That's this week's biggest music business story:
"Rihanna's Lingerie Line Accused of Deceptive Marketing-A consumer group claims that the buzzy Savage x Fenty line 'ensnares consumers into unwanted monthly charge.' The company disputes the accusation." nyti.ms/2wg2T9P
Read the article, which has almost no legs, CNN followed up two days later, but "Elle" and E! are just promoting the clothing, as if there's no scam.
And believe me there is. This is a false equivalency headline. The company's excuse is as lame as the dog ate my homework.
Yup, you buy $20 leggings and you get hooked into a fifty dollar subscription, and it ain't easy to get rid of it.
Does this speak to Rihanna's credibility?
OF COURSE, SHE HAS NONE!
That's what the internet era has wrought, everybody's got an agenda and everybody's trying to get rich and word is spread that people don't care but they do!
That's why Bernie Sanders is so successful.
That's this week's big political story, how Bernie won in New Hampshire yet the media didn't feature his victory, just said how well Buttigieg and Klobuchar did. AND THIS IS THE LEFT WING MEDIA! As for the right, Fox took Bernie's side, and by time they were through with the left wing media it was hard not to agree with them.
But the media and the pundits and the DNC have an agenda too...THEY WANT TO KEEP THEIR JOBS!
It's all about ratings, not truth. And since we all have different news sources, no one is holding anybody to account.
Except for the public.
There's this fiction, referenced above, that the public does not care, BUT IT DOES!
Today's big story is Michael Bloomberg's meme factory on Instagram:
"Michael Bloomberg's Campaign Suddenly Drops Memes Everywhere-A campaign of sponsored content for the candidate flourished suddenly on Instagram. A new outfit, called Meme 2020, is behind it.": nyti.ms/37ozeIj
Seems brilliant in conception, but...people on social media will hype anything if you pay them, and the entire nation runs on social media (that's why we argue about it, if you're not on Twitter or Facebook or Instagram or WhatsApp or even Snapchat, you probably already made up your mind who you're voting for).
Which brings us to the Bezos story. Talk about a man who is out of touch with the public.
Bezos wanted to repeat the Tesla exercise, wherein Elon Musk got various localities to bid against each other to give incentives for Tesla to locate in their burgs.
"Behind Amazon's HQ2 Fiasco: Jeff Bezos Was Jealous of Elon Musk-Determined to meet Bezos's demand for Tesla-size government handouts, the HQ2 team became victims of their own hubris.": bloom.bg/2SscbrT
But Bezos didn't realize Amazon was not Tesla, and that there would be blowback.
That's also the story of today, how the rich and the media are out of touch with the hoi polloi. And when Amazon pulled out of New York, you had all the big swinging dicks saying the public was ignorant, but now the public is on the side of their New York brethren, it's the elite that are on the losing side.
Which brings us to Trump. Believing if he won on impeachment, he was home free. But now Barr has turned against him.
So what you see is identity management is becoming very important in the internet age, when all the players, the ten percenters being the worst, say this is not the case.
This is why Bernie is winning. He refuses to play the game.
As for all the negative press, Bernie said he doesn't bother to call the reporters on their birthdays. Yup, insiders manipulate the game. They hire pros who advise them. And it all used to be hidden, but now the internet has shed light on these practices, even though it's hard to get the word out, as in the Rihanna example above.
You've got to be able to say no.
It's turning into the classic rock era all over again.
A musician can never be as rich as a techie or a banker, impossible unless they invest themselves, like Bono and Guy Oseary. You see these people are not in entertainment to make a statement, but to get rich, to gain power, not knowing the power comes from the art.
So what we've got now with Bernie is a public uprising.
And a concomitant reaction.
When the truth is Bernie is a band and he has fans. Does Mike Bloomberg have any fans? None I've found, certainly not outside of New York, certainly not any who are not already wealthy and want to protect that wealth.
There were few Hillary Clinton fans.
Few Kerry fans.
Few Al Gore fans.
And they all lost. They looked good on paper, but they could not get the public excited about them.
This is how the old guard screws up. It wants incremental change at best. It wants one of its own. And the public? Could care less, and doesn't want to be pushed around.
Bill Clinton was a baby boomer, young and hip.
Obama promised hope.
Joe Biden promises a return to the past, which is why he's being decimated in the primaries. No one wants middle of the road, no one wants safe, they want to BELIEVE!
And if you triangulate and leave emotion out, focusing on math, you're screwed.
Now I'm not saying Bernie Sanders is gonna get the nomination.
But I will say if Pete or Amy had won the press would have excoriated Bernie, said he was toast.
And how excited are people about Pete and Amy?
Pete's power peaked a year ago. Amy's has yet to arrive.
People in the music business know all about this. You put your efforts behind a star, and if you're smart, it takes a long time to make it, you've got to percolate in the market before you break through.
Which is why so many acts in the Spotify Top 50 cannot sell a ticket, and acts like Breaking Benjamin sell out arenas, albeit not in New York and L.A:
"The Chart-Topping Rock Band You've Never Heard Of-Breaking Benjamin has gained a huge following between the coasts but is largely invisible to everyone but its fans": on.wsj.com/2HmSawt
Don't complain the article is behind a paywall, information wants to be expensive as well as free, and frequently it's the most expensive information that is the most important and worthy.
That's the amazing thing about the internet age, you don't have to know anybody to get a leg up. Almost all the information is available online, the tools of production too. So, even though nitwits are creating TikTok videos, there's a whole slew of motivated individuals employing all this information to change the world.
And the world is changing.
Is the Barr statement one and done?
Maybe.
But how do you lose a Presidency?
Very slowly, then all at once.
Trump doesn't realize there's a limit, that you can only push it so far before there's a backlash.
Susan Collins is a joke, and may now be toast, and should be, because if you've got no backbone in today's society, we've got no use for you. Take a stand and stick to it. The four prosecutors who ankled their jobs illustrate this.
You get a choice, you can either be part of the sausage factory or exist outside of it. To live outside the law you've got to be honest.
And they hate Bernie Sanders because he didn't play the game. That's why the compromised Hillary Clinton complained about him. She sold out, she did what was expedient, he should too.
As for the primary turnout? An irrelevant metric. Most Democrats will vote for whomever wins the nomination. It's about getting out the vote, not trying to convince people who voted for Trump last time.
So, as you can see, there's too much news to keep up with. And the cycle is so fast, it appears things get lost in the shuffle. But they don't, just like Bloomberg's faux pas which are coming out now that he's a contender, never mind that he didn't release his tax returns when he was mayor, talk about a Republican in Democratic clothing.
So the people are pissed. On both sides. That's what this election is about. Who is gonna catch the Hail Mary pass.
Music has got the distribution figured out, it's just the content that needs attention.
Television has got the content, but do the distributors truly believe we're gonna sign up for all those streaming apps?
No one is thinking about us.
But we're in control. As long as we keep paying attention and speak our truth and vote, whether it be on the ballot or with cash.
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