People are buying "Soldier Of Love" because they’re planning on playing it.<\/p>\n
This is not Susan Boyle hysteria, a media-fed frenzy where people want to belong to a cult, to something, to feel human, to belong.<\/p>\n
It’s not even a holiday gift item.\u00c2\u00a0 Sure, "Soldier Of Love"’s release coincided with Valentine’s Day, but its sales have sustained. Because people want to hear the music.<\/p>\n
Judge it if you will.\u00c2\u00a0 Equate it with Grover Washington, Jr.’s "Winelight".\u00c2\u00a0 But what a concept, buying a complete album so you can spin the thing again and again.<\/p>\n
That paradigm hasn’t ruled since the seventies, before MTV triumphed and Top Forty on the FM band surged.\u00c2\u00a0 It became all about the hit.\u00c2\u00a0 Sade is not selling a hit, she’s selling a sound, an aural experience.\u00c2\u00a0 Not necessarily a concert experience, although some of her record-buying audience would surely want to see her live, but a lounging in the living room, a long drive enveloped by the sound listening experience.<\/p>\n
This is much harder to sell than a hit.<\/p>\n
You sell a hit by pounding it into people’s heads.\u00c2\u00a0 By publicizing not only the record, but the act’s visage.\u00c2\u00a0 You’ve got to get on the bandwagon, this is the latest and the greatest!<\/p>\n
But most people don’t want the latest and the greatest when it comes to music.\u00c2\u00a0 They want something that’s established, something that they’ve got a relationship with.\u00c2\u00a0 Isn’t it interesting that today’s "stars" have to start over with each successive record and the classic rock dinosaurs can tour to large audiences ad infinitum?<\/p>\n
Hell, go to the show.\u00c2\u00a0 At the classic show, you can remember your whole life.\u00c2\u00a0 At the show of the flavor of the moment…there’s only the moment.<\/p>\n
So, labels trump up a hit, and are then pissed when people don’t want to buy the whole album.\u00c2\u00a0 Why?\u00c2\u00a0 That’s like saying if I liked the pepper in the grocery store, I must buy the cookies and the toilet paper too.\u00c2\u00a0 One has almost nothing to do with the other.\u00c2\u00a0 A hit is inherently unique, sui generis.\u00c2\u00a0 Whereas an album is a continuous sound.\u00c2\u00a0 The hit is the orgasm, the album is the lovemaking. Orgasms are great, but if that’s all there is…<\/p>\n
Which is why if you’re in the business of hits, you should only release hits, you should possess no fantasy that anybody wants more than the hit.\u00c2\u00a0 And if you’re selling albums, you must be selling a listening experience.\u00c2\u00a0 And believe me, eighty minutes of your musings is usually more akin to torture than an enjoyable listening experience.<\/p>\n
You’ve got to stand for something.\u00c2\u00a0 You’ve got to be good.<\/p>\n
It amazes me not at all that Sade is selling.\u00c2\u00a0 Because she’s selling romance.\u00c2\u00a0 What is Britney Spears selling…train-wreck?<\/p>\n
There’s a constant blaming of the audience.\u00c2\u00a0 Whereas the purveyors must first look at themselves.\u00c2\u00a0 Both artists and labels.\u00c2\u00a0 They should ask themselves why people should buy their music.\u00c2\u00a0 What’s the old cliche, if you don’t stand for anything, you stand for nothing at all?<\/p>\n
If your live show is hit after hit, you’re reliant on more hits.\u00c2\u00a0 Or spectacle.\u00c2\u00a0 Like Madonna.\u00c2\u00a0 That’s not about music. And even U2 is no longer about music, otherwise they wouldn’t be utilizing that claw and playing to a hundred thousand.\u00c2\u00a0 That’s spectacle.\u00c2\u00a0 And evidence that U2 has lost the plot is how shitty their new album sold.\u00c2\u00a0 People don’t want to play "No Line On The Horizon" because they don’t think they need it, because they don’t think it’s any different from what came before.\u00c2\u00a0 Artists can take risks, like U2 did with "Achtung Baby", or else the audience just wants what came before.\u00c2\u00a0 Hell, give Coldplay props for working with Brian Eno…\u00c2\u00a0 At least they were TRYING something different!<\/p>\n
But, you tell me, Sade is no different!<\/p>\n
But she was never about hits.\u00c2\u00a0 U2 has become beholden to hits in the last ten years.\u00c2\u00a0 Whereas Sade is more like a posh resort, that you don’t want to change.\u00c2\u00a0 That you’d like to visit again and again.\u00c2\u00a0 And believe me, there’s more money in creating a fine destination than opening up another fast food outlet next to McDonald’s and Subway.\u00c2\u00a0 But that’s what the modern labels do… Create me-too product, expecting the public to lap it up.\u00c2\u00a0 But most people don’t think fast food is that great…it’s got its devotees, but most people pooh-pooh it, would rather save up for a fine restaurant or cook at home.\u00c2\u00a0 Just like most people would rather buy and listen to Sade than the complete opus of some nitwit like Ke$ha.\u00c2\u00a0 I mean how long can you use a hula-hoop?<\/p>\n
But Sade has been doing it for a long time.\u00c2\u00a0 Longer than many of today’s hyped artists have been alive.\u00c2\u00a0 Hell, she’s been at the label longer than most executives.\u00c2\u00a0 We want careers, we want people to follow, we want to invest our time.\u00c2\u00a0 But we don’t want to waste our time.\u00c2\u00a0 Which is why the music business is in such dire straits.\u00c2\u00a0 Tell me again why I should go to the local club to hear that lame act that has a desire to make it but plays mediocre, at best, music?<\/p>\n
Sade’s audience is enamored with her, not a track.\u00c2\u00a0 People have to believe in you.\u00c2\u00a0 You might have a hit with Max Martin or Timbaland, but no one thinks it’s about you, which is why if you’re lucky you can get a gig at 7-11 thereafter, or get into a good graduate school.<\/p>\n
Sade’s audience did not forget her.\u00c2\u00a0 Even though she had not only not been jammed down their throats, but seemed to have completely disappeared.\u00c2\u00a0 They were just dormant, like daffodils, waiting for spring.\u00c2\u00a0 This is the antithesis of the "what have you done for me lately" ethos.\u00c2\u00a0 The press talks about comebacks for acts that haven’t even been gone a year.\u00c2\u00a0 Pitchfork decries and derides the second album before most people have even digested the first.\u00c2\u00a0 As if life were about a moment instead of years.<\/p>\n
So it all comes down to the music.\u00c2\u00a0 Not the marketing, not the train-wreck.\u00c2\u00a0 Good music does sell itself.\u00c2\u00a0 And the litmus test is whether you want to play it.\u00c2\u00a0 If I want to hear your music again and again, you’re a winner.\u00c2\u00a0 If not, you’re a loser.\u00c2\u00a0 If I only want to hear your track, then you’re like the fruitcake at Christmas…a fixture on the oldies circuit if you’re lucky, mocked by most.<\/p>\n
So set about creating a sound.\u00c2\u00a0 And releasing no music before its time.\u00c2\u00a0 Unless, maybe like Lil Wayne, the sheer plethora of output is your calling card, people enjoy watching you woodshed.\u00c2\u00a0 And make no mistake, Lil’ Wayne is an artist with a lifespan, whose fans want to play all his music.\u00c2\u00a0 All that free music…it only worked if people listened to it.\u00c2\u00a0 And they did.<\/p>\n
Listening…\u00c2\u00a0 What a concept.<\/p>\n
Our business has come down solely to selling.\u00c2\u00a0 And that’s why it’s in the dumper.<\/p>\n
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People are buying "Soldier Of Love" because they’re planning on playing it. This is not Susan Boyle hysteria, a media-fed frenzy where people want to belong to a cult, to something, to feel human, to belong. It’s not even a holiday gift item.\u00c2\u00a0 Sure, "Soldier Of Love"’s release coincided with Valentine’s Day, but its sales […]<\/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-2711","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-music-business"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/s96vPs-sade","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/lefsetz.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2711","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=2711"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/lefsetz.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2711\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2712,"href":"https:\/\/lefsetz.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2711\/revisions\/2712"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/lefsetz.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2711"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lefsetz.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2711"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lefsetz.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2711"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}