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

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Doing some research for my 'phase out CDs in favor of MP3 & vinyl sales' paper, I came across The Lefsetz Letter. WOW is this guy a self-assured jackass:

God, remember when music had power, when music could change the world? How the fuck is the world gonna change with these lame acts:

Kanye West. Oh, the press loves him, but we all know the only rapper with cred, the one everybody truly wants to see, the genius, is Dr. Dre. And he ain’t on this bill.

Kelly Fucking Clarkson? Where’s the cred here? Who’s gonna follow this chick ANYWHERE? Isn’t she the one who won the TV talent contest, and then sang a hit written by a fifty year old in Sweden?

[...]

Alicia Keys… An overrated hack. Yup, she ripped off "It’s A Man’s Man’s Man’s World" for her one big hit and she’s only marginally more important than Whitney Houston, Clive Davis’ hype of a decade previous. Come on, sing a couple of her original songs, I DARE YOU!

Ludacris. Loved him in "Crash", but isn’t he ALREADY A HAS-BEEN?

[...]

Melissa Etheridge. I liked her better when she was an alienated lesbian decrying the sad state of gays in society. Then she became the poster girl for homosexuals, the one Bill Clinton trotted out again and again, and she lost her edge. And a good deal of her fan base too.

Dave Matthews Band. Stars. Who don’t do endorsements. Who people believe in. Better it be JUST the Dave Matthews Band than the rest of these hacks. Didn’t we learn that with the package tours of the late nineties? That one plus one doesn’t equal three, oftentimes not even two, but one at most? Put Neil Young or the Allman Brothers atop the hippie bill at H.O.R.D.E. and business goes DOWN! Their fans won’t come out. They don’t want to endure crap, and they think they’re gonna get a short show. Yeah, like Dave’s gonna play for three hours here…

Rihanna. That’s what we’ve got a RAINBOW COALITION! MTV is history. Yup, originally MTV was rock only, then it expanded to Michael Jackson and black music. But now all the scenes are ghettoized again, people interested in Rihanna don’t give a shit about Dave Matthews, and vice versa.

[...]

John Mayer. Sheryl Crow once removed. Like I’m supposed to believe in the guy fucking Jessica Simpson.

The Police. The one certified killer headliner…

― BIG HOOS aka the steendriver, Tuesday, 17 April 2007 07:27 (eighteen years ago)

didn't he hear about how kelly clarkson is working with cool people now

― aaron d.g., Tuesday, 17 April 2007 07:34 (eighteen years ago)

people with CRED!

― BIG HOOS aka the steendriver, Tuesday, 17 April 2007 07:34 (eighteen years ago)

hit 'em wit da hoos

― creme1, Tuesday, 17 April 2007 10:50 (eighteen years ago)

8080

― That one guy that quit, Tuesday, 17 April 2007 10:51 (eighteen years ago)

I'm on his e-mail list as I find him pretty entertaining. He's a one-time music biz lawyer who is pals with lots of folks in the biz and has lots of boomer musicians and managers on his e-mail list. Kelefa Sanneh mentioned him in the NY Times once. Sometimes, but rarely, I agree with him.

I mentioned him on another thread. He advocates P2P filesharing and independent label acts one minute, and then attacks Arcade Fire the next minute for being too insular and promoting themselves via old-school media.

He just sent a hilarious message declaring rap and rock and the music biz dead. He's upset there are no stars like in the good ol late 60s and 70s. He blames the current music biz industry folks for this. He also ripped apart virtually every act playing at the upcoming AL Gore environmental global warning awareness concerts.

― curmudgeon, Tuesday, 17 April 2007 14:35 (eighteen years ago)

Oh, your quote above may be from one of those e-mails. Sometimes he just sends e-mails about semi-obscure songs from late '60s or early '70s artists. Other times he writes about his love of skiing and somehow connects that with music and technology.

― curmudgeon, Tuesday, 17 April 2007 14:39 (eighteen years ago)

<IMG SRC="http://lefsetz.com/wordpress/wp-content/themes/lefsetzletter/author.jpg">

Dude looks like he has bucketloads of CRED.

― braveclub, Tuesday, 17 April 2007 14:48 (eighteen years ago)

http://lefsetz.com/wordpress/wp-content/themes/lefsetzletter/author.jpg

― braveclub, Tuesday, 17 April 2007 14:48 (eighteen years ago)

Cheech!

― I eat cannibals, Tuesday, 17 April 2007 15:28 (eighteen years ago)

He has a regular column on the Rhino Records website.

― mrcs, Tuesday, 17 April 2007 19:52 (eighteen years ago)

send PEW after him

― Catsupppppppppppppp dude ‫茄蕃‪, Tuesday, 17 April 2007 19:58 (eighteen years ago)

Foo Fighters. Maybe if Dave Grohl reunited with Krist and Courtney Love sang. Foo Fighters are a second-rate band that wouldn’t even be on a bill like this twenty years ago.

― Catsupppppppppppppp dude ‫茄蕃‪, Tuesday, 17 April 2007 20:00 (eighteen years ago)

please hoos don't hurt 'em

― bernard snowy, Tuesday, 17 April 2007 20:38 (eighteen years ago)

yeah he is a total tool and i am on his list just for the sake of getting riled up and hitting the delete button, sometimes several times a day (dude seems to have a lot of time on his hands to bemoan the current state of music which was a thousand jillion times better in the early '70s, as we all know of course...)

― Mike McGooney-gal, Tuesday, 17 April 2007 20:44 (eighteen years ago)

He's like the mean spirited Jackie Harvey of the old music obsessives set.

― mrcs, Tuesday, 17 April 2007 20:59 (eighteen years ago)

you can't argue with his contention that the idea of seeing current incarnations of the 86 live aid lineup (sabbath, ultravox, neil young, judas priest, bryan ferry, hall & oates, others) is more attractive than whatever it is he's going on about.

― dan, Wednesday, 18 April 2007 00:28 (eighteen years ago)

I agree. Lafsetz is a genius. He speaks what all of us non-elitists, non-hipser wannabees are actually thinking.

― Tinky-Winky, Wednesday, 18 April 2007 00:31 (eighteen years ago)

please hoos don't hurt 'em

-- bernard snowy, Tuesday, 17 April 2007 20:38

http://www.carniola.org/theglory/images/McHammer.gif

― BIG HOOS aka the steendriver, Wednesday, 18 April 2007 01:33 (eighteen years ago)

I think he's right more often than he's wrong. Which is more than most people on this board :-p

― byebyepride, Wednesday, 18 April 2007 03:30 (eighteen years ago)

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/thumb/1/12/Simpson_and_Delilah.gif/200px-Simpson_and_Delilah.gif

― I am not afraid of you and you can spank my ass, Wednesday, 18 April 2007 07:14 (eighteen years ago)

Yeah, why is, like, 1971 pointed to as a banner year with these guys?

― If Timi Yuro would be still alive, most other singers could shut up, Wednesday, 18 April 2007 07:57 (eighteen years ago)

Why? For one thing, a rant like the Lefsetz one that spawned this thread would have been unthinkable.

(/me channels Lefsetz)

It's like the difference between Woodstock and Live Earth -- both were/are crass commercial ventures, regardless of whatever good vibes or good intentions they're wrapped in. But in '69 or '71, it was something new, fresh, and unselfconsciously diverse, while in '07, it creaks with the weight of a tired 40-year-old paradigm, and the diversity is a desperate, forced diversity of demographic niches and marketroids and celebrity. It screams, "Something for everybody!"

'71 may be emblematic of a sweet spot before the suits came in and made it more and more about the machine and less and less about the music. Rock stars (or whatever you want to call them nowadays) are now a dime a dozen.

― mark 0, Wednesday, 18 April 2007 10:15 (eighteen years ago)

I love Lefsetz - it's great to see a billious Boomer in full flight. He's funny, informed and opinionated, a very entertaining guy.

― moley, Wednesday, 18 April 2007 23:04 (eighteen years ago)

FUCKING DIE

― JW, Wednesday, 18 April 2007 23:18 (eighteen years ago)

That’s the essence of great art, conception. That’s why Jethro Tull is more meaningful than Mariah Carey. Oh, Mariah’s just a pretty voice singing a song, whereas Jethro Tull made one song into an entire album!

― Hec, Thursday, 19 April 2007 01:03 (eighteen years ago)

Hip-hop will not come back. Hip-hop was of a time and place that no longer exists. Built on a foundation of truth about the inner city, it resonated with blacks and whites because of its truth. But it was blown up by nineties society. When we were all in it together, when the hip merged with the mainstream, when we had no choice. There's no longer one scene, but many. Furthermore, like the major labels, big time rap consolidated and became about only a few themes, bitches, hos and cash. With choice, people went elsewhere. They're not coming back. Hip-hop will survive, but as a shadow of its former self. Video has moved to the Web. You're better off breaking on YouTube than MTV, or anywhere else on television. Because clicks on YouTube have the imprimatur of the public's choice. People are sick of being dictated to by the man, they want to make their own choices. Singles are death. Unless you can convince the public to believe in the act, and want to purchase everything it ever does, you're fucked. There's just not enough money in singles. The cost of production has gone down, irrevocably. You don't want to be in the studio business. Sure, you can make a better record in a big room with state of the art equipment, but who is going to BUY that record? Economics dictate that production costs be lower. And with the new computer tools, they can be. The major labels will lose market share. What they do best is find bland talent and utilizing carpet bomb marketing, they try to sell it worldwide. There is a business here. It costs money, that indies don't have. If you want to be ubiquitous, you've got to be on a major label. But not only does this reach for the brass ring come with costs to your career, most types of music just can't be sold in quantity anymore. So we've got indie niches. Until the majors enter these indie niches, they will forever lose market share. The networks merged with the cable channels. Will the majors take over the indies? Only if they're smart. The credible acts of tomorrow will not sell out. And credibility will equate to "career". If you want people to believe in you, if you want to be able to play music for a decade, you cannot make a deal with Procter & Gamble, or even Jagermeister for that matter. The more you take the cash from anyone but your core constituency, your fans, the more these same fans can't believe in you. Go for the slow build, not the fast ascent. Artist development is not only in the hands of the label, but the act itself. If you're looking for shortcuts, you're negatively impacting your career. If you're good, people will find you, you'll develop. Then again, most acts aren't any good. Music is not cool. I just did two hours on this last night on KLSX. The only callers who said music was cool were those into heavy metal bands you've never heard of. Doesn't matter what you think of music, its image hasn't been tarnished, it's been TRASHED! The whole industry is in trouble. As a result of the RIAA suing its customers, hip-hop being a joke and the selling of vapid, no-talent singers who don't write their own material and sound like an imitation of Mariah Carey, if they can sing at all. People have tuned new music out. Yes, there is great new music out there. But the casual listener is not exposed to it, and therefore has tuned out, and is into other entertainment media. As for modern music like Justin Timberlake, that's seen as a vehicle to bump bodies in the club, it's not something you want to listen to on the stereo at home. And until that desirable listening experience comes back with new music, and people haven't changed, they still want it, kids still sit in front of their computer or fall asleep with their iPods to Led Zeppelin and Pink Floyd, we're fucked. Music should be paid for. Music shouldn't be free. But the major labels made it so. You can't pull people back into the past. You've got to monetize the way they presently acquire music. This is immutable. The more P2P is demonized, the less revenue comes in, the more the business of selling music goes into the toilet. People only want to see stars. Oh, you might want to see the Decemberists, but most people don't know who they are and don't care. And the Decemberists have got TRACTION! There is not a healthy live music scene. Live music is like blockbuster movies. Everybody wants to see a very few acts. Not that we should blame them, there aren't many good acts out there. And tickets are too expensive and a show is no longer about the music, but the production. A greedy industry is looking to get all the money and is not looking to the future, when there are no superstar new acts that anybody wants to see. Melody never goes out of style. Beats might be selling, but there is ALWAYS room for a well-sung song with a melody and hooky changes, which people can sing along with. Those who realize this will end up with all the money.

― curmudgeon, Thursday, 19 April 2007 04:51 (eighteen years ago)

Hip-Hop will disappear (obviously not completely, only into the underground like most genres before it), but right now it is still very much present, only in the "contemporary R&B" form rather than the rap form.

― Geir Hongro, Thursday, 19 April 2007 12:52 (eighteen years ago)

you will die before hip-hop.

― blueski, Thursday, 19 April 2007 12:53 (eighteen years ago)

This guy is very much wrong about enviromental issues, but he seems to be right about music.

― Geir Hongro, Thursday, 19 April 2007 12:54 (eighteen years ago)

(Except hip-hop's death isn't quite here yet)

― Geir Hongro, Thursday, 19 April 2007 12:54 (eighteen years ago)

And I know that makes you sad

― curmudgeon, Thursday, 19 April 2007 13:13 (eighteen years ago)

Sometimes Lefsetz posts e-mails responding to his commentary, but I've noticed that he only posts comments disagreeing with him if they're from semi-famous musicians or music industry figures. Nothing from regular folk. He will however post e-mails agreeing with him that come from just anyone.

― curmudgeon, Thursday, 19 April 2007 13:21 (eighteen years ago)

eleven months pass...

please hoos don't hurt 'em

-- bernard snowy, Tuesday, 17 April 2007 20:38

i totally wanted to do hammer.gif w/my head on it when i saw this

― BIG HOOS aka the steendriver, Monday, 31 March 2008 03:19 (seventeen years ago)

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/03/26/AR2008032602919.html

― Alex in Baltimore, Monday, 31 March 2008 03:33 (seventeen years ago)

so this thread is rage against the rage against the machine

― deej, Monday, 31 March 2008 03:43 (seventeen years ago)

Fuck yeah I'll do what I tell me

― Ned Raggett, Monday, 31 March 2008 03:45 (seventeen years ago)

"I was fighting for the artistic integrity" of a W.A.S.P. album,

― m coleman, Monday, 31 March 2008 09:22 (seventeen years ago)

nah i like this lefsetz guy. not for the comments hoos has posted but he writes some good stuff on his blog.

― titchyschneiderMk2, Monday, 31 March 2008 10:22 (seventeen years ago)

m coleman I know you are not talking trash about W.A.S.P.

― J0hn D., Monday, 31 March 2008 12:33 (seventeen years ago)

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