And Letterman’s too.\u00c2\u00a0 Didn’t they get the memo, that today you want to be the MANAGER?<\/p>\n
If running a record label were so damn good, would Jimmy Iovine be selling Beats headphones and trying to save sound with HP?<\/p>\n
Are these celebs truly that out of touch?<\/p>\n
America’s not that unsophisticated.\u00c2\u00a0 Hell, just look at the sales chart.\u00c2\u00a0 Stone Temple Pilots are predicted to move 60,000 copies of their new album next week, if they’re lucky, they may hit 70,000!\u00c2\u00a0 Isn’t that like raving you’re the king of the minor leagues?\u00c2\u00a0 That you’re the best BMX rider in a world focused on the NFL and Major League Baseball?<\/p>\n
You just can’t make it as a label anymore.<\/p>\n
And maybe if you’ve got a ton of money, you can shove your protege in front of the cameras.\u00c2\u00a0 But who’s going to buy?<\/p>\n
Sure, there’s a pinnacle, a GaGaville where people click through for digital singles.\u00c2\u00a0 But beneath that, it’s a vast wasteland.\u00c2\u00a0 And GaGa is driving at 110 miles an hour constantly, how long can it last, what’s she gonna do next?<\/p>\n
You’ve got to participate in all 360 degrees of revenue.<\/p>\n
Unless the public is so stupid as to think that’s now a desirable record deal, where you give up everything and get almost nothing.<\/p>\n
Which is why real acts are doing it for themselves, with a very savvy manager.\u00c2\u00a0 They’re starting small and they’re nurturing their fan base.\u00c2\u00a0 If the old mold were so damn good, Christina Aguilera would be selling tickets despite her stiff singles, but she’s not.<\/p>\n
That’s the movie business, where it’s what have you done for me lately?\u00c2\u00a0 They’re constantly reinventing the wheel.\u00c2\u00a0 But in the music business, you build upon what came before. And it’s hard to build on hit singles, they’ve got no collective meaning.\u00c2\u00a0 They’re each independent silos, revenue generators that have almost nothing to do with each other.<\/p>\n
To make it today, you’ve got to have something to say, you’ve got to stand for something.<\/p>\n
And making it isn’t getting your mug on TMZ or PerezHilton, publicity is easy, making it is developing a fan base, which will follow your every move.<\/p>\n
The whole label concept is antiquated.\u00c2\u00a0 Because it’s focusing on a general bottom line, the label doesn’t care who hits, as long as someone hits.\u00c2\u00a0 But today it’s about nurturing one act, for a very long time, until it finally breaks through and generates revenue, forever.<\/p>\n
And you’ve got to continue to manage the bond.\u00c2\u00a0 Tickets can’t be outrageously priced, people have to be treated right.<\/p>\n
That’s where the power lies.\u00c2\u00a0 With the public.<\/p>\n
Power used to lie in the hands of the gatekeepers.\u00c2\u00a0 Remember when Abby Konowitch was the most powerful person in the music business because he chose the videos at MTV?\u00c2\u00a0 Who has that job today?\u00c2\u00a0 Does that job still exist?<\/p>\n
Kids don’t watch Letterman.\u00c2\u00a0 If active buyers were tuned in to his show, an appearance would drive sales.\u00c2\u00a0 But that hasn’t been the case for eons.<\/p>\n
As for Ms. DeGeneres…\u00c2\u00a0 She runs a daytime talk show, a Mickey Mouse Club for an older demo.\u00c2\u00a0 That’s IT!\u00c2\u00a0 And I’m not saying that’s not powerful, the ability to reach these women, but so far Oprah’s the only daytime talker who can truly influence the public.\u00c2\u00a0 And the acts she’s built that have lasted are Drs. Phil and Oz.\u00c2\u00a0 Isn’t it funny that she’s built a stable of TV personalities, but not musicians?\u00c2\u00a0 Because music is hard.\u00c2\u00a0 You start with a blank sheet of paper.\u00c2\u00a0 Once you get up and running, you can still run out of gas, you can’t be mindless, you’ve got to keep thinking, keep creating.<\/p>\n
There are many more TV talking heads than successful musicians.\u00c2\u00a0 And that shows just how hard it truly is to make it in the music world.<\/p>\n
Pretty faces are a dime a dozen.\u00c2\u00a0 Writers can fabricate lines.\u00c2\u00a0 But the ability to reach down deep into your heart and create something so gripping, so ethereal, as great as Gnarls Barkley’s "Crazy", the most irresistible single of the last five years…takes a talent we can’t even define.\u00c2\u00a0 Do we expect Ellen DeGeneres and David Letterman to recognize it?\u00c2\u00a0 OF COURSE NOT!<\/p>\n
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And Letterman’s too.\u00c2\u00a0 Didn’t they get the memo, that today you want to be the MANAGER? If running a record label were so damn good, would Jimmy Iovine be selling Beats headphones and trying to save sound with HP? Are these celebs truly that out of touch? America’s not that unsophisticated.\u00c2\u00a0 Hell, just look at […]<\/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-2961","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-music-business"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p96vPs-LL","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/lefsetz.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2961","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=2961"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/lefsetz.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2961\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2963,"href":"https:\/\/lefsetz.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2961\/revisions\/2963"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/lefsetz.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2961"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lefsetz.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2961"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lefsetz.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2961"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}