US journalist Bob Lefsetz is always good for a rant, but occasionally he is especially astute as far as his commentary on the current state of the music business. This week one of his newsletters looked at the current Billboard 200 sales chart. He noted chart positions, sales numbers and added a few comments.
Here are some relevant highlights:
4. Christina Aguilera "Back To Basics" This week 100,740 / Cume 581,996
Mmm... In the old days, the REALLY old days, of Fleetwood Mac's "Rumours", you'd sell an album for a couple of years, off of endless hit singles.
But now, you can't count on even ONE hit single. You've got to prove yourself at Top Forty, no matter WHO you are (can you say Beyonce?) And it's not only about music, it's about image, it's about heat... Scary if you're in the hit single business.
So where does that leave Christina Aguilera? A big debut by 2006 standards, of 300,000+. But here, only three weeks hence, she's down to 100,000 copies a week. A new and developing artist hitting gold, that's pretty good. But this was supposed to be the biggest record of the year.
In other words, where's the MANIA? If Christina goes on tour does she sell out arenas instantly? Hell, she's lucky if she sells out at all.
Somehow the mania is gone. People believe in today's pop stars about as much as they do today's movies. And they've got a shelf life just as long. Do you think they'll be able to work Christina singles for two years? You're dreaming if you do.
5. Jessica Simpson "Public Affair" This week 100,800 / Debut
Piss poor. Publicity doesn't sell records. People might want to fuck Jessica, might be interested in the drama of her life, but they're not interested in her music.
10. Nickelback "All The Right Reasons" This week 54,212 / Cume 3,4232,156
As Pete Townshend so eloquently put it, "Rock is dead, LONG LIVE ROCK!"
15. Gnarls Barkley "St. Elsewhere" This week 44,047 / Cume 855,384
Biggest hype/buzz of the summer and the album can't even go platinum. This business is in even worse shape than the major labels admit.
33. Paris Hilton [God, there's that name again! Arrgghhhh] "Paris" This week 26,390 / Cume 103,421
Makes Vanilla Ice look good. Can we finally put this paradigm to rest? No, as long as there is auto-tune and cynical baby boomers who'd rather hop on a bandwagon than build something real, from scratch, we're going to be subjected to crap like this. Maybe the purveyors are too stupid to wake up, but obviously the public is hip to their tricks. [Hear hear!]
71. Buckcherry "15" This week 15,325 / Cume 375,087
Pretty good for a washed-up band that couldn't get a deal, don't you think?
78. Guns N' Roses "Greatest Hits" This week 12,728 / Cume 3,146,159
Makes Eddie Rosenblatt and the old Geffen team look like geniuses. Geffen was about the act first, not the sheen. And the acts they signed are STILL selling. Of course they got fat and happy and didn't see the change to hip-hop and went out of business, but they were the last successful old model company. Wherein it was about the MUSIC! Everything else was secondary to what was in the grooves.
How many GN'R albums are there anyway? Shouldn't you just buy the debut and the "Illusion"s? Fuck the "Spaghetti Incident". But 128 weeks on, this unnecessary compilation is still selling. We've lost our way. We've been driving headlong so fast into the wilderness that we've forgotten where we came from.
The music business didn't USED to be about getting RICH! Now the execs feel entitled. Whereas it used to be these albums blew up unexpectedly and money rained down (in the late sixties and seventies). I love that new technologies are allowing a reinvention. Because the remnants of the old system are rotten.
192. Steely Dan "Definitive Collection" This week 4,234 / Cume 29,866
What makes it definitive? The majors just repackage and sell, the same old shit, as if anybody cares. And based on some of the tour numbers, not that many people care about Steely Dan anymore.
The touring business is gonna be in serious trouble. It appears the baby boomers just don't want to go out anymore. If you haven't regrouped now, it just might be too late. Boomers are into lifestyle, and that doesn't include being treated like cattle at a gig of an act that you've already seen come back.
Where are the new acts? How do we find out about them? How do we bring the vitality back?
One thing's for sure, reinvention is not coming from the major labels. They've just got enough money to get their message heard, that the system is fucking them, that their wares are being stolen.
Somehow, music just doesn't mean the same thing anymore. Ever since MTV, it's less about what's on the disc than the marketing. You think getting thousands of MySpace friends is any different than the old game? All the e-mails I get from wannabe acts make me puke. If you're actually good, FANS will sell your music to me. But everybody wants to short circuit the process, just go straight to the bank.
Money didn't used to be the driving force. Hell, you couldn't MAKE enough! Just ask the blues musicians who inspired those English acts that sold millions in the seventies. They did it out of love.
It was hard to get exposure in days of yore. So you focused on your craft. Today, people focus on the exposure, because it's easier. Don't the lackluster sales of Paris and Jessica show that exposure is not enough??
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