Hearne: Lefsetz vs H.C. on ‘Why Things Don’t Last’

Why things no longer last? Let’s let entertainment and media overlord Bob Lefstez get things rolling:

1. Channel Overload

Used to be there were 5,000 albums a year and only a few got on the radio and if you didn’t get airplay or press, you were doomed. Now there are a zillion products, all easily promoted online, and unless your friend verifies quality and interest or a track becomes a phenomenon, you don’t care. And suddenly most people don’t care and it’s gone.

There’s a fiction perpetrated by record labels that terrestrial radio reaches everybody.

However the truth is with so many other options for hearing music. Radio is a sliver of the marketplace. To make it everywhere you need not only radio, but video and… Actually, that which is ubiquitous lives online, not on terrestrial radio. Terrestrial radio is a ghetto. You can cross over from terrestrial radio to the internet. You can rise simultaneously from both, but to be gigantic – known by everybody – you need to make it on both terrestrial radio and the internet. Whereas you can spike quite nicely online and function well without terrestrial radio. Terrestrial radio is the dollop of cream atop the sundae. Online is on demand, terrestrial radio is not. And that’s why it’s doomed amongst youngsters, who don’t want to wait, who believe everything should be instant.

The only thing no longer instant is sex. You can hear anything online when you want, research anything online when you want, connect with all your friends instantly via a plethora of communication techniques, but sex is still something you yearn for. Although the internet has made porn ubiquitous, one can argue we live in a masturbatory fantasy culture.

HC:

Where to begin? I think Bob’s onto something in terms of predicting the future of radio. And I think he has a point about how the Internet can go it alone. However, according to ratings king Nielsen, radio reaches 92 percent of people six and older every week.

Then again… 

Look at the stupid East Hills Mall in St. Joseph  video advertisement that went viral on YouTube with over 1.7 million views. So it’s true, anobody can play.

Even Johnny Dare can’t move the needle like that – not locally, let alone nationally – so while radio still reaches lots of folks, it ain’t what it used to be and the chances of it getting much better appear to be slim to none. 

As for Lefstez take on sex, he’s hardly breaking any ground here other than to note how prevalent free online porn has become. Which has gotta make it tuff on the folks who make and sell those adult DVDs, pay-per-views and the like. Why buy the cow if you can get the cream for free?

I remember going into the FYI section of the Star one Sunday afternoon a year or so before I left at the end of 2008. Damn few people inhabit the newsrooms at 18th and Grand on weekends – even then before all the layoffs – and walking over to the cubby of another Star reporter and columnist. And was I – and obviously he – ever surprised. Because there on his computer screen the world’s biggest blow job was going down. Naturally, he killed it and I acted like I hadn’t seen it and rambled on about whatever. But even then online porn was fairly rampant. Which believe it or not, I didn’t know.

It wasn’t until the last comic at Stanford’s at The Legends advised the audience to check out Afghanistan porn (and I took him up) that I discovered how ubiquitous computer spank video had become.

2. Limited Time

They’re making no more time, everything has to fight for attention and very little sustains, because there’s constantly something new in the offing. Everyone is going ever faster, so the old paradigm of needing time to digest something is taboo. Industry has accepted this, art has not. Industry realizes the product has to be perfect in the first iteration and continue to work thereafter. Not buying a car in its first year is history, as is the fear that the electric windows will break. And with manufacturing so cheap, repairs (and repairmen!) have fallen by the wayside. Why not buy something shiny and brand new! Yes, we all treasure some old favorites, but very few. So if you’re an artist, yelling may get you noticed for a day, but it won’t keep you atop the pyramid.

HC:

No argument here, we’re all out of time in today’s society.

As for the dearth of repairmen and repair places, that’s been in the making for well over a decade, maybe two. I remember taking things in for repair when Sony had a repair outlet in Overland Park near Oak Park Mall. How long has that place been gone? Google Sony repair center now and you get Geeks 4 Hire.

It’s funny though, because the Better Business Bureau still lists the Sony Service Center at 11712 W 95th and dings them for not being “accredited.”

Wanna get something fixed? A camera, a vacuum cleaner, a piece of audio-video gear? Well, theres the Audio Mart Service Center in downtown Overland Park and some vacuum and small gizmo repair joins on Wornall Road in Waldo. And there’s a dude who goes by Phototronic on 24 Highway in Topeka that even managed to repair my Contax film camera – which was nothing short of amazing.

So it can be done, but if you want something fixed in today’s disposable society, you gotta hunt for it.

3. Competition

I used to read Rolling Stone, now I read Fast Company. Oh, I still get Rolling Stone, it’s just that the magazine no longer knows what it wants to be and covers the travails of too many nitwits. I remember when I salivated over the words of musicians. Now I salivate over the words of entrepreneurs, because they’re thoughtful, they’ve got something to say. I’m a media junkie, so I’ve got all my magazines and all my websites and constant updates on my phone, so this squeezes out available time for competing media.

Lizzy Caplan

HC:

I still take Rolling Stone as well, but like Bob has said before, they’re one of the Old Media who are still trying to operate under the antiquated concept that they are taste and style setters. They’re not. I thumb through each issue – I all but get it for free – and look at the album reviews but… They just don’t matter anymore and you really can’t trust them – not that you have to since you can sample online.

But in the current issue with Willie Nelson on the cover, there are 15 album reviews, 11 of which got either a 3 or 31/2 star rating. Three got 2 or 21/2 star ratings and only one – Radiator Hospital – got four stars.

One star is “poor,” two is “fair,” three is “good,” four is “excellent” and five is “classic.”

There are a few interesting stories – The GOP’s Fake Border War, The New Science of Pairing Roomates and The Liberation of Lizzy Cappal (the sexy star of Showtime’s Masters of Sex) – but I haven’t quite gotten around to reading them yet and I’ already a week in. Not a good sign.

4. Howard Stern

He has single-handedly diminished my satellite radio music listening by hooking me. Many of us are hooked by something that pulls us down the rabbit hole, leaving little time for anything else. Used to be Howard Stern was on just a few hours a day, if you missed it, you had to wait for tomorrow. Now Stern is available 24/7, and I’m not driving 24/7, so most of the time I’m in my car there’s new Stern programming. We see this phenomenon in television. The late night talk show ratings have been decimated by the DVR, never mind on demand. We’re no longer victims of what’s on the tube, everything’s available all the time.

Stern

HC:

Like Lefsetz, I binged on Stern in my car a year or two ago. His artist interviews are second to none and I even enjoy listening to his lackees. He lost me though for a couple of reasons.

For one, it can be way to raunchy for when my daughters or my wife’s young sons are in the var. And two, when he got that America’s Got Talent gig a couple years ago that was all he talked about, with his staff kissing up to him by bringing it up all the time as if it mattered. Because in the scheme of things, it doesn’t.

It’s a nice gig for Stern and I’m sure he makes some pretty good dough, but it’s a TV talent show for chrissakes and not worthy of endless pontificating about.

5. Cultural Norms

We used to go to the movies to be part of the cultural discussion. But once we realized no one else was going, we didn’t either. Furthermore, there is no cultural discussion left, because we all share different experiences, there’s very little commonality. This makes that which is successful even more so, because we want to talk about it with others, leading to a superstar and no-star world.

HC:

In a way, Bob’s right but it’s a little more complex. For one, movies have always been the domain of the young and at 61 years of age, he’s one the outside looking in. Plus Hollywood makes for few movies for adults in general because the big money is in the Transformers and Star Wars movies that will generate hugh box office grosses worldwide. And frankly, the best movie kinda adult entertainment today is on television. Netflix, FX, HBO and Showtime – you name it. You know, and sports – except for baseball – and except for the Royals here in Kansas City. Seriously though, what person of 30 today is gonna spend much if any time talking to their peers about Guardians of the Galaxy or The Purge? Besides Jack and me, I mean.

6. Dominance

With everything at our fingertips, we gravitate to the few that break through. Look at smartphones, there are multiple competing ecosystems, but iOS and Android dominate. Windows phone is an also-ran and BlackBerry is a joke. We only want the very best all the time and therefore it takes an incredible effort to penetrate our consciousness and stay there. Furthermore, the more successful something is, the more it continues to grow, reinforcing its success. The rich get richer and the poor get poorer.

HC:

Here, here. Well said.

7. Fatigue

With so much new music, many people stop paying attention to the whole sphere, they go back to their favorites if they listen at all. Yes, when everybody yells, it becomes a noise you ignore. And you just retreat and burrow down deeper into the hole you already inhabit.

The Jezabels

HC:

That’s always been the case, people tend to listen to and sample far less music as they get older in the post high school, post college years and beyond. But not all of us, I’m still swinging away…to an extent. For example, I really like The Jezabels, an Australian indie, alt and pop rock group that released its second album The Brink this past January.

And my wife and I are venturing to Des Moines next weekend to catch a Baltimore band called Future Islands. You’ve probably heard their single Seasons, but the entire album is strong. Plus its an excuse to check out the alleged hip-ifying of Iowa and Des Moine’s East Village.

8. Quality

Easy to recognize, hard to achieve, especially when it comes to art. Good used to be good enough. Today good is awful, something no one cares about. We’re all in search of excellence and if we don’t find it we don’t waste time like we did in the three network and limited terrestrial radio world of the past. We move on. This is why major labels use the usual suspects to create obvious hit singles, anything less, and the product is doomed. Sure, you can come from left field and dominate, but this is too scary to creators who grew up in a world where your personal net worth is everything. They’re fearful of being ostracized, left out or even worse in today’s connected society, ignored. But since art is not quantifiable, creators blame the system and the audience when the truth is people are surfing for greatness 24/7 and if they find it they tell everybody they know about it. A great media campaign can gain notice for a day, but it cannot sustain the underlying product. For that to happen, the product must be exceptional. Purveyors want to deny this rule, they believe smoke and mirrors still work. Cynics want to say promotion is everything. But the truth is once distribution has been flattened – which is the essence of the internet – only true excellence rises. As a result, you can remember Avicii’s “Wake Me Up” – it becomes the most played track in Spotify history – but you cannot remember No 2, never mind No. 10. And that which spikes and lasts, however temporarily, is usually a twist, it’s usually innovative. “Wake Me Up” merged acoustic and electronic.  “Gangnam Style” introduced a whole new style of pony dancing and made fun of consumption. The sieve rejects nearly everything but that which titillates, usually because of its cutting edge newness. Your past history will gain you attention, but it won’t make you sustain. You can either play with the usual suspects, the Max Martins and Dr. Lukes, or you can risk failing on your own, like Lady Gaga. But Gaga didn’t realize it’s about product, not revenue. She stayed on the road, out of the internet spotlight, for far too long. And then she overhyped that which did not deserve it. It’s damn hard to create innovative excellence, but that’s what we’re all looking for, that is what lasts.

HC:

To which I will merely add that Lady Gaga‘s much ballyhooed album ARTPOP – released late last year – has become known as ARTFLOP, which was rumored to have lost upwards of $25 million for her label Interscope.

And time does fly. It was only five years ago that Gaga’s debut album The Fame catapulted her to superstardom. No mas.