God Speaks
By Bob Lefsetz


I used to love to lie in the bathtub and read the interviews in "Rolling Stone".

The magazine was different then. It hadn't blinked in the face of competition. It hadn't been BLENDERIZED. The interviews...they went on and on and on. For PAGES! By time I emerged from the tub, my skin would look like CORDUROY!

But I'm not interested in what today's artists have to say.

You see they're not speaking from a point of pure ARTISTRY! They're running a gauntlet, not doing what they WANT to, rather doing what's EXPEDIENT! What will garner them dollars and fame.

Furthermore, quite simply, these new artists are uneducated and stupid. Now you don't need to be Phi Beta Kappa, but maybe you could read the newspaper, and not be afraid to go on the record.

Not that the executives are much better.

You can't get a major label executive to go on the record. Maybe just a quote, or a puff piece, but answer the hard questions? I never see it done. And the few quotes I do read make me wonder, are these guys IN TOUCH??

I don't think so.

There's been an incredible brain drain in the music business. Nobody with raw intelligence wants to go into it. Because it's the land of bullies, it's like legitimized gang warfare. How else do describe IDJ/Lyor Cohen's dealings with TVT? You want to go up against THAT? Even if you're right, have you got enough money to pay the attorneys' fees?

So we're relegated to analytical reports.

And they all say the same thing. Business sucks. Piracy is to blame. We've got to cut overhead. Our parent company wants to blow us OUT!

Kind of astounding if you think about it. The power of MUSIC never comes into the equation. The message is all music is the same. People HAVE to buy it. And, if they weren't stealing it, they would. But is this TRUE? Are Justin and Britney really no different from the Beatles?

I don't think so.

I just got through listening to Wednesday's Apple Analyst Meeting.

Wow.

Now the QuickTime movies of Jobs' presentations are pretty damn good. There's not an act in the business who's got anything on him in the showmanship department.

But this was different. This was backstage. Just Steve and his posse answering analysts' questions, with no advance planning, no preparation. Fuck, even our PRESIDENT can't do this.

Steve does about eighty percent of the talking. And what comes out of his mouth?

Unbelievable.

The convergence of the computer and TV. NEVER GONNA HAPPEN! Oh, there's a LIMITED market, but MOST people don't want to watch TV on their computers. They want to lie on the bed, sit on the couch and watch 42" plasma screens. It's a PASSIVE activity. Whereas when you compute, you're active, you sit INCHES away. And you wouldn't want to sit around with your buddies and watch a flick on your computer screen.

How about the future of desktops. What does Apple think.

Apple thinks it's a NOTEBOOK WORLD!

People want the ability to ROAM! Home wireless networking allowed you to compute anywhere in the house. People don't want to be tied down in one place.

Apple was there first with home wireless networking.

At the beginning of this year, they said it was the "Year Of The Notebook". Even though the REST of the computer industry didn't know it until NOW! As a result of their ramp-up, Apple has increased their share of the notebook market DRAMATICALLY!

God, if you think of the analogy... The major labels believe in DESKTOP music. When it's an iPOD world. If you can't transfer your tracks to your portable device and take them everywhere, YOU DON'T WANT THEM!

Steve's got an answer for everything. He employs beautiful logic.

He's asked why Apple doesn't support WMA.

He says it's because it's a CLOSED FORMAT! Whereas AAC, a variation of MPEG-4, is an OPEN format, and MPEG-4 has traction amongst the true tech players, like satellite radio. It's MICROSOFT that's being exclusionary, not Apple.

But it's all not self-righteous hype. When asked if Apple's gonna make a phone, he says that cell phones are subsidized by the carriers, and that Apple ISN'T GOOD AT GOING THROUGH MIDDLEMEN! They're MOST successful appealing to end users. SHIT, sounds like a musical ACT, doesn't it?? The label says you don't fit the model, you've got to change, but you know INSTINCTIVELY that you resonate with the public, it's the LABEL that's out of it.

But what's truly amazing is just about halfway through the meeting, when Steve is asked if he's worried about competition in online music sales from Napster and MusicMatch.

He almost laughs. Like the answer is self-evident.

He says the LABELS are making all the money on online music. That selling music online is NOT A VIABLE BUSINESS MODEL! He ponders why all the venture capitalists invested in Napster and MusicMatch SINCE THEY CAN'T MAKE ANY MONEY! Apple is different, because they're selling iPods...but these other companies are not.

Wow.

Read the straight press. Online single sales are the FUTURE! They're gonna SAVE THE MUSIC BUSINESS! And the most successful guy in the business says a retailer CAN'T MAKE ANY MONEY!

Do you think retailers do it for sport, for FUN? No, they want to make a PROFIT!

But the major labels are PREVENTING THIS! By enforcing heinous pricing policies. They think they're WINNING when nothing of the sort is the case.

Hell, just look at the NUMBERS!

When Apple was just selling to Mac users, the percentage with OS X, 3% of the market, they sold nearly a million tracks the second week after introduction. The second week after introduction of the WINDOWS version, the other NINETY plus percent of the market, they sold 1.5 million.

Well, maybe not EVERYBODY has a computer up to spec...you need Windows XP or 2000.

And not everybody has installed the iTunes program.

Still, shouldn't they have sold THIRTY MILLION TRACKS?? SHIT, HOW ABOUT TEN MILLION??

Then there was Napster. Which sold 300,000...

It seems that everything we're being told is WRONG!

People bought on the Mac service because it was difficult to STEAL! People in the Windows world are still...downloading, stealing. It's all a RUSE!

A ruse that Steve Jobs could GIVE A SHIT ABOUT! Because he's not making any money selling tracks, he's selling iPods!

Someday, there are gonna be people in the music business who are not thugs, who are men of vision who work hard to effectuate their plans.

But that day is not today.

The Internet...it's fucked up the majors real bad. They weren't prepared. And evidence is all these years later, they're STILL NOT PREPARED!

There's no viable strategy. Other than suing consumers and offering flawed legal services that can't even HOPE to make up for lost revenue.

Put all the execs in a room, and they're babbling idiots. They can't answer the questions, because they're ignorant of the TOPICS!

All they know is how to wine and dine an act and then pay money to get them on MTV, radio and in prime position at retail.

But that game is over. These skills are as relevant to today's marketplace as those of a BLACKSMITH!

The crybaby music business REFUSES to progress. It's dug in its heels and is saying NO WAY!

But change isn't only coming, it's here. And lowering overhead is not the solution.

But don't worry. The new Steve Jobs is in a garage somewhere. He's gonna come out of the blue and become the heavy hitter. Just like Jobs did twenty five years ago when everybody thought computing was about mainframes, not personal computers.

The old guard's on its way out. It's long in the tooth, fat, unprepared.

The new guard's coming in.

If you're gonna be part of the future, there's a new hero. It's not John Lennon or Michael Stipe. It's certainly not Andy Lack or Doug Morris. It's Steve Jobs.

If you want to LEARN something, want to be STIMULATED, see issues parsed, lines drawn, listen to the Analyst Meeting.

Go to: http://www.apple.com/quic...tmeeting03

Click on "Listen Now" next to "Q&A".

If you don't find it interesting...maybe you're just not meant to be in this business anymore, not meant to be a part of the new world.


WHEN TO LISTEN TO GOD

If you want to cherry-pick the Apple Analyst Meeting broadcast, Jobs speaks about the viability of online music stores at 19:30 (i.e. 19 minutes and thirty seconds into the Conference Call.)

If you want to learn about what Jobs thinks of his competition in the MP3 player world, start at 16:30.

Damn straight! I'm a Mac user and what they're pushing is so much more useful and easy to use than any other computer I've tried. It just MAKES SENSE! As far as the music biz goes, the problem is that it isn't the Music Business anhmore, it's the Business of Music. The people who change the industry aren't going to be label people, they're going to be computer people, forward thinking artists, and smart consumers. The industry knows this and that is why they're trying to keep things the way they are: because they know that if things change, a lot of them are going to be dinosaurs in a modern world. Truly sad. As a musician (and en educated one at that!) I can only sigh when I hear them say "Downloading is what has caused people not to buy CDs!" when in reality, ther reason is that most of what gets the push nowadays is SHIT! People dont want 2 spend theiur money on shit. Too bad these dumbass industry types can't get this in their heads.

This is a great read Red, nice one!

My friend just spent $300 on a new ipod and just won't stop raving. I've been telling him about MP3s for 5 years and now he's shocked

When bands start offering mp3's for $0.99 like the band "Lit" and our little purple friend. Everyone will walk away from their record companies.

The digital music revolution has begun.