Growing Number of Americans Say Obama is a Muslim<\/a><\/div>\n<\/blockquote>\nSuch delusion wouldn’t fly forty years ago, when there were only three TV networks and a Fairness Doctrine that eliminated dissemination of demented ideas.\u00c2\u00a0 But today, every insane theory and plot has a website, with adherents who refuse to see the other side.\u00c2\u00a0 They don’t have to.\u00c2\u00a0 Democrats read the HuffPo and Republicans read Drudge.\u00c2\u00a0 Do you think everyone’s going to pay attention to Top Forty music?<\/p>\n
Of course not, because they’ve got choice.\u00c2\u00a0 Listeners pursue their dream down a zillion different nooks and crannies.\u00c2\u00a0 The lame Pandora gets traction because no one knows about Slacker.\u00c2\u00a0 Children embrace Disney stars because their parents haven’t yet removed the controls from their browsers.\u00c2\u00a0 We’ve got many different camps, oftentimes operating in ignorance.\u00c2\u00a0 People say there’s no good new music because the mainstream outlets are promoting crap.\u00c2\u00a0 When the truth is music is in a glorious time, you’ve just got to know where to look.\u00c2\u00a0 And when you do look, you’ve got to separate the wheat from the chaff.\u00c2\u00a0 There are many more acts than before. And most of them are terrible.\u00c2\u00a0 It’s too daunting to delve in.<\/p>\n
And then you’ve got the old guard saying that we’ve got to return to their way.\u00c2\u00a0 Which is an impossibility, because of choice.<\/p>\n
Then there are the newspapers.\u00c2\u00a0 Which, like record labels, say they’re entitled to survive.\u00c2\u00a0 But why should I read the national news in the "Los Angeles Times" when the "New York Times" does it so much better and it’s just a click away online?\u00c2\u00a0 Used to be you couldn’t read the "New York Times" in L.A.\u00c2\u00a0 But those days are gone.<\/p>\n
As are the days when the "New York Times" was the ultimate authority.\u00c2\u00a0 There’s a plethora of bloggers to not only critique what the "New York Times" has to say, but to trumpet stories the Gray Lady ignores.<\/p>\n
And despite its vaunted place atop the print media pile, the "New York Times" doesn’t like its authority challenged.\u00c2\u00a0 But it’s got no choice.<\/p>\n
Things used to be different.\u00c2\u00a0 MTV anointed stars and the public bought the records and went to the shows.\u00c2\u00a0 And radio was complicit, stations played the MTV hits.\u00c2\u00a0 And there was a limited number of releases, because distribution was a barrier to the entry of independents.<\/p>\n
Now anybody can get their track on iTunes and MTV has stricken "Music Television" from its moniker and radio is lost, playing the hits of yesteryear or the vapid concoctions of today in between twenty odd minutes of commercials.\u00c2\u00a0 People have got choice.\u00c2\u00a0 And they’re exercising it.<\/p>\n
It’s kind of like the transition from AM to FM in the sixties.\u00c2\u00a0 AM supporters decried FM.\u00c2\u00a0 The signal was weak.\u00c2\u00a0 The bands were unknown. But the free-format stations ultimately killed AM.\u00c2\u00a0 Music left the AM band completely.\u00c2\u00a0 And FM acts without single hits were slaying in stadiums while AM acts were lucky to appear on bland television shows and play the lounge in Vegas.<\/p>\n
Only now, imagine an FM band with thousands of stations!\u00c2\u00a0 You’ve got freedom of choice, but you’re not sure how to exercise it.<\/p>\n
This chaotic period is coming to a close.\u00c2\u00a0 Suddenly, there are acts plying the boards with no terrestrial radio airplay who are well known by their audience and can survive quite handsomely in their own niche.\u00c2\u00a0 But, since there’s no longer a pyramid, no longer the anointment of MTV airplay, there’s not a defined breakthrough into the stratosphere.\u00c2\u00a0 The build just continues, slowly, but surely.\u00c2\u00a0 Yet now the indie acts are not quite so indie, we’ve heard of twenty or thirty of them.\u00c2\u00a0 The landscape is firming up.\u00c2\u00a0 For everybody but the old guard.<\/p>\n
The old guard is losing power.\u00c2\u00a0 It’s more expensive than ever to create a hit that fewer people listen to or care about.\u00c2\u00a0 Top\u00c2\u00a0 Forty radio is about beats created by producers, radio anthems concocted by committee.\u00c2\u00a0 It’s purely commerce.\u00c2\u00a0 Whereas the soul of music is elsewhere.<\/p>\n
So if you wanna be a rock and roll star…<\/p>\n
1. Know that people are looking for music.\u00c2\u00a0 They’re inured to listening online and on the go.\u00c2\u00a0 More people are listening to more music than ever before.<\/p>\n
2. Know that the money is not in music.\u00c2\u00a0 The money is in tech, on Wall Street.\u00c2\u00a0 It’s not about theft of recordings, it’s a change in society. Music doesn’t drive it.\u00c2\u00a0 There’s more money in sports.\u00c2\u00a0 You’ve got to play because you love it.<\/p>\n
3. It takes longer than ever to truly make it.\u00c2\u00a0 The old wave insta-stardom the major labels specialize in…\u00c2\u00a0 Those acts never survived the hype in the eighties and nineties, why should they now?\u00c2\u00a0 Overexposed, they’re thrown on the scrapheap in just a few years.<\/p>\n
4. Practice makes perfect.\u00c2\u00a0 Just because you can make music, put it up on iTunes and YouTube and…doesn’t mean anybody should listen to it, that anybody should care.\u00c2\u00a0 Marketing means less than ever before.\u00c2\u00a0 Hell, if you truly want to make it as a musician, you’re better off cutting the Internet cord and practicing and gigging for five years before you put your music online, where people will find it. But traction will be slow.\u00c2\u00a0 And you might not get rich.\u00c2\u00a0 Are you willing to sign up for this route?<\/p>\n
5. Don’t listen to anybody with a toehold in today’s music firmament unless they’re in the live business.\u00c2\u00a0 Everybody else is caught up in the tsunami of change and just wants you to keep the old paradigm going.\u00c2\u00a0 They’re clueless.\u00c2\u00a0 They’re royalty still living in the castle trying to fend off a public that’s been maligned and is joyous in tearing down old institutions by ignoring them.\u00c2\u00a0 Yes, that’s how the impact of Top Forty wonders has declined.\u00c2\u00a0 The public is ignoring them.<\/p>\n
6. If you’re a fan, don’t believe anything you read in the mainstream media.\u00c2\u00a0 Trust your friends.\u00c2\u00a0 If you find something good, continue to tell your friends.\u00c2\u00a0 Protest high prices.\u00c2\u00a0 Support your favorite acts.\u00c2\u00a0 What the old guard doesn’t understand is this is instinct, to only buy what you can afford and only promote what you like.\u00c2\u00a0 They’ve been living beyond their means selling crap so long the whites of their eyes are brown and they’ll say anything to maintain their lifestyles.\u00c2\u00a0 That’s not about music, but money.\u00c2\u00a0 But now you only get money if you make it about the music.<\/p><\/div>\n
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We are experiencing a revolution.\u00c2\u00a0 Caused by the computer, aided by the Internet, old media monoliths are crumbling and seedlings are popping up all over.\u00c2\u00a0 The old guard is protesting, wannabes are struggling for a toehold in the decaying old game and newbies are reinventing the media business unchallenged and unknown.\u00c2\u00a0 And to outsiders, trying […]<\/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-3314","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-music-business"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p96vPs-Rs","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/lefsetz.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3314","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=3314"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/lefsetz.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3314\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3315,"href":"https:\/\/lefsetz.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3314\/revisions\/3315"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/lefsetz.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3314"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lefsetz.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3314"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lefsetz.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3314"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}