Did the Beatles plan on dominating the world?<\/p>\n
No, they just wanted to escape a life of drudgery in Liverpool.<\/p>\n
But their music became a mania.\u00c2\u00a0 Suddenly, not only were they rich and famous, they had innumerable groupies beckoning.<\/p>\n
Like Tiger Woods.<\/p>\n
When the Beatles hit, even into the heyday of Led Zeppelin in the seventies, if you wanted to get rich, you were a rock star. Baseball’s reserve clause had not yet been broken.\u00c2\u00a0 The NBA did not yet have Magic and Bird, never mind Michael Jordan, it was almost a sideshow.\u00c2\u00a0 As for golf…\u00c2\u00a0 Arnie Palmer was a swinger, but he was more about endorsements than lifestyle, and at the time, nobody wanted to be icy, pudgy Jack Nicklaus.<\/p>\n
No, you wanted to be like the English cats.\u00c2\u00a0 Or the players from San Francisco.\u00c2\u00a0 Who’d practiced for years so they could now get up at noon, do drugs and get laid seemingly whenever they wanted.<\/p>\n
It all came down to the music.\u00c2\u00a0 Jimmy Page didn’t pick up the guitar with a desire to be famous.\u00c2\u00a0 No, music was a calling.\u00c2\u00a0 And after seeing the Beatles on "Ed Sullivan", boomers picked up instruments, took lessons.\u00c2\u00a0 They did not get plastic surgery to appear beautiful, take media training so they could expose themselves well.\u00c2\u00a0 It was all about the tunes.<\/p>\n
It hasn’t been about the tunes in eons.<\/p>\n
Sure, there were starmakers all the way back to the days of Colonel Tom Parker and Elvis.\u00c2\u00a0 But what drew us to the stars of the classic rock era was the seeming lack of manipulation.\u00c2\u00a0 Playing by no rules, creating opuses sometimes an album side long, these musicians put the music first.\u00c2\u00a0 Unlike athletes shilling for Aqua Velva.<\/p>\n
Things turned bad with corporate rock in the midseventies.\u00c2\u00a0 Too calculated, it was supplanted by disco and then in late ’79, the whole business imploded, only to be resurrected by MTV, which evidenced completely different values from the FM radio that preceded it.\u00c2\u00a0 Suddenly it was all about image.<\/p>\n
And now MTV might be dead, but conventional wisdom is image triumphs.\u00c2\u00a0 That’s what TV wants.\u00c2\u00a0 That’s what the magazines want. That’s what TMZ and Perez want.\u00c2\u00a0 Radio was something you listened to.\u00c2\u00a0 All the foregoing media enter through your eyes.<\/p>\n
So right now, Mariah Carey might be parading around Aspen, but she’s not staying there based on her new album’s sales, they stink, she’s living off the past.\u00c2\u00a0 Even Alicia Keys.\u00c2\u00a0 All these heavily-hyped artists, the Cliveisms, they’re built for stardom, but today stardom doesn’t permeate every nook and cranny, and so many are turned off by the hype, and music sales suck.\u00c2\u00a0 And seemingly the more popular you are on the hit parade, the fewer people want to see you live.\u00c2\u00a0 Dave Matthews hasn’t had a radio hit in eons, but he was the biggest tour grosser of the decade.<\/p>\n
But, of course, Dave Matthews has been around for fifteen years, he was the beneficiary of the old game.\u00c2\u00a0 What about new artists?<\/p>\n
What about new artists?<\/p>\n
If you want to be a "rock star", be an athlete.\u00c2\u00a0 Or a tech entrepreneur.\u00c2\u00a0 That’s where the money is.\u00c2\u00a0 And groupies like money.<\/p>\n
If you want to be a musician, you must flush image down the toilet, be three-dimensional, write from the heart and make yourself accessible to fans.<\/p>\n
Yes, today’s musicians are the opposite of the titans of yore.\u00c2\u00a0 As opposed to being crafted with no edges, sculpted to perfection like Janet Jackson, who also can’t sell a record, they’re lumpy, with warts, they’re completely human.\u00c2\u00a0 And they write about their humanity.\u00c2\u00a0 And they make themselves available on Twitter and other social media.<\/p>\n
I’m not talking marketing.\u00c2\u00a0 This isn’t so much about selling as a redefinition of what a musician is.\u00c2\u00a0 Sure, first and foremost you play music.\u00c2\u00a0 But how do you get an audience?<\/p>\n
How do you get friends? Real friends?<\/p>\n
It’s very difficult staying alone in your room, not interacting online.\u00c2\u00a0 If you want to be part of the community you must venture out, whether it be into the real world or cyberspace.\u00c2\u00a0 You must make yourself available.\u00c2\u00a0 You must be ingratiating.\u00c2\u00a0 You\u00c2\u00a0 must be open and willing to share.<\/p>\n
Who does it right?<\/p>\n
Taylor Swift.\u00c2\u00a0 Her songs couldn’t be more personal.\u00c2\u00a0 They’re not bland statements denuded to the point where they can be sung by and related to by everybody, rather they’re distinctly her.<\/p>\n
John Mayer tweets his personality.\u00c2\u00a0 Go to http:\/\/twitter.com\/jOhnCmAYer<\/a> and read, you’ll end up thinking you truly know him. Furthermore, on his blog he stood up for James Cameron, who called a fan an asshole <\/p>\n\n