Moving Targets Are Hard To Hit

Jimmy Carter in his homebase Nashville.

When you have a chart where an artist can go from #40 to #1 in a wee,k you know they times have changed. How would Casey Kasem have ever kept up with a chart like that? Billboard using airplay/streams/sales for the new formula. Fla-Ga line is a hot property and their song "Dirt" is a great selection for them.

Did you read the Taylor Swift submission to The Wall Street Journal about the Future of Music. Go find it! Very smart and revealing. She mentioned the fact no one wants autographs any more .. they want Selfies ... Never seen anyone put that in writing, but you know its true. Social media changes faster than a speeding bullet. Facebook is for older people while Instagram with secret names is the place. Add Snapchat and a few others and it's a moving target.

Twitter ... It's my favorite of all of them. All ages seem to love it and ignore it with equal weight. If you ever start with the right follows, you will find it impossible to do without. I get most of my bulletin news from Twitter and direct phone Texts from my lead news sources. Taylor told a story of two actresses going for a role and the one with the most followers got the job.

Taylor got her record deal with her fans on My Space ... Instant marketing help ... MySpace is all but gone and Taylor has moved on to whatever the hottest thing is today.

Trying to find what people want is a voodoo science and game show. One Country star once said, "Just go into your concert parking lot and look at the cars and trucks and tags, then you will know your audience." That's about right. Trying to say everyone wants this or that is now virtually impossible. Look a little deeper into this change thing and it has to scare the music business people to death.

There is now talk of copyrights going out the window ... it won't happen ... BUT enforcement has lightened up in some areas like YouTube ..There is so much great material in old tape vaults that can't air due to copyright and union claims. That should be fixed ... The legislators won't do it ... but wouldn't you love to see some of those old American Bandstands ... some old award shows like the old Grammys or even old TNN shows ... but you can't. Unions won't be reasonable and do profit sharing. The folks airing the material split any money they make with the unions and copyright holders ... The user doesn't make money; the unions and copyright folks don't make money; and vice versa. It's just a shame all that cultural history is going to be lost. People have no incentive to digitize those dying tapes if there is no economic incentive. At least for educational purposes, grants should be given to take those tapes and make them available to people on a subscription basis ... something.

History is dying quickly ... those tapes are dying by the hour ... machines hardly exist to dub them as it is...

Do we really care about history anymore? Nashville has a few but very few historical markers around Music Row. Some of the great studios are gone. One is a parking lot where Elvis recorded.

You did see a little fever when they thought RCA Studio A was going to be smashed. That fate may still be up in the air. It is the music that lives on, not the place where it was made. Or so some say.

If you think radio listening habits are the same, you may be blind, deaf and dumb. Depends on the city, but lifestyles are not what they were. A radio is getting colder with syndication, not warmer and friendlier. It is a distant voice and the magic of the transistor radio under the pillow late night is very gone.

I can't imagine life now with my cellphone ... or Internet. But life was pretty good without it, too. You can't go backwards. Everyone better get on board this Love Train of tech and culture change or be a dinosaur. Embrace the change ... don't fight the undertow; swim parallel to the shore or you drown.

Are any or the artists of Country a little worried about the crowded concert scene for the next year? Garth, maybe Shania, Kenny are back and everybody else. Where are we getting the money for everyone?

I have not addressed the Garth Irish issue. I just can't get my mind around refunding 400,000 tickets for any reason. Those shows should have happened in some way, somehow. Both sides screwed up. The fans got screwed the most. But life goes on.