{"id":1559,"date":"2009-01-08T12:01:49","date_gmt":"2009-01-08T20:01:49","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/lefsetz.com\/wordpress\/?p=1559"},"modified":"2009-01-08T12:01:49","modified_gmt":"2009-01-08T20:01:49","slug":"how-do-you-know-when-youve-made-it","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/lefsetz.com\/wordpress\/2009\/01\/08\/how-do-you-know-when-youve-made-it\/","title":{"rendered":"How Do You Know When You’ve Made It?"},"content":{"rendered":"

Now my record’s up to number three<\/span>
And a woman recognized me and started to scream<\/span>
This all seems like a crazy dream<\/span>
I’ve been invited to a dinner with a prominent queen<\/span><\/p>\n

"Top Of The Pops"
The Kinks<\/p>\n

Despite being absent from the core duo of the Beatles and the Stones, you’d be hard pressed to find a baby boomer who doesn’t know the Kinks’ string of hits. Everything from "You Really Got Me" to "A Well Respected Man" to "Tired Of Waiting For You".\u00c2\u00a0 Many people probably even know "Set Me Free", which made it to number 23 in 1965, never mind lower charting numbers like "Dedicated Follower Of Fashion".\u00c2\u00a0 You see Top Forty radio was the tribal drum.\u00c2\u00a0 You were on a first name basis with the deejays.\u00c2\u00a0 You listened to the countdown on Tuesday night.\u00c2\u00a0 You discussed bands with your friends and played 45s at sock-hops, Bar Mitzvah parties and Sweet Sixteens.<\/p>\n

The number one record this week is by Lady GaGa.\u00c2\u00a0 Do you know the title?\u00c2\u00a0 Rather than embarrass you, I’ll tell you, it’s "Just Dance".\u00c2\u00a0 Now you’re in the know, most people aren’t.\u00c2\u00a0 Because radio is no longer the tribal drum.\u00c2\u00a0 Make it to number one and you can tell your parents, your label and management team will be thrilled, but there’s a good chance you can go to the supermarket unnoticed.\u00c2\u00a0 You won’t need a bodyguard.\u00c2\u00a0 And if you’ve given up your day job, it might not be for long.<\/p>\n

Your agent won’t be unhappy that you made it to number one, but he won’t be jumping up and down.\u00c2\u00a0 Because in this century there’s been a growing divergence between what gets airplay and what sells tickets.\u00c2\u00a0 Those people who do listen to the radio, who do know the Top Forty tracks, don’t think just because you’ve got a hit you’re a career artist, that you’ve got anything else worth listening to.\u00c2\u00a0 They probably think you’re just a face for a producer.\u00c2\u00a0 And music isn’t so much about saving souls as providing grease to work out and socialize.\u00c2\u00a0 It’s kind of like deodorant.\u00c2\u00a0 You need it, but it’s not the main event.<\/p>\n

As for the tours themselves, Madonna whored herself out to every press outlet that would pay attention, but unless you went to the show, you probably didn’t care, the hype bounced right off of you.\u00c2\u00a0 Sure, you might have been interested in the Alex Rodriguez angle, or even her divorce, but that’s got little to do with the music.\u00c2\u00a0 Which most people didn’t want, despite her hooking up with supposed star Justin Timberlake and uber-producer Timbaland.<\/p>\n

Yes, Justin Timberlake is a star.\u00c2\u00a0 But he’s not as big as he was in N’Sync.\u00c2\u00a0 Irrelevant of the quality of his music, he’s absent the exposure he used to get on MTV.\u00c2\u00a0 Hell, MTV is laying off workers, viewership is in the toilet, they’ve just commissioned umpteen reality shows to try and save their bottom line.<\/p>\n

Bon Jovi was the number three tourer.\u00c2\u00a0 But his country album stalled.\u00c2\u00a0 And Celine Dion and the Eagles are in the Top Ten, but these are all old acts, who made it by the old rules.\u00c2\u00a0 Where you worked hard to get signed, the label broke you through and everyone reaped the riches.\u00c2\u00a0 Now, there are barely any riches to go around.\u00c2\u00a0 Kid Rock sold in excess of ten million copies of his breakthrough album "Devil Without A Cause".\u00c2\u00a0 His recent smash "Rock N Roll Jesus" was the fourth largest selling album of the year, and it moved two million copies in 2008.<\/p>\n

But at least people already knew who Kid Rock was.\u00c2\u00a0 How about new and developing acts?<\/p>\n

Supposed best record of the year?\u00c2\u00a0 TV On The Radio.\u00c2\u00a0 Find people who’ve heard of the act, never mind heard the record.<\/p>\n

Used to be when you made Top Ten you were a ubiquitous star, famous throughout the land, and rich too.\u00c2\u00a0 Now if you’re Top Ten I hope you’re self-satisfied, because it just doesn’t mean that much.<\/p>\n

It’s not only in music.\u00c2\u00a0 Network TV shows have been declining in ratings for years.\u00c2\u00a0 To the point where NBC is going to place proven Jay Leno in prime time every night of the week.\u00c2\u00a0 Movies?\u00c2\u00a0 Despite the media hype, not everyone saw "Dark Knight", not everyone cares.\u00c2\u00a0 And there was that great story about how today’s hits have fewer admissions than yesterday’s forgettable pictures.<\/p>\n

We’ve got a whole business built upon success, but what is success?<\/p>\n

We revere the dollar, but today we hate the people who’ve got money, the Wall Street bankers who threw our nation, the entire world, into crisis.\u00c2\u00a0 Oh, they made tons of cash, and have got a lot of it left, but they garner no respect.<\/p>\n

Fame?\u00c2\u00a0 Anybody can be famous.\u00c2\u00a0 TMZ and PerezHilton have proven this.\u00c2\u00a0 It’s all grist for the mill.\u00c2\u00a0 No one believes Paris Hilton has any talent.\u00c2\u00a0 Certainly not Nicole Richie.\u00c2\u00a0 We might know who they are, but they’re cartoon characters providing entertainment, they’ve got no crunchy center, they’re hollow.<\/p>\n

Quality?\u00c2\u00a0 Who defines it?\u00c2\u00a0 So you win a Grammy…\u00c2\u00a0 Can you remember who won last year?\u00c2\u00a0 There are a zillion categories and everyone believes the voting is biased.\u00c2\u00a0 Awards are a quantification that most people scan and then discard.\u00c2\u00a0 It’s not how they feel.\u00c2\u00a0 To the degree they even care.\u00c2\u00a0 And it’s not much better for the Academy Awards, don’t fool yourself, ratings for that show have been tanking and you can’t remember who won Oscars either.<\/p>\n

So today you just can’t reach that one rung on the ladder that indicates you’ve made it.\u00c2\u00a0 You can reach a high point, but chances are very few are paying attention.\u00c2\u00a0 Your life won’t suddenly work when you’ve achieved what used to be a milestone.\u00c2\u00a0 So the focus has got to change.\u00c2\u00a0 You have to decide when you’ve made it.\u00c2\u00a0 The outside world doesn’t really get a vote.<\/p>\n

Can you give up your day job?<\/p>\n

Can you go on the road and find an audience that wants to see you?<\/p>\n

Can you make money touring?<\/p>\n

Can you call your own shots, writing and performing the music you like, and still pay your bills?<\/p>\n

We keep looking for stars.\u00c2\u00a0 We keep looking to quantify and define success.\u00c2\u00a0 But the standards the industry is using no longer apply, because the numbers are low and most of the public is not paying attention.\u00c2\u00a0 Instead of a funnel that winnows the available acts down to a few, that everyone pays attention to, we’ve got a garden hose, that is constantly spewing entertainment, and is overwhelming most people to the point where they no longer pay attention.<\/p>\n

Don’t look for outside validation.\u00c2\u00a0 Today everything’s personal.\u00c2\u00a0 Doesn’t matter what the magazine says, most people aren’t reading it.\u00c2\u00a0 Movie reviews no longer matter, bad flicks do boffo at the b.o., like "Marley & Me".\u00c2\u00a0 You’re fighting to get ahead, to break through, and no one’s paying attention and there’s no coronation when you reach the supposed milestone.\u00c2\u00a0 You’re no longer a star, you’re a musician.\u00c2\u00a0 And that requires practice and innovation and delivering every night.\u00c2\u00a0 Sure, you’ll get paid.\u00c2\u00a0 But not as much as most baseball players.\u00c2\u00a0 It’s a calling.\u00c2\u00a0 And a rough road.\u00c2\u00a0 The reward is the music itself.\u00c2\u00a0 You’d better enjoy playing, because the trappings are less than they used to be, and in most cases they’re just not enough.<\/p>\n

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Now my record’s up to number threeAnd a woman recognized me and started to screamThis all seems like a crazy dreamI’ve been invited to a dinner with a prominent queen "Top Of The Pops"The Kinks Despite being absent from the core duo of the Beatles and the Stones, you’d be hard pressed to find a […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[2],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1559","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-music-business"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p96vPs-p9","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/lefsetz.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1559","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/lefsetz.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/lefsetz.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lefsetz.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lefsetz.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1559"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/lefsetz.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1559\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1560,"href":"https:\/\/lefsetz.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1559\/revisions\/1560"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/lefsetz.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1559"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lefsetz.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1559"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lefsetz.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1559"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}