He may be more than just a little cranky…
He may be a full-time know-it-all, but there’s gold in them thar barbs that music industry curmudgeon Bob Lefsetz dishes out. Check out his latest rants on all things hip:
CROWDFUNDING
Peaked. You hardly even hear about it anymore. Another Internet fad that didn’t live up to its promise.
It all depends on the excitement of benefactors. Right now, they’re elsewhere, and too many are disappointed what they funded did not come to be, or did not meet their standards. Furthermore, those who raised money found out they could fund their project, but could not increase their visibility.
We have no need for another search engine unless it’s demonstrably better. So far, no one’s done search better than Google, there’s no need to go to Bing. This war’s been fought.
Illustrates how Wall Street is out of touch. Dropouts galore, but the Street can only talk about money. Tweeting is akin to calling for your mommy at Yankee Stadium.
As for the Stadium, we’re all interested in stars. So the most popular on Twitter have an audience, no one wants to hear the musings of the wannabe.
Is populated by those who post incessantly and grazers…and dropouts. It’s somewhere you used to go that you occasionally visit, fearful you’re missing out on something, but you’ve got no allegiance.
SAMSUNG
Is about manufacturing efficiencies. It killed Sony and put a dent in Apple’s handset business. Samsung is where products go to be commoditized. It never successfully leads, only follows. He who follows must have the best systems. Right now, Samsung does.
New Zealand’s Lorde
LORDE/ROYALS
This year’s “Rolling In The Deep,” only more so, because unlike “Rolling In The Deep,” “Royals” is not derivative, it doesn’t sound anything like what came before.
Despite all the Miley and Katy hype, the biggest track of the year belongs to Lorde.
And deservedly so.
1. Make it instantly hooky.
2. Lyrics come last, but if you have something to say it decreases a track’s burn. The fact that Lorde is decrying the phony totems pop, hip-hop stars and the money-grubbing rich are searching for makes her the anti-star, who is always the biggest in the game, just ask John Lennon.
However, “Royals” never would have been this big without a major label. You can’t cut through the noise without one. Even Macklemore got major label radio promotion. In the age of information clutter, you need a powerhouse to get your message through.
AMAZON
Is evil. Read Brad Stone’s book for further education. Oh, that’s right, you don’t read, you’d rather bloviate, just like the content industries who served their business up to Amazon not knowing the company’s business model, which is to engulf and devour, to dominate and then extract price and billing concessions and raise prices to users.
Be afraid, be very afraid.
And stop talking about competition on the web, there is none. Just a dominant player who eats all comers, who can lower prices to put others out of business, and raise them when they dominate.
“Mr. Stone writes that Randy Miller, an Amazon executive in charge of a similar program in Europe, ‘took an almost sadistic delight in pressuring book publishers to give Amazon more favorable financial terms.’ Mr. Miller would move their books to full price, take them off the recommendation engine or promote competing titles until he got better terms out of them, the book says.
‘I did everything I could to screw with their performance,’ Mr. Miller told the writer. The program was called Pay to Play until the Amazon lawyers changed it to Vendor Realignment.”
“The Everything Store: Jeff Bezos and the Age of Amazon”: http://amzn.to/1ceBGzm
CLEAR CHANNEL
Has an online problem. iHeart Radio is no competition for Pandora, iTunes Radio and Spotify. Our problem isn’t being able to listen to lame terrestrial radio online, but our inability to escape the plethora of commercials to hear what must be heard. Clear Channel is doomed unless it changes its name. People will love it as soon as they love Ticketmaster, which is never.
THE AFFORDABLE CARE ACT, AKA OBAMACARE
Forget that the website doesn’t work well, the Administration has done an awful job of explaining exactly what it is and how it works. Porn sites have better FAQs than the Affordable Care Act. The Administration should stop fighting Republicans and try reaching out to the public/customers. As for the press…it too is complicit in this fiasco. It’s like arguing over whether airplanes should have escape slides, citing the dangers of those who utilize them, without explaining to passengers why they need them and how to use them.
Miley Cyrus
MILEY CYRUS
Stop marketing and start making music, it’s the only way you’ll survive. Now you’re famous for being famous, that doesn’t last long.
LADY GAGA
Needs a hit record. Soon. Or will become an also-ran.
You don’t rest on your laurels today, you don’t go on a worldwide victory lap, you go back in the studio and make more hit music.
Remember, Hearne is just QUOTING Lefsetz here…not just cutting and pasting the newsletter and putting his byline on top of it!
Well, that’s good to know.
You got something against full disclosure, Mysterious? Do you have any idea how much edited content in everything from the Pitch to the Star originates someplace else? Guess not.
So you are saying that the Star regularly reprints someone’s newsletter virtually in tact and place a different byline on top? Take your byline off this piece. You didn’t write it.
Hearne or Lefsetz, whoever takes credit for writing that incoherent drivel, needs to scale back on the afternoon imbibing. Yikes, it’s almost like they’re channeling Kelly Urich.
Hold it second, PB:
Are you telling me you still think Facebook matters and/or is somehow hip? That people outside of your family or a couple friends actually care what you’re tweeting? That Jeff Bezos is a really cool dude and a nice guy? That young people still listen (and plan to continue to listen) to commercial clogged local radio stations when they can hear exactly what they want commercial free online? That Miley Cyrus new album is actually good?
Just checking.
No to all that. I don’t have a FB account nor do I tweet and I sure as shit don’t know who Lourdes is. I was commenting more on the writing itself, very hap hazard and sort of hard to comprehend some of it, but maybe I just too out of touch to understand it.
That’s fair, PB.
He’s no Shakespeare or Hemingway, but he’s not really a journalist or a writer, he’s a pretty clued in entertainment lawyer – you know, for a guy his age – and he makes some valid points.
Next installment:
Lefsetz Blows Whistle on those damn kids who won’t stay off his lawn!
Damn pesky kids!!
GET OFF MAH LAWN!!!
Jeeze, pretty tough crowd, I thought there were some interesting and humorous takes in there.
By the way, Lorde has fired a few much needed shots across the bow of the Hip/Hop/Holocaust and shoved rasberries in the faces of current teenage icons who, drowning in an incessant, narcissistic, self congratulatory pool of nakedness, stupidity and outrageous behaviour, that supposedly will substitute for talent, need some comeuppance.