A screen from Lana Del Rey's classic video, Blue Jeans.
I wear blue jeans. I also wear black jeans. The subject of this article isn't the clothing, however. It's about a song of that title -- Lana Del Rey's Blue Jeans -- and also how that song is an example of a bright spot -- a point of light, which occurred in 2012, before the music industry began a long slide into mediocrity.
The song itself is a shining example of genius. It's the fact that there is little recent musical output in the charts to match that genius that exemplifies the downfall of the music industry that many of us used to know and love.
I recently was -- through a quirk during the blog writing process -- re-exposed to a fascinating and drop-dead gorgeous, enigmatic, young female singer who had a string of minor and major hits in the early 2010's: Lana Del Rey.
I had first heard of Lana Del Rey in 2016 or so, although I probably heard some of her music on the radio in 2012, as I was listening to a lot of pop music back then. In Summer or Fall of 2016 a guy had put together a drone video, which I found on YouTube by accident. In the video the guy was showing off his drone photography, and the remix version of Lana Del Rey's Summertime Sadness was playing as a soundtrack.
I was immediately fascinated by the song. There was some strange, ethereal and unworldly quality to it, and I was captivated by Lana Del Rey's singing voice. The song drew me in like iron filings to a magnet, or Autumn leaves to a small whirlwind.
Here is a video of the song, to remind you of what it sounded like.:
As you can tell, there is a lot of haunting imagery in the song. The actual video may not truly reflect 100% what Lana Del Rey was originally writing about, but it obviously fits the motif of the lyrics -- Summer romance gone sour.
When I saw this video the first time a few weeks ago, it really struck me -- just as viewing some other music videos of the early 2010's struck me -- it was a piece of expertly formed and genuinely executed cinematography, and it was amazingly put together.
After playing the Summertime Sadness video a few times, I sought out a couple other Lana Del Rey songs. I soon found Lana's single Blue Jeans, which was released a bit earlier in 2012. To my surprise, Blue Jeans was even better. The song itself is a simple four chord composition, but the raw emotion Lana injects into that four-chord backing track is amazing.
The video matches the feel of the song to a tee. It looks like it was cut out from a classic quality, blockbuster, Hollywood movie. The cinematography is that effective.
Every single aspect of the video for Blue Jeans was perfect. Every shot was perfectly composed.
This not only takes effort: This takes MONEY.
The video for Lana's Blue Jeans is striking in its perfection throughout. Lana is dressed in an awesome, 1950's style bathing suit, and she moves in the water just right. Some of the motion is slowed purposefully in the video, for effect. The lighting is outstanding -- something that a cinematographer would have insisted upon.
The waves of the pool move perfectly, including some underwater use of the film camera. The tatted, "James Dean"-like guy who hangs out by the side of the pool, smoking a cigarette, fits the typecast perfectly. The black and white photography is impeccable. The shadows of the nearby buildings and palm trees in the background reek of a San Fernando Valley, or Hollywood Hills version of film noir -- all in High Definition video. The wavelets in the water seem so real you think you could reach out and touch them.
The music is a sweeping combination of lush and haunting electronic strings and spare baritone guitar riffs, repeated echoes and lilting vocals. Lana seems to alter her voice at certain points in the song for effect -- but it all works. Perfectly.
It reminds me of a lot of the other tracks from that same year, which had great melodies, electronic effects used just right, and many of those videos were excellent productions as well.
Here is the video for Blue Jeans. It's remarkable, just as the song is remarkable.:
Like the song itself, the video is a masterpiece.
And it obviously also took a LOT of money to make.
THE LOST ART OF INVESTING IN ARTISTS
And this is the point. The record company put a lot of effort, and a LOT of money into a video, that pushed this song only as far as #41 on the US Billboard Rock Digital chart. Sad, because in my view the song should have gone higher on the charts, but it's an indicator of the faith -- and investment -- the record company must have had in Lana's budding career.
#41. Let that sink in. No record company releases a single with an expensive video to have it top out at #41.
Now, the fact that the song should have gone much higher on the charts is beside the point. It's the fact that the record company had enough money available to invest so much of it in a song that ended up #41.
It's because they a) had the money to invest in Lana Del Rey, who -- at the time -- was a relatively unknown singer compared to others like Katy Perry and Taylor Swift; and they b) were investing in new singer like Lana Del Rey for her long term success.
Now, granted, the follow up single, Summertime Sadness made it to #5, a very worthy effort, showing that -- a few months later -- their investment began to see a return. And its video is just as impeccable.
But while watching these vids recently I was so struck by the fact that so much was invested in the artist, with no guarantee that the artist would be a big hit, and this is something that simply doesn't happen to the same extent today.
BLEEDING MONEY
It's because the music industry is operating with less money than it had in 2012. In my earlier blog article "Music Streaming: How It Is Killing the Music and Radio Industries" I mentioned that the music industry in the United States makes 30% less revenue than they made (when accounting for inflation) just 23 years ago, in 1999. 1999, of course, was the year that the US music industry made its most revenues, ever.
Here is a link to that article, where I go into the subject in considerable depth:
After doing a bit more reading on the history of music industry revenues, I must stand corrected. I re-read the RIAA's revenue report and they state in it that the music industry is making 37% less revenue than they made in 1999. That's three percent shy of 40% drop in real revenues.
There may be several reasons for this drop in revenue, but the Streaming music consumption model is a large part of the drop, as it brings in less revenue per 'unit', i.e. per song, or collection of songs, consumed.
IT'S SIMPLE MATH, REALLY.
In 1999 when the recording industry had its revenue heyday, the CD album was the prominent "unit" of music consumption. It sold at that time for between $15 and $18 a CD -- $15-$18 a unit. By 2012 this had changed -- the MP3 download ruled, and the primary sales "unit" was the 99 cent, MP3 single.
By 2019, this had all changed again. Music sales skydived to maybe 5% of all music consumption. By now, the music "unit" consumed was the streamed song, which cost much less to 'consume'. Now let's look at how this change affected music revenues.
In 1999, 1000 units consumed meant 1000 $15 or $18 CDs would be sold, and they would bring in about $15,000.
In 2014, the peak year of the music download era, 1000 units consumed meant that 1000, 99 cent MP3 sales would bring in $990 in revenue.
From $15K for 1000 units to $990 -- that's a bit of a drop in just 15 years.
But it gets worse.
Today, 1000 units consumed (they're no longer sold -- they're rented, or 'subscribed') bring in just $9 in revenue (1000 songs streamed X a $.009, or nine-tenths of one cent royalty -- and some services pay lower royalties than $.009 a play).
In 22-23 years, we've gone from $15K for 1000 units of music consumed to $9 or less for 1000 units of music consumed. Even if you take away the fact that a CD in 1999 usually had around 12 songs, that's still quite a drop in revenues per song.
The record companies are still making money. But they're making around 30-40% less than they were making when Lana Del Rey's awesome songs and videos were recorded.
This bothers me, partly because I miss hearing really great pop and rock music on the radio, and partly because I think the time that Lana Del Rey's 2012 hits were being made it was a spectacular time for music, especially pop music.
But also, I'm a musician, and I worked in radio for over 16 years, and it sort of hurts to see those industries decline.
Lana Del Rey is still making records. I haven't heard all of them, but I intend to check out her later works. But the question remains: in 2022 could an up-and-coming Lana Del Rey get released on the radio, with the same spectacular, and expensive-to-produce videos being released to promote her works?
I have to admit that I don't really know the answer to that question. But I think the drop in music industry revenues may be at least one indicator telling us that any new Lana Del Reys are probably going it alone, putting their music out on YT and other places on the internet, perhaps making their own videos with consumer-available videography, and they probably aren't getting awesome, cinematic videos made to promote a hit that makes it to #41.
Maybe it's just as well. Music is music, after all. But -- look at that Blue Jeans video. It's as striking as the subject matter the lyrics suggest. It's as sweeping as the music contained in it, and as original and memorable as Lana's voice.
2012 was definitely a great time for music, and Blue Jeans, and its video, is just one part of that.
The video for Saliva's late 2000/early 2001 hit, Your Disease. Musically, it is a snapshot of hot rock in 2001 -- visually, it's a glimpse of what appears to be a lost era, when rock still ruled the airwaves.
MEANWHILE, BACK IN 2001....
I'll end this article on an upbeat note perhaps. In 2000 and 2001, the nu-metal rock band Saliva was a big deal. Thay had a couple good hits, and their first album (Every Six Seconds, which I still have on CD) was very good. I really liked them.
At the time, it seemed as if Saliva had slicked up the rap-rock formula, injecting a lot of pop sensibility and some upbeat lyrics, too. As lead singer Josey Scott once said, he was tired of the negativity in rock and rap-rock hits. He wanted people to have fun again. This attitude is expressed in a few lines of Saliva's song Click Click Boom.:
You won't hear no 'cryin' ass bitchin' from Saliva singer Josey Scott.
"You won't hear no cryin' ass bitchin' from me..." At the time, that really was a refreshing change, because 1990's grunge was loaded with negativity and some of that had reached the Nu-metal era of the late 1990's-early 2000's. But Saliva tried to change that.
What sold me on them was during one morning when I woke up, and turned my Realistic DX-398 radio to the FM band -- something I rarely did. I worked in radio, and I heard the hits at work. I rarely listened to FM pop and rock on the radio. But this particular morning in early 2001, I had tuned it to the Seattle Modern Rock station KNDD 107.7, which played a lot of grunge, alternative rock, and Nu-metal.
This new song came on the playlist, Saliva's hit Your Disease. Something about it really struck home. It had the heavy guitars, some rap verses, and then this almost surreally pop bit in the middle, where Josey Scott's voice sounded almost autotuned, but in a very cool way, where his voice sounded almost superhuman in pitch -- it was a vocal effect that was very subtle but really kicked the chorus off in a big way.
A few weeks later when it came out, I went out and bought the CD.
Looking at these videos, we're taken to a different world, a rock world, where people go to rock clubs and hear live rock music.
In most cities around here no one goes to rock clubs any more, because there aren't any left. What the recession and gentrification didn't destroy, the pandemic finished off. The biggest rock and dance club in my suburb of 100,000+ people turned into a Hooters in 2009 or so, and even that didn't last. Now it's an empty hulk of a building with a perennial "For Lease" sign tacked on the front of it. It is located next to another empty hulk that used to be an independent, local supermarket, in a dying strip mall that last had a lot of customers in 2000 when these videos were made.
The club I just mentioned used to be the Cascade Lounge, a popular rock haunt which had covers bands play, and it was packed most Friday and Saturday nights, and it was located next to a bowling alley. The bowling alley went under, and they sold the club to Hooters, who tried to make a go of it before the Recession did them in.
The other big rock and dance club in downtown Renton, a place called Pounders (bands Gruntruck and New American Shame played there) closed down just after the Great Recession started.
But, all that aside -- look at these cool videos. All those people, looking like rock stars, the guys in the black T-shirts and dark jeans or cargo pants, the girls all looking rocked up and hot -- and they're all going into a cool lookin' club to see a rock band play.
Both of these videos are like going into a timewarp, back before 9-11 and back to a time when rock still ruled the airwaves, and going to local rock shows, or moshing at rock festivals was still a popular thing.
If you live in a region or area where this is still happening, consider yourself lucky.
An era has passed.
I'll close this article with my favorite song off of Saliva's CD Every Six Seconds, a cool song called Hollywood, which sounds like a somewhat biographic lyric written by Josey Scott. I thought this song would have made a great single.
It has all the accoutrements of 2001-era rock music: Drop C guitars, heavy amplification, smooth and pristine chorus vocals, a catchy melody, and a certain musicality to it that was prominent in 2001 -- probably due to the dropped tuned guitars being used, and often recorded in layers, while run through chorus boxes.
Until next time, my friends, Peace.
C.C. -- October 18th, 2022.
ADDENDUM: October 29th, 2022:
I fixed one mistake that was in this article when I wrote it: it concerns the Streaming Royalty. The average royalty an "artist" receives per play, when you look at the royalties paid by all the streaming music services, is around $.009 -- nine-tenths of a cent. I had it listed as .009 cents per play, which was inaccurate and would be much, much lower.
For each play a song gets on the radio, an artist (or music company) receives between $.0011 and $.012 or so per play -- a range roughly between one-tenth of one cent, and one cent per play. The highest royalty payer, Tidal, doesn't seem to have as much of the Streaming Music Marketplace as the other services which pay lower rates, which is why I averaged them to $.009 per play, which is probably a higher average than the real average would be.
I know this is all confusing. It doesn't help that math is not my strong suit. Thank God for calculators. :-)
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