Could it be that major labels and mainstream media foist endless hip-hop and vapid pop on the marketplace because they don’t know how to SELL the road bands?\u00c2\u00a0 In other words, is it 1967 all over again?<\/p>\n
Yes, "Are You Experienced" came out in 1967.\u00c2\u00a0 Did it have any mainstream traction?\u00c2\u00a0 Of course not.\u00c2\u00a0 What Top Forty radio station was going to play "Purple Haze"?<\/p>\n
People ended up hearing "Purple Haze" and the rest of the first wave of classic rock acts on underground FM radio.\u00c2\u00a0 The Internet is today’s underground FM radio.<\/p>\n
In order to make it in the Top Forty world of the sixties, you needed a hit.\u00c2\u00a0 A hit is a brief, catchy track with immediate hooks, that will not cause a radio listener to tune out.\u00c2\u00a0 Today’s Top Forty world is even worse than the one of yore.\u00c2\u00a0 For there used to be novelty tracks, even oldster tracks like Frank Sinatra’s "Strangers In The Night", sixties Top Forty was supposedly the best of the best.\u00c2\u00a0 Whereas today’s Top Forty is urban and pop.\u00c2\u00a0 Oh, there’s an occasional Nickelback, or Nickelback-lite song on the playlist, but that’s an anomaly.\u00c2\u00a0 Everybody who does not fit into this paradigm is frozen out.<\/p>\n
And the economics of those frozen out is not good.\u00c2\u00a0 To the point where the major labels have dropped these acts.\u00c2\u00a0 So, you go number one Alternative…how many Alternative stations are there?\u00c2\u00a0 Same deal with Active Rock.\u00c2\u00a0 You just can’t sell enough records.<\/p>\n
What we have is a pinnacle, controlled by the major labels and mainstream media, and then a vast valley, far below, where everything else resides.\u00c2\u00a0 You’d think major labels would look at HBO, and see how they grew shows from left field.\u00c2\u00a0 But no, the majors are only interested in network television, they want the most eyeballs.\u00c2\u00a0 Which they gain through endless hype of lowest common denominator, formula stuff.<\/p>\n
But the public has alternatives.<\/p>\n
Oh, the elite in power will ask you to tell them one hit act that has been broken on the Net.\u00c2\u00a0 But doesn’t that question beg the point?\u00c2\u00a0 That maybe it’s not about asking what acts have broken through to wide public consciousness, but what is the definition of a hit?<\/p>\n
Is a hit a track?\u00c2\u00a0 Is it an act?<\/p>\n
Hit tracks turned out to be a costly business.\u00c2\u00a0 No one believes in the act, there’s no longevity, you’re constantly reinventing the wheel.\u00c2\u00a0 But, if you have an act that can generate capital for years, you can make much more money at a far reduced cost over a long period of time.<\/p>\n
The majors don’t have this time, but the new indie acts do.\u00c2\u00a0 They create MySpace pages, they allow live taping and trading and they go on the road.\u00c2\u00a0 They’re building an enterprise based on them, not on a specific song.<\/p>\n
And the songs these acts tend to write…\u00c2\u00a0 They’re not three and a half minute ditties.\u00c2\u00a0 They’re akin to that underground FM music of the sixties, completely counter to the system, new and different.<\/p>\n
The big time purveyors still believe that there’s one mainstream, that everybody adheres to, that everybody is interested in the antics of Jay-Z and Britney.\u00c2\u00a0 And there are those who pay attention.\u00c2\u00a0 But a great segment of the public has tuned completely out.\u00c2\u00a0 They want something more real.\u00c2\u00a0 And they turn to the Internet to get it.<\/p>\n
They comb Websites, they participate in newsgroups, they go anywhere and everywhere, instantly all over the world, to find like-minded people who will turn them on to stuff that appeals to them.\u00c2\u00a0 And when they find it, they support it.\u00c2\u00a0 They’re not about ripping off the bands they embrace, they’re about buying all their merch and turning their friends on to them.<\/p>\n
We definitely have two worlds.\u00c2\u00a0 Flummoxed by the new game, the old powers refuse to participate in it and rail against it.\u00c2\u00a0 Decry file-trading all you want, but so many of the new acts give their music away for free, stealing isn’t an issue for them.\u00c2\u00a0 And, interestingly, their fans ultimately buy the CD as a badge of honor, to support the act!<\/p>\n
Will superstars emerge from the Net world?<\/p>\n
Interesting question, but not the point.\u00c2\u00a0 The point is the changing percentages.\u00c2\u00a0 The major sector is declining, and the indie sphere is growing.\u00c2\u00a0 And the indies don’t want to play in the majors’ world.\u00c2\u00a0 They can do it via their own systems.\u00c2\u00a0 Oh, maybe a new enterprise will emerge that groups and markets these indie acts, but it won’t look like a traditional label, and the deals won’t be the same.\u00c2\u00a0 Terms will be straightforward and honest.\u00c2\u00a0 Accounting will be transparent.<\/p>\n
Some might say the lunatics have taken over the asylum.<\/p>\n
I say thank god.\u00c2\u00a0 It’s time a new generation dominates, one with different values, one that is not beholden to the blow ’em up on TV paradigm embraced by those running the major labels today.\u00c2\u00a0 These new players are about the music, and the culture.\u00c2\u00a0 Elements way off the radar of those making quarterly reports.<\/p>\n
Give people something to believe in and they’ll give you all their money.\u00c2\u00a0 Hell, isn’t that what religion is about?\u00c2\u00a0 Think about your act as a religion.\u00c2\u00a0 Gain adherents.\u00c2\u00a0 They’ll spread the word.\u00c2\u00a0 And guard your core principles very closely.\u00c2\u00a0 The more honest and trustworthy you are, the more people will flock to you.\u00c2\u00a0 And the slower the build, the longer the career.<\/p>\n
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Could it be that major labels and mainstream media foist endless hip-hop and vapid pop on the marketplace because they don’t know how to SELL the road bands?\u00c2\u00a0 In other words, is it 1967 all over again? Yes, "Are You Experienced" came out in 1967.\u00c2\u00a0 Did it have any mainstream traction?\u00c2\u00a0 Of course not.\u00c2\u00a0 What […]<\/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":[3,2,7],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-737","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-live-shows","category-music-business","category-radio"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p96vPs-bT","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/lefsetz.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/737","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=737"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/lefsetz.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/737\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/lefsetz.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=737"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lefsetz.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=737"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lefsetz.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=737"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}