COUNTS
MOJO
If only it came out every other week and was printed on newsprint which folded in the middle...
"Mojo" is the "Rolling Stone" of today. Absent the popular culture and politics, then again, with even MORE music coverage. These guys take it SERIOUSLY! They think music is something worth basing a life around. Whereas the LABELS don't emit this vibe, never mind the other music magazines. Interestingly, the focus is almost exclusively on OLD ACTS! Because those were the last acts that cared. That were doing it for the music, not the money.
HBO
While you're sleeping, while you're just going on with your life, you believe that the execs at HBO are working hard to bring you fulfilling entertainment.
You don't have this same feeling about the MAJOR LABELS!
Oh, what a pleasure to be able to TRUST THE PURVEYOR!
MARK BURNETT
He knows reality TV is more than just pointing cameras at beautiful people.
NICKELODEON
Brainwashing for the young.
RUSSELL SIMMONS
But his star is fading. He could be at the end of his run. You see a guy like this needs a platform, a business from which he pronounces, and at this point Russell is seeming like a talking head without portfolio.
TALK RADIO
More vibrant, more interesting than music radio. It's the underground radio of today.
SATELLITE RADIO
XM, Sirius, it doesn't matter. There will come a time when people will be STUNNED that we used to listen to commercials between songs. Adoption rate is SO FAST that you're going to wake up one day and find out terrestrial radio is dead and you've missed the market.
THE WEB
It's an advertising JUGGERNAUT!
And it broke that JibJab "This Land Is Your Land" video. It will break more video/music in the future. It's just that the concept of "break" will change. The multiplatinum madness is behind us. And, like network TV, how much will it cost to ACHIEVE that ubiquity? Will it be WORTH IT?
TAKING BACK SUNDAY
LUCKY that they could not get out of their deal with Victory. Because now, unlike Thursday, they still appear to be COOL!
And make no mistake, that's what we're selling, cool. We want to believe that the band is just like us, only more talented. That they've got backbones and are in it primarily for the MUSIC, not the money or fame.
BIG & RICH
Who says there's no thinking in country music?? What's next, thinking ROCKERS? Probably!
BIG CHAMPAGNE
What people REALLY want.
iPOD
Shipped over 800,000 last quarter. But not at $19.98, but prices ranging from $249 to $499! All on the backs of the record companies. Funny how P2P is the enemy, but Apple is cool. Then again, the labels didn't WANT it to be cool. They sued to STOP the Rio, the predecessor of the iPod. But now EVERY exec has an iPod, and SWEARS by it! Do you really want to leave the future in the hands of THESE GUYS??
STILL COUNTS
SEAN PUFF DADDY P. DIDDY COMBS
Okay, you hate him. I'm with you.
No musical talent. Even has a bad speaking voice for an actor.
But Sean is very INTELLIGENT! He's always one step ahead of the market. He manages to always keep the press interested. Oh, his parties and proclamations seem CORNY, but Sean does it so well he keeps getting another chance. An odd conglomeration of the selfish and the altruistic.
MUTT LANGE
The most guaranteed hitmaker still working.
You're ALWAYS better off with a producer who can WRITE than one who can engineer.
HIP-HOP
The ultimate goal has been achieved. Rap music and the hip-hop lifestyle are the marketing device of choice. The whole genre has COMPLETELY sold out. The African-American is getting the last laugh. Then again, at what cost? They're paid their fees, but the white man still owns the corporation.
P2P
Either you're a user, or you're hopelessly out of it.
LYRICS
Sure, a bunch of hit songs are incomprehensible, or mean almost nothing. But the standards SAY something!
If you want your band to last, have the lyrics SAY SOMETHING! People will then invest in you. First their emotions, then their MONEY!
NORAH JONES
Still means something even though she decided to go on a victory lap tour after previously underselling EVERYTHING!
The manager and the agent have eviscerated all the buzz, all the specialness in one fell swoop. I hope they're HAPPY!
CATALOG
Works died without it. It outsells most of the new hits. It's the only thing teenagers want.
And it's not about rap, and not about boy bands.
Don't forget, Clive Davis never created catalog at Arista. How can he be the LEADER? One who will lead the assembled multitude off the cliff!
It's not about HITS, it's about product that sells FOREVER! And that which sells forever is seemingly always the product of a CAREER that was created by long time work in the trenches, not an instant PUBLICITY FLASH MOB ATTACK!
FINALLY COUNTS
THE DAILY SHOW
It wasn't a cult, college students were not addicted. But, the PRESS WAS! The press wrote about this show SO MUCH that people finally started to watch it. STUNNINGLY, it's not quite as good as they say, but it's FAR SUPERIOR to Letterman, never mind the fifties-derived Leno.
It's not only the subject matter, the irreverence, the pace, it's Jon Stewart himself. It's his REACTIONS! He's your SURROGATE! Staring in disbelief at all the inanity and duplicity in this world.
If Les Moonves had any balls, he'd trade Letterman to ABC and put Stewart on IMMEDIATELY! AND NOT CHANGE THE SHOW! The audience is SOPHISTICATED! Just give them the same edgy, funny production. As for Letterman...he'll be another element contributing to ABC's slide.
Bottom line...people are getting OLDER every day. We've got to tear down the institutions and install the new. CERTAINLY after runs as long as Letterman has gotten.
And, CONAN is not the man. Conan is safe. It's ROMPER ROOM. "The Daily Show" has a subversive element. Sure, that's classic cable. But, in the future, network will look more like cable, it will HAVE TO TO SURVIVE!
COUNTS BUT
COHEED & CAMBRIA
Signs with major label, makes extremely lame video... Anything else they're going to do to decimate their indie cred?
Acts must realize, the road to success is to do it a NEW WAY!! If nothing else, Lou Pearlman taught us THAT!
KINDA COUNTS
FUSE
Music video is dead. History. Kids don't want to watch it, oldsters NEVER believed in it. But TELEVISION is not dead, nor history. Americans are ADDICTED TO THE TUBE! And in surfing the multitude of channels, they've come to discover Fuse. They know what they see on Fuse is a little DIFFERENT from what's on MTV. There's a LITTLE of that train-wreck novelty feel of the MTV of the eighties. But, only a small group of people are interested. Fuse IS NOT going to blow up. It's not going to be responsible for breaking multiplatinum bands. But, it CAN get a left-field band started. You see the major problem in the marketplace, the one that truly affects CD sales, is not piracy but EXPOSURE! ANYWHERE you've got a place to expose product to the masses is GOOD! And with MTV and radio TIED-UP Fuse is an alternative. But it's not the ANSWER!
BARELY COUNTS
KAZAA
Chalk up another victory for the RIAA! They've killed another service, scattering P2P users to new and divergent sites where they're even HARDER to find!
How many time are we going to have to WATCH this movie? It's starting to look like "Groundhog Day". When do the record companies wake up like Bill Murray and make peace with REALITY!
SHEDS
The term has become a PEJORATIVE!
It started out as an evening under the stars. Music outside.
It became a Disneyland without any capital investment. Where you had to keep your wallet open during the entire ride. Barraged by marketing messages all the while.
This is the corporate capitalist future of NIGHTMARES! And it's here TODAY! Pure greed right outside downtown! Doesn't sound like that great a thrill ride to ME! Nor to everybody else staying home this summer.
THE HIRED-GUN SONGWRITER
When everybody and his brother is making his own documentary who in the hell wants to hear a pretty face sing a song written by some fortysomething hack? No, we're moving away from the boy band era. From the tweaked hit. Hell, what's a hit anymore ANYWAY? The marketplace is too fractured. The "written for" hits are the blandest, most expensive to market for the lamest least loyal audience. Would anybody be interested in Taking Back Sunday if SOMEBODY ELSE WROTE THE TUNES?
PROMOTION STAFFS
Hire a quarterback, lay everybody else off.
PRODUCTION
With the tanking of the concert business expect more acts to go out with little or no production. And the amazing thing will be that fans won't CARE! After all, it's supposed to be about the MUSIC!
SARAH McLACHLAN
Her audience was SO enamored of her that they had babies themselves, and stopped buying her CDs and stopped going to her concerts too.
BEASTIE BOYS
People just don't want their punk attitude from guys old enough to have children who can play in punk bands THEMSELVES!
LINKIN PARK
What do they STAND FOR? They're a better LIMP BIZKIT? It's about time for the band to make a statement.
MERCEDES-BENZ
Not quite the quality of the Chevy Vega, but barely better than the Dodge Omni and the Chrysler Horizon. Just because you made it once don't think you've made it FOREVER!
ALMOST COUNTS
BLENDER
A better read than "Rolling Stone", but it only takes about a half hour to peruse. It's the PEOPLE or US of music magazines. But, at least they've got the ATTITUDE right. You know where they're COMING FROM! Then again, there's not the heart of online music coverage. You know that the publishers are in it for the MONEY more than changing the culture. Actually, they're just SURFING the culture, ripping dollars out of kids' wallets. Then again, if they get a few good laughs, kids think it's worth it.
SHOWTIME
Still Avis to HBO's Hertz (then again, that reference is so old almost nobody GETS IT), but they're starting to try hard. They haven't quite nailed it, but they're getting CLOSE!
MARIA MENA
The anti-Ashlee.
CHRISTINA AGUILERA
The public seems convinced she can sing. The fact that she's got nothing to say seems irrelevant.
DOESN'T REALLY COUNT
SOUNDSCAN
Investigate closely and you'll find that there's more estimation than counting. ESPECIALLY with indie and new and developing artists. Which means that this scorecard is INHERENTLY favoring those in power!
NO LONGER COUNTS
FRED DURST
Only the fact that he's SMART allows him to still command ink.
Fred should go to the therapist, emerge with a mea culpa, and become a cog in the machine instead of the self-hyping tool/fool he's become. He COULD become the new Mark Wahlberg if he'd just stop dead in his tracks, reevaluate and ADJUST!
FIONA APPLE
It was all about the marketing.
BRITNEY SPEARS
Only exceeded in the self-destruction department by Courtney Love. But at least that's Courtney's ACT!
TIP SHEETS
You bought the advertising for theoretical independent promotion. Boy, isn't THAT a laugh.
AMERICAN IDOL
It's TELEVISION! And the mania's already history. Sure, there have been some hit records, but look at the concert grosses. Every TV fad comes to an end...hell, is LAUGH IN still on the air?
LEVI'S
Nothing lasts forever.
EVANESCENCE
The guy who wrote the hits LEFT!
PERRY FARRELL
DOESN'T COUNT
ROLLING STONE
Bit the dust when it completely changed format to compete with "Blender", which was lying about its circulation, and STILL had a fraction of the number of readers that "Rolling Stone" did.
Now "Rolling Stone" is full of short articles that have the nutritional value of Twinkies when at LEAST they used to deliver CINNABONS, which you couldn't finish in ONE BITE!
But really, it was the delicate balance of lengthy music articles and sociopolitical ones that accounted for the magazine's greatness. Now they're appealing to non-thinkers with the musical squibs, yet occasionally want these grazers to devour lengthy diatribes by has-been writers?? No, "Rolling Stone" became the bible by taking EVERYTHING in the alternative culture seriously. Now, like the baby boomers who own and run it, they seem to only take MONEY seriously. And it SHOWS!
And, if you want to know anything about music, news, gossip, analysis, you go to the WEB! "Rolling Stone" could have owned this sphere, but it was taken over by young whippersnappers, the same ones who are going to steal the RECORD BUSINESS from the major labels.
MTV
Reinvented itself once, but it probably can't do it again.
Oh, the majordomos will say that they're CONSTANTLY reinventing the channel... what a crock of shit THAT is. They change on-air talent, bumpers, but it's been the same for eons...it's a CLUBHOUSE for the younger generation. (Of course, it USED to be a music channel, but that's a distant memory.) But now the clubhouse is laden with such pandering, the lottery winners who get on the air are so smug and self-satisfied, that the aging baby boomlet that is the station's core audience is rejecting the channel. It's just not HIP! It's like the station's been taken over by the same kids who run the HIGH SCHOOL! Where's the ALIENATION??
Oh, there's FAUX alienation. But would the people testifying about their hard lives be doing so if it weren't on MTV?
MTV has lost touch with the cultural zeitgeist. People have moved on, to the Web. Where KIDS build the Websites and change them on a whim. Now, MTV is just...television.
THE HIVES
Attitude and outfits do not a hit act make.
AAA RADIO
There ARE a couple of good stations. But THEY UNDERSTAND that you've got to mix a bunch of oldies in with the new stuff. Too many stations play too much lame new music. Just because it's new doesn't mean it's GOOD!
If one more major label exec tells me he's going to get his record started at this format I'm going to PUKE! That's like getting your movie started by playing it at libraries. In the SUBURBS! Where only oldsters attend!
VINYL
As good as it sounds, the future lies in SACD and DVD-A, not a return to this ancient format. Hate to clue you in, but most of those vinyl releases of new acts are not bought to be PLAYED, but as SOUVENIRS! Hell, almost nobody HAS a turntable...and, if they do, is it HOOKED UP?
THE iTUNES MUSIC STORE
A press hype. A false messiah.
TOMMY MOTTOLA
Without money and power, he's revealed to be the mid-level manager he always was.
COPY PROTECTION
Burn it to CD and it's no longer protected.
If the CD is protected, just rip it analog.
It's as if a storeowner put ten locks on the front door and left the back door open.
VELVET REVOLVER
Don't quote me sales figures. A complete anomaly. Has-beens surfing on good will. Means nothing other than you MIGHT BE ABLE to cash in on old fame.
SONY CONNECT
If a tree falls in the forest...
But it's not REALLY a tree. It's a COPY PROTECTED tree. Shrouded in a wrapper nobody else has even HEARD of!
Furthermore, you need a map to FIND this tree and the public has decided it doesn't WANT this map, i.e. they don't want to download the software.
Why is it that everybody believes if you had it once, you still have it. When truly the only thing the same is the NAME! It would be like expecting the Kansas City Royals to win every year since they won ONCE!
LENNY KRAVITZ
He LOOKS cool. He's got ATTITUDE! He just makes mediocre music.
Isn't this just the OPPOSITE of what the priorities should be?
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