Tomorrow in Aspen Jim Lewi is taking the exam to become a certified ski instructor. He's been shooting me videos of the Aspen ski school director, Jonathan Ballou, whom I've never heard of. This guy can demonstrate the exercises, he can conform, but his skiing has no soul. And then I shot Jim a video of Bode Miller breaking the rules and winning. Bode's weight goes back, he's known for flailing, but he's fast, damn fast, and in this World Cup race he beat the prior racer who made no mistakes, but just wasn't quick enough to win.
There's an insane article making the rounds about the death of new music, about catalog creeping in. New music will never die, but it will only eclipse the old stuff when it's new and different, when it TRANSCENDS THE GAME!
Now Bode Miller knows the basics. But those are just the building blocks. You've got to have the tools, the skills, embedded in your brain to the point where they become instinctual. Then you have to let your freak flag fly.
This is why graduates of music schools rarely have hit records. They can play hit music, they just can't WRITE IT!
Then there are musicians with nowhere near the skill who triumph on the charts.
When you first start out, you think everything you do is brilliant. Because you haven't had enough experience to see that it is not. But in the last twenty-odd years the music business has minted stars, not musicians. What can we sell? Is there a possibility of brand extensions? As for pushing the envelope...
At this point most people probably have no idea why the White Album was such, with no pictures on the front or back. It was a commentary on the artwork on other albums, they thought it had been taken too far, that when done right the music should be enough. And in the case of the White Album it was, and still is.
Then again, the Beatles had to have a lot of success before they could break the rules. History is littered with bands fighting to not have their names on the covers of records. Believe me, if your record is good enough people will find it, you don't have to make it that easy for them.
And sometimes it's easy and simple, and sometimes it's complicated. Sometimes you're ahead of the game, and sometimes you're right on time. And it sucks to be an innovator without acclaim. Everybody is looking for positive feedback today, they want those views, those likes, the dopamine hit of acceptance and recognition trumps the work.
And when the Beatles hit in America... "I Want to Hold Your Hand" sounded like nothing on the radio. Which is why many people heard it first and didn't get it, thought the band was an overhype. But then the second or third time through they got it.
It's not the mid-sixties anymore. Music was blown to bits by the internet, there's not a comprehensible scene that is followed and known by everybody. Hell, look at Top Forty radio, if it's not hip-hop or pop it's not interested, never. Which is why terrestrial radio lost its power. It was no longer innovative, it was doing research, trying to satiate a public that wants to be led, shown the great stuff by unique DJs they can identify with, that they want to listen to. As for a jukebox of a slender number of cuts... Today you can get that online, you don't need radio. Hell, a great deejay can get good ratings with mediocre records. The deejay can be just that powerful.
Like Howard Stern. HE STOPPED PLAYING RECORDS COMPLETELY! And then one day he was sick of being the adolescent joker and changed his program, now he's more famous for his interviews than his shtick. Of course there are those who lament his change, but you either change or die.
That's another thing about the hit acts of yore. EVERY ALBUM WAS DIFFERENT! It wasn't more of the same. Hell, the new Weeknd album is slick and professional but if you hear anything ground-breaking on it let me know, I couldn't find it, it was squarely in the Weeknd's wheelhouse, and he was so scared of a stiff that he worked with Max Martin and bought a bunch more creative insurance, and at the end of the day you lose your uniqueness. You want something so different that others can get it on one play.
Like Queen's "Crazy Little Thing Called Love." Rockabilly? This was before the Stray Cats. I had to buy that LP immediately, I needed to hear that track again and again and again.
And "The Message," by Grandmaster Flash and the Furious Five? They played that on KROQ, the station was all about pushing the envelope. "The Message" didn't sound like anything else on the outlet, but you wanted to hear it, it was magic. And opened the door to more hip-hop.
And for the first twelve or thirteen years of this century we were fighting over distribution, and while this happened there was a complete switch in the creators. The oldsters were all bitching about payments while the youngsters, enamored of the new internet tools, didn't care first and foremost about money, they oftentimes gave their work away for free, but the mores were not those of the sixties, never mind seventies. Those people on the TV singing shows revere Mariah Carey, not John Lennon. Do you know what it was like when you first heard "Strawberry Fields Forever"? A shock that Mariah Carey has never produced on wax, although she has in her personal life. Yes, the identity, THE BRAND, is bigger than the music.
And if you're gonna charge a lot for a ticket you'd better have production, the public expects it. The big acts are afraid to go out without production, but they should try it, and then they can stop telling us they need all that sponsorship money for the show. The music should be able to stand alone. Hell, some of the greatest rock guitarists played with their backs to the audience!
But there's no support going your own way, and certainly no safety net.
Then again, in the old days income inequality wasn't rampant, you didn't feel you were left behind if you didn't immediately get a corporate job right out of college.
And this affects the music. We need educated people who think for themselves to make it. Instead we end up with the lowest common denominator with no other option who'll do exactly what their handlers tell them to. And the media hypes Debbie Gibson just like it hypes the Beatles and the Stones.
As for Adele... What she is selling didn't used to be so revolutionary. A great voice singing personal, melodic songs? The hit parade used to have a plethora of them. But not anymore. Now it's drivel and beats. No one wants to risk offending someone.
So the only hope for music to regain its stature as the dominant artistic endeavor is to foster this rule-breaking.
Hell, they break rules on TV all the time. ON TV! What used to be the most safe, calcified medium known to man. One show, "The Sopranos," wrested the power, never mind the zeitgeist, from the networks. And then Netflix stole it from the pay cable channels. By saying it was gonna go from a DVD company to a streaming company. Do you remember the uproar? When was the last time you bought a DVD? Do you even have a DVD player?
Sweden and Britain succeed because of their music education systems. Yes, teach people the basics and you'll never know what they'll do with them. Max Martin was a heavy metal player, then he broke through with boy bands, who were so successful because their material was not forgettable, unlike New Kids on the Block. Did you ever see Backstreet Boys or 'N Sync live? They were MESMERIZING! In the old Motown way, dance steps perfect and A level material... It wasn't hype that built those two acts, but music.
And you'll hear a lot of oldsters pooh-pooh them. But if you don't think "Quit Playing Games (With My Heart)" is a stone cold smash, you're not entitled to an opinion, you're the one holding the future back. "Quit Playing Games (With My Heart)" is better than ANYTHING on Adele's album "30." And that wasn't the only great track Backstreet Boys had!
We can't go back to the past, but we can learn lessons from it. The past always comes back, but with a twist. The basics are just assembled differently, and you've got to be open to it, just like the audience, which is DYING to hear great new material. One of the great things in life is to turn a friend on to a great new tune. Listen to THIS! You just sit there, silent, until your compatriot's jaw drops, 'til they start moving to the music. Done that recently? OF COURSE NOT! The new music doesn't fit that paradigm, even worse people aren't even TRYING! As for the labels, the last thing they want is new and different.
And once one act breaks the mold and succeeds, the juices start to flow, a surge of innovative acts follows. This is what happened in the sixties and early seventies in music and this is what is happening in TV today. Did you watch the third season of "Master of None"? It was completely unlike the first two, it wasn't funny, it was dead serious, and it was far from great but you've got to applaud Aziz Ansari for taking the risk. Because sometimes you take the risk, get it right and the result EXPLODES!
Like "Tiger King" and "Squid Game"... Who knew? NOBODY! Not even Netflix itself!
Music is like pornography, only in this case you know it when you hear it as opposed to when you see it.
Then again, music has become a religious issue. You've got to follow the rules of your genre or you're excommunicated. And you don't want to be alone, especially not today, where it's so hard to get a toehold to begin with.
And the truth is there are not thousands of people who can create great television.
And there are not thousands who can make great, innovative music. There's never been another Beatles and there probably won't be another Prince, never mind Bob Dylan.
But they existed.
What did we hear about Dylan? HE'S GOT A LOUSY VOICE! But Bob stuck with it and the joke was on the naysayers.
Prince got booed when he opened for the Stones and then soon thereafter all these same concertgoers were boogieing to "1999" and "Little Red Corvette." Bob and Prince knew. Do you know?
We certainly do. The public is hungry for the new and different. People are ready and receptive. It's just that music hasn't been exciting, hasn't had that power and spirit since...
1969.
And the Eagles sell out stadiums decades later and the "hit" acts of the twenty first century are working day jobs.
It's not rocket science. But it is art. It's about conception more than execution. You've got to think outside the box, you've got to stop shearing off the rough edges to make your artwork palatable. Ever take a look at "Les Demoiselles d'Avignon"? Probably Picasso's most famous painting. Radically different from everything that came before.
And Manet painted everyday life, a no-no.
That's why these people are remembered, they broke the rules.
And you should too.
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