Jon Bon Jovi / John Mayer, What's The Difference

Image by sushla via Flickr

If older folk still buy music and younger people steal it, why did John Mayer sell almost twice as many albums the first week out as Bon Jovi?

Yes, according to hitsdailydouble.com, John Mayer sold 301,204 copies of his new album, "Battle Studies", this week. Whereas last week, Bon Jovi moved 165,871 copies of "The Circle".

Ready for some truly horrifying news? This week "The Circle" fell all the way to number 19, selling 50,153 copies, a whopping drop of 70%. Whew!

What's the difference between John and Jon?

One is living in 2009 and the other is living in the last century.

Jon Bon Jovi was positively old media, tying in with NBC.

John Mayer was new media, appearing in concert on Fuse and tweeting up a storm.

It doesn't matter the total reach, it matters who actually watches and what the perception is.

Fuse would be canceled, the entire channel, if its programming was on NBC. To say the ratings are anemic would be charitable. But Fuse airs music, unlike MTV. And most people watching the shows featuring Bon Jovi on NBC don't give a shit about the man's music. In other words, Jon's shoving it down the wrong people's throats.

Jon Bon Jovi has a fawning documentary on Showtime.

John Mayer is all over Twitter.

Did you watch any of the Bon Jovi doc? Shot like it was footage for "America's Next Top Model", everyone looked beautiful and spouted humble platitudes, like we were still living in the eighties and rock stars were established on MTV and made a freaking fortune. Whereas the truth is everybody's scrambling, giving concert tickets away in some instances. Bon Jovi reflecting is like Lloyd Blankfein saying Goldman Sachs is doing "God's work". Huh?

Laughable.

If you Google "Bon Jovi Twitter", the first result is: http://m.twitter.com/backstagejbj a page that doesn't exist. The second result is http://twitter.com/bonjovimerch

Wow, someone in JBJ's camp doesn't understand Twitter. It's not for selling, its for CONNECTING!

Meanwhile, the Bon Jovi merch page has 1,540 followers.

Google "John Mayer Twitter" and you get the following page: http://twitter.com/jOhnCmAYer

John Mayer has 2,657,425 Twitter followers. Furthermore, he's following 72 people, so you get an idea of what he's into.

Bon Jovi's old school, playing behind a wall, just like Doug Morris and Jimmy Iovine, rarely coming out to play and only in circumstances they can control.

John Mayer is new school. Putting it all out there unfiltered, getting into arguments with Perez Hilton, never backing down, not afraid to look like a tool.

It's the honesty that grabs you. That's why people are following John Mayer, that's why they care about him. Furthermore, in an era where album sales represent only a fraction of your fan base, you want to get attention where you can. Not by batting people over the head, telling them they must endure you, but being so provocative, so interesting that they want to tune in.

Nobody plays the new media game better than Mr. Mayer.

He makes a deal with BlackBerry and it looks cool. Kind of like a rapper, ripping off the man, because you know he uses a BlackBerry anyway! Whereas U2 makes a deal with BlackBerry and you see dollar signs, you see promotion, you see a deal. If you endorse a product you truly use is it a sell-out?

The classic rock acts would probably say yes, you don't want to tarnish your image.

But Mr. Mayer is at the bleeding edge of a new paradigm, where the rules are being made up as we go. He's so overexposed that he's establishing a new way of doing it, you almost feel like he's a guy at your high school, that you know him. Does anybody really know Jon Bon Jovi? Who never has a bad word to say about anyone?

Old school: You're afraid of pissing anybody off, you're Justin Timberlake at the Super Bowl, apologizing.

New school: Dixie Chicks. Screw with me and I'll give you the middle finger.

In other words, it's been a long strange trip, but we're suddenly back in the sixties. It's about artistry, it's about music, it's about honesty. You don't triangulate, construct a phony identity for public consumption. You're better off being your real self. Hell, the Internet will tease out your flaws anyway, why not admit them?

Jon Bon Jovi utters irrelevant platitudes and John Mayer sings "Who says I can't get stoned?"

Politicians have to lie about doing dope. But artists are supposed to speak the truth, and the public has to deal with it. Which is why we love our artists more than any political figure.

"Who says I can't get stoned
Call up a girl that I used to know
Fake love for an hour or so
Who says I can't get stoned?"

A weird variation on drunk-dialing. Maybe her number is still in your cell. Maybe you've got to IM her, maybe you've got to pull up her Facebook page. But you're sitting at home, thinking about what used to be. Can you act on it?

That's a question confronting everyone online. Do you make contact or let the sleeping dogs of the past lie?

Bon Jovi, Mimi, all the stars of the MTV era are still living in it, oblivious to the fact that the nineties were ten years ago, and that in Internet time, a decade is equivalent to a century. It's not a three year cycle, you're on a day to day regimen.

"Any tweet that takes more than 90 seconds to write is not a tweet worth sending."

John Mayer

Yes, we used to make records in an afternoon and get them on the radio in a week. Now, TV and movies are more topical than music. Let it out, go knee-jerk, don't massage, don't focus on the marketing plan, focus on the music.

And stay in touch with your audience CONSTANTLY!

"Who Says": http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FZwVjys2bQI

Widespread Panic At The Orpheum

Britney Spears via last.fm

Are you catching the Britney brouhaha Down Under? Turns out she MIMES!

She's got to. In order to deliver on the audience's expectations. She's got to be the Britney from TV. Perfect in every way. Dazzling them with her dance moves. And it's almost impossible to dance like that and sing. Have you ever talked to one of those jerks who calls you when he's on the treadmill? You wonder if they're going to have a heart attack during the conversation!

But what does the audience expect? A show, a tightly choreographed presentation, something you watch and ooh and ahh to? Or a musical performance, that penetrates your body and mind?

Last time I checked, I didn't see Widespread Panic on TV. Look at MediaBase, they're not in the Top Forty either. By nineties standards, they don't exist. But it's 2010.

In the MTV-era, you had to look good. Your video had to be visually interesting. To the point where in the nineties, they wouldn't trust so-called "artists" with creative issues, too much money was at stake. Write with the usual suspects, the pros, to create something we know we can sell. And we'll employ one of the usual suspect directors to create a sleek clip. Hell, if we don't get it right, we'll scrap it and redo it! You only get one chance to make an impression. If it's not exactly right, you're toast. Kind of like the new album by Mariah Carey and the pushed-back opus by Alicia Keys. The initial singles stiffed, and the labels wanted to whip up a frenzy in order to sell a hundred thousand albums right away! Thus, the release delay. If you're phenomenally lucky, you can ultimately sell a million. Still, you might mean nothing on the road. Is this a game you want to play?

Sure, there are old warhorses like Ms. Carey, but most of the acts are brand new. Thrown up against the wall and then discarded. They all have one thing in common. They want to be FAMOUS! They're no different than the idiots on reality TV. They want to appear on TMZ and Perez. Then they'll think they've made it. But that making it is very different from the old paradigm.

In the old days you played music to get out of the mines, to get away from having a boss, so you didn't have to wear a suit and tie to work. Shit, you ultimately have more freedom going to college and learning how to code than subjecting yourself to the starmaking machinery today. Look at Justin Timberlake. He sacrificed Janet Jackson. He couldn't admit he was complicit in Boobiegate and that it was no big deal. He issued a lame mea culpa the same way a truant student tells a principal what he wants to hear. Whereas the rock stars of yore had a foolproof reaction to bullshit, to the system...THE MIDDLE FINGER!

Hell, John Lennon said the Beatles were bigger than Jesus and didn't bother apologizing. He tried to explain, but the media wasn't listening, because it was too dumb. Whereas in the sixties, before the Born Again conflagration, there was no doubt the Beatles were bigger than Jesus. But you can't speak the truth. Hell, you still can't speak the truth! Just look at our inane political system!

Let me ask you...

If I told you you could wear whatever you wanted, your jeans, your favorite shirt, hit the stage to adoring fans whenever you played and get all the dope and sex you wanted, would you say yes?

This was the equation back in the golden era of classic rock. And it was all centered on the music. If you were good enough, you could rape and pillage across the world, for years, in the case of Robert Plant and Mick Jagger, FOREVER! Just by being yourself, you earned the keys to the kingdom, you lived in an alternative universe, even better than the real one.

Widespread Panic lives in an alternative universe. One where everything the dying media says is important is irrelevant. They hold the record for sell-outs at Red Rocks (with 32). They've been at it for twenty plus years, and they're bigger than ever.

Twenty plus years... Many of the Top Forty idiots aren't even that old. Do we really think they know how to play? That they've got something to say?

Now I won't say the Panic show was without visuals. There was a giant disc behind the band that featured geometric shapes, turning and twisting like at the Fillmore. And there was a plethora of animated spotlights. But the attraction was the music, plain and simple.

Nobody dressed up for the gig. The audience looked just like me. Wearing jeans. Getting psyched up for the gig had nothing to do with makeup, nothing to do with outfits, it was about head space. Were you willing to show up, relax your mind and float downstream?

Aided by substances both legal and illegal?

Sure, everybody seemed high, whether each and every one of them was or not. You see, they wanted to be set free. That's what the music used to do, that's what you're missing at the Britney show. Britney's delivering a movie, Widespread Panic is delivering a dream.

There was a drummer and a percussionist. A keyboardist dropping in delicious fills. Dave Schools held down the bottom like he had a monopoly on mud in the delta. But what was most fascinating was the guitar interplay between John Bell and Jimmy Herring.

Jimmy's amps said "Fuchs" and "Tone Tubby". This was not generic, the equipment had been hand-selected, to deliver this exact tone.

There was no click track, nothing was prerecorded. But the band instantly found a groove and laid down in it, pulling the entire audience along. And the electricity was palpable. It was like every attendee was plugged into a socket, causing them to twist and turn, jump and groove to the music.

Music. That's what's been sacrificed. You didn't used to go to the show to hear the expected, but the unexpected. The band was good enough to pull you along whether you knew the material or not. It was an ADVENTURE!

That started at 8:15 and ended at midnight. You couldn't complain you didn't get your money's worth.

So here's the part where you tell me what Widespread Panic is missing, how it can be changed into a Goliath, a household word. But the band DOESN'T GIVE A FUCK! Don't you get it? THEY'RE DOING IT THEIR WAY!

And their way is pretty good, better than yours, because almost a quarter of a century in, they can still work, they can still live the lifestyle, they can still feel the rush of the audience's applause.

You can play the old game. But it doesn't pay the dividends it used to. Rihanna may be big in the mainstream, but more people want to see Widespread Panic. If not today, definitely tomorrow.

We're rebuilding. And we're starting with music.

It's a much slower build. Flash, explosions, sexuality get instant attention. But do you really care who won the third season of "Survivor"? "Big Brother"? The endless string of one hit wonders run together. Those who make music first and foremost, who follow their instincts, their creativity, are the ones who stand for ages.

You may get screams at a Britney show, but you don't get the passion you experience at a Widespread Panic gig. At a Panic show fans feel the music. They want to get closer. They don't want to watch, they want to be a part of it!

And listeners are key. Great performers feed off the energy of their audience. How can you do that when your entire act is on hard drive?