Why can't we have more albums like "Frampton at Royal Albert Hall"?
Today's listening experience is different. So much of music is foreground, whereas yesterday the music used to live in the background, it was personal, just you and the tunes, a secret communication.
Credit FM radio. Before that, it was all about the hit. The album was an afterthought, usually a mish-mash collection of hits and dreck. Of course the Beatles changed that, inspiring others to make cohesive album statements, but they wouldn't have triumphed without FM radio. You may think the White Album is a classic, but it was not played on AM radio. "Sgt. Pepper" debuted at the same time as FM underground rock, it was a marriage made in heaven, along with a bunch of bands from the San Francisco Bay Area, Big Daddy Tom Donahue and KSAN revolutionized music. Because suddenly there was a place to hear these sounds, that were not made for AM radio. The apotheosis was Woodstock, when all the bands making these sounds appeared in one place and the staid media and those it informed were positively stunned. All those people showing up for THAT?
After KSAN FM underground rock moved to New York City. And slowly populated the rest of the metropolises thereafter. If you lived in a backwater, you could not hear these tunes. Unless they crossed over. The best example being Cream's "Sunshine of Your Love," that got AM airplay in the summer of '68, long after the underground FM stations had worn out the groove.
So many of the iconic bands of the era, they didn't have an AM hit. "Purple Haze" wasn't heard on AM, although years later Hendrix's cover of "All Along the Watchtower" crossed over. Steve Miller? He didn't have an AM hit until 1973! Traffic? They never ever crossed over to AM, not in America. Sure, some of their tunes were covered by acts that had singles success, but not Stevie Winwood and company. There were no AM hits from Blind Faith...
And the labels signed all these acts without AM hit potential. Because record companies were about singles and doubles more than home runs, never mind grand slams. The music was the key element. And this music infiltrated the youth, affected society in a way no other medium came close to doing.
Of course it couldn't go on forever. Lee Abrams came along with his Superstars format, which was close to Top 40 on FM. So either you were played, or you weren't. Which meant acts started making music they thought Abrams would add. And this led to corporate rock and then the reaction of disco and it all imploded at the end of the seventies, the cynicism was felt by the public, which turned elsewhere for entertainment satiation, and then along came MTV.
MTV was AM radio all over again. It was about the hit. And if you didn't follow its playlist, your radio station lost ratings and ultimately flipped format. MTV dictated. Furthermore, the acts MTV featured were bigger than almost all of the acts prior. Yes, that rocket ship bumper was apropos. Because if MTV aired it, it blew up, it went worldwide. And conjoined with the new CD format, coin rained down in amounts previously unheard of.
So, the cynicism set in again. After the "novelty" records of the early years, the Haircut 100s, the T'Paus, never mind Duran Duran and Culture Club. First and foremost you had to look good, and then you had to make an expensive video, and then MTV still might not air it. But if it did...
We had hair bands. Eclipsed by the Seattle sound. Actually, MTV was constantly causing whiplash in the recording industry. It would have edicts. Less metal. More of this, no more of that.
And by time we hit the nineties, it was all about the money.
And then the internet came along and blew it all apart.
2
The major labels didn't understand the internet, they still don't. They think it's physical in the virtual world, but nothing could be further from the truth. For many reasons... Most people cotton to single outlets online. Amazon and Apple have traction, but really it's a Spotify world, not only in America, but the entire globe. Because people go where everybody else does. Like in retail, there's Amazon and...minor players. This is unlike the bricks and mortar retail of yore, where there was a record shop not exactly on every street corner, but there was a plethora of them.
The major labels want codification, they want rules, they want a system. But in truth, the internet blew it all to smithereens.
Sure, there are still "hits," but if you're not a fan of the act, you don't have to listen to the track, the act, you may be completely unaware it exists!
But the major labels can't adjust for the modern era, they're like the newspapers. Rather than investing and growing, they're cutting. They're putting out fewer albums by fewer acts in fewer genres, wanting to have gigantic hits, meanwhile the landscape has changed. Most of the money is deeper down. The hits are losing market share, the great unwashed, not signed to major labels, are gaining it.
I could say it's 1967 all over again, but although history repeats, it's always with a twist.
Once again, the landscape has been broadened. It's the opposite of AM, of MTV, it's not a controlled market whatsoever. In fact, ANYONE can play. And instead of adjusting for this, Lucian Grainge wants to lop off the compensation of those with little market share, few streams. If he were smart, he'd dig down deep and find a way to monetize the music of the great unwashed, because you never know where your next hit is coming from.
Today major labels believe hits come from the internet. Prove it and they might sign it. This has to do with clicks, with views, it's got nothing to do with music. If people are clicking on goose farts, the majors will sign the goose and put out its record. Whereas major labels used to hunt for talent, and then nurture it, mostly in a hands-off manner. Today? They'll ask you to do a cover, to employ another songwriter, to remix. The opportunity cost is so high that they want insurance, but this is the opposite of the essence of music. This is not collaborative art like movies or TV, music is about pure inspiration, resulting in a creation that almost no one can define, can quantify, but that resonates with the public.
So the majors, if they want to survive in the new music world, need to sign more acts in more genres, and should stop laying off workers to satiate Wall Street. I mean what does your stock price have to do with music anyway? And Warner is run by a man from the visual world, imagine that in the days of Ahmet Ertegun.
But unless you're employed by the major label, you don't care about it. But you still make music, and...
If you want the rich and famous contract proffered by Orson Welles to the Muppets stop now. That's no longer the paradigm. You're on your own. And if you truly want to succeed... Well, are you an artist? Or are you a me-too influencer looking for brand extensions? Both coexist, but the nougat is in the artists. And there are very few artists. You can make music, but that does not mean it has the je ne sais quoi that resonates with an audience. Just because everybody can play doesn't mean everybody deserves attention.
So radio airplay means less than ever before. And Spotify and the rest of the streaming outlets do a piss-poor job of featuring new music. This is not Tom Donahue, music maniacs moving the culture, rather it's a slew of drones creating playlists for the brain dead. Caught up in monetization, saving the recording industry, the streamers have abdicated their responsibility to break quality new music. And how important is music to Apple and Amazon anyway? Not very.
Maybe this will change. Maybe there will be some coherence, the streamers will find a better way to connect artists and listeners, but I wouldn't bet on it.
Which means the onus is on the artists themselves.
And an artist is not entitled to an audience, or to make a living. The question is... Can you come up with something that resonates with people, in quantity? And can you continue to do this?
Very few can. But today, most are starting live, on the road, because if you can draw an audience, promoters don't care what your music sounds like. Don't equate this with social media goose farts. To put together a live act, hone it and draw people to see and hear it requires a lot of effort and very few can achieve this.
We live in an era when everybody is looking for the visceral, for a connection. And despite all the hoopla, most times hit music does not provide this. And whereas it used to be all about the recording, now the song is just a framework for the live performance. People want a sensation beyond just listening to a recording. They want to feel the music, want to be in an assembled multitude, they want a unique experience, they want to be taken higher.
And the entire recording industry is unprepared for this. Because they can't understand it and can't think of a quick way to make money on it.
I mean Peter Frampton didn't have an AM hit until his double live album, after four previous solo albums.
The same game is being played today. You keep doing it until you achieve critical mass. Look at Hurray for the Riff Raff. That woman has been doing it for years, she's just getting big time traction, and she's got a catalog, like the acts of yore.
You've got to be willing to labor in the wilderness. And find a way to keep yourself alive.
And if you're twelve and can play the hits on YouTube... You're a long way from the top, hell AC/DC had multiple albums and two lead singers before they became monolithic.
So all the action is in the underground once again. Will these new underground acts blow up to the level of yore? Well, the interesting thing about the internet is you can reach everybody, but it's hard to get everybody to pay attention.
So stop trying to write a hit, that's passé. Stop thinking about being lifted by radio and TV, which mean less than ever before anyway. No, now is the time to go on your own hejira, to woodshed, to come up with something completely different, like in the days of FM underground rock, that was the amazing thing, none of the acts sounded the same.
But be sure of one thing, the audience is hungry for something new and different that titillates them.
Hell, much of the audience thinks music is all about hits you can dance and party to. Their idea of an oldie is Mariah Carey.
We've driven this train about as far as it can go. Today's "hit" music is more vapid and less influential than it has been in sixty years. All the action is in the back alleys, in the penumbra.
Hit music is a business that draws blind acolytes. But when you get discerning people, who live for the music...
I'm not talking about fandom, people bonded to BTS, or Swifties... I'm talking about people addicted to music, period. Early adopters. Who are sifting the sounds, looking for fulfillment. The recording industry has done its best to turn these people off, with the crap being purveyed, but it is these people who are the heart of the business. Not the pre-teen who goes to the show and buys a ton of merch, that's momentary. No, we're talking lifers.
Sure, you like music, but that may not be enough. We hear all the time that young people love music. But that's not what I'm talking about. I'm talking about the vinyl junkies of yore, who had an insatiable need, whose life was consumed by music. There's no infrastructure nurturing and satiating these people.
But that's the future. The smaller acts, that can't be categorized, whose music listeners can't stop testifying about.
And no one on the business side of recording wants to go there because the parameters are not clear and it's a long haul.
But those who put in the effort, on both the creative and business sides, are the ones who will revolutionize this business. It's coming. If for no other reason than it just can't go on like this.
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