who is Bob Lefsetz?

But I've got to warn you. There are SEA CUCUMBERS!

Oh, you wear reef shoes. But littered on the bottom of the ocean are these...well, CUCUMBERS! But they're alive. And squishy. And they urinate. And it's almost so gross you don't want to go in. You CERTAINLY don't want to step on one.

...

"Dvorak-style amalgam of ex-ATN writers taking the piss" is the FUNNIEST PHRASE I HAVE READ ALL DAY though i don't know why.

He also turns up on the Rhino podcast with hystronic tirades about The State Of Things and endless flashbacks to his life in the 70s when things were So Much Better. In short, he's one of the Ghost World record collectors only with an income.

You know what brings you back, again and again, to Bob Lefsetz? It's the PASSION. Oh, you can try to stay away. You can subscribe to a million other blogs. You can tell yourself that music's changed, or that you've changed, or that you don't understand anymore. But you know what? It's not that you've got older - it's that your generation has lost touch! They've SOLD OUT. And it's the KIDS on the INTERNET with thei iPods and their Blackberries who are reminding you why you got into this WHOLE CRAZY FUCKING BUSINESS IN THE FIRST PLACE. It's the MUSIC! Oh, you can tell yourself it isn't. BUT IT IS. And if you don't listen, you and every other exec LEECHING off the hindquarters of a MEMORY is going to BITE THE FUCKING DUST!

Heheh.
I unsubscribed offa the Lef'Letter again awhile ago.

Seriously though his blog is my fave industry read and has been for a while now.

omg somebody's gotta imagebomb this dude and his ridiculous opinions

Another thread on him. Also, Chuck mentioned and quoted a recent Lefsetz country music and Sirius radio thing on the Rolling Country thread.

His most recent column begins 'I was at the psychiatrist today...'. Magnificent. We are Lefsetz FANATICS at our house. Oh, you can laugh. But that's because you're HISTORY.

How about that T.I. diatribe...Is he right about touring rock bands having more sustained longevity than rappers or pop acts?

But I'll take T.I. over Rory Gallagher and many of the washed-up blooz-rockers and classic-rock dudes he loves.

Is he right about touring rock bands having more sustained longevity than rappers or pop acts?...YES

...he must have a lot of time on his hands and he reminds me of mixerman

Who's mixerman? I think Lefsetz is a retired music biz attorney.

One of his pet themes is that only individuals whom he says audiences perceive as 'real' will have lasting careers. He says this does not include American Idol performers and most rappers and pop acts.

Nelly Furtado Thursday 6/7/07 The WaMu Theater at Madison Square Garden, New York, NY Gross: $316,400 4,992/4,992 (100% Ticket prices: $65.00/$45.00 That was her best gig. In Boston, she did 3,644 out of 6,500 (56.1%). In Sayreville, NJ, she did 1,165 out of 2,050 (56.8%). In Detroit, she did 1,761 out of 2,585 (68.1%). In Grand Prairie, TX, she did 2,375 out of 2,503 (94.9%). In other words, she did SHITTY! And these weren't big halls to begin with, positively small, THEATRES! Her album has sold 1,873,719 copies, it's still number 50 on the chart A YEAR LATER! In other words, record sales don't mean shit. Work with Timbaland all you want. Have a hit on Top Forty radio that fewer people are listening to every day. Most people are not paying attention. They don't think you're REAL! Real acts don't conspire with a multitude of people, the usual suspects, to create their of the moment music. No one's even going to REMEMBER her tracks half a decade from now. No one's even going to PLAY them! (Have you heard Eminem recently?) It's not about music being stolen, that's not the big story in the music business today. It's about the bifurcation in its soul. Touring used to reflect record sales. No longer is this the case. And the real acts, the lasting acts, can all do good live business. The public got the memo, the press has not. As for the major labels? If they want a taste of every piece of the pie they've got to be trustworthy, have the act's best interests at heart. Ain't that a laugh.

so bob thinks the PUBLIC wants REAL, but it's hard to notice that said public has responded to THE REAL BOB himself by leaving ZERO COMMENTS so far on his latest blog post. ZERO COMMENTS on the post before that. ZERO COMMENTS on his LAST FOUR POSTS, in fact. the one before that elicited ONE COMMENT. so maybe everyone's talking about him but NO ONE CARES. most people are not paying attention. in other words, capital-letter posts about THE REAL don't mean shit. on the other hand, matthew fluxblog, champion of the pop, the artificial, the unreal, got 14 COMMENTS on his most recent posts. and 20 COMMENTS on the one before that. and 12 comments for his thoughts on KELLY CLARKSON. take that, bob!

So who's READING these blogs? The Arizona girl you met at UCLA you secretly wanted to fuck? NO! That aging A&R rep with the combover whose ass you wanted to kick cos he thought he was DOWN with the kids? NO-ONE who CARES about MUSIC reads BLOGS! They're too busy LIVING! And what do they want as their soundtrack to life? Music about LOVE - love gained, love lost, love refrigerated briefly prior to baking. LOVE is what keeps us coming back to music. NOT blogs. NOT UCLA postgrad programs. NOT even Arizona girls. And especially not Matthew fucking PERPETUA.

Who's mixerman?

http://www.mixerman.net/diaries_main.php

With just a few changes to the word lists, Lefsetz could pass for a SubGenius spewbot.

ctrl-f HITS not found

Bob always quotes 2 types of e-mail responses he gets (as many folks receive his stuff via e-mail rather than looking at his site)--from retired or current folks in the biz, or from ordinary folks who tell him how much they love 'real' music and then proceed to enthuse about the most bland middlebrow rock. The tone in both types of responses are often pretty amusing.

But I'll take T.I. over Rory Gallagher

Any sane person would. (Which says it all.)

http://youtube.com/watch?v=laBpl0TPaNg

I never heard of this guy until yesterday, but his old timer shtick is kind of entertaining, I read it hearing the voice of Bob "The Kid Stays In The Picture" Evans, and then think of the Martin Landau character from Entourage.

Subscribed a couple of weeks ago after someone mentioned him on the Radiohead thread, I tried, but I just don't get it, unsubscribed again.

Random thoughts that go nowhere, boasting about scoring a tour jacket from a 70's Clapton tour, comments from people who apparently do get what he means, irrelevant grumpy old man stuff, nothing I want to read about several times a day.

Am I missing something or is that it?

His rants against the music biz, while largely predictable at this point, are often entertaining reading. Same goes for his stories of his life and his nostalgia.

omg somebody's gotta imagebomb this dude and his ridiculous opinions

Article on Lefsetz in the Washington Post

The fact that he is "one of the music industry's most influential analysts" speaks volumes. If you pretend you're reading an Onion editorial his pieces are entertaining though.

When I worked at Rhino, I'd hear stories about Bob's refusals to edit his histrionic rants. Consequently, most 'casts were 90 percent wall-bouncing froth over Spirit's Dr. Sardonicus and tear-soaked Aspen weekends in '75 when MUSIC and LOVE were REAL and YOUNG, 10 percent contributions from actual Rhino employees.

He's like Lsetz, the Dean of Music Analysis.

Oh not that guy again. There was also this interesting take on Feist.

ugh.

he reminds me of ben gazzara as jackie treehorn: "we used to have a little thing called production values... FEELINGS..."

That and the Onion editorial comment both made me roffle.

howard_beale.jpg

I kinda like reading his rants as SubGenius devival art but the guy can't be bothered to put the full text of his posts in his RSS feed so screw it.

LOL at his anti-Ticketmaster rant. Welcome to 1994 Bob!

oh man is he ever happy about the new Tom Petty

Mudcrutch vs. Tin Machine

I'm officially starting the trend of calling them The Crutch.

dudes don't harsh The Crutch

dude, The Crutch killed it last nite at the cow palace

Pure seventies. Pure magic.

dude the crutch don't know any other way to rock.

Pure seventies. Pure magic.

this was totally my favorite line

Kind of sums it all up, doesn't it?

White Room

by Bob Lefsetz

The sixties were different. They were light, and dark, and nothing in between. Today we live in the gray. In the onslaught of media, nothing sticks out, nothing is in relief, we're all hiding in our bunkers, trying to figure it all out. But, in the sixties, we ventured out, we wanted to experience IT ALL!

In the sixties there was context. It wasn't like today, where without a major hype campaign nobody knows the story. We only had three TV networks. "Rolling Stone" didn't come on the scene until the end of the decade. There were limited media outlets, and we paid attention. The big breakthrough was FM underground radio, and you were lucky if you had an outlet in your community, where you could hear Cream.

Cream was something you heard about from your friends. You went over to somebody's house and they played you "Sunshine Of Your Love". Pete Townshend eventually sang about one note, pure and easy, playing so free, but really it was one RIFF that people lined up behind. And that riff, the one that got it all started, was the one from "Sunshine Of Your Love".

Listen to "Sunshine Of Your Love" today, you'll be STUNNED how little is on the record. God, it sounds like there were NO overdubs, just a power trio laying it down. Still, it wasn't just the notes Clapton was playing, it was the SOUND of those notes. There was a RICHNESS in this hard rock, a SWEETNESS! This wasn't music for boys only, this was music for EVERYBODY with genitals. It had such a weird effect on you, hearing this sound, you felt it in different parts of your body, your brain, your lower abdomen and your groin. Right after the set-up, after the richness, there's this bit of distortion in the guitar, you feel like you're in it for the long haul, to climax, four minutes hence.

Hearing "Sunshine Of Your Love" you had to buy "Disraeli Gears". And that's when you discovered it, the essence, opening side two.

Today the label picks the track, and what's left of radio takes instruction, it's all a CAMPAIGN, which you're AWARE OF! But listening to FM back then was like listening to XM today. Your relationship is with the DEEJAY! Not his voice, not his inane rap like on Sirius, but his CHOICES! That's why we love people, because of who they ARE! And when you heard "Tales Of Brave Ulysses" on the radio your life was made, the same way when Mike Marrone plays some obscure cut that only I thought I knew it makes my day.

One can argue quite strongly the first Cream album is the best. The sound isn't as good as "Disraeli Gears", but overall the songs are BETTER!

But after "Disraeli Gears", the songs got worse. Except for the unexpected "Badge", NOTHING was the caliber of what came before. Still, there was a huge hit on "Wheels Of Fire", a simple song, but one with a monster riff so exquisite that we were touched once again. It was just the SOUND of Clapton's guitar, it sounded like he was WEEPING! But then Ginger hit the drum, and Jack sang richly. Yes, as great as Clapton was, Jack's vocals were a key element of the band.

The dude who made available the MP3s of the Royal Albert Hall show left three out, the last three numbers of the concert. He hopped to, posted them on the site, and I just downloaded them, and heard "White Room".

I don't understand flying around the world to see a band. That's not what rock and roll is about. Rock and roll is about scraping up every dollar you've got, eating the equivalent of dog food just so you can AFFORD to go to the gig. The gig isn't an afterthought, ONE thing you can acquire, experience, but the ONLY thing!

While we were experiencing flower power in the U.S., the Brits were experiencing rain. The music from across the pond was different from ours. It wasn't sunny, it was dark. Made in the U.K., it was America's dark underbelly. It coexisted with Monkees hits. It was necessary, for balance.

Flying across the pond forty years later has NO darkness. Unless you saved up every last dollar you had and slept on the street in order to go.

And, going was SO much different then. You went ALL THE TIME! Because the tickets were CHEAP! Under five bucks. The concert experience wasn't about preferred parking and alcohol, it was about the MUSIC!

And that music can be heard in Cream's rendition of "White Room" on May 5th.

Eric gets that unique guitar sound. But really, it's Ginger's drums. You can hear the FEROCITY!

And then, on top of it all, in comes Jack.

Oh, he's singing along, all those words you remember. And then you hear it...

"I'll wait in this place where the sun never shines Wait in this place where the shadows run from themselves"

I'm waiting for this place to return. Where business trumps art. Where creativity is revered over music. Where the messiah returns.

Religious zealots think the messiah is going to come from heaven. Down to save us.

But I don't believe that. I don't believe in a higher power. I believe in people. Their ability to triumph, do the right thing, against incredible odds.

Here, just before the show is over, almost two hours into it, having deliv ered upon expectations, Cream FINALLY throws off the limitations and just RIPS! THIS is music-making. When you're no longer going by the rehearsal, when you're just WINGING IT! When you stop concentrating on being together, do your own thing and it all FALLS INTO PLACE!

And a little over halfway through the number, Eric finally takes center stage, he finally WAILS! Not in the way he has for the past thirty years, but the way he did with John Mayall, as a SIDEMAN! In the tradition of great bluesmen, he's taking his LICKS! He's just part of the club.

And all these years later, it's still a championship team.

How many of his letters start out with something about the sixties or the classic era being "different"?

Lefzetz meets Pitchfork, world implodes.

you get a good idea of the ages of people Bob actually talks to with those reference points. he’s got some younger peers, but by younger, I think I mean people in their 50s

not to judge someone’s private life, but he seems like someone who does not have grandkids, or friends with grandkids he’s ever around

I think a lot of Bob's conversations are along the lines of "How is this song number one? I've never even heard it before."

I've never intentionally played any Molly Hatchet, but I do listen to classic rock and have my entire life, plus I'm a fan of Skynyrd, and (playing it right now) I don't think I've *ever* heard "Flirtin' with Disaster."

That Molly Hatchet album used to be a joke when I was a kid because like anyone I knew in their 30s had a cassette of it in their car.

It's the quintessential "This music doesn't sound like what the album cover promises" album

Isn't there one with a viking with a huge axe?

https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/a/a9/Molly_Hatchet_-_Molly_Hatchet.jpg

This is the cover I have seen, looks like a High on Fire cover.

"flirtin with disaster" is a banger, to be fair

Apparently not where I grew up.

yeah, painted by Frank Frazetta

https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/e/e8/Molly_Hatchet_-_Flirtin%27_with_Disaster.jpg

Doesn't scream "Southern rock" to me

XP Frank Frazetta painted their first three album covers.

I had their greatest hits album at one point. It was OK.

https://www.discogs.com/release/2603867-Molly-Hatchet-Greatest-Hits

https://m.media-amazon.com/images/I/81Ndgg4D2ML._SL1500_.jpg

"more people knew about X in 1979 than Y in 2025" also ignores the fact that there's literally 100 million more Americans today than in 1975. On a pure numbers basis there are probably minor Death Cab for Cutie songs that are known by more people than "Flirtin With Disaster" in 1979

I know his topics are just whatever floats into his head and/or feeds, and feels momentarily profound to him, but what a weird mid-level. band to choose to try to make a point. I wish TikTok had fed him Triumph's "Magic Power", 'cause the lyrics are practically a Lef blog post already.

Yes, he's young, wild AND free

"too ugly to be on their own album covers" is kind of funny

I don't think I've *ever* heard "Flirtin' with Disaster."

I probably have but that said the only actual memory of this song is Tom Servo singing the title on an MST3K riff.

On a pure numbers basis there are probably minor Death Cab for Cutie songs that are known by more people than "Flirtin With Disaster" in 1979

FWIW, on Spotify "Flirtin' with Disaster" currently has around 5.7 million listens, which is impressive ... until you compare it to the 4.7 billion listens to "Blinding Lights," let alone the 342 million listens to Death Cab's "I Will Follow You Into the Dark."

It's more like 57 million listens

Doesn't scream "Southern rock" to me

"In Umeå, they loved Erik The Red / Now we all did what we could do"

i mean sure there might be 4.7 billion listens but how many of those people were really hearing, man... caught in a trance, feeling the power, nodding your head, in your own space, connecting with the band and its music

Oh god, I had a roommate that played one of those NASCAR games on the original PlayStation a bunch and "Flirtin' With Disaster" was the song that played over and over and over in the game. Still gives me hives just to read the name of the song.

Whoops, yeah, 57 million listens, my bad! Maybe Bob Lefsetz is a member of the Molly Hatchet Army and has juked the stats by listening to that song on repeat for the past several years?

great, now I have Flirtin' With Disaster in my head for the day

bob lefsetz: "who is everybody?"

hey "flirting w/disaster" came it at #290 on ilm's classic rock poll! just ahead of "hot for teacher"! put some respect on molly hatchet's name, people!

(also, i appreciate bobby lefsetz writing about music he actually knows and understands, his strange attempts to wrap it in modern context notwithstanding.)

At the Stockholm metal record store Sound Pollution there is a good sized AOR CD section (like, 500 at least) that was fascinating to browse through last fall, all these extremely epic looking mysterious vaguely-major label looking 80s hard rock album covers, lotta Japanese imports. It was like peeking into another world.

Yeah, I think at some point AOR went from meaning radio stations that play the Allman Brothers and Eric Clapton to meaning a subgenre of Night Ranger/Foreigner wannabes.

^ yes, and they were essentially singles bands!

i wonder if the lef is also a fan of modern steven seagal films.

also lol molly hatchet. i'm a little disappointed he's not complaining about there being no chicks in the band.

https://encrypted-tbn2.gstatic.com/images?q=tbn:ANd9GcQbeRllVbK5kPV_TGgS6WwuEjr6f_FQ03s7cKBSLtzH4Nx-FQjDSJVCi9bvLLbM7-t7_Z_EAaOwJiW0ljbYhpsVelZq0xn6mJjhVLsfUQ

In a meandering piece criticizing Schumer, defending Cali governor Newsom talking to right-wing extremists on his podcast, Lefsetz throws in his standard defense of Spotify and his criticism of its musician opponents

[And the funny thing is the labels LOVE Ek and Spotify, he's their largest account. And the users who bought the internet dream that everybody would be rich and famous in the future because of the unlimited opportunity blame Ek when this fallacy evidenced itself. More artists are making more money than ever before on Spotify and this still isn't enough for wannabe and broke artists, especially those who made money in the past. What more do you want?

Oh, a penny a stream. Then you're instantly ignored. You don't know economics. And if you don't know the landscape, you're screwed.

i mean this as an immediate reaction to that, but also generally speaking: what is this guy's agenda?

attention, austin. he wants attention. YOUR attention. shudder.

he is an industry shill, the bigger the corporation the better

Damn that is some dark soul shit

Lefsetz is always also talking about what shows and movies he is seeing

People want to TALK about it!

Now you know what it was like going to the movies in the late sixties and seventies. It was not high concept entertainment, it was food for thought, the movies were STIMULATING!

No one says they saw "Adolescence" and shrugs.

And maybe you haven't seen it yet, but if so, you will. Because you'll feel the societal pressure, your friends will testify, INSIST that you watch it.

This is the modern paradigm. Promotion/publicity/success comes from the bottom up, not the top down. The gatekeepers try to anoint winners. And sometimes they succeed. They're in cahoots with the PR people... There's the anticipatory hype, then the hype about each and every star, then analysis after the project launches.

The gatekeepers missed "Adolescence."

But it's more than that. Multiple people have told me that Stephen Graham is the best actor of the century. Your opinion may differ, but one thing is for sure, Graham is not a conventional movie star, young and good-looking.

And unlike an American series, there are only four episodes.

And "Adolescence" is not comedy or fantasy, but real life.

Multiple people have told me that Stephen Graham is the best actor of the century. We’re looking into it very strongly and we’ll probably have a decision very soon.

Bob Lefsetz have you watched The Pitt yet

people like me, who can shift the needle

He was watching the Stagecoach Fest on cable tv or somewhere , the country music one that takes place where Coachella is held

No, at that point, you're just there for the music. It's been a long day, you're talked out, you've been waiting for this...

For such a long time.

And the guy on stage...

Doesn't look like anybody in the Spotify Top 50. Oh, these people exist in real life, just not in entertainment, not where you can see anybody's body. And if someone even slightly overweight appears on television, they make a big deal out of it. But Luke Combs... Looks like a guy you went to high school with. And one of the great things about him is he evidences no charisma. And that makes him even more attractive. Big time music has become all about artifice...outfits, makeup, hard drives...Luke Combs looks like he dressed to work on his car.

But he's into it.

And he calls Bailey Zimmerman on stage to do their new single, "Backup Plan" and I get it the first time through, and that almost never happens anymore.

And then Luke turns it over to the band and...

They start playing Skynyrd's "Gimme Three Steps" and...

That's when I start to wonder...why don't we have this in rock?

Oh, we've got Active Rock. You need to go to school to understand it, know all the history of how we got here. Maybe its fans like being outsiders, because one thing is for sure, they're passionate but this music is not mainstream.

What is mainstream? Hip-hop and overproduced pop. Everybody's fearful of AI, but this music sounds like it was made by AI. You read the fantastic press and then you hear the track and you go back to the oldies, this stuff is so bad. I know, I know, it's commerce, but there's not much art.

And then we've got country music.

Which lost its twang long ago.

Country is the rock of the seventies. With tons of Fenders and Gibsons... And not so many hard drives.

Sure, there's a ton of drivel. Written by committee numbers about babies and church and lame dates, but...that's not all of it.

I know, I know, you hate country because its epicenter is in the south and all those people are rednecks, but...

They're not. At this point in time, country is a big tent. It's truly the sound of America. Hip-hop? You can talk the talk, even dress accordingly, but most people's lives are far away from this paradigm, too often the music is a cartoon.

But this guy Luke Combs... He looks like you and me. He's fronting a band of real musicians and this is quite the opposite of Charli XCX, who we had to hear about ad infinitum last summer who played Coachella sans band...at least that's what I heard. Singing to track. So you can dance and prance... Once again, that's commerce, but it's far from the essence of music.

Amazing.

The patron saint of solipsisticity...

Lefsetz: "Where my white guys at?"

for anyone reading this part of the thread in the future: as Bob wrote this, the top story on billboard.com is "Beyoncé Cowboy Carter Tour: See Photos From Opening Night" and there are four songs featuring Morgan Wallen in the top 20, albeit one is Morgan Wallen feat. Post Malone and another that's Post Malone feat. Morgan Wallen

Also in the headlines: Molly Hatchet filling in for the Marshall Tucker Band at Wild Adventures in Valdosta, GA

Interesting that rich guys who dress like they were born to work on your truck are not seen as wearing costumes

https://encrypted-tbn0.gstatic.com/images?q=tbn:ANd9GcSUhyClIGORjyl1buw-5erOLZnIYvYO-t9gEA&s

Country Sensation Elmo Doge!

‘Oh, we've got Active Rock. You need to go to school to understand it, know all the history of how we got here.“

What is he talking about? The Active Rock chart is full of Nu Metal bands.