One industry is tired, bloated and just going through the motions “led” by the same old- and now much older- people who rarely understand what’s going on “out there.”
How can they? They seldom get out unless it’s to fly across the world to attend a meeting while jet-lagged.
It’s how it’s always been and it’s how the music industry will close its shutters once and for all and become Universal Music and with Lucian Grainge being “The King Of The Universal.”
Grainge is very smart and, wait and see: He will totally sell-off bits and pieces of fluff that no longer names money and make Universal Music more like Vivendi Entertainment.
Will he bring Simon Fuller into this new way of ringing out the old? Why not?
There is no upside in trying to continue to only “sell” music when no one wants it- not the way it is made available today, anyway.
There is then the other industry- the horse racing industry- that has finally realized that unless someone lights a cracker up its arse, it will go up in smoke- and this came through loud and clear at the Asian Racing Federation in Turkey. I was also where every other racing club saw that the Hong Kong Jockey Club was lengths ahead of the rest and in a one horse Group 1 race.
One industry sees the glass as half-empty- and no prizes for guessing which one.
The other industry sees the glass spilling over with opportunities.
One industry wants to plod along the same path.
The other industry wants to make new inroads, find new pastures, new consumers and embrace new thinkers.
One industry is, as always, splintered and a sad turgid self of what it once was when it was the only game in town.
Why? Bored leaders who are looking at their retirement plans.
Boredom is “infectious”- like a virus- and when young staff sees these people acting like Quasimodo, they see no future.
Inspiration becomes perspiration and as exciting as working under a gorilla’s armpit.
As possible business partners and despite knowing how it all works, you still ask, “Can you do this?”
They stifle a yawn and answer, “Nah that belongs to the artist’s management and promoters. We make nothing outtalk it.
After over a decade of listening to crap about “new business models” and “360 degree deals,” it’s all back to one so-called “business model:” selling music.
Don’t sell music and you’re fucked- and which is why music companies have their feet glued to the ground: They are appallingly uncreative and appalling lazy and appallingly old-fashioned and totally lost and “led” by jet-lagged “leaders” who have seen the music industry’s glory days and don’t believe they will ever come back again. Adele was a freak of nature which will never happen again.
Has this industry really looked at new ways of even “selling music”?
Nah- unless through iTunes getting some nickel and dimes from “music-based business initiatives” like Spottily and all those many others that have now bit the dust.
Despite all those meetings about “sponsorship marketing” and new divisions like Mug’s “UM3” run by the quite mad and MAD eccentric but smart Wolf Urban, it all still adds up to one big flatulent zero.
Music companies need to re-hire the new Wolf Urban of this world instead of bringing in more Teflon Men and “digital clones.”
Last night, meeting one of the very few music executives whom I still respect was a Eureka Moment for me.
The night before, I had met some of my best friends in the music industry and listened to how small their “universe” is and just how fucking outta sync they are with consumers- and business partners after the same sliver of pie. Or the crumbs.
On the one hand, everything was possible. But all this cockeyed optimism didn’t come from the decision- makers: It came from those still with a passion for the music.
The decision-makers? They honestly could not look above the bar and got trapped trying to get outta the box.
Theirs was a captive life and it really rammed home to me the reason why so many artists want out- out from music companies, out from contracts that are not worth the paper they are screwed on and out from brain-dead “music” executives who no longer even respect the artists and the music that they are managing and marketing.
They are b-o-r-e-d with everything and it shows to everyone.
The one sad truth was hearing from my music exec friend how even the Beatles- and the Beach Boys- and Dylan- and, well, the list is endless- had produced their best work when in their early Twenties and how no one in their right mind would go running to buy the new Elton John record as they might have once done with “Madman Across The Water.”
Is this a defeatist attitude or just facing up to the fact that the majority of music being created today simply second-rate?
If so, why still pretend about wanting to make the music industry work?
Why all this “he’s saving the music industry” bullshit?
Is there anything left to save except a pension scheme?
Seymour Stein? “Saving the Asian music industry”? Huh?
How? By droning on about he signed Madonna almost four decades ago?
Then there is Bob Lefsetz who is only saving his fat ass and making money by being “outrageous” to some equally un-cool people who refuse to face or see the truth.
Fuck ’em all as they do nothing for music. They just keep it in moth balls along with their bottles of Old Spice.
They are irrelevant to everyone except those still living in the land of Mennen For Men and Old Spice.
Blogger Bob Lefsetz is an opportunist and if he just admits this, I might have some respect for him.
What the fuck he’s doing talking to all us “little Asians” at music conferences about OUR music industry is insulting.
Us “little Asians” better grow some fucking balls and not accept every white- and black- face in music that comes out here and takes advantage of us- over and over again.
The ad industry in Asia went through that phase in the Eighties and where Hong Kong became The Land Of FILTHS- Failed In London, Try Hongkong.
If those running music companies were not the complete dolts they are, they should fawn at the feet of Winfried Engelbrecht-Bresges, CEO of the Hong Kong Jockey Club.
I am not saying this as I work closely with “E.B” and respect the man immensely.
It is simply part of “entertainment evolution” and those who don’t think horse racing is not part of entertainment are totally missing the point- and losing out on opportunities.
I actually SEE all the NEW ways in which he is making racing progress- and how everything is in tune with TODAY’S consumer- the breakthroughs in technology, the new venues, and the music at the races.
Hell, even my old mate Jasper “Music Matters” Donat and his band Uranus played to over 20,000 people- twice- at the HKJC’s Beer Garden.
What music conference made up of the same old talking heads and all those Teflon Men we all know too well in Asia can boast about something like that?
Nah, as one door closes, another door opens and as one industry sinks in the West, another rises in the East.
The horse racing industry, especially, Hong Kong, has two of the best racecourses in the world.
It has the infra-structure, it has the venues, it has the manpower, the Blue Chip sponsors, the money and it has a built-in consumer base and a new and younger one waiting in the wings.
Last Sunday, over 70,000 people turned up at Shatin for the last day of the season and with a record turnover of HK$1.47 BILLION for ONE eleven card race meeting.
What does the music industry have to compete with this type of business success? Yes, the music. And then what?
So do they know how the fuck to make any money outta any of this or do they want to talk about it- again- and again- about Baidu and how they are “finally” making “some money”-chump change- in China?
Here’s the deal: The music industry is flat and the music companies are run by some very boring people.
They have seen the best years, heard the best bands and now want to put their feet up and think of Brighton or the Hamptons in Summer.
There are some lovely people working in music companies, but so what if their hands are tied and all they wish to do is kiss ass to keep their jobs?
This is not to say that racing clubs are run by dynamic visionaries who are the epitome of Cool.
Hardly:
Just look at some of those playing havoc at many racing clubs in Australia the Macau Jockey Club and The Malaysian Turf Club which are all run by people with a very high IQ and EQ deficit in some areas and smart in other aspects of shady business and surrounded by members, horse owners, jockeys, trainers who believe everything they hear. There’s a word for these people.
“E.B” and the HKJC are an exception and not the rule.
However, one person CAN make a difference- one person sitting in the right seat of power and who “gets it”.
It’s far better than a group of knobs making loud empty noises while playing musical chairs in the dark and all moving like a synchronized swimming team with their heads up their arses.
Right now, the music industry can learn much from the racing industry- the good, the bad and the ugly.
So can all those who have turned music conferences into a waste of space and an extremely poor- and un-cool- “new business model.”
But first, they need to actually get out and spend a Day Of The Races instead of fobbing off the sport with a flippant, “I can’t stand the races.”
Well, darling, if that’s the case, why would you want business from a racing club- a few of which can purchase every single worldwide music company around?
They don’t for one very simple: It makes no business sense.
Music companies have embraced too many dumb ideas through knee-jerk reactions- and I know as I inherited many from those dullards at Wright’s Lane in the UK.
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