Once upon a time, the youth of America looked forward to the new releases of their favorite bands. Now they look forward to the latest from Apple.

Why is this?

1. Apple Surprises Us

A band would make the iPod and give up. Tour incessantly on the fumes of a ten year old device, charging us up the yin-yang for the privilege of reliving our youth.

The iPod is dead. It's barely advertised. Like a band in the seventies, Apple's playing its new album live, with only nodding reference to the hits. Why is it tech fans are interested in the new when you can't get them to sit through anything they don't know live? Furthermore, we've trained them not to want it live, to have it canned, so it's perfect. Tablets are inherently messy devices. You install apps, you customize them, you get frustrated, you make them your own. Whereas every show of the major act is the same whether you see it in Detroit or San Diego, Tampa or Seattle. In a land where it's all about having it your way, in music, the customer has no control.

2. Apple Innovates

The Beatles analogy fits because the band never repeated itself. We could not foresee "Sgt. Pepper" after "Revolver". Great artists take chances. No one takes chances in music anymore, they just repeat what they've done successfully, endlessly.

3. Bean Counters Come Last

Tim Cook may be an efficiency expert, but he knows he's subservient to designer Jonny Ive and the engineers. It's all about new products and risk. Whereas it's all about the money in music. Every member of the infrastructure, from label to manager to agent, focuses on cash first. Do that endorsement! Take that sponsorship! Play in the biggest hall you can! Musicians are playing for their handlers as opposed to vice versa. Somehow, Clive Davis and Jimmy Iovine became bigger than the acts. Innovation is scary. Only creative people are willing to make the jump. To believe the suits will endorse your exploits is like believing your mother will be fine with you dropping out of college and hitchhiking to find yourself. But it's when you've got your thumb stuck out, with the wind in your hair, that you learn, that you become inspired.

4. The Money Is Secondary To The Products

What I mean is everyone talks about the value of Apple stock, but it's AFTER they speak about the products. Most people know about U2's tour grosses, but they couldn't care less about the band's new music. Bruce Springsteen puts out a new album that's dead on arrival. Our favorites have ceased to amaze us for so long, most of us have stopped paying attention. It's like being excited over a new HP release, or caring about a new BlackBerry. Our trust has been eroded, we've given up on the past, we're interested in the new.


Sure, everyone uses Apple products, red state and blue, rich and relatively poor, young and old. But once upon a time, everyone knew who the Beatles were, and were aware of both the Stones and Louis Armstrong. And you can credit the Top Forty radio of yore, but still the acts have abdicated their power. They got in bed with MTV, they became beholden to the labels, they bitched about people stealing their music, they completely marginalized themselves.

As for the newbies yelling loudly without talent... We see that game in tech all the time. We've started to tune the pronouncements out. Just like we won't give your music a listen. We only have time for great, do you sell great?

And we want cool. Features we could not foresee. Like the ability to find your lost iPhone, iPad and Mac online. Apple didn't need to include this feature, nor did they need to provide free iCloud services, but the company wanted to blow our minds, keep us paying attention and in the fold. Whereas all we hear from musicians is who they slept with and where they went on vacation.

The acts have to give up on the money. They lost that battle. Until America realigns, no musician can make the kind of money Tim Cook does, never mind Lloyd Blankfein. But instead of complaining about this, musicians should realize that power is not merely money based. Music has more power than any amount of cash. But it must be honest and true and new.

Lady Gaga marketed her second album better than she made it. Imagine if it had been an improvement upon what came before. If we didn't hear Madonna's "Express Yourself" in the single, but something that was completely unfamiliar.

But Gaga didn't do this. And despite all the hoopla, most of America just doesn't care about her. She's the biggest of the marginal. Like the endlessly repeating himself Jay-Z. Kanye takes a few risks, but he's such a narcissist, we're turned off.

As for the rock acts... They're repeating a formula, growing their hair to look the part. Huh? We've seen that movie before, we don't care.

As for country... It's just bad rock and roll. Country music sales dropped precipitously when the audience got computers and the sphere will be hugely impacted when terrestrial country radio tanks, which it will.

The Apple iPad announcement is bigger than any album this year. Bigger than Van Halen, Springsteen or... People were waiting for it, salivating. They talked about it. Anticipation was palpable.

This is the way it used to be in music.

http://lefsetz.com/wordpress/

=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=

Music for adventurous listeners


tA

Tribal Records

theAudience said:

Once upon a time, the youth of America looked forward to the new releases of their favorite bands. Now they look forward to the latest from Apple.

Why is this?

1. Apple Surprises Us

A band would make the iPod and give up. Tour incessantly on the fumes of a ten year old device, charging us up the yin-yang for the privilege of reliving our youth.

The iPod is dead. It's barely advertised. Like a band in the seventies, Apple's playing its new album live, with only nodding reference to the hits. Why is it tech fans are interested in the new when you can't get them to sit through anything they don't know live? Furthermore, we've trained them not to want it live, to have it canned, so it's perfect. Tablets are inherently messy devices. You install apps, you customize them, you get frustrated, you make them your own. Whereas every show of the major act is the same whether you see it in Detroit or San Diego, Tampa or Seattle. In a land where it's all about having it your way, in music, the customer has no control.

2. Apple Innovates

The Beatles analogy fits because the band never repeated itself. We could not foresee "Sgt. Pepper" after "Revolver". Great artists take chances. No one takes chances in music anymore, they just repeat what they've done successfully, endlessly.

3. Bean Counters Come Last

Tim Cook may be an efficiency expert, but he knows he's subservient to designer Jonny Ive and the engineers. It's all about new products and risk. Whereas it's all about the money in music. Every member of the infrastructure, from label to manager to agent, focuses on cash first. Do that endorsement! Take that sponsorship! Play in the biggest hall you can! Musicians are playing for their handlers as opposed to vice versa. Somehow, Clive Davis and Jimmy Iovine became bigger than the acts. Innovation is scary. Only creative people are willing to make the jump. To believe the suits will endorse your exploits is like believing your mother will be fine with you dropping out of college and hitchhiking to find yourself. But it's when you've got your thumb stuck out, with the wind in your hair, that you learn, that you become inspired.

4. The Money Is Secondary To The Products

What I mean is everyone talks about the value of Apple stock, but it's AFTER they speak about the products. Most people know about U2's tour grosses, but they couldn't care less about the band's new music. Bruce Springsteen puts out a new album that's dead on arrival. Our favorites have ceased to amaze us for so long, most of us have stopped paying attention. It's like being excited over a new HP release, or caring about a new BlackBerry. Our trust has been eroded, we've given up on the past, we're interested in the new.


Sure, everyone uses Apple products, red state and blue, rich and relatively poor, young and old. But once upon a time, everyone knew who the Beatles were, and were aware of both the Stones and Louis Armstrong. And you can credit the Top Forty radio of yore, but still the acts have abdicated their power. They got in bed with MTV, they became beholden to the labels, they bitched about people stealing their music, they completely marginalized themselves.

As for the newbies yelling loudly without talent... We see that game in tech all the time. We've started to tune the pronouncements out. Just like we won't give your music a listen. We only have time for great, do you sell great?

And we want cool. Features we could not foresee. Like the ability to find your lost iPhone, iPad and Mac online. Apple didn't need to include this feature, nor did they need to provide free iCloud services, but the company wanted to blow our minds, keep us paying attention and in the fold. Whereas all we hear from musicians is who they slept with and where they went on vacation.

The acts have to give up on the money. They lost that battle. Until America realigns, no musician can make the kind of money Tim Cook does, never mind Lloyd Blankfein. But instead of complaining about this, musicians should realize that power is not merely money based. Music has more power than any amount of cash. But it must be honest and true and new.

Lady Gaga marketed her second album better than she made it. Imagine if it had been an improvement upon what came before. If we didn't hear Madonna's "Express Yourself" in the single, but something that was completely unfamiliar.

But Gaga didn't do this. And despite all the hoopla, most of America just doesn't care about her. She's the biggest of the marginal. Like the endlessly repeating himself Jay-Z. Kanye takes a few risks, but he's such a narcissist, we're turned off.

As for the rock acts... They're repeating a formula, growing their hair to look the part. Huh? We've seen that movie before, we don't care.

As for country... It's just bad rock and roll. Country music sales dropped precipitously when the audience got computers and the sphere will be hugely impacted when terrestrial country radio tanks, which it will.

The Apple iPad announcement is bigger than any album this year. Bigger than Van Halen, Springsteen or... People were waiting for it, salivating. They talked about it. Anticipation was palpable.

This is the way it used to be in music.

http://lefsetz.com/wordpress/

=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=

Music for adventurous listeners


tA

Tribal Records

though they are right in the article, APPLE to me is nothing more than what Xbox, and Playstation and all that stuff are, as soon as you buy someting they are already manufacturing something to take more money from you, so i wouldnt compare it to music that way, the new Apple Ipad is not gonna be what they were, its losing steam, when they bring one out that makes it affordable to everyone, not just the corporate world, i mean $500 every other year on this gadget is nonsense, plus they really havent improved anything, Plus if you saw how APPLE made their stuff and the slave labor to get things done cheaper, people might change their TUNE.

lastdecember said:

though they are right in the article, APPLE to me is nothing more than what Xbox, and Playstation and all that stuff are, as soon as you buy someting they are already manufacturing something to take more money from you, so i wouldnt compare it to music that way, the new Apple Ipad is not gonna be what they were, its losing steam, when they bring one out that makes it affordable to everyone, not just the corporate world, i mean $500 every other year on this gadget is nonsense, plus they really havent improved anything, Plus if you saw how APPLE made their stuff and the slave labor to get things done cheaper, people might change their TUNE.

All that being said, especially the end, the thing will probably sell like crazy.

Music for adventurous listeners


tA

Tribal Records

theAudience said:

As for country... It's just bad rock and roll. Country music sales dropped precipitously when the audience got computers and the sphere will be hugely impacted when terrestrial country radio tanks, which it will.

THAT^ part Bob mention is misleading. I know some country fans that are still buying their albums on CDs. Only Taylor Swift fans are getting their music as mp3s.

lastdecember said:

though they are right in the article, APPLE to me is nothing more than what Xbox, and Playstation and all that stuff are, as soon as you buy someting they are already manufacturing something to take more money from you, so i wouldnt compare it to music that way, the new Apple Ipad is not gonna be what they were, its losing steam, when they bring one out that makes it affordable to everyone, not just the corporate world, i mean $500 every other year on this gadget is nonsense, plus they really havent improved anything, Plus if you saw how APPLE made their stuff and the slave labor to get things done cheaper, people might change their TUNE.

Good thing I'm a full-time Linux user! Not only I'm very happy to stay off the Microsoft Corporation Plantation, but I'm also relived to not contrubuting to the Wal-Mart-ish business tactics of Apple Computers by buying any of their products.

Nice to see a fellow Lefsetz solidier on the org. Required reading for anyone in or contemplating entering the music business.

We've talked and debated at nauseum about the problems the record companies and musicians face in this still new frontier, the digital world. I'll repeat, when you start losing market share, its your product stupid. Apple's labor pratices, price points, and planned obsolescence are a discussion for another thread. Apple always saw iTunes and/or selling music as secondary to showcasing their hardware. But more importantly when you turn on an iPad, iPhone, or iPod, you have hundreds of thousands of apps/options to choose from on how you want to use your device, so its hardly a playstation or xBox. The thing is, Apple isn't the only company that's pushed music to the back-ground, all the other gagets, gear, and gizmos have made music an option rather than a priority.

I read this earlier today (I'm a big Lefsetz fan myself! ) and in a way I agree.

But I think the big issue is that music has so many competitors today in the forms of technology, video games, the internet, etc. Even if the second coming of the Beatles showed up, would everyone stop typing on their iPhones long enough to take notice?

guitarslinger44 said:

I read this earlier today (I'm a big Lefsetz fan myself! ) and in a way I agree.

But I think the big issue is that music has so many competitors today in the forms of technology, video games, the internet, etc. Even if the second coming of the Beatles showed up, would everyone stop typing on their iPhones long enough to take notice?

the thing is that people are just gadget crazy, my problem is the double standard, you had the Occupy wallstreet protest and people were typing things on an iPhone and drinking their starbucks while protesting? WELL right there you are supporting 2 of the biggest corporations in the world, APPLE is the most profitable company in HISTORY, and the jobs are overseas and thats why they make billions and not millions, but people dont realize that. THey dont know that there is one base factory that all the Apple stuff is made, and the workers make shit by hand, yes HAND, and work 36 hour shifts, for about $2 an hour, wake up america, thats what u should be protesting, think about that when you are standing on line for the new ipad that a worker in china jumped off a building so you could have your gadget.

lastdecember said:

guitarslinger44 said:

I read this earlier today (I'm a big Lefsetz fan myself! ) and in a way I agree.

But I think the big issue is that music has so many competitors today in the forms of technology, video games, the internet, etc. Even if the second coming of the Beatles showed up, would everyone stop typing on their iPhones long enough to take notice?

the thing is that people are just gadget crazy, my problem is the double standard, you had the Occupy wallstreet protest and people were typing things on an iPhone and drinking their starbucks while protesting? WELL right there you are supporting 2 of the biggest corporations in the world, APPLE is the most profitable company in HISTORY, and the jobs are overseas and thats why they make billions and not millions, but people dont realize that. THey dont know that there is one base factory that all the Apple stuff is made, and the workers make shit by hand, yes HAND, and work 36 hour shifts, for about $2 an hour, wake up america, thats what u should be protesting, think about that when you are standing on line for the new ipad that a worker in china jumped off a building so you could have your gadget.

That's not really the point of this article though. You're veering off into the weeds with, what are excellent points, but still not the point of this article.

Bob's point is that Apple's track record of innovation, much like that of the Beatles, has changed the landscape of the world we live in today, just like the Fab Four did in their day.