This is what’s wrong with the music business.<\/p>\n
I hate CDs.\u00c2\u00a0 They’re inconvenient.\u00c2\u00a0 I’m a mobile person.\u00c2\u00a0 Moving from room to room.\u00c2\u00a0 I’m not about to cart my skipping Discman with me, the iPod ELIMINATED that problem.\u00c2\u00a0 Yet major labels still send CDs.\u00c2\u00a0 What’s next?\u00c2\u00a0 Car companies delivering containers of STEAM?\u00c2\u00a0 Hell, the Stanley Steamer was only a HUNDRED YEARS AGO!<\/p>\n
We pay people to be filters.\u00c2\u00a0 People like Mike Marrone of XM radio.\u00c2\u00a0 I was sitting in the kitchen partaking of some Dannon coffee yogurt, the best elixir on the PLANET, listening to his station, the Loft, and I heard a magical track.\u00c2\u00a0 Oh, I knew it was magical because the previous dozen numbers hadn’t quite reached me the same way.\u00c2\u00a0 It was by one Sean Watkins of Nickel Creek, from his new solo album, "Run Away Girl".<\/p>\n
I went to the dude’s Website.\u00c2\u00a0 Figuring I’d be able to download a sample, at least HEAR IT!\u00c2\u00a0 But no such luck.\u00c2\u00a0 Oh, there’s a clip on the iTunes Music Store, but…\u00c2\u00a0 Don’t these pricks realize the game has changed.\u00c2\u00a0 That it’s not about enticing us with scant airplay to drop a zillion bucks on something upon subsequent hearing we might not like?\u00c2\u00a0 God, this behavior ENCOURAGES one to be a casual customer.\u00c2\u00a0 Think of the dues you’d rack up at the iTunes Music Store if you actually LIKED music.\u00c2\u00a0 It would bankrupt you.\u00c2\u00a0 You keep hearing new shit, want to check it out further, but can’t AFFORD IT!\u00c2\u00a0 It would be like being unable to afford HBO, salivating over "The Sopranos", but not having the cash.\u00c2\u00a0 But TV’s a flat fee model.\u00c2\u00a0 Oh, we’ve got flat fee in the music world, with Rhapsody.\u00c2\u00a0 But don’t you know it, they didn’t have this Sean Watkins record.\u00c2\u00a0 I wanted to hear it, now.\u00c2\u00a0 But I felt I was at the bait and switch shop.\u00c2\u00a0 I don’t want to marry someone on the first date, I want to get to KNOW THEM!<\/p>\n
But this isn’t about Sean Watkins, it’s about the ALARM!<\/p>\n
The reason I’m railing against CDs is because I was in the kitchen, catching up on my reading, and foraging through the detritus on the table for the remaining printed materials I came upon a dozen packages with discs asking me for my time, to listen to them, to take their purveyors into the stratosphere.\u00c2\u00a0 And I didn’t want to get UP!\u00c2\u00a0 Dust off the Discman and bring it into the kitchen.\u00c2\u00a0 Where there was no outlet for it.\u00c2\u00a0 I was having a good, relaxing time, I wanted to multi-task, but the old wave purveyors wouldn’t LET ME!<\/p>\n
Ultimately, trying to make headway, I moved into the living room, where I slipped the Alarm’s new disc, "Under Attack" into my Mac.<\/p>\n
I bought that original Alarm record, with "68 Guns".\u00c2\u00a0 But on a whim in Borders at the end of the nineties, the cash burning a hole in my pocket, I bought the band’s greatest hits album, "Standards".\u00c2\u00a0 And got COMPLETELY hooked on "The Road" and "Marching On".\u00c2\u00a0 What exuberance, what ENERGY!\u00c2\u00a0 Oh, but wasn’t the best track on that record STRENGTH??\u00c2\u00a0 And then there was "Sold Me Down The River" and the MTV staple RAIN IN THE SUMMERTIME!\u00c2\u00a0 Oh, I played that disc for a WEEK STRAIGHT!\u00c2\u00a0 It was the essence of rock and roll, it made all my problems FADE AWAY!!<\/p>\n
The lead singer ultimately made one or more solo records.\u00c2\u00a0 I was unimpressed.\u00c2\u00a0 He needed the band.\u00c2\u00a0 And then there was that bizarre story last year about them having a hit in the U.K. under another moniker and then that story on hitsdailydouble the other week that they had reunited and had a new album.\u00c2\u00a0 I emailed the PR guy and ASKED for the disc.\u00c2\u00a0 That’s what you do when you’re interested (and hell, I emailed Marc Reiter at QPrime for the Sean Watkins track too…)\u00c2\u00a0 It was one of the pile.\u00c2\u00a0 Along with that Matthew Sweet\/Susanna Hoffs Beatle album and a disc sent by Rocky Del Balzo and a billion other albums.\u00c2\u00a0 But I decided to play the Alarm album first.<\/p>\n
And I thought how this was not my job.\u00c2\u00a0 They PAY people to do this.\u00c2\u00a0 To sort through the crap to find the good stuff.\u00c2\u00a0 And I’m reading the "Times" and the WSJ, moving over to "New York", the tracks are floating by, boy do CDs sound shitty, bring back vinyl, and then I HEAR SOMETHING!!!<\/p>\n
The Alarm was always labeled a U2 rip-off.\u00c2\u00a0 If only there was something as good as "Be Still" on "How To Dismantle An Atomic Bomb".\u00c2\u00a0 This is the Edge’s guitar sound.\u00c2\u00a0 A fucking BUZZSAW!\u00c2\u00a0 But\u00c2\u00a0 the drums pound more than Larry Mullen, Jr.’s do.\u00c2\u00a0 And the other guitar is not from Edge’s canon.\u00c2\u00a0 The track sounds like something that came before.\u00c2\u00a0 But oh, it feels so NICE!<\/p>\n
Remember when the tunes used to play and you had a shiteating grin on your face?\u00c2\u00a0 When you thought music could at least change YOUR WORLD?\u00c2\u00a0 That’s what I started to feel.<\/p>\n
I threw down my reading material and fired up Safari, I had to go to the band’s Website.<\/p>\n
Turns out this CD isn’t coming out for MONTHS!<\/p>\n
And the CLIPS!\u00c2\u00a0 None of them are "Be Still", because you know record company pricks, they don’t pick the BEST TRACKS to emphasize, just the most OBVIOUS ONES!<\/p>\n
And here’s where the truly fucked up part comes.\u00c2\u00a0 This is where we go positively LAST CENTURY!\u00c2\u00a0 I’m dying to write about the record, but I realize it’s RIDICULOUS, because you can’t HEAR IT!<\/p>\n
That’s not how they do it anymore.\u00c2\u00a0 We live in a land of IMMEDIATE GRATIFICATION!\u00c2\u00a0 Nobody trusts a writer anymore, they don’t lay down their money based on what some asshole says, but they DO CHECK WHAT HE SAYS OUT!\u00c2\u00a0 If it’s AVAILABLE!<\/p>\n
And the Alarm’s "Be Still" IS NOT AVAILABLE!<\/p>\n
What kind of fucked up country do we live in when records are held back after they’re finished for MARKETING PURPOSES!\u00c2\u00a0 It’s not about FIRST WEEK SALES, but LONGEVITY!\u00c2\u00a0 The Alarm were good enough for me to want to check out their new shit TWO DECADES LATER!<\/p>\n
I’m going to Rhino tomorrow.\u00c2\u00a0 I’d love to play this track on my podcast.\u00c2\u00a0 Do a whole piece about the Alarm.\u00c2\u00a0 But I CAN’T!\u00c2\u00a0 Because licensing issues are too tough.\u00c2\u00a0 Because everybody IN the business is functioning by the old rules.\u00c2\u00a0 Don’t they realize I’m trying to HELP THEM!\u00c2\u00a0 We don’t want to STEAL the music, we want to USE IT!\u00c2\u00a0 We want to turn all our buddies on to it!\u00c2\u00a0 We want the world to be a BETTER PLACE!!!\u00c2\u00a0 We’re not criminals, we’re FANS!\u00c2\u00a0 Loosen the restrictions, let us do our work, don’t make us pay all that money up front, charge us a flat fee.\u00c2\u00a0 Let us take all we want and then divvy up the cash after the fact.\u00c2\u00a0 Like ASCAP, like BMI, like RATINGS!\u00c2\u00a0 Let the MUSIC TRIUMPH!<\/p>\n
And I’m contemplating all this and the CD slips into the NEXT track, which is a slow burning number, but JUST AS GOOD!\u00c2\u00a0 "This Is Life (Get Used To It)"…I repeat myself, there aren’t two tracks this good on EITHER of the two previous U2 albums.\u00c2\u00a0 They’re SAFE!\u00c2\u00a0 Whereas the Alarm is fighting for SURVIVAL!\u00c2\u00a0 Either they deliver, or it’s back to the bars, to their DAY JOBS!\u00c2\u00a0 And in these circumstances, you can’t micro-manage, you’ve got to LET LOOSE!\u00c2\u00a0 And that’s when the best music results.<\/p>\n
It’s the difference between Madonna, the choreographed shows, and the ones in the club, where the band takes the stage sans backdrop, sans costume changes, and reaches into your heart and GRABS YOU!\u00c2\u00a0 You leave the building thinking you were privy to a unique experience, a RELIGIOUS EXPERIENCE!<\/p>\n
Who’s fooling who here.\u00c2\u00a0 The Alarm ain’t gonna get on Top Forty radio, not here in the States.\u00c2\u00a0 This is music that’s got to be SPOON-FED to the core demo.\u00c2\u00a0 Gen-X.\u00c2\u00a0 From thirty to forty five, who were there the FIRST TIME THROUGH!\u00c2\u00a0 And with enough people listening, with enough hoopla, maybe the word will spread downstream, to YOUNGER PEOPLE!\u00c2\u00a0 It’s all about buzz, and the major labels want to kill it.\u00c2\u00a0 They don’t want to let the conflagration BEGIN!<\/p>\n
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This is what’s wrong with the music business. I hate CDs.\u00c2\u00a0 They’re inconvenient.\u00c2\u00a0 I’m a mobile person.\u00c2\u00a0 Moving from room to room.\u00c2\u00a0 I’m not about to cart my skipping Discman with me, the iPod ELIMINATED that problem.\u00c2\u00a0 Yet major labels still send CDs.\u00c2\u00a0 What’s next?\u00c2\u00a0 Car companies delivering containers of STEAM?\u00c2\u00a0 Hell, the Stanley Steamer […]<\/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":[2,6],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-386","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-music-business","category-the-music"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p96vPs-6e","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/lefsetz.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/386","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=386"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/lefsetz.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/386\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/lefsetz.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=386"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lefsetz.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=386"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lefsetz.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=386"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}