Count the instances of trendy, pretentious language.

Hey, I want to thank all of you for dropping by. Sorry I didn't tweet about this meeting earlier; I know some of you had speed dating events and Pilate classes scheduled, but I really appreciate you being here during crunch time.

What we're talking about today is using social networks to crowdsource data to upload to the cloud. This opensource platform should allow us to deliver a value-added that will be a real game-changer, and we think the net gain is going to be a win-win, especially when you consider that we can accomplish this without increasing our carbon footprint.

Though this real-time mashup is still in beta, our fanboys in the blogosphere find our business model sexy enough that they're already generating a great buzz about what we're doing in Web 2.0. Basically, this new approach will ease the challenges of managing e-mail and streamline workflow. If all goes right, it should drive power users to our site so we can superserve the marketplace with feature-rich content that's filled with killer apps. By focusing on our core competencies we can create a user experience that is unsurpassed. Do the math! Beware, though, that if we're not vigilant, this could be a epic fail.

We're doing some pub by giving away swag, particularly a iTunes download we've licensed from a great new indie Brit-pop band. They're rockin' the old-school Beatles sound, and it really pops. We're also talking to hardcore, emocore, slowcore, grindcore, sadcore, metalcore and mathcore bands.

Oops, there's a text from the wife on my iPhone! I've sooo gotta bounce to Whole Foods with my fellow foodies to pick up some things. Man, the last time I was in that place it was brimming with muffin tops! There were a few MILFs and cougars, too, though. Maybe afterward I'll swing by Starbucks and say hello to my favorite barista. Sweet! Well, anyhow, thanks again for coming by.

Began on February 20, 2009

Used to I couldn't understand why bands sold out. Why was Eddie Van Halen playing some soft, flaccid song like "When It's Love" when his audience wanted to hear another one like "Hang `em High"? Why was Aerosmith singing Diane Warren ballads when what we wanted was another "Rats in the Cellar"? Many years later I came to understand their perspective perfectly.

First, what defined "selling out"? Selling out, in my mind, meant when a band watered down their sound and added strings and keyboards to appeal to short-haired jocks and their girlfriends who just wanted to dance. It meant altering your style to appeal to people who weren't really music fans, much less your hardcore fans. It was akin to when one of your friends blew you off to go hang out with the "cool people." Bands who did it were usually rewarded with ever-diminishing sales after their new friends ditched them and the old gang didn't welcome them back.

Then in the Internet age I discovered the Web site of the Recording Industry Association of America and its list of the top-selling albums of all time. Suddenly I understood why bands sold out!

Let's look at the quintessential sell outs of all time: Def Leppard and Metallica.

Anyone who's ever heard Def Leppard's second album High 'n' Dry will tell you it was the best thing they ever did. If they had stuck with that sound, how big would they be now? Maybe as big as their former British metal contemporaries, Iron Maiden? The worst thing Leppard ever did, on the other hand, was the poppy Hysteria. Surely the band could hear that those songs stunk, right?

Now let's look at the RIAA chart. Since its debut in 1982, High 'n' Dry has sold two million albums. Not bad. But Hysteria has sold 12 million! So if I'm in Def Leppard and you tell me High 'n' Dry was my greatest album, I'm going to wonder what you're talking about, when Hysteria has outsold it six times over, despite High 'n' Dry even having a five-year head start. If it was so great, why hasn't anyone bought it?

And should Def Leppard regret that they didn't stay in the British metal underground like Iron Maiden? Well if you look at the top-selling artists in the United States of all time, Def Leppard is number 45, ahead of even Bon Jovi and Willie Nelson. Iron Maiden...isn't even on the list! So no, I doubt Def Leppard regrets recording a few songs the girls liked. It probably also got their knobs slobbed a few times.

Metallica fans will tell you that one of their earlier records, like Ride the Lightning, was their best material and The Black Album was a big sell out. The Black Album follow-up, Load, was nothing short of a disgrace. Now Lars Ulrich whips out the RIAA chart. Ride the Lightning has sold five million albums since 1982. The Black Album has sold 14 million records since 1990. So Lars says, "You mean instead of recording one record and doing one tour and selling 14 million copies, I should do three albums and three tours, with the attendant costs thereof, to sell the same number of records?" And again, Ride the Lightning has sold nine million fewer albums despite a eight year head start! And how many fans who kick The Black Album now got into Metallica BECAUSE of The Black Album? Oh, and Load has also sold five million copies, so in real numbers the despised Load is just as good as the revered Ride the Lightning!

Another fact that I'm sure gets whispered in a band's ears as they come within reach of Elvis-like sales is that they may as well make as much money as they can while they can. Music is fashion. You may be the talk of the high school halls today but you may be in the bin with Vanilla Ice and Twisted Sister tomorrow. Pad that retirement account now!

The fact is these guys are trying to make a living, and ceased being pure artistes the moment the played outside of their basements. I was watching Van Halen's Live Without a Net DVD awhile back and considered that Eddie Van Halen was 32 when that was made. At 19, when he wrote the classic Van Halen songs, he was sitting on the edge of his bed at his parent's house, playing bars for $50 a night and hoping it would all work out. There was nothing on the line, so he could just have fun. At 32 he had a TV star wife, a house with a recording studio in the back yard, car payments, and numerous employees who depended on his success to eat. That kind of pressure is bound to affect your writing. So you go make friends with Steve Lukather and learn how to write Toto-ish adult contemporary fluff so you can maintain the machine you've created. Then your fans can call you a sell out while they punch clocks and do boring jobs all week while you at least get to play guitar for a living.

And that's my theory of why bands sell out.

Last week on this blog we were discussing Aerosmith and their use of outside writers, and Scott wondered why bands ran out of ideas and suggested it might be a good topic. This is something I've given some thought to, and here are my conclusions.

Even as the Police were riding high, Sting said he planned to break the band up after five albums. He said this was because he didn't believe any band had more than five good albums in it. If you look at history, Sting's observation is very savvy. Aerosmith is best known for the four albums between their debut and Rocks. The Rolling Stones are primarily known for the four albums between Beggars Banquet and Exile on Main Street. Van Halen's reputation is made on the six Roth records, and one of them, Diver Down, had lots of covers and instrumentals. Led Zeppelin made six prime albums but a lot of the songs on the sixth were recorded during sessions for the fourth and fifth. So it looks like Sting was pretty accurate.

So why is this? The first reason is that there's only so much you can do with any instrumental lineup. How far can you go with guitar, bass and drums? It's like a TV sitcom. Family Ties: a mom, dad, two daughters and a son sitting on a living room couch. How many plots and dialogues can you create out of that? Cheers: a few drunks and three bartenders sitting around a bar. How many plots and dialogues?

But with today's technology, a three-man band can be 10 symphonies. Give Aerosmith two Variaxes and they can be a bluegrass band, an Indian classical group or a jazz quartet. So what's the problem? Reason two is audience expectation. The audience will only let a performer deviate so far from their original sound. Eddie Van Halen wanted to show he could play keyboards, too, and David Lee Roth flipped out because he knew what a taboo that was with their hard rock audience, and indeed many of their fans hate everything from "Jump" on. Then Eddie wanted to lose their party image and write more U2-ish lyrics, and they fell even further. Metallica changed producers, slowed their tempo and shortened their songs on the black album, and they've been struggling to regain credibility with their fans ever since. Aerosmith got some outside writers and did some ballads and watched their fortunes decline.

AC/DC, on the other hand, hasn't changed the formula since 1974, and they continue to do well. (Angus once said, "People say we've just recorded the same album for the tenth time. They're wrong. It's the eleventh.") Of course when a band sticks to their guns like this the new complaint is "they just keep doing the same old thing," "they sound tired," "these songs remind me of stuff they did on earlier albums."

In Aerosmith's case I picked up their discography from Draw the Line to Done with Mirrors awhile back, and with each album you more and more get the impression they were slapping things together in the studio. "Reefer Headed Woman" from Night in the Ruts sounds like they turned on the tape recorders and whatever happened was what went out. Their intended comeback album, Done with Mirrors, has one memorable song and the rest goes by like a EMS signal. I think they realized there might be some life left in their sound, but they needed some fresh ears to bring it out, so I don't mind that they got Desmond Child and Jim Vallance to help them write two more great records.

Old Aero fans were particularly disappointed that they let Diane Warren write the ballad "I Don't Want to Miss a Thing" from Armageddon for them. This is marked as THE sellout. Yet last night I thumbed through Aerosmith's autobiography Walk This Way, and Joe Perry said he had never liked "Dream On," but for a hard rock band to get on the radio in 1973 you had to do a ballad, and they were playing the same game today. So if you ask Joe Perry, the sellout began in 1973, not 1987!

So why do bands run out of ideas? They don't really, but one set of instrumentalists given a limited territory to mine is going to have mined it for all they can at some point. The trick is how long can you keep the public interested and the cash registers ringing as you pump out the same sound year after year.