How could he go on for so long and say so little?<\/p>\n
In "The World Is Flat", Thomas Friedman says the future is based on imagination.\u00c2\u00a0 Once a company starts talking about the good old days, and fails to push the outside of the envelope, it’s toast.\u00c2\u00a0 What did Einstein say?\u00c2\u00a0 According to Friedman, "Imagination is more important than knowledge."<\/p>\n
What Lyor demonstrates in his "Forbes" editorial is knowledge of the past.\u00c2\u00a0 He gives us a history lesson, and then says the future is live.\u00c2\u00a0 Hallelujah, now our problems are solved!\u00c2\u00a0 If only the cavemen had played live, if only there was a live tradition.\u00c2\u00a0 Hold it for a minute, it’s RECORDING that’s late to the game!\u00c2\u00a0 Maybe it’s recording that needs to be investigated as a business, that needs to find its place in the twenty first century landscape.\u00c2\u00a0 Maybe Warner Music just isn’t prepared for changed business conditions.\u00c2\u00a0 But you won’t read any of this in Lyor’s words.\u00c2\u00a0 You just get an old wave strategist trying to appear to grasp the new world in a business publication that speaks to investors.\u00c2\u00a0 I wouldn’t quite say it’s a crock of shit, but very little insight into the modern music business is delivered.\u00c2\u00a0 So, the old system is broken.\u00c2\u00a0 We knew that eight years ago.\u00c2\u00a0 As the saying goes, what have you done for us lately?<\/p>\n
Warner upstreamed some rap records…\u00c2\u00a0 Mmm…look at "Pollstar", rap is shit live.\u00c2\u00a0 Rap needs major labels and their marketing dollars.\u00c2\u00a0 But acts that can sustain themselves on the road, do they need Lyor Cohen to blow them up and eviscerate their credibility?\u00c2\u00a0 It’s Warner that’s burning out acts, not the other way around.<\/p>\n
Lyor goes on about networks.\u00c2\u00a0 Saying you need two, one to find the acts and one to market them.\u00c2\u00a0 That fiber-optic cables are irrelevant.\u00c2\u00a0 But they’re wholly relevant.\u00c2\u00a0 They flatten distribution.\u00c2\u00a0 They allow the tiniest of indies to compete with worldwide behemoths.\u00c2\u00a0 Yes, now you can get your music heard on the Web, and you can even get paid for it, you can even choose to give it away for the promotion involved.\u00c2\u00a0 All those entities major labels control…physical retail, MTV, terrestrial radio, they’re irrelevant.\u00c2\u00a0 A new indie act can sidestep them.<\/p>\n
And stunningly, Lyor goes on about his muscle.\u00c2\u00a0 Bragging about manipulating Charles Koppelman is like Tony Soprano reciting the history of a hit.\u00c2\u00a0 Demonstration of a brutish way of behavior that is passe.\u00c2\u00a0 Code doesn’t manipulate.\u00c2\u00a0 And Web statistics don’t lie.\u00c2\u00a0 Oh, the ones on YouTube and MySpace can be manipulated, but is iTunes hiding pressing reports?<\/p>\n
And the fact that social networking numbers can be faked only speaks to the underlying point.\u00c2\u00a0 Is what is being exhibited any good?\u00c2\u00a0 So, Tia Tequila is a massive star online.\u00c2\u00a0 Does that mean she’s going to sell records?\u00c2\u00a0 Ditto on the Sick Puppies.\u00c2\u00a0 Why in the hell did Virgin sign them?<\/p>\n
And the problem is not that record companies suck up the talent, but that they’re only interested in multiplatinum, so they only sign pap.\u00c2\u00a0 The fact that lawyers sell you an act has no bearing on how fast you have to develop it.\u00c2\u00a0 Oh, maybe the deal is too expensive, but can’t you say no?\u00c2\u00a0 Can’t you be like Chris Blackwell or the Chrysalis guys and find what nobody else wants, something new and innovative, and pay fairly for it?<\/p>\n
The problem isn’t music discovery.\u00c2\u00a0 The problem is Lyor and his ilk are part of a decaying system.\u00c2\u00a0 It’s not like talent is hidden.\u00c2\u00a0 If anything is good, it bubbles up on the Net.\u00c2\u00a0 But, if the act isn’t pretty and moving units already, if the major can’t figure out how to get to platinum on the first record, the company doesn’t bite.\u00c2\u00a0 The way out of this?\u00c2\u00a0 To sign more acts at a lower price and let them percolate.\u00c2\u00a0 But I don’t read this in Lyor’s words.\u00c2\u00a0 He’s just crying that the old system isn’t working for him and it needs to be reinvented.\u00c2\u00a0 It is being reinvented, but by people outside the decrepit edifice, who are not burdened by decades of crap that holds the music back!<\/p>\n
Really, I don’t get it.\u00c2\u00a0 It’s not like music has lost its power, it’s not like people don’t want tunes.\u00c2\u00a0 Hell, more people possess more tracks than ever before.\u00c2\u00a0 The fact that the majors haven’t figured out a way to charge them for this acquisition, and instead are suing those assembling collections, is not addressed here whatsoever.\u00c2\u00a0 You’ve got incredible demand and you refuse to fill it and you say the problem is managers and lawyers?<\/p>\n
And forget that competition for the entertainment dollar.\u00c2\u00a0 All that competition is not reducing the number of people having sex.\u00c2\u00a0 It’s not like someone says no, I’ve got to kill more people on Xbox before I screw my girlfriend, I’ve got to flip through Craig Ferguson and Conan and Jimmy Kimmel before I pay attention to your caresses.\u00c2\u00a0 Music has a unique power absent from all other entertainment media.\u00c2\u00a0 But rather than harness this power, the major labels have abdicated and are promoting laughable hip-hoppers and cotton candy like the Pussycat Dolls.\u00c2\u00a0 This is the majors’ choice.\u00c2\u00a0 No one forced them to go in this direction.\u00c2\u00a0 They see the path to riches as an easy one.\u00c2\u00a0 They just say they’re giving the public what it wants.\u00c2\u00a0 But that doesn’t appear to be so.<\/p>\n
People want music that touches them.\u00c2\u00a0 If they get turned on live, fantastic.\u00c2\u00a0 But Steely Dan never toured in its heyday, and that didn’t keep me from purchasing and loving their albums.\u00c2\u00a0 And most of the bands in my collection I’ve never seen live.\u00c2\u00a0 And some of my favorite acts are shitty live.\u00c2\u00a0 If you’re selling records, live isn’t the end all and be all.\u00c2\u00a0 But if you’re involved in all revenue streams, it’s an important component.<\/p>\n
Warner’s got more than record revenue with My Chemical Romance.\u00c2\u00a0 But most managers won’t give up road or merchandising income to the major label.\u00c2\u00a0 They see this request as a land grab, with very little given in return.\u00c2\u00a0 What is the label going to do to help sell tickets other than to squeeze traditional gatekeepers for exposure?\u00c2\u00a0 Major labels are not in the career development business.\u00c2\u00a0 They can’t wait for cash.\u00c2\u00a0 Hell, look at Warner’s stock, the company is desperate!\u00c2\u00a0 Yup, I want to hear Lyor refrain from releasing another single from a hit album, fearful he’s going to burn the act out.<\/p>\n
Lyor takes no responsibility whatsoever in this editorial.\u00c2\u00a0 He admits no mistakes, he blames the lack of revenue on bad business conditions.\u00c2\u00a0 Hogwash.<\/p>\n
Why not be like Steve Jobs at the turn of the century?\u00c2\u00a0 Taking a dollar in salary and saying Apple’s going to innovate its way out of the tech slump.\u00c2\u00a0 Oh, you didn’t believe it back then, you thought Macs were an island, that iPods were too expensive.\u00c2\u00a0 Hope you weren’t too stupid to buy stock.<\/p>\n
But if you buy stock in Warner today you are stupid.\u00c2\u00a0 Because the managers of this once-revered company have raped the company for their own personal wealth enhancement, and have loaded the enterprise up with debt.\u00c2\u00a0 Fine if you’re making widgets that people need for the next twenty years, but nobody needs crap music on CD.\u00c2\u00a0 The catalog?\u00c2\u00a0 A fucking gold mine.\u00c2\u00a0 Close down new music and say you’re becoming a catalog company and watch the stock rise.\u00c2\u00a0 That makes sense.\u00c2\u00a0 Not spending millions to market the next wannabe platinum act that nobody wants anymore.\u00c2\u00a0 Yup, in a niche world the mainstream that the majors function in is losing breadth and depth.\u00c2\u00a0 Fewer acts selling less music.\u00c2\u00a0 Do we see Lyor address this?\u00c2\u00a0 Of course not.<\/p>\n
I’m not vindictive.\u00c2\u00a0 I’m not the "Hits" guys on a vendetta, pissed Warner won’t pay them.\u00c2\u00a0 Rather, I’m disappointed.\u00c2\u00a0 That these great engines of quality, Warner, Atlantic and the dearly departed Elektra Records, are now shadows of themselves, that they no longer purvey life force, don’t sell what I need, rather are trying to coerce me into buying what’s easily digested and soon forgotten.\u00c2\u00a0 I’ll come back to the major label system when Lyor and Jimmy Iovine and Clive Davis relinquish their power to the acts, where creativity truly resides.\u00c2\u00a0 When artists testing limits truly rule.\u00c2\u00a0 When SoundScan numbers are secondary to artistic and listener fulfillment.\u00c2\u00a0 Greatness sells records, not marketing.<\/p>\n
But greatness has been left out of the equation.<\/p>\n
Great artists don’t like to be told what to do.<\/p>\n
So great artists are now going it alone.\u00c2\u00a0 The music landscape will be ruled in the future by a completely different coterie.\u00c2\u00a0 People who are trustworthy, who aren’t into winning through intimidation.\u00c2\u00a0 They’ll gain their toehold via the Internet that still has majors scratching their heads.\u00c2\u00a0 They’ll use the new systems to deliver desirable music to niches however small.\u00c2\u00a0 They’ll realize we’re living in a golden era of opportunity.\u00c2\u00a0 Yup, Lyor is all doom and gloom, but there’s never been a better time to be a musician, or an entrepreneur.\u00c2\u00a0 And stunningly, they’re often one and the same.\u00c2\u00a0 And, those working at the long in the tooth major labels are usually neither.<\/p>\n
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