industry has become.

We’re going in the wrong direction. We’re driving buyers to the secondary market. Because the primary market is incomprehensible, it’s a full time job knowing when tickets go on sale and how to buy them.

Charge what the damn things are worth. Tie the buyer to the ticket.

But no one will do this.

The BOTS Act is much ado about nothing.

Comes after the storm.

Did I ever tell you about the time I left part of my tongue on the T-bar at Stratton?

That was back in December ’65, when they finally had snow, when Skylight Lodge was full and Christmas was not a bust.

I started skiing in Bobby Hickey’s backyard. He lived down the street. His dad had bought him boards at that hardware store we did not go to. They were nine dollars. They had bear trap bindings, as in they didn’t release, and one day up at the school, after a storm, Bobby let me try ’em.

To say I was instantly hooked would be wrong. But I liked all manner of snow sports. I had a Flexible Flyer, my dad bought us flying saucers, back when they were made out of aluminum instead of plastic, when you went over a bump and they dented. And then he purchased two toboggans. We’d go up to Fairchild Wheeler, the public golf course, and everybody would get on board and by time we got to the bottom, most people would be strewn on the slope above us.

But that was before Bobby and I became friends. And after we did, I implored my dad to buy me skis. Which he did at Mooney’s, the local sporting goods shop. I don’t remember the brand, but I do know they came with bamboo poles, and the toes would pivot and release, assuming my galoshes could generate enough torque. But when you’re young you’re stupid, you believe you’re invulnerable, I never thought I’d get hurt, and I didn’t, until years later, when my rental skis released in mid-air, but that’s another story.

So after getting my own boards, they were red, I’d spend afternoons and evenings at Bobby’s, down the street. There was a floodlight. We’d descend the fifteen vertical feet and make it almost to the house. We built jumps. We made the equivalent of a bobsled run, and then Mr. Conley showed our sixth grade class a movie about Mt. Snow.

I convinced my parents to go.

That was right after the Beatles were on “Ed Sullivan” the third time. That was right after Cassius Clay knocked out Sonny Liston. We all stayed in one room at the Novice Inn, took lessons at Carinthia, a small spot down the road from Mt. Snow which was incorporated into the big area in the eighties, and then we spent the next three days riding the chairs at Walt Schoenknecht’s playground. My family was hooked. So we booked the following Christmas at the Skylight Lodge in Manchester…

But it rained.

This was before snowmaking. We drove up to Vermont hoping the temperature would drop, that what was rain in Connecticut would be snow up north, but this was not to be. It was nearly sixty degrees. The snow was washed away. We were one of only two families at the Lodge. The other being from New York City, not Manhattan, but an outer borough. We made friends with a fourteen year old, who pooh-poohed the Beatles, we were infected by “Beatles ’65,” but he liked the Stones, and the only 45 around was “Charlie Brown,” which we played over and over and over again.

And I’ll never forget that trip back to Connecticut. It was so foggy my father opened the front door of our Oldsmobile to find the center line. Funny how you feel so safe in the back seat, like your parents are oh-so-powerful and can do no wrong. But it was only later that I realized my dad could not relinquish the steering wheel, that he had to plow on no matter what the circumstances, until one day in ’88 when he told my mother to take over, the multiple myeloma was causing too much pain, he had cancer, but this was before he was diagnosed.

So, after being blown out at Christmas my parents refused to go to Vermont during February vacation. We went to the Concord, which had its own ski area. Two T-bars and two flat slopes, but that did not hold me back, except for the final day, when it rained, you never know what the sky will bring on the east coast.

But feeling guilty for dashing my dreams, that March we went to Stratton.

Well, not really. We went to Sargent Camp, in New Hampshire, it was owned by mother’s alma mater, Boston University, and once again, my parents were planning for a bust.

But this time there was snow. We drove across the state line to Stratton. I convinced my mother and sisters to descend from the top via the Wanderer, almost every ski area in Vermont has a novice run from the top. My mother fell and scraped her nose, no one would forgive me, this is one of the last times I led the rest of my family on an adventure.

But the trip was a success. So the following Christmas, we tried the Skylight Lodge once again.

Now essentially it was a dormitory, with bathrooms down the hall. Usually my parents drew the line at detached loos, but for some reason this time they were amenable.

And the following morning…

Our boots were frozen.

Life is a learning experience. As is skiing. We did not know not to keep our boots in the back of the station wagon with our skis. You need them warm. But we put them under the car heater and we drove up to the mountain and there we separated. I was on my own adventure, they went to the bunny hill.

Now at that time there were two ways to make it to the middle of the mountain. One was the Suntanner chairlift, the other was two T-bars.

T-bars. They’re rare these days. No one wants to work. Except in Europe, where they were devised and still survive. For the uninitiated, they look like upside down “T”‘s, and they pull you up the hill. Two people at a time. Do not sit down, that’s anathema, you immediately fall. The key is to put the wood under your butt, hold the center pole and…

There are two kinds of T-bars. One on a rope and one that’s an aluminum pole, with a spring inside. The former was invented first, the latter was supposedly an improvement, but the latter is so much harder to ride. Especially alone. You end up gripping the bar arms crossed, holding on for dear life as it pulls you uphill.

This is what happened to me that day at Stratton back in ’65.

Now going back to the Concord, in February of that same year, being bored with the two runs I noticed…that if I put my face on the T-bar it would stick ever so slightly. It was a cool sensation. I enjoyed it. So when I was riding the T-bar at Stratton I decided….

Now there was a temperature difference. At the Concord, it was near freezing, about thirty two degrees. At Stratton, it was in the single digits.

I licked the T-bar. There it is. I’ll make it that simple. I could not ride it alone with the bar behind my butt, I was gripping the pole with my arms and I remembered my experience at the Concord and I stuck out my tongue and…

It immediately froze to the aluminum.

I tried to pull it away.

No-go.

Now I’m eleven years old, alone on the lift, far from mommy and daddy, in an era long before cellphones, what was I supposed to do?

The longer it stuck there, the worse it would be, right?

And if I got to the top and was still attached…what would the operator do, assuming he noticed and comprehended my problem?

There was only one solution, I had to take action, I had to pull my tongue off the T-bar.

Which I did.

RIPPPPPPPP!!!!

The worst things happen fast. I jerked my head away and I immediately noticed, stuck to the aluminum T-bar, a piece of skin about the size of a quarter.

Holy moly! Had I permanently disfigured myself? Would I still be able to speak, never mind eat? Was this a turning point in my life?

And I’m starting to freak, and lord knows what causes me to spit, but I do, and there’s blood all over the snow.

Then I spit again and get the same result.

So I figured I’d better save my plasma, and I got to the top of the lift and skidded down the off-ramp and immediately hightailed it for the lodge, eager to investigate the damage, to discover if I would survive.

And when I got in front of the bathroom mirror I found…

A big red spot in the middle of my tongue. The bleeding had almost been stanched, but I was absent part of my being, I wasn’t quite sure how to feel about the whole damn thing, I was alive, but was I forever damaged?

I didn’t see my parents until lunch. I don’t think I told the exact same story. I think I said the T-bar had stopped and jerked and my tongue had become attached inadvertently. Never underestimate the power of a person to obfuscate, no one tells the truth, they always place themselves in the best light.

My father laughed. My mother did not display compassion. I’d just had a life-altering moment and all I got was…

A shrug.

But I never heard the end of it. My father would make jokes about it for years. He cut out a cartoon from the paper, of a little kid stuck to a lamppost. That’s one thing about families, the way they put each other down, the way they jockey for position, the way they never forget anything.

And I never forgot that December day back in ’65. It comes to mind on days like today, when the snow has stopped blowing and the temperature drops and it’s close to zero and if you don’t watch out…

You’ll be stuck to a pole in the middle of nowhere with no means of escape.

Old man winter is a harsh master.

But his briskness makes you feel so alive.

When you’re not afraid you’re gonna die.