What a crock of shit.
Who knew the crooked music charts would impact the political scene.
That's right, the music charts are manipulated and phony, made to serve the labels, not the public. They're inaccurate and should never be trusted. There are many ways to game the charts.
Leading me back to what I wrote last week. Which is find some way you can win, can say you're #1, have done something dramatic, there must be some category in which you qualify. How about iTunes sales? About as relevant as vinyl. Then again, they tell us who is #1 in vinyl too! In a world where little is released on vinyl, you can't get pressing time, and big stars load up product and drop it in a week so they can go #1 and hype it ad infinitum, just like Jason Aldean and his supporters re "Try That in a Small Town."
Do you remember 2003? That's when the iTunes Store launched. Twenty years ago. When you still rushed out to buy an iPod, a device that Apple has completely stopped making. Because music is an on demand item, you don't need to own anything, it's all at your fingertips, when you want it!
So why buy?
Almost nobody does. It makes no sense. Why buy a compromised file when you can listen in full fidelity on Apple Music and other platforms, in many cases in better than CD quality.
But wait, if you can still sell CDs... You go to the top of the chart!
You see sales are unjustly weighted on the charts. It would be like singles being worth more than home runs when it comes to baseball. It'd be like sales of the VCR in a DVR world... And DVRs have been eclipsed by on demand!
How far can I take this...
It's like the sale of cassette decks. Or Walkmen. Dated products that have little to no use in today's world. Let's say the sale of one cassette is worth a million streams. No, let's be realistic... Let's start with the truth. One sale is worth 1,500 streams in the Luminate, chart-making world. Think about that, one sale at the iTunes Store is worth 1,500 listens on a streaming platform. I'll bet my life that no one will listen to the iTunes file of "Try That in a Small Town" 1500 times. Man, I doubt anybody will listen five hundred times. How many will listen even ten times. HOW MANY WILL LISTEN AT ALL!
The purchase of iTunes files is evidence of support, of solidarity, it's got nothing to do with listening to the song. Because not that many people are listening to the song. How do I know? I checked the Spotify Top 50 and "Try That in a Small Town" is not in it! Nowhere to be found.
And don't tell me it's a country thing. Luke Combs's version of "Fast Car" is number 7. It got 6,324,853 streams yesterday. "Try That in a Small Town" got 11.6 million streams last week, on all platforms! Sure, Spotify punches above its weight, but it is not all of the market. I'm not saying 11.6 million streams in a week is nothing, but it's not a whole hell of a lot. It won't put much gas in either the plane or the bus. But somehow, in the topsy-turvy world called the music business, "Try That in a Small Town" charts higher than "Fast Car."
Morgan Wallen's "Wasted on You" is #16, with 4,825,150 streams on Spotify yesterday. But in bizarroland, it doesn't hold a candle to "Try That in a Small Town.
Never mind all the non-country hits in the Spotify Top 50, they can't compete with "Try That in a Small Town," no way, Jason Aldean is #2!
And if this hogwash is printed in the "New York Times," you've got to believe that it's being repeated by other news outlets, especially on the right wing. Jason Aldean won! But he didn't. But if you say that you're a naysayer, someone who can't handle the truth.
This is not so different from Donald Trump saying he won the election. Well, he was leading in certain states before the mail-in vote was counted. Well, that means you win, right?
Of course not. But you can't convince many of his supporters otherwise. And you can't convince Aldean supporters otherwise.
I mean at least level the playing field. Tell us how many paid streams a song gets, create the chart from that. But it can't be done, because the labels find that nearly impossible to manipulate!
This is how it works. A has-been star wants a number one album. So the label cooks up some vinyl, pushes iTunes Store sales, games the crooked system so they can get something to publicize. And the following week the album is nowhere to be found, because in truth no one is listening to it. I mean it is music, it's about listens, isn't it?
OF COURSE NOT!
Wow, I could go on and on. You've got the artists who don't understand the difference between an on demand stream and a radio stream. Not complicated, but when you get a low royalty check someone must be at fault, it can't be you. But radio pays so much less! And there's radio on Spotify. You put in the name of an act and a bunch of tracks are spewed out and the pay rate is different, because the listener has no control.
I won't even go into who owns the publishing or how many writers there are, if the complainer even owns any of the publishing.
And if the people involved can't understand it, what are the odds that people uninvolved can understand it? Almost nonexistent!
But it feels good to say. Those right wing red people from the rural states are showing the nasty blue people something. You can't keep a heinous view down. We are incredibly strong. Hell, we learned our skills while we were enslaved!
That's another right wing trope. Uttered by a candidate for President.
So in truth, the Jason Aldean kerfuffle is minor in the scheme of things. But falsehood, obfuscation, manipulation goes to the bedrock of our system. Everybody's got their own facts, everybody's #1 somewhere.
No wonder we can't come together and move ahead. We're not even starting from the same line, we don't even believe the same things.
And if you think this screed will change the charts...
The people who pay Luminate like it this way. We can't even get rid of the carried-interest rule, what are the odds we can have an honest music chart?
I hate when this happens. Because if the news will print tripe like this, what will they print about something more important?
Scary.
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