We expected more $$$

So it seems that Lenny Kravitz has pulled the plug on his latest tour that was scheduled to kick off in September. His father’s poor health is the reported reason for the bail out, but I would suspect poor ticket sales. He has gone down the tubes as a musician, and his latest single is terrible. I don't think he has enough talent to write a song more than 3 minutes right now.

Now before you jump on me telling me "there are really good 3 minute songs!", and I would agree with you. There really are good songs that are short, and terrible songs that are long. However Lenny's three-minute songs are no match for The Ramones. I digress though.

This isn't the first time in recent memory that this has happened. Various acts pulling out completely, or moving to small venues due to poor sales is a common trend now. So these promoters and entertainers are asking "why is this happening?". A few items come to mind pertaining to this topic, and here they come.

First off ticket prices are simply too high. I remember seeing Rage Against the Machine for $13.00 at The Sunken Gardens Theater when Evil Empire was just released. The most I ever spent on a ticket was to Roger Waters, about $56.00 or so, and simply because the guy is a rock icon (Pink Floyd for those of you who aren’t in the know). Now it seems that it is average for that kind of price to surface for mediocre acts at best. Then it seems that these spoiled entertainers get mad when they cant sell out an arena for that price. Do they realize that the economy isn't as strong as it once was?

Second, a lot of the new music out there is complete crap. So many acts are interested in making that one single, getting it played millions of times on multiple stations per city and cashing in (this leads into my complete utter disgust with radio right now which i don’t have the time or inclination to dive into at this moment). So the album is filled with filler, and a crappy single - I can call it a crappy single because if you take just about any song and put it on a station, play it once every hour people will start to like it. Reason: they will think its the trendy thing, not because they actually liked it before, but they don’t want to not like the "new trendy thing". It is this reason, and this reason alone that American Idol is able to roll out the kind of drivel they do, and they make that person successful; that paired with reasons I made prior.

Third, the acts touring right now aren’t all that good. Lolapalooza was cancelled this season, and I would say simply because it had a mediocre roster at best. Morrissey was a headliner, now I like Morrissey ok, but he has more of an underground following than mainstream. What was the last Morrissey song you heard on the radio? Ozzfest is filled with a bunch of 80s bands that personally don't care for, and I have been watching Ozzfest slowly decline in quality for quite some time.

I also tend to think that the quality of the shows is declining. Improvisations are quality things to look for in a live show, I don’t want to hear a straight album version live necessarily. These pop acts cant do this unless they dance, and then it will go into a sort of drum beat break down, which by itself is very boring to listen to, not to mention the canned shows that they have on tape because they cant dance and sing at the same time. Here is a tip, sacrifice some of the prancing around and belt out a few more lyrics and you may get higher attendance numbers, but then again if you do that more people will probably see you as the hack that you are! Dave Matthews Band does this quite well, Bruce Springsteen, Red Hot Chili Peppers, and Phish. I am no Phish head by any stretch of the imagination, but you have to admire their musicianship during their live acts. Stretching songs out to 30 minutes, but alas they are playing their last festival this weekend.

Plain and simple, shitty acts with bad albums are on tour right now. That paired with high-ticket prices and poor showman ship on the parts of the entertainers makes for poor shows, which is why tickets aren’t selling to their expectations. Why is it so important to fill arenas now anyhow, what happened to smaller venues or even in-between sized ones? I have ranted long enough on this, and I don’t think I mentioned all the reasons I have either, and it just scratched some of my huge disappointments with the music industry today.