Only Netflix seems to have it right tonight, with their roast of 2024, albeit launched days before. This is the irreverence MTV traded on, but we haven't had that spirit here since...
1989.
You could see the endless parade of hitmakers on various channels. Dancing in the rain. Believing this one performance will put them over the top, after all where else can you reach so many people?
If you had a hit, you got a slot.
Or you could be tuned into CNN where Andy Cohen and Anderson Cooper were doing an act so tired, I wondered who was actually tuning in. Enough with the inside jokes, it was like watching a bad podcast live.
As for Ryan Seacrest... Talk about white bread, if he offended anybody he'd die. This guy is so bland, so perfect for an America that doesn't exist, that network executives hire him to play it safe. Eegads.
And they still call it "Dick Clark's New Year's Rockin' Eve"? Well, there ain't much rock and Dick's been six feet under for years. Who is tuning in because it's got Dick Clark's name/imprimatur? The people who remember "American Bandstand" are already asleep, or turning their hearing aids down when they hear this modern music.
But on the Nashville show...
They had to pair Keith Urban with someone from ET. That's "Entertainment Tonight" for all of you not conscious in the eighties. Talk about buying insurance that will never pay off. I had no idea who that woman was, I had to look it up.
And if you knew every act on every channel you probably work for a major label, you're the only one who cares.
And then they throw it to Chris Stapleton.
Why does Nashville's most credible artist deign to appear on this dreckathon?
Well, he got away with it by doing it his way.
Chris started "White Horse"...picking out notes on his guitar. You could see it, but even more you could hear it, because live sounds different from canned, for the same reason that Netflix's "Torching 2024" doesn't work tonight, it's canned.
So Chris and his wife and his band are playing in a bar and it sounds imperfect. But you get it, the vibe, because you've been there, at the show. Therefore, it resonated, it was human. Everybody else was playing with a net, afraid to fail, but not Stapleton.
Even if they sing live, like at the Super Bowl, they mix it in with a prerecorded track, you can't risk a screw up when everybody's paying attention.
Or can you?
I mean I heard/saw a few hits tonight. That Teddy Swims song, it's a banger. And Zach Top connected too. But no one on the flat screen connected like Chris Stapleton.
Call it country, but it's really rock and roll. It's got the ethos the hair bands gave up on in the eighties, there was no spandex, no Ozempic, just humanity.
It looked like Chris was having a beer and then popped on stage. He concentrated on the music, not the camera, because after all, that's what it's all about, THE MUSIC!
Stapleton didn't have the best sounding performance, but he had the most honest, the most credible, so he won the night.
This is what happens when you listen to your inner tuning fork as opposed to what the suits tell you, when you ignore conventional wisdom and do it your way.
What did the producers of "Seinfeld" say, "No hugging, no learning"?
And that's why "Seinfeld" was a blockbuster, turning Jerry and his offbeat compatriot Larry David into billionaires.
There were only a handful of episodes the first year, the series was called "The Seinfeld Chronicles." The suits were dubious. But then the audience caught on...
Just like they did with "Breaking Bad." It had been on TV for years, but then when it moved to Netflix, the general public caught on.
Chris Stapleton is 46. He's been around the block. And it's not like he's ever denied his roots, started dancing, making disco music. It just took this long for the public to catch on.
You can also argue it took this long for Stapleton to find his groove.
In a business where if you're over thirty and haven't had a hit you're not even considered.
So Stapleton's performance tonight contained no show business, no climax, no flourish, it was straightforward, with peaks. It was the same one you get at the arena or the stadium...where Stapleton now gigs, that's how big the demand is.
When Spotify Top 50 acts can barely sell a ticket.
Stapleton is the way out.
But it's too difficult for most people. They don't want to put in the time to learn how to play and they don't have the pipes and they can't write...
But they want to be stars, they want to be brands, they want all the perks.
And the intermediaries, the middlemen, they've got narrow criteria. In the sixties the acts took the power from the labels, in the nineties, with so much money at risk, Tommy Mottola took back the power. As for the self-promoting huckster Clive Davis...all those hits, how many are forever, NOT MANY!
I know you're a believer, I know you're looking for something that speaks directly to you, straight into your heart. And you listen and listen and can't find it.
Well, just tune in Chris Stapleton. No flash, just music.
Stapleton did it his way tonight and won.
He got out on the high wire without a net and didn't blink, and therefore we were entranced.
More like this PLEASE!
--
Visit the archive: lefsetz.com/wordpress/
--
Listen to the podcast:
-iHeart: ihr.fm/2Gi5PFj
-Apple: apple.co/2ndmpvp
--
www.twitter.com/lefsetz
--
If you would like to subscribe to the LefsetzLetter,
www.lefsetz.com/lists/?p=subscribe&id=1
If you do not want to receive any more LefsetzLetters, Unsubscribe
To change your email address this link
