{"id":1571,"date":"2009-01-10T08:22:15","date_gmt":"2009-01-10T16:22:15","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/lefsetz.com\/wordpress\/?p=1571"},"modified":"2009-01-10T08:22:15","modified_gmt":"2009-01-10T16:22:15","slug":"you-gotta-problem","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/lefsetz.com\/wordpress\/2009\/01\/10\/you-gotta-problem\/","title":{"rendered":"You Gotta Problem"},"content":{"rendered":"

But there’s a big fat point<\/span>
That you seem to be missing<\/span>
And it’s driving you to distraction<\/span>
That doesn’t seem<\/span>
To stop you in the least<\/span>
Or halt this obsession <\/span>
That’s got you goin’ back<\/span>
Week after week<\/span>
Day after day<\/span>
Hour after hour<\/span>
From where you came<\/span>
For more of the same<\/span><\/p>\n

I got Amazon credit for using their service.\u00c2\u00a0 Not to buy music, but electronic gifts.\u00c2\u00a0 I ended up with $8.00 worth of MP3s. They expire on 1\/31, so I decided to redeem them.\u00c2\u00a0 They were supposed to be free, so why did Amazon ask for my credit card?\u00c2\u00a0 I e-mailed the service, the response that came back is just as vague as the original e-mail gifting this credit to me.\u00c2\u00a0 You mean I’m supposed to say I’m paying, but then when I go to check out you’re going to tell me it’s all been a mistake and not charge me?\u00c2\u00a0 So I can end up getting charged and have an incomprehensible conversation with someone named "David" in Bangalore?<\/p>\n

No thanks.<\/p>\n

But I still wanted that one track.\u00c2\u00a0 The one I’d searched for for almost a decade, that was completely unavailable.\u00c2\u00a0 It was unstealable.\u00c2\u00a0 And unbuyable.\u00c2\u00a0 It was too obscure.<\/p>\n

But not in my mind.<\/p>\n

In the seventies, KROQ was a free format station, playing Deaf School, whatever the deejays fancied.\u00c2\u00a0 Then the late Rick Carroll took over and formatted it into the "Roq of the 80’s".\u00c2\u00a0 It was Top Forty.\u00c2\u00a0 Just bizarre, scatological and English hip.\u00c2\u00a0 KROQ put KMET out of business going on "Tainted Love" and "Don’t You Want Me", tracks the station down the dial wouldn’t dare play next to Molly Hatchet and Boston.\u00c2\u00a0 But it wasn’t only the big hits, not even only the English hits like Depeche Mode’s "Just Can’t Get Enough", there were tracks that only KROQ played, that were hits if you listened to the station and were unknown if you lived out of town or didn’t turn the dial all the way to 106.7.\u00c2\u00a0 Like Toni Basil’s "You Gotta Problem".\u00c2\u00a0 I haven’t heard it in eons.\u00c2\u00a0 But it’s in my DNA.\u00c2\u00a0 I wanted to hear it again.\u00c2\u00a0 I was going to "buy" it from Amazon.\u00c2\u00a0 Now, no way.\u00c2\u00a0 I was frustrated.<\/p>\n

Actually, the real name is not "You Gotta Problem".\u00c2\u00a0 That’s what Toni Basil labeled her cover.\u00c2\u00a0 The original is entitled "Pity You".\u00c2\u00a0 It’s by Devo.<\/p>\n

The Akron band peaked with "Whip It".\u00c2\u00a0 How do you follow up a novelty hit that becomes a cultural institution, an MTV staple?<\/p>\n

You can’t.\u00c2\u00a0 "New Traditionalists" tanked.\u00c2\u00a0 You might hear "Beautiful World" in commercials thirty years later, but it didn’t get airplay back then.\u00c2\u00a0 Nor did the truly classic "Love Without Anger".\u00c2\u00a0 And "Pity You".\u00c2\u00a0 "New Traditionalists" is uneven, but when it peaks, it TRANSCENDS!<\/p>\n

I didn’t even know "You Gotta Problem" was a Devo number.\u00c2\u00a0 But when I found out, I bought "New Traditionalists".\u00c2\u00a0 I love it.\u00c2\u00a0 Stole every MP3 early in my P2P career.\u00c2\u00a0 But I still could not find Toni Basil’s cover.\u00c2\u00a0 Which I remembered as being even more dynamic, even more explosive.<\/p>\n

It’s not.\u00c2\u00a0 I now know.\u00c2\u00a0 Because having abandoned Amazon, I was inspired to fire up my Sonos system, to search Rhapsody.\u00c2\u00a0 If Amazon was selling it, then it was available to stream, right?<\/p>\n

Actually, not everything is.\u00c2\u00a0 I wanted to listen to Simon & Garfunkel the other day and found their albums absent from Rhapsody (they are on Napster.)\u00c2\u00a0 Is Paul Simon that out of it?\u00c2\u00a0 Has Rob Glaser’s company run out of money to license?\u00c2\u00a0 But most is.\u00c2\u00a0 Like Toni Basil’s "You Gotta Problem".<\/p>\n

Sonos with Napster\/Rhapsody is like the original Napster.\u00c2\u00a0 Once you’ve got it, you realize how great it is.\u00c2\u00a0 And what makes it so great is the iPhone\/iPod Touch integration.\u00c2\u00a0 It makes the whole thing workable.\u00c2\u00a0 You get an inspiration to hear something, and then, almost instantly, YOU DO!\u00c2\u00a0 I’ve got the system hooked up in every room in my house, it’s like living in my own club, the sound envelops my whole domain.<\/p>\n

You can’t take it with you.\u00c2\u00a0 Not easily, the hand-held Rhapsody player sucks.\u00c2\u00a0 But if you’re home, you’re in heaven. You no longer need to own the track.\u00c2\u00a0 Why spend the time searching, why spend the money?<\/p>\n

America was a nation of renters, then the movie industry taught them to buy.\u00c2\u00a0 That’s what happened in the DVD world. Can’t the opposite happen in the music world?\u00c2\u00a0 Can’t everybody become a renter?<\/p>\n

Truth is, they will.\u00c2\u00a0 If you came to my house right now, I could sell you Sonos with streaming, straight from the pipe, no computer required, instantly.\u00c2\u00a0 Maybe that’s what I should do.\u00c2\u00a0 Stock up with equipment, make money marking it up and selling it to you.\u00c2\u00a0 It’s just that fucking good.\u00c2\u00a0 So good, that this is where we’re going to end up.\u00c2\u00a0 Probably when Apple sells a subscription service, tethered to the iPhone.\u00c2\u00a0 It’s just a matter of when.<\/p>\n

But it’s not now.<\/p>\n

But it will be.<\/p>\n

So lower the price of downloads.\u00c2\u00a0 Almost give them away.\u00c2\u00a0 License P2P.\u00c2\u00a0 Because in the not far distant future, no one will bother owning anything.\u00c2\u00a0 It won’t be worth the effort.<\/p>\n

<\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

But there’s a big fat pointThat you seem to be missingAnd it’s driving you to distractionThat doesn’t seemTo stop you in the leastOr halt this obsession That’s got you goin’ backWeek after weekDay after dayHour after hourFrom where you cameFor more of the same I got Amazon credit for using their service.\u00c2\u00a0 Not to buy […]<\/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":[4,7,8,6],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1571","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-apple","category-radio","category-technology","category-the-music"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p96vPs-pl","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/lefsetz.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1571","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=1571"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/lefsetz.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1571\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1572,"href":"https:\/\/lefsetz.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1571\/revisions\/1572"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/lefsetz.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1571"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lefsetz.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1571"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lefsetz.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1571"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}