“Please all, and you will please none.” *

* Aesop's Fables-"You Can't Please Everyone"

Am I the only one who is tired of hearing the constant second-guessing of artists on how their career choices relate to sales of CD’s? Springsteen does the Super Bowl because, "Well, No. 1, we have a new album coming out," said Springsteen. "So we have our mercenary reasons besides,” adding ironically, “our deep love for football." He is then lambasted, after a nearly 40 year successful career, for doing the half time gig. Then, he is hammered for not accomplishing a truckload of sales in the wake of the event. The album is, sadly, only #2 in the latest Billboard Top 200 chart.

After their opening number on last week’s Grammy Awards was met with less than enthusiastic praise by the not so faithful, U2 announced they would do 5 straight nights on the David Letterman Show. Not so long ago, they would have been praised for pulling off an unprecedented career move. The Letterman announcement was met with statements from the pundits who said that late night TV doesn't sell albums. U2 would be better off doing Ellen. Or Oprah. I can only imagine what the banshees would have been howling if the Dubs had actually made that announcement.

The hip thing, say the scene makers, would have been to do five nights on some web feed in high def to play to the young and the hip and the downloading generation. But do veteran bands like U2 or the E Street Band even make a blip on the radar screens of listeners who thought it cool that the Jonas Brothers played with that blind guy?

Does every move by any performing artist have to be tied constantly to record sales? I can remember an era when popular artists were performing on TV and never mentioned their plastic product. We tend to forget that an artist with the longevity of the above bands, or any other artist like them, is based on their desire to perform for a live audience. Frank Sinatra, who performed for over 50 years to his adoring fans, nearly stopped recording because of his disgust with the record business. He had his own label and he was disgusted with the business! One could argue that the breakup of The Beatles was not the disagreements in the studio, or Yoko Ono, but that they stopped performing as a band. The one reason they got together in the first place.

Think about it. U2 will be on the free TV airwaves for five straight nights. Even if the day-to-day grind won’t allow you to stay up past 11 pm, there will be You Tubes and web access for days afterward. These critics of the U2 gambit are the same ones screaming about the “new paradigms” of the music business. They assert, “Give away your music content to build up revenues from merchandising and ticket sales.” They promote giving the fans access to help build the “tribe”. So now, one of the biggest bands in the world, certainly one rich enough to give some stuff away for free, does exactly that…and is ripped for not going on Ellen, for god’s sakes, to sell more plastic.

And no sooner do I post this, then I read THIS. Seth says it all so much better!