That Connecting Thing

A while back I was at the South by Southwest music conference listening to a new performer on a major label do her thing. She had looks. She sang like an angel. She wrote her own songs and some of them were damn good. She was going to be on Letterman that week. All signs were pointing toward success. Except for one thing. You could tell that the crowd, kind of small, wasn't connecting to her. I don't know why. I never know why.

When I tend to show up at industry things like this, people assume I must be someone who works or has worked for a label. I dress a certain way. I carry myself a certain way. I talk a certain way. And I'm of a certain age. I was chatting it up with a publicity guy from the label to whom the girl was signed. I was commiserating with him. We both agreed she had talent. But the crowd decides things, not us. We both knew the album would tank. And it did.

I asked him what the label had coming down the pike for the next year. This was back in the days when labels were gods. They signed talent. They promoted talent. Radio played what they promoted. It's fashionable to deride this system as predatory and view labels as greedy bastards. But that system produced a lot of multimillionaires. Take a look at Bob Dylan for instance. Because of label support back when he was starting, he is an icon, not some obscure nasally singer from Minnesota. He continues to earn well over two million dollars a year from his back catalog sales alone. But I digress.

The publicity guy mentioned about eight acts that they were going to release the following year. He was really high on a few of them. I don't remember their names at all. But then he got to the bottom of the list. "There's this kid. You can't even pronounce his name, Mraz. Little skinny guy with the sex appeal of a brine shrimp." He just shook his head and gave me an "I don't know what the higher ups are thinking" look.

If I remember correctly, Jason Mraz's first album sold well over a million copies. He went on tour. Huge crowds came to see him play. Critics didn't see what the fuss was about. I didn't see what the fuss was about either. Sales from that CD were propelled by one song, The Remedy, co-written with a team of songwriters that tend to create cheesy tunes for girl singers who can't write a lick. As far as I know, out of the eight acts the publicity guy mentioned to me that one night, Jason Mraz was the only one that was successful.

I'll digress again. Labels fail with almost all of the acts that they promote. Their business is like the oil business. Every act is like drilling a hole looking for oil. And most holes come up dry. That's why music costs what it does.

It's now about 8 years after my meeting the publicity guy from the label. Jason Mraz is still going strong. His latest hit tune, I'm Yours, miraculously has been on the charts for over a year. Crowds still come to see him play. I've seen him play live as well. The publicity guy was right; Jason Mraz has the sex appeal of a brine shrimp. Critics think he's a big nothing. But all of that doesn't matter. The crowd decides things not me or the critics. People love this guy. They go to his concerts. They buy his tunes.

For whatever reason, Jason Mraz connects well with large audiences. I don't know why. I never know why this happens. I can only watch it happen and smile. He has that gift. It's magic. Who knows where it comes from?

Now I'll digress again. Mr. Mraz makes millions of dollars a year. His success is the result of his label plunking down a ton of money on his first CD. They took a risk on him. That risk has paid handsomely for both his label and Mr. Mraz. Without that label support, Jason Mraz would still be playing the folk clubs of San Diego for a couple hundred bucks a gig. That system of promotion - so reviled by the public - is now by and large dead for new acts. What is the future of new music? It will be made certainly. But the prospect of any one act making a good to great living has been severely diminished.