Used to be, no one could make as much money as a rock star.<\/p>\n
Baseball players were hobbled by the reserve clause.\u00c2\u00a0 Basketball hadn’t known Larry or Magic, Dr. J was not ubiquitous.\u00c2\u00a0 As for football…the players were expendable, and coaches didn’t make the money, but owners.\u00c2\u00a0 Hedge funds had not been invented yet.\u00c2\u00a0 Or, if they had, they were not the domain of thirtysomething whiz kids, but old farts no one wanted to hang around with, who worked at brokerage houses.\u00c2\u00a0 As for the CEO…\u00c2\u00a0 He might end up with a cool million come tax time, but he could never get rich.\u00c2\u00a0 To be wealthy you had to be an entrepreneur, or a rock star.<\/p>\n
The rock star was usually uneducated.\u00c2\u00a0 He did not listen to his parents and prepare for the future.\u00c2\u00a0 He smoked cigarettes and skipped school.\u00c2\u00a0 Stealing what he needed to pursue his passion, music.\u00c2\u00a0 If he was talented, and lucky, he got a deal with a label, and after slaving in the studio for mere hours, the end product was brought to the radio station, where in a matter of weeks, if not days, the musician could become world famous, a star.<\/p>\n
This path appealed to not only downtrodden Englishmen, but Americans too.\u00c2\u00a0 The fact that you could pick up a guitar and suddenly become king caused musical instrument sales to skyrocket.\u00c2\u00a0 Everybody wanted a chance at this lottery, akin to the California gold rush.<\/p>\n
And the public paid attention.\u00c2\u00a0 Not only was the music vital, the personalities were outsized.\u00c2\u00a0 These were the real James Deans.\u00c2\u00a0 Doing whatever they pleased.\u00c2\u00a0 Not worried about convention.\u00c2\u00a0 Drinkin’ and druggin’ and fuckin’…\u00c2\u00a0 Everybody wanted to play.<\/p>\n
Your father might not know who Led Zeppelin was, but the band could sell out arenas from coast to coast, taking home millions for its efforts.\u00c2\u00a0 The pull was so strong that tours added stadium dates.\u00c2\u00a0 55,000 people would show up to partake of the seamy goodness that was rock and roll, with the ragtag bunch of society’s losers as cheerleaders.\u00c2\u00a0 Yes, the losers had become winners…\u00c2\u00a0 Who wouldn’t smile at that?<\/p>\n
With the profits came the conglomerates.\u00c2\u00a0 Elektra and Atlantic joined the corporate fold.\u00c2\u00a0 A formula, known as corporate rock, was defined and acts sold millions until the whole scene imploded but was then rescued by MTV, which generated sales heretofore unknown.<\/p>\n
But the culture was the station, not the act.\u00c2\u00a0 The product was the single, not the album.\u00c2\u00a0 The value was what was on the screen as much as what entered your ears.\u00c2\u00a0 Despite the gargantuan sales, aided by the introduction of CDs, the kernel, the core, the essence of the music was lost.\u00c2\u00a0 It was like the rope tying the boat to the dock had slipped free, but we couldn’t yet see the impending disaster, it took years to find out we were adrift.<\/p>\n
Which we are.<\/p>\n
You might rail against the profiteers in the financial community, but they’re keeping the money, they’re not giving it back.\u00c2\u00a0 And a small cadre of executives, who sit on each other’s boards, have run up executive compensation to a height no mere musician can reach.\u00c2\u00a0 And sports stars might have brief careers, but they rival the length of most musicians’ salad days, if they don’t exceed them.\u00c2\u00a0 Suddenly, it’s all topsy-turvy, musicians have gone from the top of the heap to the bottom.\u00c2\u00a0 Players are court jesters once again.\u00c2\u00a0 Tools of the man.\u00c2\u00a0 Fighting for evanescent scraps.<\/p>\n
This would be fine if the oldsters didn’t still exist.\u00c2\u00a0 If their classic records were not still encased in wax, in 0’s and 1’s, fully playable.\u00c2\u00a0 It’s easy to see how it once was, to realize what has been lost.\u00c2\u00a0 Those still raking in the bucks, at this point, only the corporate infrastructure, the label heads and the agents, say that nothing has changed, that today’s music is just as vital, that the scene is healthy.\u00c2\u00a0 But music is a reflection of society.\u00c2\u00a0 And ours is one of instant fame, of money-grubbing.\u00c2\u00a0 Nothing lasts, we don’t take anything too seriously.\u00c2\u00a0 We want to pull our stars down into the hole we’re in.<\/p>\n
But maybe the pinball machine is on tilt.\u00c2\u00a0 Maybe someone has hit the reset button.\u00c2\u00a0 Maybe all those exotic financial products have fallen by the wayside.\u00c2\u00a0 It’s even cheaper to record than it was in the heyday, and distribution might be a vast maze, but the tools are in the hands of the musicians.\u00c2\u00a0 Maybe, the heyday can return.<\/p>\n
If it’s about the music.\u00c2\u00a0 And the drugs.\u00c2\u00a0 And the women.\u00c2\u00a0 If we can revere our stars as rebels, not tools of the man.\u00c2\u00a0 If the music is not made for the radio, but for the audience.\u00c2\u00a0 If the easy way is the road less taken.<\/p>\n
I’d say that Keith Richards posing for a Louis Vuitton ad is the end of the world as we know it, but it just shows that the money has superseded the music.\u00c2\u00a0 That Keith’s given up.<\/p>\n
They can foist a movie upon us.\u00c2\u00a0 The Stones can play the Super Bowl, badly.\u00c2\u00a0 But we know we’ve been abandoned, that the contract has been broken.\u00c2\u00a0 We need to believe, and we can’t believe in someone in bed with our enemy, big business which has oppressed us, saying we need their products to play, to compete, when nothing could be further from the truth.<\/p>\n
There’s an underclass in America.\u00c2\u00a0 Fighting for recognition, fighting to get ahead.\u00c2\u00a0 Its playground is no longer Top Forty radio, not even underground FM, but the Internet.\u00c2\u00a0 I’d like to tell you I can foresee the future, but alas, all I can see is the possibilities.<\/p>\n
They say everybody sells out today.\u00c2\u00a0 That you can’t make it without the man.\u00c2\u00a0 I say no one is offering the customer an endorsement deal.\u00c2\u00a0 That your only hope of success is to get in bed with your customer.\u00c2\u00a0 This requires honesty, and excitement.\u00c2\u00a0 It requires you to be a role model.\u00c2\u00a0 Maybe of debauchery, but someone your audience can look up to nonetheless.<\/p>\n
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