You’ve got to lower your expectations.<\/p>\n
I’m being hassled by the "Instant Karma" crew.\u00c2\u00a0 How dare I rag on Green Day, they’re doing it for CHARITY!\u00c2\u00a0 I need to APOLOGIZE!<\/p>\n
By time we’re through, EVERYBODY in this country is gonna have to apologize.\u00c2\u00a0 For a supposedly macho group of people, we certainly get our feelings hurt easily.\u00c2\u00a0 Or is it our egos bruised?<\/p>\n
The media tells us we should be offended.\u00c2\u00a0 Then you’ve got XM subscribers trashing their radios and canceling their subscriptions because Opie & Anthony were kicked off the air.\u00c2\u00a0 XM is playing to some fictitious religious right and a ruling FCC when the people actually keeping them in business, PAYING for their service, are being denied exactly what they paid FOR!\u00c2\u00a0 Beyond AM and FM?\u00c2\u00a0 No, XM is the damn same.\u00c2\u00a0 A haven for outlaws?\u00c2\u00a0 No, just a bunch of business pricks in it for the money.\u00c2\u00a0 FM was a renegade service…\u00c2\u00a0 Well, that’s just exactly my point.\u00c2\u00a0 FM’s heyday was over thirty years ago.\u00c2\u00a0 If we’re waiting for it to come back…<\/p>\n
In an era of cell phones, computers and video games, how in the hell are we going to get traction on a fucking RECORD?<\/p>\n
We used to have limited diversions.\u00c2\u00a0 Stay at home on a rainy day and you could watch the three networks, listen to the radio, play your records or read.\u00c2\u00a0 And how many records did you have?\u00c2\u00a0 Shit, for a while there people only had singles.\u00c2\u00a0 And when the album explosion happened, twenty five discs was a HUGE COLLECTION!<\/p>\n
That’s two hundred and fifty tracks.\u00c2\u00a0 I’ve sat down for a P2P session and downloaded over 100 in an HOUR!\u00c2\u00a0 People go to friends’ houses and transfer via hard drive THOUSANDS OF SONGS!<\/p>\n
Now the Beatles and the Stones, Led Zeppelin and Pink Floyd, their reputations are made, they’ve already got traction.\u00c2\u00a0 But what if you’re a NEW ACT?<\/p>\n
The majors would have us believe everybody watches the same television and listens to terrestrial radio.\u00c2\u00a0 This is what has put them in the dumper, more than P2P, the fact that NOBODY IS PAYING ATTENTION!<\/p>\n
Oh, not nobody, but…<\/p>\n
Those people behind the "Instant Karma"\/Darfur record, they’re under the illusion that the odometer didn’t spill over, that we’re still in the nineties as opposed to the twenty first century.<\/p>\n
I’m addicted to media.\u00c2\u00a0 But I didn’t connect the dots about Green Day’s performance on "American Idol".\u00c2\u00a0 That they did their track off the charity album.\u00c2\u00a0 Oh, I’d HEARD of the charity album, its memory is residing in some far off brain cell, but I’m not thinking about it, and I didn’t hear anybody on "American Idol" mention it.<\/p>\n
Oh, let’s round up the usual suspects and make a charity record.\u00c2\u00a0 Well, how are you going to let the public KNOW ABOUT IT?<\/p>\n
We live in a Tower of Babel society.\u00c2\u00a0 Everybody watching different shit, essentially speaking a different language.\u00c2\u00a0 Were the people who went to see the third "Shrek" the same as those who went to see the third "Spider-Man"?\u00c2\u00a0 I’d say there’s SOME crossover, but "Shrek" skews younger, and despite the dazzling grosses, MOST PEOPLE HAVE NOT SEEN THE FLICKS!\u00c2\u00a0 Oh, they might watch them eventually on DVD or pay cable, but people really only care about the great ones.\u00c2\u00a0 Oh, and the long tail ones, the ones sold by word of mouth, the ones you can show your identity with by proselytizing their virtues.<\/p>\n
It’s the same in music, but worse.\u00c2\u00a0 It’s harder to break big.\u00c2\u00a0 And then there are the indies bubbling under.\u00c2\u00a0 In between?\u00c2\u00a0 FAILURE!\u00c2\u00a0 Big label attempts that go almost nowhere, imitations of what’s come before that nobody cares about.<\/p>\n
And we’ve got the big boys who think their mass shit is.\u00c2\u00a0 And the indie loners who have contempt for that crap and only like what most people have never heard of.\u00c2\u00a0 And most people ARE NOT PAYING ATTENTION!<\/p>\n
Most WERE paying attention in the nineties, but as the acts got more plastic and albums only had one good track, they tuned out, they got their kicks somewhere other than Route 66.<\/p>\n
So, if you DO have something great to sell these days, it’s hard to get everybody’s attention.<\/p>\n
So, are we returning to the late sixties and early seventies?<\/p>\n
I think not.\u00c2\u00a0 Those days are through.<\/p>\n
Can a Mo Ostin Warner Brothers come back?<\/p>\n
Interesting question…\u00c2\u00a0 Does a band NEED a label?\u00c2\u00a0 It needs someone to do its bidding, its business, but are a manager and agent enough (if you even need the agent…)\u00c2\u00a0 Do you need the label’s muscle when you can’t get noticed via their efforts anyway?\u00c2\u00a0 And indies don’t pay much better than majors, and the advances are smaller, should you just put the record out yourself, or GIVE THE MUSIC AWAY?<\/p>\n
I’ve been thinking about where we are, where we’re going.\u00c2\u00a0 We navel-gazers in the music business think that people care, that the SoundScan chart is relevant.\u00c2\u00a0 But maybe it’s not anymore.\u00c2\u00a0 Maybe we need a MINDSHARE chart!\u00c2\u00a0 How many people are AWARE of your act?\u00c2\u00a0 And what are their feelings about it?\u00c2\u00a0 Thumbs up, down or mas o menos?<\/p>\n
TV has never gone back to the sixties.\u00c2\u00a0 The networks’ ratings have plummeted, and now there are more channels than ever, never mind YouTube and Joost.<\/p>\n
Is this the future?\u00c2\u00a0 A ton of product, everybody into their own little thing?\u00c2\u00a0 Mass culture just a niche unto itself?<\/p>\n
If you’re shooting for the brass ring, give up.\u00c2\u00a0 Especially if you want success immediately.\u00c2\u00a0 Maybe, over time, you’ll gain enough followers, you’ll mean something.\u00c2\u00a0 But it will take time.<\/p>\n
About all you can do is make great music.\u00c2\u00a0 And hope that it resonates with listeners and they spread the word.\u00c2\u00a0 Push it and you’re fucked.\u00c2\u00a0 In a pull world where people have the WHOLE WORLDWIDE WEB AT THEIR FINGERTIPS, why should they be browbeaten, why should they go where you want them to?<\/p>\n
So, the exhibition paradigm is different.\u00c2\u00a0 As is the selling one.<\/p>\n
We don’t have stadium shows because no one cares enough about any of the new acts.\u00c2\u00a0 Whereas I went to a LOGGINS & MESSINA stadium show in the seventies…because we were all listening to the same stations, we were all in it together.<\/p>\n
I’m positively overwhelmed.\u00c2\u00a0 Looking at the record reviews in "Entertainment Weekly", "Rolling Stone" and "Paste", never mind the want to be hip "New York Times" and its west coast counterpart, the "Los Angeles Times".\u00c2\u00a0 I don’t even have enough time to read the reviews, never mind listen to the records.\u00c2\u00a0 And, I’ve heard so much shitty music that I’m inclined to think what’s being purveyed won’t float my boat.\u00c2\u00a0 The Arctic Monkeys!\u00c2\u00a0 Lily Allen!\u00c2\u00a0 Feist!\u00c2\u00a0 If they changed your world, fine…\u00c2\u00a0 It’s not that they’re bad, but they’re not mind-blowing.\u00c2\u00a0 So the business needs to believe in something, does the PUBLIC?<\/p>\n
You’ve got to start with trust.\u00c2\u00a0 People trust indies because they’re sans the major label bullshit.\u00c2\u00a0 If the majors want to sell new records, they’ve got to reestablish trust.\u00c2\u00a0 And sell slower.\u00c2\u00a0 Gain fans one by one.\u00c2\u00a0 Find the most palatable stuff, the best stuff, the stuff the most people will be interested in, and build it.\u00c2\u00a0 But the people working at EMI might not even be there soon.\u00c2\u00a0 The companies are owned by investors, the numbers are most important.\u00c2\u00a0 The labels are beholden to the wrong people, Wall Street instead of Main Street.<\/p>\n
And the indie stuff is too often…\u00c2\u00a0 Too out there or crap.<\/p>\n
We’ve been looking for a top-down solution.\u00c2\u00a0 Someone who’s gonna come and save the day.\u00c2\u00a0 A new FM, a new MTV.\u00c2\u00a0 But in an era where even Pitchfork whores itself out to Paul McCartney, <\/p>\n
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