I’m trying to decide why music is so irrelevant.<\/p>\n
In "Outliers", Malcolm Gladwell talks about timing being a key element of success.\u00c2\u00a0 It wasn’t enough to be a Jewish lawyer in Manhattan, Joseph Flom was successful because his practice coincided with the phenomenon of hostile takeovers.<\/p>\n
I’ll give you a personal example.\u00c2\u00a0 My father owned a liquor store, but fashioned himself a commercial realtor, an owner and developer of properties.\u00c2\u00a0 Only one problem, it’s hard to be a real estate mogul when you’ve got no money.\u00c2\u00a0 That’s why he opened a liquor store, to support his mother whose husband had died and left all his money to his first family in Pittsburgh.\u00c2\u00a0 But suddenly, in the mid-sixties, my father got a call from his friend Maurice Magilnick, an attorney in Bridgeport.\u00c2\u00a0 Maury told my father that no one knew more about local real estate than he did, and the government was about to do a ton of redevelopment in Southern Connecticut and if my dad became a licensed appraiser, Maury would hire him on his eminent domain cases.\u00c2\u00a0 My dad went to a summer program at the University of Connecticut.\u00c2\u00a0 A winter program at the University of Chicago.\u00c2\u00a0 And finally got his license.\u00c2\u00a0 And then ended up costing the State of Connecticut so much money that I overheard one attorney general say they’d have been better off paying my dad a million dollars to go away.<\/p>\n
Actually, it’s the lawyer who makes all the money in an eminent domain case.\u00c2\u00a0 One third of the increase beyond the state’s offer.\u00c2\u00a0 My father made attorneys so much money that even the white shoe firms, the anti-semitic firms, hired him.\u00c2\u00a0 They wanted in on the cash.\u00c2\u00a0 Under law, my father could only charge a flat fee, but he ended up doing quite well, making the income of a doctor or lawyer himself.<\/p>\n
But it wasn’t only my dad who benefited from timing.\u00c2\u00a0 I realize I did too.\u00c2\u00a0 I was issuing a printed newsletter by subscription every two weeks.\u00c2\u00a0 Made possible by the desktop publishing revolution, there was still tons of non-writing effort involved, and printing and mailing costs were high.\u00c2\u00a0 And reaching potential subscribers was difficult. But then came the Internet, and I could reach people all over the world for free.<\/p>\n
My father was brilliant.\u00c2\u00a0 He spent 10,000 hours checking out Southern Connecticut real estate.\u00c2\u00a0 But he only became successful because he lived through the sixties, when redevelopment burgeoned.\u00c2\u00a0 If he had been born thirty years earlier, he would have worked in his liquor store until he died.\u00c2\u00a0 Not quite penniless, but close.<\/p>\n
Maybe rock and roll owes its genesis to the baby boomers.\u00c2\u00a0 A generation that questioned authority, that saw no reason to do it the way their parents had done.\u00c2\u00a0 People say that the Beatles exploded because the country needed some optimism after the assassination of President Kennedy.\u00c2\u00a0 Hogwash, I was there.\u00c2\u00a0 The Beatles were not only talented, they were fresh.\u00c2\u00a0 Cheeky in a way the Four Seasons and Beach Boys were not.\u00c2\u00a0 They were not regular entertainment.\u00c2\u00a0 And although you could eventually see John, Paul, George and Ringo on "Ed Sullivan", you could hear them hour after hour on your transistor radio.<\/p>\n
Yes, I believe that’s the key to the music explosion of the sixties, cheap, Japanese transistor radios.\u00c2\u00a0 Every kid wanted one, and eventually got one, just like kids today pray for and get wiis.\u00c2\u00a0 First you listened to the baseball game, falling asleep with the radio on your dresser, or under your pillow.\u00c2\u00a0 But they didn’t play sports 24\/7, eventually you graduated to music.\u00c2\u00a0 Especially after the Beatles hit.<\/p>\n
You did your homework with the transistor on.\u00c2\u00a0 You rode your bike with your transistor dangling from the handlebars.\u00c2\u00a0 It was your music.\u00c2\u00a0 This was not your parents’ era, where the family had to sit in front\u00c2\u00a0 of a piece of furniture and agree on programming.\u00c2\u00a0 This was yours.<\/p>\n
And then the FCC said the same signal could not be broadcast on both the AM and FM bands.\u00c2\u00a0 Thus we saw the burgeoning of acts from Hendrix to Cream to the Doors.\u00c2\u00a0 FM allowed you to expand.\u00c2\u00a0 There were few commercials, no one wanted to buy time.\u00c2\u00a0 Not at first!<\/p>\n
Furthermore, you had to listen to the radio to hear the music.\u00c2\u00a0 No one could afford to own everything.\u00c2\u00a0 Music was scarce.\u00c2\u00a0 Radio stations became ever more powerful.\u00c2\u00a0 Not only breaking bands, but telling you about concerts. Everybody knew if an act was in town, they heard it on the radio!\u00c2\u00a0 You couldn’t even get a ticket, everybody wanted to go.\u00c2\u00a0 You had to line up hours before tickets went on sale, just to get in the building.<\/p>\n
Eventually corporate rock killed the golden goose.\u00c2\u00a0 Disco reigned.\u00c2\u00a0 And then after complete decimation, MTV reared its head and another golden era appeared.\u00c2\u00a0 With a ton of money for purveyors.\u00c2\u00a0 Not only was television the best exposure medium extant, you had to buy the album on an overpriced CD.<\/p>\n
Then came the boy bands.\u00c2\u00a0 Kids of the baby boomers got the mania.\u00c2\u00a0 Furthermore, the Backstreet Boys were good.\u00c2\u00a0 You may have hated them, clinging to your classic rock, but they had a lot of what the Beatles contained, great voices, very good songs, the only problem being that the material was meaningless, the whole effort was a concoction.\u00c2\u00a0 Eventually, as a result of this, the phenomenon died.<\/p>\n
Oh, Justin Timberlake continued to record.\u00c2\u00a0 As did Britney Spears.\u00c2\u00a0 But instead of recording a smash like "I Want It That Way" or "…Baby One More Time", Justin and Britney went rhythmic.\u00c2\u00a0 They followed the mainstream.\u00c2\u00a0 The excitement was gone.<\/p>\n
And now as a result of the Internet, we’ve got a zillion acts.\u00c2\u00a0 All searching for one thing, fame.\u00c2\u00a0 Well, money too. They all want to make it.\u00c2\u00a0 They’re not escaping poverty and drudgery like the British Invasion acts, rather they’re on a lark, before they go to law school, before they go to work on Wall Street.\u00c2\u00a0 They don’t NEED to make it, they’re just taking a flier.<\/p>\n
And radio was turned into a cash cow, with so many commercials and such bland programming that it was no longer the heartbeat of a nation.\u00c2\u00a0 The labels tried to hold on to the paradigm of scarcity, by killing Napster, but as a result fans just went on to other, more interesting media.\u00c2\u00a0 Like video games.\u00c2\u00a0 Or social networking sites.\u00c2\u00a0 People were looking for that hit, of daring excitement.\u00c2\u00a0 Which certainly wasn’t in music.\u00c2\u00a0 And still isn’t.<\/p>\n
You work in this business, you’re passionate about music.\u00c2\u00a0 But music is far down the line in the public’s consciousness.\u00c2\u00a0 Sports, television, movies, they trump music.\u00c2\u00a0 Cable saved TV.\u00c2\u00a0 Maybe Napster could have saved music, then again, cable is a finite universe, with a limited number of channels.<\/p>\n
As for the concert business…\u00c2\u00a0 It’s like Broadway.\u00c2\u00a0 Overpriced spectaculars.\u00c2\u00a0 As for developing acts, bars don’t feature live music the way they once did.\u00c2\u00a0 There’s very little upward mobility.\u00c2\u00a0 Just classic acts and train-wrecks. Music’s power built concert promotion.\u00c2\u00a0 Now it’s the reverse, Live Nation is just trying to make its numbers look good for Wall Street, the institution has trumped the musicians.\u00c2\u00a0 Just like the head of the label became more important than the act.<\/p>\n
Can we ever return to the sixties and early seventies again?\u00c2\u00a0 Doubtful.\u00c2\u00a0 But we’ve got to realize fighting the future is futile.\u00c2\u00a0 It’s the little changes that make the huge difference.\u00c2\u00a0 Songs at a buck apiece help neither labels nor the scene.\u00c2\u00a0 In order to grow new acts, their music must be easily acquired, cheaply.<\/p>\n
But what are these acts going to say?\u00c2\u00a0 Give me an endorsement deal?\u00c2\u00a0 Who am I going to whore myself out to? We loved John Lennon because he was beholden to no one.\u00c2\u00a0 The acts today are in cahoots with the corporations we despise.\u00c2\u00a0 Bruce Springsteen does the Super Bowl for the exposure.\u00c2\u00a0 As if we were all in it together.\u00c2\u00a0 In the sixties we weren’t one big happy family.\u00c2\u00a0 It was us and them.\u00c2\u00a0 And we had the music.<\/p>\n
Sure, it’s always been about the money.\u00c2\u00a0 But the money wasn’t everything.\u00c2\u00a0 Now it is.\u00c2\u00a0 And the public knows it.<\/p>\n
So right now there’s a music business, but it’s a sideshow.\u00c2\u00a0 It’s not vital like "Slumdog Millionaire", the deals are more exciting than the tunes.\u00c2\u00a0 To ask a country to be excited about the musical effort of Axl Rose this far down the line is like trying to fill a stadium by reuniting Joe Montana and Jerry Rice to play against the Giants in the Super Bowl.\u00c2\u00a0 And isn’t it interesting that the Giants feature the wrong Manning.\u00c2\u00a0 Not the one the press loves, but the working man.\u00c2\u00a0 Our heroes used to be ignored by the mainstream.\u00c2\u00a0 Now the first thing the label wants is to sell out to the man.<\/p>\n
I can’t predict the future.\u00c2\u00a0 But one thing’s for sure, the usual suspects doing it the usual way is never going to bring music back to prominence.\u00c2\u00a0 I fault Doug Morris and Jimmy Iovine as well as the acts.\u00c2\u00a0 As for AC\/DC’s sales…\u00c2\u00a0 Most of the public could care less.\u00c2\u00a0 If they want to hear that sound, they’ll go back to the thirty year old "Back In Black".<\/p>\n
Where is the new "Back In Black"?\u00c2\u00a0 Something left field, that you thought you didn’t like, that blows you away? Music is no longer the only way out of your hometown.\u00c2\u00a0 It’s not the only way to get rich, not the only way to see the world.\u00c2\u00a0 Sure, music’s been around forever, but it blew up because it was the sound of a generation, that not only loved its honesty and experimentation, but had very few entertainment choices.<\/p>\n
In order for music to triumph again it must be BETTER than the alternatives.\u00c2\u00a0 It must demand attention the same way Alice Cooper did.\u00c2\u00a0 It must test limits, be beholden to no one.\u00c2\u00a0 And then, just maybe, a technological or societal revolution will transpire and bring it back to prominence.<\/p>\n
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