Latest / Booked On Rock with Eric Senich / Why Don't We Care About New Music Anymore? [Episode 241]

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Why Don't We Care About New Music Anymore? [Episode 241] · Booked On Rock with Eric Senich

0:00
Speaker 1: We're totally boomed rock and roll.
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Speaker 2: I think I'll leave you.
0:05
Speaker 1: You're reading Little Hands says it's time to rock and roll.
0:08
Speaker 1: Roll are totally booked. Welcome back to Booked on Rock,
0:17
Speaker 1: the podcast for those about to read and rock online.
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Speaker 1: Booked on Rock store. And if you like the podcast,
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Speaker 1: be sure to subscribe and give it a five star
0:35
Speaker 1: review wherever you listen. So don't care all that much
0:37
Speaker 1: for new music these days, You're not alone and our
0:40
Speaker 1: guest is going to explain why. On the podcast is
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Speaker 1: former Washington Post writer and editor David Rawl. His book
0:48
Speaker 1: is titled The Endless Refrain, Memory, Nostalgia, and the Threat
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Speaker 1: to New Music. David argues that the rise of music
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Speaker 1: streaming and the consolidation of digital platforms is decimating the
0:58
Speaker 1: musical landscape, with dark consequences for the future of our culture.
1:03
Speaker 1: In The Endless Refrain, David lays out how commercial and
1:05
Speaker 1: cultural forces have laid waste to the cultural ecosystems that
1:09
Speaker 1: have produced decades of great American music. From the scorched earth,
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Speaker 1: demonetizing of artists revenue accomplished by Spotify and its ilk,
1:17
Speaker 1: to the rise of dead artists touring via hologram. David
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Speaker 1: examines how a perfect storm of conditions have drained our
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Speaker 1: shared musical landscape of vitality. Combining personal memoir, intimate on
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Speaker 1: the ground reporting, industry research, and cultural criticism, David's book
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Speaker 1: is a powerful indictment of a music culture gone awry,
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Speaker 1: driven by conformity and subverted by the ways the Internet
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Speaker 1: and media influence what we listen to and how we
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Speaker 1: listen to it. Here is David Raul David, Welcome to
1:49
Speaker 1: the podcast.
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Speaker 2: Thanks Arh, glad to be here.
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Speaker 1: The very first sentence in the book is the question
1:55
Speaker 1: do we even want new music anymore? And you go
1:58
Speaker 1: on to tell the story behind this quiet It entered
2:01
Speaker 1: your mind when you were I think you were. You're
2:05
Speaker 1: at a pub in Maine, I believe, talk about this.
2:08
Speaker 1: This is when the idea for the book came about.
2:10
Speaker 2: Yeah, that's true. So I was accompanying my oldest friend, guitarist, singer, songwriter,
2:16
Speaker 2: and he had financed his own CD, who had his
2:20
Speaker 2: first bit of new music, and he'd never been to
2:24
Speaker 2: New England. But somehow I'd put a string of dates
2:26
Speaker 2: of New England together, and so I was curious to
2:30
Speaker 2: see what would happen. So I went with him, and
2:34
Speaker 2: you know, some of those nights were pretty tough slogs.
2:37
Speaker 2: I mean, he would he'd be put in a sports
2:39
Speaker 2: bar and be put under a television that had ESPN.
2:43
Speaker 2: You know, sometimes he'd be playing for five people. And
2:46
Speaker 2: this particular night, it was a restaurant that had live music,
2:50
Speaker 2: and he had gone about forty five minutes without anyone applauding.
2:55
Speaker 2: It's like you just feel that, you know, if you're
2:57
Speaker 2: the one, if you're the one performing, or you're the
3:00
Speaker 2: one person who's paying attention to those things. So I
3:03
Speaker 2: was a little more worked up about that than he was.
3:05
Speaker 2: But he was booked for a three hour set, and
3:10
Speaker 2: to make that set go, because you know, he only
3:13
Speaker 2: had so many original songs, he was going to throw
3:15
Speaker 2: in a couple of cover songs, and so he said,
3:20
Speaker 2: I'm going to play a cover of Tom Petty tune
3:23
Speaker 2: right now.
3:23
Speaker 1: Now.
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Speaker 2: He didn't mean it to be ironic by choosing you
3:27
Speaker 2: don't know how it feels, but that's sure what came
3:30
Speaker 2: through to me, and The thing that was so remarkable
3:34
Speaker 2: was that in that moment, everyone stopped what they were doing.
3:37
Speaker 2: I mean, no one had been paying attention whatsoever. Now
3:40
Speaker 2: the waitstaff stopped, and everyone who was talking stopped their
3:44
Speaker 2: conversation because, you know, and there's opening chords. They recognized
3:48
Speaker 2: this song, you know, that we've heard more times than
3:51
Speaker 2: we've brushed our teeth, and so for a minute, it
3:56
Speaker 2: was just so mysterious because it was so dramatic. And
3:59
Speaker 2: what I realized was that they were all in rapture
4:03
Speaker 2: because it was a song they finally knew, and you know,
4:07
Speaker 2: so on some level they had been listening. They had
4:10
Speaker 2: been listening enough to know that this was the music
4:13
Speaker 2: they were hearing. Wasn't anything new, and so they tuned
4:15
Speaker 2: him out. But they heard, here's Tom Betty's song, and
4:18
Speaker 2: they heard the familiar chords. So they were so into it.
4:22
Speaker 2: And the guy next to me was keeping time on
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Speaker 2: the bar, and everyone went crazy when he was finished,
4:28
Speaker 2: and then he went back to introducing a new original song,
4:31
Speaker 2: and it was like those four minutes had never happened,
4:34
Speaker 2: you know, and it was so strange and dramatic, and
4:37
Speaker 2: so they were at the bar. In my notebook I
4:39
Speaker 2: wrote do we even want new music anymore? And so
4:43
Speaker 2: that's the driving question for the whole book, and I
4:46
Speaker 2: kind of became obsessed with that question increasingly because I
4:50
Speaker 2: felt like I knew the answer and the answer troubled
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Speaker 2: me so much.
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Speaker 1: The answer to that question also depends on your age.
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Speaker 1: At what age do we stop wanting new music?
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Speaker 2: Yeah, well, you're absolutely right about that. But in my experience,
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Speaker 2: and I should say the whole book is my point
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Speaker 2: of view, my experience, the way I am experiencing the
5:11
Speaker 2: musical landscape around me. But there I think that that
5:16
Speaker 2: age has gotten a lot lower that wants new music
5:21
Speaker 2: the way it once did. You know when I know
5:24
Speaker 2: I was. I was born in sixty seven, and when
5:27
Speaker 2: I was a teenager, I couldn't get enough of new music.
5:30
Speaker 2: But there are a couple of things going on here.
5:33
Speaker 2: I think that I am of a generation that when
5:37
Speaker 2: we started having children, it was really important to introduce
5:41
Speaker 2: our children to the music we love. And I know
5:45
Speaker 2: that I did that because I would drive around with
5:47
Speaker 2: my sons and say, Okay, here's the Beatles Revolver album
5:50
Speaker 2: and we can talk a little bit, but mostly we're
5:53
Speaker 2: just gonna listen and I felt like, you know, I
5:56
Speaker 2: felt like this was hugely important. I felt strongly about
5:59
Speaker 2: this as like getting vaccinated.
6:01
Speaker 1: You know.
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Speaker 2: It's like it was really important to me to give
6:03
Speaker 2: them a musical foundation of music that no way around it,
6:08
Speaker 2: that I thought was great. And I think that's different
6:11
Speaker 2: because my parents never sat me down and said, we
6:15
Speaker 2: really want you to listen to this Perry Como, you know.
6:18
Speaker 2: And so I think in part it's the generation that
6:21
Speaker 2: grew up on MTV for who music became. It just
6:26
Speaker 2: became much a bigger part of our daily life, I think.
6:31
Speaker 2: But I but to your question, I think young people
6:35
Speaker 2: are still discovering new music, but I think that a
6:37
Speaker 2: lot of the music they listened to is the music
6:40
Speaker 2: that they were raised on too, and that's not music
6:43
Speaker 2: of their own generation.
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Speaker 1: How much of it is because of radio? Radio's changed
6:48
Speaker 1: because when I grew up, new music came to me
6:53
Speaker 1: through the radio. That's how I was going to determine
6:55
Speaker 1: whether I wanted to get into a new band or not.
6:57
Speaker 1: And MTV, of course, right right, But I don't think.
7:01
Speaker 1: I don't think you have your kids go to the
7:03
Speaker 1: radio anymore.
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Speaker 2: So, no, no, the idea, Yeah, it's a you kt
7:07
Speaker 2: a gar and they get their streaming devices going, so
7:10
Speaker 2: the idea of making discoveries through radio is completely gone.
7:16
Speaker 2: And then make it through video games, and they make
7:20
Speaker 2: it through you know, the very biggest way I think
7:24
Speaker 2: is they make it through the way that the streaming
7:27
Speaker 2: services silo us in. You know, so if you listen
7:31
Speaker 2: to like if you're on Spotify and you you listen
7:33
Speaker 2: to a song or an artist, then it what it
7:38
Speaker 2: wants you to do is stay very close to where
7:40
Speaker 2: you are. So it's not gonna suddenly say okay now
7:42
Speaker 2: for some Brazilian pop. You know, I mean it very
7:46
Speaker 2: it's it's it's very mindful. It has all the metadata
7:50
Speaker 2: of the song you just heard, and so you're gonna
7:52
Speaker 2: next get a song generally has the same temperum, the
7:56
Speaker 2: same kind of instrumentation, the same kind of lyrical content,
7:59
Speaker 2: the same kind of and that's for me, that's that's
8:03
Speaker 2: the real danger of streaming services. It's just there is
8:06
Speaker 2: the sameness, and you can break out of that, you know,
8:08
Speaker 2: I mean, but you have to be so wilful and
8:11
Speaker 2: intentional about making discoveries, and that means going out on
8:15
Speaker 2: your own and finding them.
8:17
Speaker 1: I noticed that with Spotify. I have Spotify, and if
8:20
Speaker 1: I listened to, say, an entire Tom Petty album, when
8:22
Speaker 1: the album's completed, they then offer up artists that are
8:26
Speaker 1: like Tom Petty in that genre. So it's suggesting what
8:32
Speaker 1: they think you want to hear.
8:33
Speaker 2: Well, they don't want you to leave Spotify. They don't
8:36
Speaker 2: want the disruption. So if you keep listening to the
8:39
Speaker 2: same kind of you know, if if suddenly you heard
8:43
Speaker 2: death metal after Tom Petty, then that's a disruption for you.
8:47
Speaker 2: So you may not want to stay on Spotify at
8:49
Speaker 2: that point. You may be so thrown that you may
8:51
Speaker 2: go do something else, you know, or you may go
8:54
Speaker 2: stream somewhere else. So the whole idea is to keep
8:56
Speaker 2: you where you are.
8:58
Speaker 1: Yeah, they have something interesting on spot which I admit
9:01
Speaker 1: I enjoy, and I'm wondering how they're able to go
9:04
Speaker 1: about and find out all the songs that I love.
9:07
Speaker 1: I think it's called boy. There's a certain name of it,
9:11
Speaker 1: a certain playlist. See if I can find it here.
9:14
Speaker 1: It's not liked songs, it's called something else. It zeros
9:19
Speaker 1: in on your age. I mean, it's just like it
9:22
Speaker 1: plays everything from the eighties for me and early nineties
9:25
Speaker 1: it'll go everything from my early eighties to early nineties.
9:28
Speaker 1: I'll find it here. But yeah, it's it's fascinating how
9:33
Speaker 1: it does that that's based on algorithms. Is it also
9:35
Speaker 1: taking from what you're looking up on online on the internet.
9:38
Speaker 1: I mean, I guess, I mean.
9:40
Speaker 2: You know, how Spotify works is very guarded, and so
9:43
Speaker 2: I certainly can't claim to know all their their secrets.
9:47
Speaker 2: I don't. I just I think that there are good
9:50
Speaker 2: things that can come from listening to a streaming service
9:53
Speaker 2: like Spotify, but I think I think there is a
9:56
Speaker 2: danger to you know, not personally, for what it's worth,
9:59
Speaker 2: I don't listen to the streaming I don't listen to
10:01
Speaker 2: music through streaming services. And here's why, because you haven't
10:07
Speaker 2: made as much an investment in the album. If you're
10:09
Speaker 2: streaming it, you haven't bought the album, or you haven't
10:12
Speaker 2: bought the CD unless you unless you downloaded it digitally,
10:15
Speaker 2: and that is increasingly rare these days. And so I
10:20
Speaker 2: like to get a physical copy of the music, and
10:22
Speaker 2: I like to drive around, you know, basically like I
10:26
Speaker 2: did when I was a teenager. Because now I've paid
10:28
Speaker 2: fifteen dollars, twelve dollars or eighteen dollars, and so I'm
10:33
Speaker 2: not going to multitask while I'm listening to the music.
10:36
Speaker 2: That's the thing with Spotify, you know, it's like we're
10:38
Speaker 2: all busier than we ever have been before, and I
10:41
Speaker 2: think you can put music on it just quickly becomes
10:44
Speaker 2: a soundtrack to while you do other things. So if
10:46
Speaker 2: I buy a CD, I really want to give it
10:49
Speaker 2: a chance. And that's I still experienced it the way
10:52
Speaker 2: that I used to.
10:54
Speaker 1: So true, I heard a Genesis song come up from
10:57
Speaker 1: Invisible Touch the album, and I can it took me
11:00
Speaker 1: right back to going for rides around town in the
11:03
Speaker 1: winter of nineteen eighty nine and listening to that entire album. Yeah,
11:08
Speaker 1: time and time again, as I did with many other
11:12
Speaker 1: cassettes at the time. CDs eventually, but your on demand
11:16
Speaker 1: selection was limited. So you made that emotional connection with
11:19
Speaker 1: these songs and these albums and these artists. They became
11:22
Speaker 1: like friends of yours. The songs became like best friends.
11:25
Speaker 1: So I wonder how much of that connection is made
11:28
Speaker 1: with younger generation through the streaming services.
11:31
Speaker 2: Well, you know, so a couple of things on that one,
11:35
Speaker 2: you and anyone out there could could easily disagree with
11:38
Speaker 2: everything I'm saying right, But my own feeling is, and
11:42
Speaker 2: there's a danger in generalizing, but my feeling is that
11:45
Speaker 2: the art of listening is mostly gone. And so the
11:51
Speaker 2: very experience that you're describing, you know, you're driving around
11:54
Speaker 2: with the car friends, you'd be talking and joking around,
11:57
Speaker 2: but there was serious listening that went on. I know
11:59
Speaker 2: that was true when you know, I would have a friend,
12:02
Speaker 2: we'd just drive for hours, and it was about taking
12:06
Speaker 2: the music seriously and it was about hearing new things.
12:09
Speaker 2: But also remember, you know, we'd get a new cassette
12:13
Speaker 2: and we might not get another new cassette for like
12:15
Speaker 2: two or three months because we weren't overwhelmed with new music,
12:20
Speaker 2: and so we had our favorite bands, or we had
12:22
Speaker 2: new artists that we would hear about, but it wasn't
12:26
Speaker 2: it wasn't at the relentless pace that it is now.
12:29
Speaker 2: So it did give us more time to listen and
12:32
Speaker 2: absorb that album more seriously versus like moving on to
12:36
Speaker 2: the next thing because a new album has dropped today.
12:40
Speaker 1: Book on rock podcasts. We'll be back after this. Surely
12:43
Speaker 1: you can't be serious.
12:44
Speaker 2: I am serious, and don't call me surely.
12:49
Speaker 1: A big challenge older artist with new music face is
12:52
Speaker 1: summed up with one word nostalgia. You're right. Quote what
12:55
Speaker 1: we hear these days is not even about the music
12:57
Speaker 1: itself anymore. It's that we're more nostalgic for men at
13:00
Speaker 1: work that we are for the clash. And that's what
13:02
Speaker 1: troubles me. Talk about the way our brains are wired
13:05
Speaker 1: to connect with songs from our youth. Really it has
13:09
Speaker 1: little to do with the quality of the song and staid.
13:11
Speaker 1: It's more of an emotional connection, like I've just mentioned.
13:14
Speaker 2: Yeah, well, certainly people could argue otherwise. What I would
13:19
Speaker 2: say is that when we are young, when we're teenagers,
13:23
Speaker 2: you know, everything feels dramatic to us. Right, we're trying
13:27
Speaker 2: to figure out who we are. We're having first loves,
13:30
Speaker 2: first crushes, maybe we're trying to figure out what we're
13:33
Speaker 2: going to do after high school and so so that's
13:37
Speaker 2: one thing. But when we were growing up, there was music.
13:42
Speaker 2: There was always music around us because either MTV was
13:45
Speaker 2: on at the house, or if we left MTV, then
13:48
Speaker 2: we had the radio on, or IFO we were at
13:50
Speaker 2: someone's party, then someone had the boombox going. Right, And
13:54
Speaker 2: so when those traumatic things happen, you know, when Tina
13:58
Speaker 2: says to you, I really just want to be friends again,
14:01
Speaker 2: or someone is making fun of someone because they got
14:04
Speaker 2: a flock of seagulls aircut. We tend to remember those
14:07
Speaker 2: moments because there's always music going on, and it is
14:11
Speaker 2: not overstating it to say when we're that young and impressionable,
14:14
Speaker 2: the music just gets stamped onto our brains, you know.
14:20
Speaker 2: And so because we're because we're open to letting music
14:25
Speaker 2: form those kinds of associations, they just do you know,
14:28
Speaker 2: we remember the song that was playing when we were
14:31
Speaker 2: at the prom. You know. Our lives get busier for
14:36
Speaker 2: our a lot of for a lot of us. Our
14:38
Speaker 2: lives get busier with an hour in the adult world
14:41
Speaker 2: of jobs. And maybe we get married or we have
14:45
Speaker 2: partners and we start to have children. And it's not
14:49
Speaker 2: that music is necessarily not a part of that. I
14:54
Speaker 2: don't think that that's true. But we have this history
14:58
Speaker 2: now forming a relationship up to all these songs. And
15:02
Speaker 2: now the new songs are competing versus the old songs,
15:06
Speaker 2: you know, And so you can hear new music and
15:09
Speaker 2: you can like it, but you're on some level you
15:12
Speaker 2: are just doing more things. You're different than you were
15:16
Speaker 2: ten years ago, and your mind has already formed associations
15:22
Speaker 2: with previous songs. And my experience is that you can
15:25
Speaker 2: hear a new album and really love it, but it
15:27
Speaker 2: is harder, which is not saying possible, but it is
15:30
Speaker 2: harder for that music to form the same kind of
15:33
Speaker 2: emotional attachment that you might have had with earlier albums
15:38
Speaker 2: where you're just, you know again, where you're in your
15:40
Speaker 2: formative stage, and those discoveries are thrilling, and at some
15:44
Speaker 2: point you've made so many discoveries like you and me,
15:48
Speaker 2: people who just consumed music for such a long period
15:51
Speaker 2: of time, and then you become a little bit more
15:53
Speaker 2: selective because there is just you know, one person said
16:00
Speaker 2: in the book, you know, it's like the hard drive
16:01
Speaker 2: gets filled up, and that's the challenge. You know, that
16:04
Speaker 2: can happen. But we don't have to let it happen.
16:08
Speaker 1: You're exactly right, We don't have to let it happen.
16:10
Speaker 1: That's why I try to still listen to new artists,
16:13
Speaker 1: try to find them, seek them out and see if
16:15
Speaker 1: I like what I hear, which I would say there's
16:19
Speaker 1: one band which would be a Lord Huron from Michigan.
16:25
Speaker 1: Now they're not so much new anymore. They've been around
16:28
Speaker 1: probably fifteen years. But I discovered them through a movie,
16:31
Speaker 1: a Robert Redford Nick Nolty movie where they go hitch
16:34
Speaker 1: hiking together and they're playing all these songs that just
16:38
Speaker 1: hit me. It struck a chord with me. That's how
16:40
Speaker 1: I became a fan of them, And now every time
16:42
Speaker 1: I listen to them, I think about that moment. It
16:44
Speaker 1: was an early September afternoon, walking out of the theater
16:47
Speaker 1: that day and saying, who is that band? Lord here?
16:50
Speaker 1: So there are those moments, but it's like it's not
16:52
Speaker 1: as much because a lot of it too. As you
16:54
Speaker 1: get older, you feel like you've heard it before, just
16:56
Speaker 1: like going to a movie and you say, boy, this plot,
16:59
Speaker 1: I feel like I've seen this before, Like this is
17:01
Speaker 1: this is diehard, isn't it?
17:03
Speaker 2: I mean, the thing that is.
17:05
Speaker 1: You know.
17:06
Speaker 2: So we consume new movies, we binge on new TV shows,
17:10
Speaker 2: you know, and podcasts, but music, and my experience is
17:16
Speaker 2: the exception. We get really content to keep hearing the
17:20
Speaker 2: same albums, the same music, and you know, you just
17:22
Speaker 2: think about it. With TV, it's not like people sit
17:25
Speaker 2: around and watch Bewitched year after year or Dallas or
17:31
Speaker 2: some of those old shows. I mean, they can, you know,
17:33
Speaker 2: we can watch them for fun sometimes or see how
17:36
Speaker 2: they hold up. But a lot of us are really
17:39
Speaker 2: content to just keep listening to that to really a
17:43
Speaker 2: pretty select number of songs from the seventies and eighties,
17:47
Speaker 2: you know, just because they those songs do something for us. Now,
17:50
Speaker 2: I want to say, listening to music is supposed to
17:54
Speaker 2: be fun. So I don't come at any of this
17:55
Speaker 2: with judgment. The whole point of the book is, but
18:00
Speaker 2: all of this has consequences, you know, And so here's
18:04
Speaker 2: what I mean. So if you love a band and
18:07
Speaker 2: that band has been around for a long time, and
18:10
Speaker 2: the band puts out new music and people don't really
18:14
Speaker 2: want new music so much from that band anymore. So
18:16
Speaker 2: what happens is they don't make very much money off
18:19
Speaker 2: of it. It doesn't sell very much, and they get
18:22
Speaker 2: the message. So on concert, maybe they play one song
18:25
Speaker 2: from their new album, right, and that's their that's kind
18:29
Speaker 2: of their indulgence. And if three years ago they make
18:34
Speaker 2: another album, the same thing happens. Then at some point
18:37
Speaker 2: they you know, they aren't conscious of the living they
18:40
Speaker 2: want to make and so at some point the danger
18:42
Speaker 2: is they say, you know what, people just don't want
18:44
Speaker 2: the new music anymore. We have enough music. And so
18:49
Speaker 2: what happens is then that band will will will keep
18:52
Speaker 2: doing They'll probably dour more regularly because they don't make
18:55
Speaker 2: any money making new music anymore. But they will keep
18:59
Speaker 2: playing this aim old songs, and I mean they'll change
19:01
Speaker 2: them up in the arrangements, maybe the sequence will be
19:04
Speaker 2: a little bit different. I just know myself, I want
19:08
Speaker 2: more from a concert. I want more from bands who's
19:12
Speaker 2: you know, whose output is the reason I'm there in
19:15
Speaker 2: the first place. That's not to say that bands who
19:18
Speaker 2: have been around for a while keep making the same
19:20
Speaker 2: level of great music. You know you, and I know
19:23
Speaker 2: sometimes that is not the case. But for me, like
19:26
Speaker 2: the whole point is the openness of it.
19:29
Speaker 1: I'm so with you, and I'm so happy. I listened
19:31
Speaker 1: to the Cures new album and I love the care
19:33
Speaker 1: and I'm happy with that album as a whole. And
19:39
Speaker 1: Springsteen still puts out some really good stuff. And I
19:43
Speaker 1: think you too, still puts out some really good stuff.
19:45
Speaker 1: I mean, I Neil young Is he makes an album
19:49
Speaker 1: every year still, he's almost eighty, and I I'm like you,
19:53
Speaker 1: I want that, and I would say as an artist,
19:56
Speaker 1: I don't see why they wouldn't want to continue to
19:58
Speaker 1: create new music just for the sake of the fact
20:01
Speaker 1: that that's who they are. Because like I said in concert,
20:03
Speaker 1: they must be bored to tears if they have to
20:05
Speaker 1: play the same songs every night the same way. So yeah,
20:09
Speaker 1: it's I don't know that. I think that's the danger
20:11
Speaker 1: in where we're heading in the future and the business
20:15
Speaker 1: end of things. This is where I want to go now,
20:17
Speaker 1: talk about corporations buying out music, and this is what
20:20
Speaker 1: you write in the book. You say, quote one major
20:22
Speaker 1: development in recent years that will have a profound impact
20:26
Speaker 1: on the music we'll be hearing in the future. Where
20:28
Speaker 1: and how has been the massive acquisition of artists catalogs
20:32
Speaker 1: for songwriting, recordings or both. You talk about that because
20:36
Speaker 1: I think that's really important, and I know Hall notes
20:39
Speaker 1: that's a big that was in the headlines a lot
20:41
Speaker 1: because they were fighting over one company buying out all
20:45
Speaker 1: of their publishing and that's a huge thing because then
20:47
Speaker 1: they no longer have the decision making.
20:50
Speaker 2: Right well, I mean, those artists are we could say,
20:54
Speaker 2: rightfully making a killing because the kinds of artists who
20:57
Speaker 2: have sold their catalogs in recent years have had an
21:00
Speaker 2: amazing career, you know, whether you're talking.
21:02
Speaker 1: Kiss just recently did.
21:05
Speaker 2: I mean, so many of them have, and some have
21:07
Speaker 2: sold them for fifty million or thirty million or three
21:12
Speaker 2: hundred million, you know. I mean the figures are not
21:15
Speaker 2: always available, but it's important to think about what that
21:20
Speaker 2: is about. So these are venture capitalists who are buying
21:24
Speaker 2: this music. So why do they want it? Because they
21:27
Speaker 2: want to find new ways to monetize that music. And
21:31
Speaker 2: so if we think we hear that, you know, the
21:34
Speaker 2: old songs from the artists in the seventies and the
21:38
Speaker 2: eighties a lot these days, we're going to hear that
21:45
Speaker 2: music in so many new ways that we don't even
21:47
Speaker 2: have the imagination for just yet. Because they've spent all
21:51
Speaker 2: this money, so they absolutely intend that for that music
21:55
Speaker 2: to pop up everywhere, and it's just for my point
22:00
Speaker 2: of view, that's going to be really overwhelming. But most significantly,
22:05
Speaker 2: most significantly is it blocks increasingly the space for new
22:10
Speaker 2: music and new artists. I just my worries that we're
22:14
Speaker 2: just going to keep hearing that same music over and over,
22:16
Speaker 2: and a lot of it is great and deserves to
22:19
Speaker 2: be heard regularly, But part of what I'm arguing about
22:24
Speaker 2: in the book is where why can't it be moved
22:28
Speaker 2: off the shelf a little bit to make room for
22:30
Speaker 2: music from this century? I so rarely hear music from
22:34
Speaker 2: this century where when I'm ever out in the public sphere,
22:38
Speaker 2: you know, it's a it's a weird thing. If I
22:41
Speaker 2: go into any kind of automotive place, oil change or
22:46
Speaker 2: getting apart, I always hear the Steve Miller band.
22:49
Speaker 1: Yeah. I have a friend who says, I, I just
22:52
Speaker 1: can't listen to Steve Miller anymore. I love Steve Miller,
22:55
Speaker 1: but yeah, but yes.
22:58
Speaker 2: But but how much more in your life do you
23:00
Speaker 2: need to hear those songs anymore? Because there's so many
23:03
Speaker 2: artists who've made great music since the Steve Miller Band,
23:07
Speaker 2: And so for me, it's part of it is just
23:10
Speaker 2: it's like the equity, you know, where is the balance?
23:13
Speaker 2: If I'm at Target. You mentioned men at Work, I
23:16
Speaker 2: always hear men at Work at Target they had three
23:18
Speaker 2: studio albums and then dissolved in the eighties. Or I
23:21
Speaker 2: might hear Kim Carn's Betty Davis Eyes. Just it's just
23:28
Speaker 2: there are two McDonald's kind of equidistance where I live.
23:31
Speaker 2: One plays all seventies music and one plays all eighties music,
23:36
Speaker 2: and so you think, well, why would that be. McDonald's
23:39
Speaker 2: has the most diverse group of diners basically in the world.
23:43
Speaker 2: You know, it's young and old. It's grandparents trying to
23:46
Speaker 2: get a grandson to eat one more chicken McNugget ANDBS,
23:51
Speaker 2: guys coming in for lunch, and as cheerleaders who have
23:54
Speaker 2: just come in from practice, and it's just an incredible
23:58
Speaker 2: ray of America. And a lot of those people didn't
24:02
Speaker 2: grow up on music in the seventies and eighties, and
24:05
Speaker 2: yet it's so commonplace they just kind of accept it.
24:09
Speaker 2: I know that if I was hanging out as I
24:11
Speaker 2: did at McDonald's in the eighties and they were playing
24:14
Speaker 2: what would be the equivalent in cap Callaway and Being
24:18
Speaker 2: Crosby and Duke Ellington, I would think, what, that's weird?
24:22
Speaker 2: Why are they playing Being Crosby? But no one gives
24:26
Speaker 2: it any kind of thought. And I think it's just
24:27
Speaker 2: because that's how we've been conditioned. We're just we expect
24:31
Speaker 2: to go in public places and hear music from that
24:36
Speaker 2: era only.
24:38
Speaker 1: And you do break down the McDonald's music experience in
24:41
Speaker 1: the book Mood Media. I think that's the name of
24:44
Speaker 1: the company or that's right. Yeah, And you made a
24:48
Speaker 1: list of the songs that you were hearing in these McDonald's. Yeah,
24:52
Speaker 1: that's in the book too. And there was something that
24:54
Speaker 1: happened back in twenty fourteen that convinced you more than
24:57
Speaker 1: anything else that we don't want new music, and that's
25:00
Speaker 1: you two giving away their album Songs of Experience for
25:04
Speaker 1: free on iTunes. What was it about that specific moment
25:08
Speaker 1: that convinced you more than anything else.
25:10
Speaker 2: Well, I think it's because at that point, You Too
25:13
Speaker 2: was still a huge band in the world, you know.
25:16
Speaker 2: Now they had gone a couple of albums that they
25:19
Speaker 2: had released, got albums that hadn't been as impassionately embraced
25:24
Speaker 2: as others, but they were still You Too, you know,
25:27
Speaker 2: touring the world and winning Grammys, and so they had
25:30
Speaker 2: hit on this marketing scheme. They were happy with this
25:33
Speaker 2: batch of songs and they said, you know, so they
25:37
Speaker 2: partnered with Apple this Hey, we'll just we'll give it
25:39
Speaker 2: away for free. And I'm sure at the time that
25:43
Speaker 2: felt like a stroke of genius because no one had
25:45
Speaker 2: done anything like that before. And the response was so
25:51
Speaker 2: dramatic Basically people resented that they had an album on
25:55
Speaker 2: there that they didn't ask for. And you think, well, yeah,
25:59
Speaker 2: it's free and it's you too, you don't have to
26:02
Speaker 2: like it. But it was the whole notion that it
26:05
Speaker 2: was new music that they didn't want. That's the thing
26:07
Speaker 2: that I focused on. It was new music that they
26:10
Speaker 2: didn't want because a lot of these people had love you,
26:13
Speaker 2: or some of those people would love YouTube, but hadn't
26:16
Speaker 2: listened to new YouTube in a long time. And there
26:18
Speaker 2: was a reason for that, you know. And now here
26:21
Speaker 2: was even more new music from youtwo. And some people
26:25
Speaker 2: made the argument, well, it's taken up space on my device,
26:29
Speaker 2: and it just no that it took up the smallest
26:34
Speaker 2: slice of space possible. It was the idea that it was.
26:38
Speaker 2: It was foisted on them, you know, and so and
26:41
Speaker 2: then the problem was you couldn't get rid of it
26:44
Speaker 2: very quickly. It was a very hard thing to figure
26:46
Speaker 2: out how to get rid of. And so Apple had
26:49
Speaker 2: to release this statement and said well, here's how you
26:52
Speaker 2: do it, and even then people couldn't figure it out.
26:54
Speaker 2: And so there was just this resentment of it. And
26:57
Speaker 2: you know, if it had been a band life like
27:00
Speaker 2: five for fighting a band. You know a lot of
27:03
Speaker 2: people would have said, I don't want new music from them,
27:06
Speaker 2: but because it was free, because it was from basically
27:09
Speaker 2: the biggest band you know, you could argue still in
27:11
Speaker 2: the world at that point. There were a lot of
27:14
Speaker 2: things built into that that just made me think, Wow,
27:16
Speaker 2: you really are at a turning point. You didn't pay,
27:19
Speaker 2: They didn't make you pay for it. You know, you
27:21
Speaker 2: got it for free, and still you don't want it.
27:24
Speaker 1: And you two as a band, it was always trying
27:26
Speaker 1: to keep their new music relevant. I always noticed that
27:29
Speaker 1: about them, and it was working. They they would push
27:32
Speaker 1: that bout. They would keep the YouTube sound, but they
27:34
Speaker 1: would push it forward. Of course, A not too Baby
27:36
Speaker 1: that was a big thing. You know, they really took
27:38
Speaker 1: a leap on that. But I remember hearing the song
27:41
Speaker 1: Invisible and they debuted it during the Super Bowl. I
27:44
Speaker 1: was I still love that song, and it just came
27:49
Speaker 1: and went. I was like, this is a great sign.
27:51
Speaker 1: And I remember they used to have their from No
27:54
Speaker 1: Line on the Horizon. They had songs from there on
27:57
Speaker 1: commercials and you'd hear it in movie theaters or wherever
28:02
Speaker 1: they could get it. They tried everything they could do. Yeah,
28:06
Speaker 1: but it just wasn't working. And it's at the point
28:09
Speaker 1: now where it's kind of a bummer because, I mean,
28:12
Speaker 1: they're hugely successful with this tour the sphere, but it's
28:17
Speaker 1: it starts to feel now like more of a nostalgic experience.
28:21
Speaker 2: Well, part of what they did with what You Two
28:24
Speaker 2: has done in so many other bands in getting people
28:28
Speaker 2: excited for the tour. They say, we're going to go
28:30
Speaker 2: play this album in full. You know, here's the thirtieth
28:34
Speaker 2: anniversary of this album. We're going to play it, and
28:37
Speaker 2: people go crazy for that. You know. It's in some
28:41
Speaker 2: ways it's not so dissimilar from all the excitement less
28:45
Speaker 2: so in this country but in other parts of the
28:47
Speaker 2: world about Oasis uniting, you know, I mean, it was
28:53
Speaker 2: a long time ago and people have been waiting for that.
28:56
Speaker 2: They're not going to come out with new music, and
28:58
Speaker 2: I think mostly fans will be into early content with that.
29:02
Speaker 2: You know, it's just it's it's just what is that?
29:05
Speaker 2: But more nostalgia?
29:07
Speaker 1: Booked on Rock Podcast will be back after this.
29:11
Speaker 2: Hold on.
29:14
Speaker 1: Nancy Wilson of Heart she talked to you for the
29:16
Speaker 1: book because a lot of artists didn't want to talk
29:18
Speaker 1: about it. Because it's probably just it's it just for them.
29:22
Speaker 1: It just probably I don't know, it just probably pisses
29:25
Speaker 1: them off that people don't want to hear the new music.
29:27
Speaker 2: But you know, it's a delicate question that I was
29:31
Speaker 2: posing to them.
29:33
Speaker 1: But Nancy was honest with you. She was kind of
29:36
Speaker 1: she was just kind of sympathetic to the older hard fans,
29:39
Speaker 1: like she gets it.
29:40
Speaker 2: She was very sympathetic. And also what was true for
29:43
Speaker 2: her and Jonathan Gane of Journey, who had talked to
29:46
Speaker 2: and also see ow Yes, they they don't resent that
29:49
Speaker 2: fans love this music so much. They appreciate that fans
29:53
Speaker 2: love this music. It doesn't mean that they don't want
29:56
Speaker 2: to create new music. All of them do, although Jonathan
30:00
Speaker 2: Gaines said that maybe he felt like Journey had made
30:03
Speaker 2: the last of the new music because fans don't want
30:06
Speaker 2: to hear it. But they do love that music. At
30:09
Speaker 2: least the three of them and the way they talked
30:11
Speaker 2: about it, they understand that their fans are at a
30:13
Speaker 2: different place in life. And I think Nancy Wilson described
30:17
Speaker 2: their famous songs as being like cozy, you know, sweatpants
30:23
Speaker 2: putting those on because it just hearing Magic Man or
30:28
Speaker 2: crazy on you. It just it just gives them a
30:33
Speaker 2: comfort that new music is less likely to give. And
30:39
Speaker 2: I just I don't think there was a bitterness at
30:42
Speaker 2: all about that. It was an acceptance. And also, you know,
30:45
Speaker 2: a band like Hart has an amazing career, so they
30:49
Speaker 2: may release some new music, but they love playing live
30:52
Speaker 2: and they have a whole range of songs that they
30:55
Speaker 2: can play, you know. But yeah, I think most artists,
30:59
Speaker 2: there were a lot of ours that I contacted or
31:01
Speaker 2: tried to reach to speak to that question, and I
31:04
Speaker 2: think there's an uncomfortable truth in it. You know.
31:08
Speaker 1: David Rowell is the author of The Endless Refrain, Memory, Nostalgia,
31:11
Speaker 1: and the Threat to New Music. Another interesting interview Jason Hanley,
31:16
Speaker 1: who's the vice president of Education and Visitor Engagement at
31:19
Speaker 1: the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in Cleveland. He
31:22
Speaker 1: told you, quote, the pace of society is so quick.
31:24
Speaker 1: We consume things at a rate that is unparalleled in
31:27
Speaker 1: the history of humanity. Where Dark Side of the Moon
31:30
Speaker 1: might have been the only album that I could afford
31:32
Speaker 1: in a six month period, what would happen if Dark
31:35
Speaker 1: Side of the Moon were released today, like during the
31:38
Speaker 1: Spotify era. That's what I wonder would it just come
31:40
Speaker 1: and go and you forgot.
31:42
Speaker 2: I think that for two to three weeks, all of
31:45
Speaker 2: the music bloggers and people who have podcast shows would
31:48
Speaker 2: make a huge deal of it, and in three weeks
31:52
Speaker 2: we would have moved on to the next thing. And
31:55
Speaker 2: then you know, it's like back back when Dark Side
32:01
Speaker 2: of the Moon was released, it was it was it
32:05
Speaker 2: was so much more than just a new album. It
32:07
Speaker 2: was it had a hold on the culture for decades.
32:11
Speaker 2: It's a brilliant musical statement from start to finish, and
32:17
Speaker 2: but it just I think that new music does compete
32:21
Speaker 2: with so many things these days. But I also think
32:24
Speaker 2: that we don't want to listen, We don't want to
32:28
Speaker 2: spend time with new music the way that we once did,
32:30
Speaker 2: because there's so many different artists and you know, it
32:36
Speaker 2: just comes at you so intensely. I mean, the challenge,
32:39
Speaker 2: the challenge in the Spotify era is there's just an
32:43
Speaker 2: endless sea of music out there, and how do you
32:47
Speaker 2: even go about making new discoveries if you don't want
32:52
Speaker 2: to go along with all the suggestions that it makes.
32:56
Speaker 2: And because it takes such effort to do that, I
32:59
Speaker 2: think increasing it's just easy for us to stay where
33:02
Speaker 2: we are with it.
33:04
Speaker 1: So it just hurts my heart to hear that, you know,
33:07
Speaker 1: but it's so true. Dark Side of the Moon be two,
33:10
Speaker 1: three weeks, four weeks tops, and it would just drop off.
33:15
Speaker 2: It's I might be wrong, but I feel like that's
33:18
Speaker 2: what happens.
33:19
Speaker 1: Yeah, No, it's true. It's so true. And you're talking
33:22
Speaker 1: about an album that was on the Billboard charts for
33:24
Speaker 1: a record I don't know how many years straight. You know.
33:28
Speaker 1: It's just it's nice.
33:30
Speaker 2: I mean, it speaks to but but you know, think
33:33
Speaker 2: about it, like this, Journey's Greatest Hits album, which was
33:37
Speaker 2: released in the late eighties, has been on the album
33:39
Speaker 2: chart for eight hundred some weeks, eight one hundred and
33:42
Speaker 2: thirty some weeks. And so what does that tell us
33:47
Speaker 2: but that we want to keep hearing that. New generations
33:49
Speaker 2: want to keep hearing that music, you know, that was
33:54
Speaker 2: made then, and so on the on the one hand,
33:57
Speaker 2: there's hope for newbie discovering Dark Side of the Moon,
34:02
Speaker 2: but we're talking about music that was made then. If
34:04
Speaker 2: it was released now, it's it's a whole. It's it's
34:12
Speaker 2: it comes out differently. It doesn't get released with a
34:16
Speaker 2: sense of aura and all that it has because you know,
34:20
Speaker 2: people understand what Dark Side of the Moon is, that
34:22
Speaker 2: it's one of the biggest albums in the history of rock.
34:25
Speaker 2: If and so they you know, they can listen very
34:28
Speaker 2: respectfully and carefully to it. But there's something about a
34:32
Speaker 2: new artist releasing if so Pink Floyd was a new
34:34
Speaker 2: band and released this as a new album. I think
34:37
Speaker 2: we read it with our twenty first century attitudes, which
34:42
Speaker 2: is we might listen to it for a little while,
34:44
Speaker 2: but then we move on quickly, because because that's what
34:47
Speaker 2: we do now.
34:49
Speaker 1: In terms of older artists playing new songs in concert,
34:52
Speaker 1: he had a I have a theory. I'd love to
34:55
Speaker 1: know what you think about this. The placement of a song,
34:58
Speaker 1: a new song. I think the most adrenaline and excitement
35:04
Speaker 1: is felt when that show just starts. I mean that's
35:06
Speaker 1: when you're really just excited, you know. Yeah, I feel
35:10
Speaker 1: like that's the time to play a new song, as
35:13
Speaker 1: long as it's high energy. Because to me, if if
35:16
Speaker 1: the Stones open with angry write new song from Hackney
35:19
Speaker 1: Dialds and I'm twenty years old and I went to
35:22
Speaker 1: the show because I'm just curious because this is the Stones,
35:26
Speaker 1: you know, I know a lot of the songs I've
35:27
Speaker 1: heard of them, and then you hear Angry open the show,
35:30
Speaker 1: you might make more of a connection to it. Yeah,
35:33
Speaker 1: wishful thinking or what do you No?
35:35
Speaker 2: I think I think it basically that's.
35:37
Speaker 1: Ait of burying in the middle, you know, just yeah, yeah,
35:41
Speaker 1: I mean.
35:41
Speaker 2: And you know, just to be clear, there are artists
35:43
Speaker 2: like Peter Gabriel was playing that whole album of the
35:47
Speaker 2: collection of new songs from last year before it was
35:50
Speaker 2: even out yet, you know, he was releasing one song
35:52
Speaker 2: a month, and so there are artists who believe so
35:56
Speaker 2: strongly in their new music. David Gilmore just played Madison'square
36:00
Speaker 2: Gardener and I believe that he played all of the
36:01
Speaker 2: new album.
36:02
Speaker 1: Oh that's great because it's it's a solid, really solid album.
36:05
Speaker 2: He's terrific and so you know. But but remember also
36:10
Speaker 2: David Gilmore said that he in the beginning of promoting
36:14
Speaker 2: that tour, he said he wasn't going to play Pink
36:16
Speaker 2: Floyd material that Roger Waters had played on. He was
36:20
Speaker 2: just gonna play the last couple of Pink Floyd album
36:24
Speaker 2: music from those albums, and that he got so much
36:26
Speaker 2: backlash that he basically had to walk that back and
36:29
Speaker 2: so you know, one that music is brilliant, the Pink
36:36
Speaker 2: Floyd music made from those four guys, Rick Right and
36:40
Speaker 2: Nick Mason and David Gilmour and Roger Waters. But also
36:43
Speaker 2: the sense of nostalgia came through so strongly because because
36:47
Speaker 2: there was an uproar that he said he wasn't going
36:49
Speaker 2: to play that music. Dave Gilmore is now, I had
36:51
Speaker 2: quite a few solo albums, you know, certainly enough to
36:55
Speaker 2: fill a concert, sure, but so he he so he's
36:59
Speaker 2: been bold and playing that new music because he clearly
37:02
Speaker 2: believes in it, but he certainly fills it out with
37:05
Speaker 2: classic Pan Floyd material too.
37:08
Speaker 1: Yeah, I think the audience that it depends on the artist,
37:11
Speaker 1: because a jam band audience is always gonna welcome whatever
37:16
Speaker 1: you play in. Like Dave Matthews band I co worker
37:19
Speaker 1: of mine went to go see Dave Matthews. He talked
37:22
Speaker 1: about seeing back to back nights, different set lists and
37:25
Speaker 1: that that's what that fan base wants. So it depends
37:28
Speaker 1: also on that depends on that. Yeah, Sammy Higary probably
37:32
Speaker 1: could see the Van Halen band or behind me Sammy.
37:36
Speaker 1: You know, he's had solid tours since she left Van Haalen.
37:39
Speaker 1: But this past summer. He's got one of the biggest
37:42
Speaker 1: highest grossing tours of this summer of the year, and
37:45
Speaker 1: it's because he's playing mostly Van Halen songs again nostalgia.
37:49
Speaker 1: For me, I was in the second row. So I'm
37:51
Speaker 1: in Connecticut, all the memories come back. It's like I
37:54
Speaker 1: I'm just I'm watching Michael Anthony right there on bass,
37:57
Speaker 1: Sammy singing the songs and just brought back all the
38:00
Speaker 1: great memories. So that that's there's a lot to be
38:04
Speaker 1: said for that, a lot to be said.
38:07
Speaker 2: I recently from a band called Calling Themselves Beat. It
38:13
Speaker 2: has two members of the eighties King Crimson era Oh
38:17
Speaker 2: Yeah eleven on bass, Adrian Blue on guitar, and they've
38:20
Speaker 2: recruited Steve I to play Robert frippsparts.
38:23
Speaker 1: Get Out Only Levin on bass, Stevie VI.
38:27
Speaker 2: And Danny Airy from Tool on drums playing Bill Brufford's part,
38:32
Speaker 2: and they're playing the three classic King Crimson albums from
38:35
Speaker 2: the eighties, which are some of my very favorites. And
38:38
Speaker 2: that has been a hugely successful tour.
38:41
Speaker 1: Wow, I'd love to see that. I don't know if
38:43
Speaker 1: they're coming around my way.
38:45
Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah.
38:46
Speaker 1: Stevie VI is I'm a huge STEVIEVI fan. Yeah, you
38:50
Speaker 1: get into tribute bands in the book, even the original
38:54
Speaker 1: band quote unquote may not have all the members in there,
38:58
Speaker 1: like with Foreigner now Mick Jones his health problems, it's
39:03
Speaker 1: no original members, Skinner, Skannered, you know, Journey, Foreigner sticks
39:10
Speaker 1: very successful yet without their original singer or even any
39:14
Speaker 1: of the band members. And I love your line in
39:15
Speaker 1: the book you say, the shows I feel like sitting
39:19
Speaker 1: on a mall Santa's lap as an adult. No one
39:22
Speaker 1: is being fooled, but it can still be comforting. Do
39:25
Speaker 1: we connect more with the band name than in the
39:28
Speaker 1: songs than the members themselves?
39:32
Speaker 2: Well, I think I think that I'm in the minority
39:36
Speaker 2: of really caring these days who's in the band.
39:40
Speaker 1: You know, we're still like it's like it's like your
39:43
Speaker 1: favorite player on a team. You know, you remember the
39:46
Speaker 1: backup shortstop, you know who it is on the Red Sox.
39:51
Speaker 2: Yeah, but I mean, tribute bands are a very big
39:53
Speaker 2: deal these days, and so that can't be dismissed. They
39:56
Speaker 2: are a big part of the concert industry. And and
39:59
Speaker 2: but think about that a couple of in a couple
40:02
Speaker 2: of ways, one there's no more sure fire away to
40:05
Speaker 2: avoid hearing new music than going to a tribute act.
40:09
Speaker 2: They're not there. They are almost never going to play
40:13
Speaker 2: a song from this century. And and that is fine
40:18
Speaker 2: with a whole lot of people. And again I don't
40:21
Speaker 2: have judgment about that, but it does say something that
40:24
Speaker 2: tribute bands have become that important that we just want
40:26
Speaker 2: to keep hearing the songs and we want to hear
40:29
Speaker 2: them from people wearing wigs trying to look like the
40:32
Speaker 2: previous band. I mean, if that's not some deep seed
40:35
Speaker 2: in nostalgia, then I don't know what is. And so,
40:40
Speaker 2: and some of those tribute bands can be really great.
40:44
Speaker 2: I mean, there are so many. So I went and
40:47
Speaker 2: spent a week with a Journey tribute band in Florida.
40:49
Speaker 2: And I went to Florida because there are more Journey
40:52
Speaker 2: tribute bands than there are Arby's. They are everywhere, and
40:57
Speaker 2: it just speaks to journeys, the music, journey, the stronghold
41:01
Speaker 2: that music has on us. And so, and also remember
41:06
Speaker 2: you're not dealing with parking assholes at a venue that's
41:10
Speaker 2: hosting a tribute band. Generally, that's a pretty straightforward thing.
41:13
Speaker 2: You park in the parking lot and that's it. You're
41:16
Speaker 2: maybe paying forty dollars or forty five dollars, not one
41:19
Speaker 2: hundred and seventy five. Then not another additional eighty dollars
41:23
Speaker 2: of fees you don't even understand. So it's a it's
41:26
Speaker 2: a less complicated exchange. And if those bands are really good,
41:30
Speaker 2: then then you've gotten this satisfaction of hearing those songs
41:35
Speaker 2: played live, even though it's someone who sounds like Steve Berry,
41:39
Speaker 2: someone who sounds like Neil Sean. For a lot of people,
41:42
Speaker 2: that is enough these days.
41:46
Speaker 1: Booked on rock podcasts will be back after this. I
41:52
Speaker 1: was talking with Gary Graff, a rock journalist from Detroit,
41:55
Speaker 1: great writer. He just released a book on the nineties,
41:57
Speaker 1: and we were talking about the law that allowed corporations
42:01
Speaker 1: to buy out endless amounts of radio stations. It led
42:04
Speaker 1: to very homogeneous programming. Sure man, I worked in radio
42:10
Speaker 1: nineties right up to the around two about twenty fifteen,
42:13
Speaker 1: twenty sixteen, so I was there during that change and
42:17
Speaker 1: it wasn't a good change. At some point it just
42:19
Speaker 1: lost its luster. How have the changes in radio programming
42:24
Speaker 1: affected the way we connect with music since the nineties
42:27
Speaker 1: in your opinion.
42:28
Speaker 2: Ooh boy, radio programming I mean, ever, you know, everyone
42:32
Speaker 2: I talked to in the book just said radio was dead.
42:36
Speaker 2: I think it's very hard to find. As I just
42:42
Speaker 2: been the radio dial, it's very hard to even hear
42:46
Speaker 2: new music. There's so many old these stations. So I mean,
42:52
Speaker 2: I know that there are some stations there, but I
42:55
Speaker 2: find it hard to even find that. Maybe maybe that's
42:59
Speaker 2: more true of rock and pop, but it is not
43:03
Speaker 2: how these it's not how these artists discover new fans generally,
43:08
Speaker 2: you know.
43:08
Speaker 1: Because I just think part of the reason why we
43:10
Speaker 1: are where we are right now is because in the nineties,
43:13
Speaker 1: starting in the nineties into the two early two thousands,
43:16
Speaker 1: because I witnessed it when these artists would come up
43:19
Speaker 1: with new music and the program directors would just say, non,
43:21
Speaker 1: we're not going to bother and I would be shocked.
43:25
Speaker 1: You know, the Springsteen would have a new album out
43:26
Speaker 1: and you'd have a great song. Now we're just going
43:29
Speaker 1: to stick with you know, born in the USA and
43:32
Speaker 1: born to run and dancing.
43:34
Speaker 2: What the area you're describing also is around the time
43:38
Speaker 2: of the collapse of the music industry, and so the
43:41
Speaker 2: ways that songs used to be put on the radio
43:45
Speaker 2: and you had a whole team, an army of publicists
43:48
Speaker 2: and people working in the radio stations, sometimes making trips
43:52
Speaker 2: to the radio station and then shaking hands and saying,
43:55
Speaker 2: we're really excited about this new album. We really want
43:57
Speaker 2: you to to, you know, to give it a chance,
44:00
Speaker 2: and we know your listeners will love it. I mean
44:03
Speaker 2: that that whole landscape has changed so radically. For the
44:09
Speaker 2: labels that do exist today, everything is about Spotify for them.
44:14
Speaker 1: I just felt like the radio business when I was
44:18
Speaker 1: in it, I felt like we still have we still
44:20
Speaker 1: have a chance to try to make a difference, Like
44:22
Speaker 1: let's familiarize these fans with the legendary artists new music
44:27
Speaker 1: and the new bands play their music, and let's familiarize
44:30
Speaker 1: them with it, because if you don't do that, then
44:36
Speaker 1: I mean, these these songs just go into the abyss.
44:40
Speaker 1: But maybe it's radio was always responding to the tests.
44:44
Speaker 1: They would do the audience testing. So their argument would be,
44:49
Speaker 1: or their defense would be, we're just playing what the
44:51
Speaker 1: people are telling us they want to hear.
44:54
Speaker 2: Well, you know, so when I was growing up and
44:58
Speaker 2: making all these discoveries, if if there was a hit video,
45:02
Speaker 2: then you couldn't turn on the radio and not hear
45:05
Speaker 2: that song and if you heard, if there was a
45:08
Speaker 2: pop pit, then you better bet that there was a
45:11
Speaker 2: video for it. And so for me, that becomes really
45:19
Speaker 2: a level of musical repetition that starts to have significant
45:26
Speaker 2: consequences because there's just we heard the same songs over
45:31
Speaker 2: and over. Remember MTV starts off with not a long
45:34
Speaker 2: list of videos. There are ours like Springsteen and Billy
45:37
Speaker 2: Joel who didn't know what to make of this and
45:40
Speaker 2: didn't really think that they should have to bother with
45:43
Speaker 2: music videos. Rim didn't want to make music videos, and
45:47
Speaker 2: so so we heard. But then there was this whole
45:50
Speaker 2: wave of new artists who were perfect for that, Duran
45:54
Speaker 2: Duran and the Rhythmics and Madonna, and they weren't established
45:58
Speaker 2: musical entities and so they just happened to have a
46:01
Speaker 2: look and an aesthetic and they knew what to do.
46:05
Speaker 2: So you could put a group like Duran Duran on
46:07
Speaker 2: a yacht and people would be excited and people would
46:10
Speaker 2: watch that because they had they had the right look
46:13
Speaker 2: for that, and so but it just meant that we
46:16
Speaker 2: just kept hearing those songs, and so I really feel
46:18
Speaker 2: like decades later now, twenty twenty four, part of it is.
46:24
Speaker 2: We hear those songs that we heard constantly, and it's
46:27
Speaker 2: not even a matter of like listening to the song anymore.
46:31
Speaker 2: It's almost like a bell being struck and we have
46:33
Speaker 2: a response to it. We were conditioned to hearing that
46:36
Speaker 2: song so often that it just takes us back. And
46:40
Speaker 2: it's not about how that was just the greatest guitar solo.
46:43
Speaker 2: It's just it takes us back to who we were
46:45
Speaker 2: then before things got more complicated, because we have a
46:49
Speaker 2: warmer feeling because that's before the kids in therapy, and
46:53
Speaker 2: that's before the fish black at the holiday Christmas party
46:57
Speaker 2: that sings don't worry, be happy, and it's and it's
47:00
Speaker 2: before the taking a job, you know, at a startup
47:05
Speaker 2: company that didn't you know, they're just more complicated. Things
47:10
Speaker 2: happen to us because that is life. And so there
47:13
Speaker 2: is for some people when I just heard this in
47:16
Speaker 2: time and time again during the recording, that that music
47:21
Speaker 2: is the most important to them because it's the most
47:23
Speaker 2: innocent time. You know, it's before things got difficult and scary,
47:29
Speaker 2: and so it is truly like comfort food.
47:32
Speaker 1: Sure, it is cool to see when you're at these
47:35
Speaker 1: shows and you see the responses from people wants a
47:38
Speaker 1: song kicks in, or even on a concert, just being
47:42
Speaker 1: somewhere at mcdonald'sor wherever you are, you just see somebody,
47:45
Speaker 1: Oh my god, I remember this, you know this. They
47:48
Speaker 1: just have that that expression like it just immediately takes
47:51
Speaker 1: them back to when they were sixteen years old.
47:54
Speaker 2: Well, so before I went to see spend time with
47:56
Speaker 2: the Journey tribute band, I went to see the real
47:59
Speaker 2: Journey because I thought I I should, you know, just
48:01
Speaker 2: as a way to compare. And by the way, the
48:04
Speaker 2: original I mean, the Journey that I saw had one
48:06
Speaker 2: more original member than the tribute band. So but seeing
48:11
Speaker 2: the reaction to Never Stop Believing, and the thing that
48:15
Speaker 2: was so shocking was that they played it as their third.
48:17
Speaker 1: Song, Oh don't Stop Believing.
48:19
Speaker 2: Yes, yes, yes, but that crowd and so some people
48:22
Speaker 2: were still coming in, you know, but the reaction to
48:26
Speaker 2: that was about the most dramatic thing I've ever seen
48:29
Speaker 2: in live music. And and you know, they're screaming those
48:35
Speaker 2: lyrics with a i'man truly trying to lose their vocal
48:39
Speaker 2: chords forever. I mean, that's what it is for people
48:43
Speaker 2: to hear that song and that and songs like and
48:46
Speaker 2: and you know again, a select number of songs like that,
48:49
Speaker 2: but anthems that people can never and never want to
48:54
Speaker 2: stop hearing.
48:56
Speaker 1: Yeah, so true. And then when it appeared in The Sopranos,
48:58
Speaker 1: it's got a whole new audience.
49:00
Speaker 2: Boy, it did. And then Journey releases that they find
49:04
Speaker 2: a singer on YouTube and that's a moving story because
49:08
Speaker 2: of that singer is coming from homelessness and other difficult issues.
49:13
Speaker 2: And so Journey has this amazing ride. You know, Journey
49:16
Speaker 2: was eligible for the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame
49:18
Speaker 2: for so many years and they were never nominated. And
49:21
Speaker 2: then the first year they get nominated, after what you're
49:24
Speaker 2: describing the sprand News episode, then they sail right in
49:28
Speaker 2: and tellingly, they let Journey close the show. You know. So,
49:33
Speaker 2: so it was the rock and Roll I think it
49:35
Speaker 2: was the Rock and Roll of Fame's way of recognizing
49:37
Speaker 2: that they had maybe missed the boat for many years,
49:40
Speaker 2: because that fan base was clamoring for Journey to get
49:44
Speaker 2: that kind of official recognition.
49:47
Speaker 1: Book on Rock podcast will be back after this. I
49:50
Speaker 1: think I need a break, a little break, Okay. This
49:55
Speaker 1: is a quote from Jonathan Kine in the book Music
49:59
Speaker 1: Back in Our Era, designed to lift you and to
50:01
Speaker 1: melodically hook you, in other words, make you feel something.
50:04
Speaker 1: Whatever it was. So our music from the eighties and nineties,
50:08
Speaker 1: and I'd even put the seventies in there, was all
50:10
Speaker 1: intended to entertain, to romance you, to will you, to
50:13
Speaker 1: make you feel something. We were trying to sell a
50:16
Speaker 1: feeling with That is the problem. Also the newer rock bands,
50:23
Speaker 1: are they just not making music that's good enough.
50:27
Speaker 2: Well, that's certainly what he was arguing. You know, he
50:29
Speaker 2: had an interesting point. He said, our music is certain
50:33
Speaker 2: music for uncertain times. And there are several people in
50:36
Speaker 2: the book that said that that the pandemic made a
50:41
Speaker 2: lot of people feel like it was too impossible to
50:46
Speaker 2: envision the future. And so the response to that was, well,
50:50
Speaker 2: if there's not going to be a future, I'm going
50:52
Speaker 2: to embrace what I remember going through or what I
50:55
Speaker 2: had a relationship to before. So you and I were
51:02
Speaker 2: talking before we started up the interview. There is great
51:07
Speaker 2: rock music being played, but it is it's harder to
51:11
Speaker 2: hear it these days because pop music really is dominating,
51:18
Speaker 2: you know, in all kinds of ways, and hip hop
51:20
Speaker 2: certainly does. But there's like Jack White just released a
51:23
Speaker 2: new album. You know very recently, and that's an amazing
51:27
Speaker 2: rock album.
51:29
Speaker 1: I haven't listened to it. I got to give it
51:30
Speaker 1: a listen.
51:31
Speaker 2: It's so terrific, And so there you have to you
51:36
Speaker 2: have to be more willful about finding if rock music
51:39
Speaker 2: is your thing, but de finding it. I think Jonathan
51:43
Speaker 2: Game was feeling like there was so much less of
51:46
Speaker 2: an emphasis on melody these days, but it's much more
51:49
Speaker 2: about rhythm, and he felt like he was arguing that
51:55
Speaker 2: in Journey songs that lyrics told stories, and he was
51:59
Speaker 2: saying he doesn't hear storytelling anymore in lyrics.
52:03
Speaker 1: I want to wind down with holograms and avatars, which
52:05
Speaker 1: you addressed in the book. I'm so glad you did,
52:08
Speaker 1: because this is another huge topic with Kiss. They're planning
52:10
Speaker 1: on concerts with avatar versions of themselves, so it's a
52:14
Speaker 1: little different holograms. These are musicians who are no longer
52:17
Speaker 1: with us, and they're projected on stage as if they
52:21
Speaker 1: are with us. One are you okay with this from
52:25
Speaker 1: an ethical standpoint? And two is so are they at
52:29
Speaker 1: all worth going to see? Are they entertaining people enough
52:32
Speaker 1: for them to come back?
52:34
Speaker 2: So I did struggle with the idea of ethics and
52:39
Speaker 2: holograms before I spent time with people who were making them.
52:42
Speaker 2: The thing that really got my attention at the beginning
52:45
Speaker 2: was there was going to be an Amy Winehouse Hologram tour.
52:50
Speaker 2: And this was really not many years after she had died,
52:52
Speaker 2: and she died a tragic death, and so at that
52:55
Speaker 2: point I knew that there was a Roy Orbison tribute
52:57
Speaker 2: act and some others, And so the more I came
53:04
Speaker 2: to know about the Hologram show, I just got more
53:07
Speaker 2: at peace with seeing it as Whi's just totally your choice,
53:13
Speaker 2: and it depends on what's important to you and live music.
53:16
Speaker 2: I mean, no one goes to these shows and looks
53:19
Speaker 2: at Buddy Holly and says, wait a minute, why is
53:22
Speaker 2: he so bright? You know he's dead. So you've paid
53:26
Speaker 2: a ticket, You're not being fooled. And what some of
53:30
Speaker 2: these shows are counting on is is what it is
53:34
Speaker 2: to see the hologram surrounded by live musicians. That was
53:37
Speaker 2: true with the Whitney Houston Holograham and the Doo Yeah,
53:43
Speaker 2: and in some of those cases, in the case of
53:45
Speaker 2: the Doo Show and the Frank Zappa Show, those were
53:48
Speaker 2: musicians who had played with those deceased artists. So for
53:52
Speaker 2: fans that did mean a lot, but those shows had
53:56
Speaker 2: not Those shows had not been huge money makers. I
54:02
Speaker 2: saw them in venues that were all less than a
54:04
Speaker 2: thousand people. And what was a big kick for the
54:09
Speaker 2: hologram industry was the Abba Show. The Abba Show was huge.
54:15
Speaker 2: I'll remember, those four members are all alive, but they
54:18
Speaker 2: had avatars and so it wasn't just the member of
54:22
Speaker 2: the musician there on stage, but they were flying all
54:27
Speaker 2: around and doing all kinds of different things. And I
54:30
Speaker 2: think that that sketched out some new possibilities. So that's
54:34
Speaker 2: what the Kiss Show will be. And even though the
54:37
Speaker 2: kiss the Kiss thing was a pretty well guarded secret
54:40
Speaker 2: in the schema things, who in the world was surprised
54:42
Speaker 2: that there was going to be a continuation of Kiss concerts,
54:47
Speaker 2: you know, because because why would we ever stop listening
54:53
Speaker 2: to kiss music? That isn't that the idea? Why would
54:56
Speaker 2: we ever stop listening?
54:58
Speaker 1: You're talking to a member of the Kiss Army here.
55:00
Speaker 1: I would put them in my top five.
55:02
Speaker 2: I will tread carefully, but I'm just saying they have
55:07
Speaker 2: toured forever and the only way that we experience that
55:12
Speaker 2: music now is to see it and obviously Kisses on
55:16
Speaker 2: board because they cooperate with everything, So in that way,
55:19
Speaker 2: it's not really a question of ethics. You know, they're aren't.
55:22
Speaker 2: They're doing it. It's taking their music, it's it's is
55:26
Speaker 2: is that going to be a satisfying experience? And that
55:31
Speaker 2: just depends on who you are, you know.
55:35
Speaker 1: I don't know. I really can't say one way or
55:38
Speaker 1: the other. I'm very curious. As a huge Kiss fan,
55:40
Speaker 1: I just don't know if it's going to work or on.
55:42
Speaker 1: And it's going to be a while. I think they
55:44
Speaker 1: said yeah, I think twenty twenty six, maybe even twenty
55:47
Speaker 1: twenty seven, it'll be ready to roll out and we'll see,
55:52
Speaker 1: I mean right.
55:53
Speaker 2: The question is are will their fans have had enough
55:56
Speaker 2: of live Kiss or do they really want a whole
56:00
Speaker 2: way to experience Kiss? And we won't know until that
56:03
Speaker 2: show comes out.
56:05
Speaker 1: But you know, if it works, other other artists, other
56:09
Speaker 1: companies will really want to do it.
56:12
Speaker 2: If it doesn't, it's right because it will stop being
56:16
Speaker 2: a case of just dead musicians and states, but musicians
56:20
Speaker 2: who have said, you know, I can't keep doing this
56:23
Speaker 2: or I don't want to keep doing this. But and
56:25
Speaker 2: I mean the larger point is they want their musical
56:29
Speaker 2: legacies and act, so you can't you know, you can't
56:34
Speaker 2: blame them for that. It's just it all for me.
56:39
Speaker 2: It all comes back to what does that say about
56:41
Speaker 2: a relationship to new music? And so something like that says, well,
56:46
Speaker 2: our relationship to new music is shaky at best.
56:50
Speaker 1: Book on Rock podcasts will be back after this. You
56:53
Speaker 1: think about the future, what do you think about AI
56:58
Speaker 1: in music creating new music, original songs being created that
57:03
Speaker 1: sound as if they were recorded by the artists themselves.
57:06
Speaker 2: I mean, I've heard some samples that are astonishingly good,
57:11
Speaker 2: and I'm pretty old school on this. I mean, I
57:15
Speaker 2: understand there may come the time where there's a new
57:17
Speaker 2: Beatles album and it's because it was all AI manufactured,
57:22
Speaker 2: and maybe maybe that becomes some interesting listening experience. I
57:27
Speaker 2: think the thing that I would worry about long from
57:31
Speaker 2: now is making sure everyone understands the distinction between who
57:36
Speaker 2: the Beatles really were versus Beatles AI music. You know,
57:41
Speaker 2: I mean, if they can do interesting things with that,
57:44
Speaker 2: then then that's new music.
57:47
Speaker 1: But what.
57:50
Speaker 2: It's a careful study of Beatles music, and I guess
57:54
Speaker 2: I would be open to that. But what about the
57:59
Speaker 2: new band who just want to make new, great music themselves.
58:03
Speaker 2: Isn't that where we really should be putting our attention.
58:06
Speaker 2: We had the Beatles, you know, the Beatles changed everything,
58:10
Speaker 2: and those albums will always be there. I don't know
58:13
Speaker 2: if we need new Beatles music created not by any
58:16
Speaker 2: of the Beatles.
58:18
Speaker 1: Yeah, what we need is as far as rock and roll,
58:22
Speaker 1: you need a band that can write great music, but
58:25
Speaker 1: is also the music that your parents don't want you
58:29
Speaker 1: listening to. Yeah, music that will it's not dangerous anymore,
58:33
Speaker 1: that's the thing.
58:34
Speaker 2: Oh, it's not.
58:35
Speaker 1: You know that that I'll finish with. This question leads
58:38
Speaker 1: right into the question we've heard say people say rock
58:41
Speaker 1: and roll is dead. Is this true or is there
58:43
Speaker 1: hope for the future.
58:45
Speaker 2: Well, I think that there are a lot of ways
58:49
Speaker 2: to take measure of that. I think that the stronghold
58:54
Speaker 2: of nostalgia means that rock music is very alive in
59:00
Speaker 2: some ways, but it's museum music, you know, is music
59:04
Speaker 2: that has been preserved and it's the new deluxe edition
59:07
Speaker 2: and so many different ways to repackage what we already know.
59:12
Speaker 2: I think that there are there are bands who are
59:16
Speaker 2: creating vibrant new music and they're competing against all the
59:22
Speaker 2: predecessors that came before them. There, they're competing with the
59:26
Speaker 2: bands that influenced them, even if those bands are not
59:29
Speaker 2: still around or alive, because that music is just we
59:33
Speaker 2: can't get enough of it. So I think that, yes,
59:36
Speaker 2: you could say, I mean that Jack White album I
59:38
Speaker 2: think is a great example. That's the best new rock
59:40
Speaker 2: record I've heard in a long time, and it made
59:43
Speaker 2: me feel hopeful, you know.
59:45
Speaker 1: And I would say, as long as there's the possibility
59:48
Speaker 1: of one kid in that audience who goes to see
59:51
Speaker 1: Jack White, who's looking up on that stage thing, I
59:54
Speaker 1: want to do that, Yeah, he could be the next
59:57
Speaker 1: brilliant artist to bring and roll back. So there's always
1:00:02
Speaker 1: that possibility. It's always it's always there. And I'll say
1:00:05
Speaker 1: this regardless, between the mid sixties and mid nineties some
1:00:12
Speaker 1: of the greatest rock and roll music ever recorded. And
1:00:14
Speaker 1: that's a long time. So I'm thankful that we have
1:00:16
Speaker 1: that much that we can tap into.
1:00:18
Speaker 2: Right. There's just no reason to think that we can't
1:00:21
Speaker 2: have so much great music in this century, and I
1:00:24
Speaker 2: think that we do. I think we just have to
1:00:28
Speaker 2: be very dedicated to giving it a chance.
1:00:32
Speaker 1: Yeah, And I'll even go further back now to the
1:00:34
Speaker 1: mid fifties. I'm starting to get into all that stuff,
1:00:36
Speaker 1: the Buddy Hollies and all those guys too. I mean,
1:00:39
Speaker 1: there's so much out there. The endless refrain, memory, nostalgia,
1:00:44
Speaker 1: and the threats of new music is out now you
1:00:45
Speaker 1: can find wherever books are sold and where can people
1:00:47
Speaker 1: find you online?
1:00:49
Speaker 2: David, So, I have my website David raulauthor dot com.
1:00:54
Speaker 1: Got a link to that. I'll put it in the
1:00:55
Speaker 1: show notes so people can check out the website. David.
1:00:59
Speaker 1: Thank you so much.
1:01:00
Speaker 2: Oh Eric, it was great fun talking to you about
1:01:02
Speaker 2: all this. Thank you. That's it. It's in the books.