It's time for a divorce.
Our focus on tech has been so all-encompassing that music has suffered.
But those aren't our people!
The coders, the MBAs… They think differently. MBAs are first and foremost about the money. Great musicians are first and foremost about the art.
That's the number one e-mail I get, HOW DO I MAKE MONEY!
Not me personally, but the wannabe musicians.
That's the first thing they're focused on.
And then you've got the bozos telling them they've got to social network, as if living online will make your tunes any better.
And then they beg for cash on Kickstarter to make stuff that most people don't want.
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His intense brilliance captivates readers from Steven Tyler to Rick Nielsen to Bryan Adams to Quincy Jones to music business honchos like Michael Rapino, Randy Phillips, Don Ienner, Cliff Burnstein, Irving Azoff and Tom Freston. Never boring, always entertaining, Mr. Lefsetz's insights are fueled by his stint as an entertainment business attorney, majordomo of Sanctuary Music's American division and consultancies to major labels. Bob has been a weekly contributor to CelebrityAccess and Encore since 2001, and we plan many more years of partnership with him. While we here at CelebrityAccess and Encore do not necessarily agree with all of Bob's opinions, we are proud to help share them with you.
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THIS IS A BUSINESS?
If you want to be in tech, so be it. Learn how to code, get your MBA, but stop straddling the fence.
The value of WhatsApp has nothing to do with music.
The fact that managers and agents are investing in tech has nothing to do with music. They're just chasing income.
It's time to lock the door and practice your instrument. Hone your skills and take us on a journey.
The connection between music and tech is minimal. You make your music on a computer and you distribute it via the Internet.
THAT'S IT!
Artists are soul-searchers, ponderers, they ask the questions the rest of us didn't know we had.
Artists take risks, they're willing to fail, end up with nothing. Oh, we read about techies doing this, but they've still got their degrees and their contacts when the truth is when you fail as an artist you're probably done, because it's your name on the production and your cred is toast.
Oh, you may be able to regroup and utilize a different name or band, but that was the style decades ago, when musicians were lifers, not prepubescents and graduates out on a lark before they enter the real world.
Music is a calling.
But now all the discussion is about tech.
The labels don't want to be ripped off like they were with MTV, so they extract a huge toll for anybody with a tech solution.
The label heads hang with rich techies so they too want to find instant cash, whereas most great art develops over time. Hell, how many visual artists emerge fully-formed? Most don't even find their style until they're deep into a adulthood.
And performers don't realize that the heart is the tunes themselves. That material is everything. When done right, it's life itself.
So if you're more thrilled with your handheld than you are with your instrument, switch careers.
If you get high from how many followers you've accumulated, know that's got nothing to do with what people think of your tunes.
If you've got someone paying for your art, that's a start, but that does not mean everybody else is interested.
So walk into the wilderness, pay attention to your muse, and come back and wow us!
