I saw Lindsay Lohan dancing at a club.<\/p>\n
Well, actually, I wasn’t up close and personal, I saw a picture of her in a
MAGAZINE!\u00c2\u00a0 "People" to be exact.<\/p>\n
But it wasn’t only Lindsay.\u00c2\u00a0 There was Hilary Duff.\u00c2\u00a0 With that bozo from Good
Charlotte.\u00c2\u00a0 Seemingly everybody on MTV, all the celebutantes, they ain’t
going to the show, they’re going to the CLUB!<\/p>\n
Now when I was a youngster, the LAST thing we wanted to do was go to a disco.
Oh, we’d populate the bars.\u00c2\u00a0 Pour down a few beers, maybe a Flaming
Drambuie, and there’d be a jukebox, but it would play the hits of yore, and nobody
would dance.\u00c2\u00a0 And the clothes we were wearing?\u00c2\u00a0 Jeans.\u00c2\u00a0 And t-shirts.\u00c2\u00a0 Maybe a
sweater if we were in a cold clime.\u00c2\u00a0 It was about the hang, the bar was not the
CENTER of your universe but where you hung to connect after the fact, to do a
review.\u00c2\u00a0 Oh, not that there wasn’t some ogling of the opposite sex, and some
interaction…it’s just that we didn’t sit at home on Friday night thinking
that we were going to doll ourselves up, go to a venue and DANCE the night away.\u00c2\u00a0
That wasn’t what music was for anyway.\u00c2\u00a0 Music was SOUL FULFILLMENT!\u00c2\u00a0 Not
background, not grease lubricating the friction between bodies.<\/p>\n
If you’re not in the urban game, you’re not in the major label business.\u00c2\u00a0 The
major labels are big time, MAINSTREAM!\u00c2\u00a0 They don’t create the trends, they
follow them.\u00c2\u00a0 They assess the landscape and constantly adjust, to be able to
sell tonnage, to keep their shareholders happy.<\/p>\n
People will say it’s about hip-hop.\u00c2\u00a0 About what the acts are saying.\u00c2\u00a0 When
really, it’s just about the beat.\u00c2\u00a0 Kids today are slaves to the beat.<\/p>\n
Think about it.\u00c2\u00a0 When you were a kid your goal was EXCELLENCE!\u00c2\u00a0 You wanted to
rise above.\u00c2\u00a0 Today’s artists are just lucky commoners.\u00c2\u00a0 Who, after their
moment in the spotlight, return to the mob.\u00c2\u00a0 That mob, that’s where everybody
WANTS to be.\u00c2\u00a0 They want to be INCLUDED!\u00c2\u00a0 Who desires to stay home and cry to Cat Stevens when you can go out and CELEBRATE!<\/p>\n
Our whole culture has moved in that direction.\u00c2\u00a0 America is the land of GOOD
TIMES!\u00c2\u00a0 It’s not about intelligence, or quality, it’s about WEALTH!\u00c2\u00a0 And the
ability to use this wealth to enjoy a high level lifestyle.\u00c2\u00a0 These are the
OPPOSITE of the values of the baby boomers when they were young.<\/p>\n
The concert business.\u00c2\u00a0 It was an AFTERTHOUGHT!\u00c2\u00a0 It GREW OUT of the major
labels and radio.\u00c2\u00a0 And now these promoters expect labels and radio to save them
once again.\u00c2\u00a0 But it ain’t gonna happen.\u00c2\u00a0 Because the labels and radio have
gotten hip.\u00c2\u00a0 They’re not purveying a musical culture, they’re selling GOOD TIMES!\u00c2\u00a0
You don’t want to see today’s hit acts live.\u00c2\u00a0 That’s not even the point.\u00c2\u00a0
That’s not what the music REPRESENTS!\u00c2\u00a0 Oh, you’d like to touch a celebrity, maybe
even have sex with him, but you don’t BELIEVE in him.\u00c2\u00a0 Everybody’s seen
"Making The Band".\u00c2\u00a0 Been to awfulplasticsurgery.com.\u00c2\u00a0 They don’t believe these acts have any talent.\u00c2\u00a0 No, Jimmy Iovine and Dr. Dre have the talent.\u00c2\u00a0 The acts just
come and go.\u00c2\u00a0 There can be mania, but no WORSHIP!\u00c2\u00a0 Because the acts are empty.<\/p>\n
Not that the happy hour paradigm represents the complete youth culture.\u00c2\u00a0
There are kids who look nerdy.\u00c2\u00a0 Who are lonely.\u00c2\u00a0 Who don’t fit in.\u00c2\u00a0 THESE are the
true music fans.\u00c2\u00a0 And they support a plethora of acts.\u00c2\u00a0 Just not the acts the
big labels and radio are hyping.\u00c2\u00a0 That’s the ANTITHESIS of what they want.\u00c2\u00a0
For a moment there, the major labels and the public merged in the mainstream.\u00c2\u00a0
But there was a separation, especially in the nineties.\u00c2\u00a0 It’s not that MTV
stopped playing music, it’s that the outlet realized IT WASN’T ABOUT THE MUSIC!<\/p>\n
Just like the hit acts of the late sixties sounded NOTHING LIKE what was on
AM radio, what will survive tomorrow sounds nothing like what is being played
in clubs today.\u00c2\u00a0 Not that those with the dollars want to believe this, because
it’s a building process, return is YEARS down the line.\u00c2\u00a0 And these
corporations need their money NOW!\u00c2\u00a0 So, they go for the acts that do well in the clubs.<\/p>\n
The major labels say they’re the curators.\u00c2\u00a0 That without them, music will
DIE!\u00c2\u00a0 Just like George Bush and his administration were exposed, in a handful of
years the fatuousness of the major label position will be revealed.\u00c2\u00a0 The
labels aren’t protecting music, aren’t interested in artists’ rights, they’re only
interested in their own survival.<\/p>\n
Real musicians.\u00c2\u00a0 Almost none of them make club friendly music.\u00c2\u00a0 They refuse
to bend to the corporate paradigm.\u00c2\u00a0 Look at who sells out Bonnaroo, the most
successful show in the land, it’s not the Top Ten artists.<\/p>\n
So, broaden your vision.\u00c2\u00a0 If you want to play the big money game, so be it.\u00c2\u00a0
Sharpen your knife, spend your marketing money, pay middlemen to get airplay
on radio and in clubs, PUSH for that turntable hit.\u00c2\u00a0 That’s what you’re doing,
selling records, right?<\/p>\n
No, you were selling a better way of life.\u00c2\u00a0 Truth.\u00c2\u00a0 Guidance.<\/p>\n
That’s all gone.\u00c2\u00a0 Those elements were NEVER present in the club.<\/p>\n
And no legitimate artist is in the club either.\u00c2\u00a0 Because, hate to tell you,
most artists are shy, introverted, in public they’re speechless, flummoxed.\u00c2\u00a0
They’re all emotion, not words.\u00c2\u00a0 True artists are LOSERS in clubs.\u00c2\u00a0 That’s why
you see the faux players like Lindsay and Hilary and Justin and Jessica
and…in the club.\u00c2\u00a0 Because that’s what they do best.\u00c2\u00a0 Show up for their photo-op.<\/p>\n
<\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
I saw Lindsay Lohan dancing at a club. Well, actually, I wasn’t up close and personal, I saw a picture of her in a MAGAZINE!\u00c2\u00a0 "People" to be exact. But it wasn’t only Lindsay.\u00c2\u00a0 There was Hilary Duff.\u00c2\u00a0 With that bozo from Good Charlotte.\u00c2\u00a0 Seemingly everybody on MTV, all the celebutantes, they ain’t going to […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","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-161","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-music-business"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p96vPs-2B","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/lefsetz.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/161","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\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lefsetz.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=161"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/lefsetz.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/161\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/lefsetz.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=161"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lefsetz.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=161"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lefsetz.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=161"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}