The age of stardom is over.<\/p>\n
I was hiking in the mountains listening to XM’s Cafe on my MyFi and I heard
one of those ethereal numbers that sets your mind adrift, the kind of music
that was popular back in the early seventies but is completely absent from
mainstream radio today.\u00c2\u00a0 I picked up the unit to discover it was "God Says Nothing
Back" by the Wallflowers.<\/p>\n
I hate the Wallflowers.\u00c2\u00a0 Jakob Dylan is too good-looking.\u00c2\u00a0 But, worse, the
machine foisted him upon me for two years straight, as if he counted, as if he
could single-handedly save music.\u00c2\u00a0 But, despite a couple of catchy tracks,
Jakob Dylan is a mid-level artist at best.\u00c2\u00a0 And now there’s no room in the
landscape for him.\u00c2\u00a0 People like me were turned off and all the casual fans, who
bought "Bringing Down The Horse", have either moved on to the next evanescent
act or disappeared from the marketplace.<\/p>\n
Yes, the major labels will tell you these people have just resorted to
STEALING the music, that the marketplace has just SHIFTED!\u00c2\u00a0 I posit that the type
of person who listened to the radio and enjoyed "One Headlight" is turned off by
what he hears on the radio today and is listening to his old CDs, if he’s
listening at all.<\/p>\n
Who knew you could become rich and famous playing music back in ’63.\u00c2\u00a0 The
songs on the hit parade were written by plain-looking people in offices.\u00c2\u00a0 The
performers were attractive, but not only did they not write the tunes they sang,
they didn’t play on them either.\u00c2\u00a0 Rather, there was an infrastructure of
session players who performed the hits.<\/p>\n
Then came the Beatles.<\/p>\n
But really, then came Led Zeppelin.\u00c2\u00a0 The Beatles only made money because they
sold SO many records, their deal was terrible.\u00c2\u00a0 But Peter Grant turned
touring into a money-making machine.\u00c2\u00a0 Suddenly, everybody had a Zeppelin album
and wanted to see the band, if they could get a ticket.\u00c2\u00a0 There was a mania in the
early seventies that ultimately caused all the indie labels to be purchased by
conglomerates, there was just TOO MUCH MONEY INVOLVED, record labels were CASH MACHINES!<\/p>\n
And the present owners expect them to continue to be.<\/p>\n
But the landscape has changed.\u00c2\u00a0 You see, we used to live in a narrow society.
\u00c2\u00a0There were a limited number of radio stations, an independent couldn’t get
his record in the store, concomitantly, with the advent of MTV a successful
record could sell in excess of TEN MILLION copies.\u00c2\u00a0 Yup, they created an award
they haven’t used in years, the DIAMOND certification, to commemorate this.\u00c2\u00a0
But, the people selling all the records, acts like the Wallflowers, they weren’t
outgrowths of Led Zeppelin, they were made not for music, but for MONEY!\u00c2\u00a0 The
game changed.\u00c2\u00a0 Instead of discovering a good band and trying to find a market
for their music, now it was about finding music that fit the MARKETPLACE!\u00c2\u00a0
Music that not only MTV and radio would play, but that would appeal to the people
who purchased the ten million records.\u00c2\u00a0 A shifting crowd that followed trends
and were not true music fans.\u00c2\u00a0 But, suddenly, after creating blander and
blander material, and genre-specific material like rap that a great percentage of
the audience didn’t enjoy, and the outlets, interested in money too and only
exposing a few records, the audience tuned out.\u00c2\u00a0 Music wasn’t for them.\u00c2\u00a0 Yes,
even though nothing reaches you like a great record, the records weren’t great,
it was more fun to play videogames, watch DVDs, go snowboarding.<\/p>\n
The solution to this problem put forth by the major labels is to find MORE
potentially broad-based acts and SHOVE THEM DOWN OUR THROAT!\u00c2\u00a0 Major label
priorities appear on "Today", in "People".\u00c2\u00a0 They’re two-dimensional.\u00c2\u00a0 They’re the
OPPOSITE of what was sold in decades yore.\u00c2\u00a0 You wanted to know the musicians
because of the music they MADE, not vice versa.<\/p>\n
But those days are returning.<\/p>\n
This week "Rebel Sweetheart" sold 6,019 copies.\u00c2\u00a0 Down from 7,964 the week
before.\u00c2\u00a0 It slid from number 128 to 186.\u00c2\u00a0 And, before that, it was number 95.\u00c2\u00a0
And the record was only released on May 24th.\u00c2\u00a0 Obviously the band doesn’t have
much of a hard core fan base.\u00c2\u00a0 And why should they?\u00c2\u00a0 Who believes in a pretty
boy band that you couldn’t AVOID for YEARS!\u00c2\u00a0 Used to be the opposite.\u00c2\u00a0 You
played for fans, hoping you could hit the mainstream.\u00c2\u00a0 It was about establishing a
base.\u00c2\u00a0 But major labels can’t be bothered with a base, they’ve got to sell
two million copies out of the box, they call that artist development.\u00c2\u00a0 That’s
sales history, there’s no development involved.<\/p>\n
But, the irony is, "God Says Nothing Back" is pretty good.<\/p>\n
Not that you’ll hear it on terrestrial radio.\u00c2\u00a0 Not that you can check it out
P2P unless you’re really dedicated.\u00c2\u00a0 The services are OVERLOADED with spoofs.\u00c2\u00a0
THINK about that, Interscope is doing its damndest to keep the public from
discovering a stiff record.\u00c2\u00a0 They want millions to rush out and BUY it.<\/p>\n
There will always be a handful of stars.\u00c2\u00a0 But that’s all, a handful.\u00c2\u00a0 We live
in a decentralized society.\u00c2\u00a0 An almost tower of babel society.\u00c2\u00a0 Where
everybody’s into different things.\u00c2\u00a0 It doesn’t make economic sense to invest a
million dollars swinging for the fences when the odds of success are infinitesimal.\u00c2\u00a0
But this is what the major labels are doing, in some weird imitation of the
National Hockey League.\u00c2\u00a0 Not understanding that the audience is declining and
the numbers don’t work.<\/p>\n
If you want to be rich and famous, I’d recommend you study "Us".\u00c2\u00a0 Go hang out
at the places they feature, mingle with the stars in its pages.\u00c2\u00a0 It’s an
easier route than trying to make it through music.\u00c2\u00a0 No, you should only play music
if that’s your calling, if that’s truly what you want to do, if you want to
make a LIVING!<\/p>\n
The music scene is healthy.\u00c2\u00a0 But it’s not the major label music scene, nor
the shed scene.\u00c2\u00a0 People turned off by the system are finding out about acts that
write and perform their own material, who speak from the heart.\u00c2\u00a0 And they’re
going to see these acts in small venues.\u00c2\u00a0 It’s like it’s been for centuries,
except that via Net word of mouth, you can be known outside of your own village.<\/p>\n
The major label paradigm is broken.\u00c2\u00a0 It’s even worse than network TV.\u00c2\u00a0
Instead of being on a cable system of a couple of hundred channels, they’re in a
marketplace where EVERYBODY can make and distribute a record…just go to
cdbaby.com if you doubt me.\u00c2\u00a0 And the people making these records have different
goals from Ashlee Simpson.\u00c2\u00a0 It’s about making a personal statement, not getting
rich, certainly not about being famous.\u00c2\u00a0 Sure, some of these people will break
through, become the equivalent of platinum artists, but this will come AFTER
years of playing.\u00c2\u00a0 Meanwhile, the majors are spending millions to reach an
audience that doesn’t exist.<\/p>\n
In the future, music lovers will own the equivalent of record labels with the
sole goal of turning the public on to great music.\u00c2\u00a0 Unless the majors adopt
this strategy, they’re doomed.\u00c2\u00a0 It’s not about signing indies and upstreaming,
it’s about hiring a bunch of A&R people, and letting them sign bands on the
cheap.\u00c2\u00a0 And trying to flog ones and twos.\u00c2\u00a0 Hoping that the private jet overhead
is reached by distributing something SO good EVERYBODY wants it, not because
they’ve been told about it by the company, but because their friends have
turned them on to it.<\/p>\n
Meanwhile, if you haunt the P2P services long enough (ten minutes), you can
find the real "God Says Nothing Back".\u00c2\u00a0 Download it.\u00c2\u00a0 Don’t sit there and play
it and evaluate it.\u00c2\u00a0 Just insert it in your iTunes library.\u00c2\u00a0 And sometime in
the future, when you’re listening to your tracks on random on your computer or
on your iPod, you’ll hear it, it will take you away.\u00c2\u00a0 You won’t say it’s a
hit, you’ll just like the way it sounds.\u00c2\u00a0 Actually, the hit is dead.\u00c2\u00a0 It’s not
about selling one song and filler, it’s about creating an aural cocoon, that
people want to revel in. <\/p>\n
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