The Rockologist: Reconnecting With My Inner Creedence

Growing up as a kid in the sixties -- with so much great music being produced in the golden age of rock and roll experimentation that it was -- there are still just a handful of bands that I can say directly impacted me in the sort of way that would have a profound effect on who I eventually became as an adult.

The Beatles would almost certainly top that list. Seeing them on the Ed Sullivan Show at the age of seven years old, blew my young mind in such a way that it gave birth to a life long obsession with music. In other words, I was pretty much ruined for life.

Three short years later, they did it again when Sgt. Pepper forced me to abandon my brief pre-teen flirtations with the "bubblegum" pop of groups like the Monkees, and take a deeper look at what more "serious" artists like Bob Dylan (yeah, he's in there too) and the various psychedelic bands of the day were saying in their music.

Unlikely as they might seem, Creedence Clearwater Revival were one of those bands. They were right in there as a matter of fact.

I only use the word "unlikely," because at the time Creedence were in many ways more of a "singles band." At least they were when compared to the other acid rock groups who came out of San Francisco at the time like the Airplane, the Dead, and Big Brother. They garnered the same sort of respect as those other bands -- at first anyway. But unlike them, Creedence's primary medium was the three or four minute single, rather than the full-length album.

Of course CCR's longer songs, like Bayou Country's seven minute "Keep On Chooglin," got played on the progressive FM rock stations just like the Jefferson Airplane and Cream did. But over the course of three brief years from 1968 to 1971, Creedence also pretty much ruled top forty AM radio. They had an unstoppable string of hit singles from "Proud Mary" right on through to "Hey Tonight" and "Have You Ever Seen The Rain" from their final album, 1971's Pendulum.

Oh, and one other thing. Although he would only be recognized as such decades after the fact, John Fogerty was writing some of the best and most defining and enduring songs of that, or any other era during those years in the sixties with Creedence.

My first exposure to Creedence Clearwater Revival came in 1968.

My father's military career had just relocated our family from a rural town in Washington State to the island of Oahu in Hawaii. There would be much culture shock in store over the next two years we lived there, dropped from a small town into the multi-racial microcosm of the islands -- at the tail end of the sixties I might add -- as we were.

As a pre-teenager about to enter junior high in Hawaii, the first shot in that cultural upheaval came on the radio. There was an AM station there called KKUA that was formatted like most top forty stations, except they placed an emphasis on "heavy groups" like the Airplane and Iron Butterfly, over the bubblegum pop I was used to hearing on Seattle's KJR. The first song I heard on KKUA was all eight minutes of Creedence's "Suzie Q."

They also played "I Put A Spell On You" from Creedence's first album, which I ended up buying. Both we're psychedelicized remakes of songs by a guy named Screaming Jay Hawkins who I'd learn more about as I got older.

It was these two songs that set the tone for the album's gritty feel of a darker, bluesier sort of take on the acid-rock that was so much in vogue at the time. Another highlight of the album was another non-original song, Wilson Pickett and Steve Cropper's "Ninety Nine And A Half." Fogerty's songs weren't center stage for this band yet. But that would all change soon enough.

By the time of Creedence's second album Bayou Country later that same year, the band had changed nearly as much as I had. In my case, I'd taken up with a group of the other "hippie kids" I'd gotten to know, and began doing things like skipping school and smoking both cigarettes and other things. For Creedence, the band had grown into a much tighter, confident sounding group and John Fogerty's original songs were now front and center where they belonged.

Outside of Fogerty's songwriting itself, the thing that was, and is still most amazing about Bayou Country was the sound. These guys were from the Bay Area, but you'd never know it hearing the deep cajun feel of songs like "Born On The Bayou." Fogerty's guitar tone to this day remains something that can only described as, well, "swampy."

There's nothing fancy about it, yet it still immediately summons dark images of the deep south. Taken together with Fogerty's unique voice -- which is basically equal parts bluesy drawl and twangy wail -- the whole thing percolates like that particular region's finest tasting gumbo. There's nothing remotely suggesting late sixties San Francisco about it.

That alone would be enough, but on songs like his first great single, "Proud Mary," Fogerty matches those images of the deep south with his words.

With it's lyrical images of "big wheels that keep on turning," "riverboat queens," and above all, "rolling on the river," Mark Twain himself couldn't paint a much more descriptive picture. The thing is, that great song would prove to be but the tip of the iceberg when it came to Fogerty's knack for writing unforgettable songs in the same way, and with the same frequency, that you or I might change our socks.

Indeed, the great songs kept coming on 1969's Green River. Many believe Creedence's third album to be their best, although that spot changes for me almost as often I change my own...well, you know. But there is simply no denying that title track, where against all odds of probability, Fogerty's guitar actually outswamps some of the songs on Bayou Country.

Released as a double A side single with "Commotion," the two songs together kick Green River off with an unstoppable one-two punch. Where "Green River" is still anchor deep in the Mississippi swamp, "Commotion" chugs along with a twang that owes as much to the country of Johnny Cash as it does to the rock of Chuck Berry. Likewise, "Lodi" brings to mind what Hank Williams Sr. might sound like backed by the Tennessee Three.

But on Green River, Fogerty's lyrics were also branching out from the riverboat themes into the broader arena of social concerns. "Bad Moon Rising," would in fact foreshadow such still to come songs as "Who'll Stop The Rain" and "Fortunate Son."

On "Bad Moon Rising," Fogerty weds the darker images of the swamp with those very concerns in lines like "I see a bad moon rising, I see trouble on the way." Although the lyric seemed ambiguous at the time, there is little doubt what he meant when taken in retrospect. Elsewhere on this great album, Creedence offers up takes on dixieland and gospel ("The Night Time Is The Right Time") and blues based rock ("Tombstone Shadow").

Creedence's fourth album, Willie And The Poor Boys came just a few months later. On it's surface, Willie represented a return to the band's more bluesy roots with Creedence adopting the alter-ego of the band singing "Down On The Corner", and scoring yet another hit in the process. Most of this record is steeped deeper than ever in the music of the deep south, as titles like "Cotton Fields" and "Poorboy Shuffle," and a very down home sounding cover of "Midnight Special" certainly bear witness.

But Fogerty's songwriting also continued it's political left turn, with his most blantantly antiwar song yet in "Fortunate Son." Of the six Creedence albums, Willie And The Poor Boys is their most obvious homage to the southern based musical traditions it was by now so obvious that the band had adopted as their own.

Taking a break (at least by the prolific standard they had established), Creedence didn't return until nine months later with 1970's Cosmos Factory. The band's fifth album in about two years, it would also prove to be their biggest, and some would say, their best.

The album's centerpiece is a stunning eleven minute plus reinvention of Marvin Gaye's "I Heard It Through The Grapevine," that features several extended guitar solos where Fogerty stretches out like he hadn't done since way back on Bayou Country roughly two years prior.

The album was also deeper than ever in singles, including the rock and roll rave ups "Travellin Band," and "Up Around The Bend," as well as more of Fogerty's emerging politically themed songs in "Who'll Stop The Rain," "Run Through The Jungle," and "Long As I Can See The Light." Cut for cut, Cosmo's Factory is almost a greatest hits record unto itself.

Creedence's final record before splintering apart when John Fogerty's brother Tom left the group (triggering a sibling feud that continued right on up to his death), Pendulum is also the group's most often dismissed record. This is probably due more to the fact that Cosmo's Factory was such a hard act to follow than anything else. Repeated listens reveal that Pendulum deserves better.

Unlike Cosmo's track listing of wall to wall hits, Pendulum contained "only" two singles. Where "Hey Tonight" was a countrified rocker recalling earlier singles like "Down On The Corner," "Have You Ever Seen The Rain" sounds almost like the answer to "Who'll Stop The Rain." It also remains one of Fogerty's best pop songs, with its hopeful lyrics of optimism providing an escapist's outlook even as the world situation was growing more and more chaotic.

John Fogerty is of course nowhere near as prolific today as he was once was, although his solo work also contains its fair share of gems, including baseball's unofficial theme song "Centerfield" and the anti-Bush themed "Deja Vu All Over Again" (which is essentially a rewrite of "Who'll Stop The Rain').

This Tuesday, Concord Music and Fantasy Records (who Fogerty made an unexpected peace with a few years back, after decades of legal wrangling) is reissuing all six of Creedence's original albums in new remastered editions with bonus unreleased tracks.

Each album comes in a nicely done eco-correct fold out package, featuring new liner notes by some of music's best journalists including Dave Marsh, Robert Christgau, and the San Francisco Chronicle's Joel Selvin. The liner notes in of themselves are fascinating to read, as they reveal some little known details about things like Creedence's split, including the involvement of notorious Beatles villain Allen Klein.

But its the extras that are the real treat here. Each of the six new discs include such rarities as live recordings of songs like "Susie Q," "Proud Mary," and "Fortunate Son", alternate takes including "Down On The Corner" and "Born On The Bayou" with Booker T and The MGs, and even CCR's odd homage to the Beatles "Revolution #9" ("Revolutions Per Minute Parts 1 & 2").

The remastered versions of Creedence Clearwater Revival's entire history making, record breaking catalog will be in stores on September 30.

Remembering the Lean, Mean, Young And Hungry U2

Music DVD Review: U2 - Live At Red Rocks (Remastered With Bonus Tracks)

When U2 originally played their 1983 concert in the gorgeous setting of Colorado's Red Rocks Amphitheatre, they hadn't quite conquered the world yet, but they were well on their way.

It was on that same tour in support of the band's third album War, that U2 would play before 300,000 people at Southern California's US Festival -- their biggest audience to date at the time. Even if they weren't quite yet the megastars we know them as today, back then the band was still playing with the sort of fire and hunger that would serve them so well on their way to becoming one of the biggest bands in the world.

That same youthful energy is beautifully captured on the newly restored Live At Red Rocks. Part of Island Records ongoing U2 remastering project that began earlier this year with the band's first three albums, Boy, October, and War, the concert is now available on DVD for the very first time (it was originally released on VHS video). The video footage here has been beautifully restored and is topped off by a 5.1 audio remix. Five previously unavailable songs have also been added.

But the real treat here is seeing U2 once again as the hungry young band they once were -- playing as though their lives depended on it. Bono in particular is a house of fire here, grinning a shit-eating ear to ear grin as the band takes the stage with a ripping version of "Out Of Control." Bono clearly knows how lucky he is to be here. You can see it in his eyes as he prowls and works every inch of the stage on classic U2 songs like "Gloria" and "I Will Follow."

It's a little hard to believe that this wide-eyed mulleted kid seen here is the same Bono who would later have private audiences with presidents and popes, although the politics do creep into the mix on War's "Sunday Bloody Sunday," which Bono intros by saying "this song is not a rebel song."

Likewise, it's a bit strange to think that U2 was once regarded as a punk rock band. Especially since The Edge's ringing guitar powers the band's sound on this DVD in a way that all but screams big arena rock. Still, the energy level approaches punk levels more often than not, and the rhythm section of bassist Adam Clayton and drummer Larry Mullen doesn't let up here for a second.

The bottom line is that as great a band as U2 remain, they've never really just all-out rocked the way they do here. Not in all the years since.

Live At Red Rocks is available both as a stand alone DVD, and in a deluxe package with the remastered CD of Under A Blood Red Sky, which is taken from the same performance. Both arrive in stores September 30.

Lucha Libre: Where Wrestling Meets Honor -- Listen Up, Vince

DVD Review: - Lucha Libre: Life Behind The Mask

I've loved professional wrestling ever since I was a kid, but to be honest in recent years it has lost much of its luster.

What I remember as a kid was my father taking me to the matches -- which were often held in smoke filled auditoriums -- and seeing these larger than life characters battle it out in grand morality plays that were all about the honor.

The "good guys" (or "babyfaces" in the wrestling vernacular) were these clean cut sort of All American guys, who usually won their matches clean against the more colorful, but dastardly "bad guys" (or "heels"), with names like Ripper Collins, Curtis "The Bull" Iaukea (the matches I saw were in Hawaii), and "Crazy" Luke Graham.

Even though the babyfaces always played by the rules (well, most of the time anyway) and the "heels" would blatantly break the rules, I always liked the heels because they just seemed so much, well you know, "cooler."

As anyone who follows American pro-wrestling will tell you, it's a cyclical business. For the past few years it has also been experiencing a bit of a downturn since the last boom period in the late nineties. Back then, people like The Rock and Stone Cold Steve Austin sold out arenas and produced huge ratings on Monday night cable TV wrestling shows like WWE's Raw and WCW's Nitro.

The current slowdown has been blamed on many factors. But what I think it really boils down to is the fact that the basic formula of those morality plays pitting good against evil has become a lost art form. Well that, and the fact that in the process of becoming the huge billion dollar spectacle of ten or so years ago, a lot of the mystery was removed from it.

However in places like Japan, and especially Mexico, pro-wrestling remains as big as ever. In Mexico especially, wrestling is huge, and I believe the reason can be traced directly to both those morality tales and, in the form of Mexico's masked lucha libre style, the mystery behind it all.

As shown in the excellent new one-hour documentary DVD Lucha Libre: Life Behind The Mask, lucha libre isn't just taken seriously by both practitioners and fans in Mexico, it is in fact a way of life.

Although American wrestling fans will tell you that they know lucha libre, the fact is that its exposure here has been quite limited. The masked wrestler who is currently its best known star in America -- WWE's Rey Mysterio -- in fact once allowed himself to be unmasked on an American TV wrestling show (in the now defunct WCW). As this DVD shows, this would be unthinkable in Mexican wrestling because the wrestler's honor would have been sacrificed.

As we discover quickly in Lucha Libre: Life Behind The Mask, Mexican wrestling is, in fact, all about the honor. In this film, the stories of several luchadors are followed both behind the scenes, and in the ring. None of the luchadors profiled here break character once the whole time we are allowed this rare behind the scenes access.

When the masked tag team Los Chivos practice their moves in a gym (that really looks more like a basement), they never remove their masks in front of the cameras, and during private moments with their families their faces are always blurred "to protect the image."

Lucha Libre is all about the honor.

When Los Chivos wrestle their match, they do so as "Rudos" (the lucha libre equivalent of American wrestling "heels"). In a storyline turnabout (at least to American fans), they come to a Mexican ring waving American flags and shouting "USA" from the ring, drawing boos from the Mexican fans. One of the Chivos is earlier shown in his day job, teaching English in Mexico. When his students see him come to class with bruises on his face, maintaining his secret wrestling identity "becomes problematic," he explains.

In another story, we meet Dinamic, an aging wrestler about to face his final match. Dinamic, who wrestles without a mask, does so because as a youngster he made the mistake of once coming to the ring forgetting to put it on, and he was never able to wear it again as a result of that youthful error. He had dishonored the mystery of the mask.

Here, Dinamic -- who works as a barber by day and who also promotes lucha libre shows himself -- is about to put his hair on the line in a "hair vs mask" match. Although most American fans would figure (and correctly so) that the outcome has already been pre-determined, Dinamic never lets that on for the filmmakers, professing his nervousness about the "bet" right up until the ring bell sounds.

Dinamic's honor and love for the "sport" are never in question, even after he loses his match and his face is a bloody mess. He even maintains his "embarrassment" and desire for revenge during a family gathering afterwards.

In the parlance of American pro-wrestling this sort of sense of honor and devotion to keeping the secrets of the sport is something the wrestlers themselves refer to as "kayfabe." As American professional wrestling became a victim of its own success during the eighties and nineties, a lot of those secrets have become lost. Likewise, as those good vs. evil storylines have become increasingly more blurred, the fans are no longer sure who to root for or against.

Yet in Mexico's Lucha Libre, where the mystique and the honor remain entrenched as tradition, the fans continue to come to the matches.

Vince McMahon could learn a lot from watching this film.

Brian Wilson's Love Letter To L.A...And to Himself

Music Review: Brian Wilson - That Lucky Old Sun

"At 25, I turned out the light, cause' I couldn't handle the glare in my eyes," Brian Wilson sings on "Going Home," one of the key tracks on his brilliant new album That Lucky Old Sun, "But now I'm back."

I honestly wasn't sure Brian Wilson still had it in him.

But at 66 years old, coming off of the 2004 creative victory of finally realizing his decades in the making masterpiece SMiLE, it's now clear that triumph was no mere fluke. Like the song says, he really is back.

As brilliant as SMiLE was, and as much as you have to give the often fragile mind of Brian Wilson credit for storing that music in his head for decades, the fact still remained that it consisted of music conceived some forty years ago.

Not so on That Lucky Old Sun. This is an entirely new cycle of songs that when pieced together as a whole, form a fully realized work that is as sonically dense and layered as SMiLE, while containing Wilson's most deeply personal lyrics -- often painfully so -- since he sang about the lonely sort of solitude he found "In My Room" back in the sixties with the Beach Boys.

This is a just a gorgeous record. But it's not just the beautiful multi-layered choral harmonies and orchestral arrangements that make it so. It's also the way Wilson -- for the first time really -- peels away the mystery of his so-called "lost years" with lyrics that are as often honest, as they are bittersweet.

It's often been said that Wilson's genius lies in the childlike way he just hears the songs in his head, capturing both their simple, stripped down emotional essence, while imagining the sort of complex sounds that require nothing less than a symphonic scope. In that sense, as he so aptly demonstrates on this album, Wilson's songs at their best really yearn back to a much more innocent time and place.

Did I mention that I absolutely love this record yet?

On it's surface, That Lucky Old Sun is Brian Wilson's personal love letter to his beloved Southern California. In the spoken word narratives that connect this album, Wilson details the "Heartbeat of L.A.," accurately capturing a world where actors wait tables in between pictures, and where "the homeless, the hopeless, and the deranged" populate "Venice Beach," a place where "nothing seems out of place or strange."

That wonderful, wide-eyed innocence of the California dream is also given a modern update on songs like "Forever My Surfer Girl," where "first love is the moment you can't repeat, but you'll always own it."

But then a little more than midway through the record, Wilson shifts lyrical gears. On the starkly autobiographical "Oxygen To The Brain," he admits that "I cried a million tears, I lost a lot of years," before asking "how could I have got so low?"

From there, the song segues into "Can't Wait Too Long," the most gorgeous sounding fifty seven seconds on the entire record. Here, multi layered harmonies which harken back to a slower take on the Beach Boys "Don't Worry Baby," simply ask "why so long?"

My only complaint here is that it ends too quick.



From there, the song serves as a bridge to "Midnight's Another Day," where Wilson again tears a page out of his own life story, shedding light on how "all these voices, all these memories, made me feel like stone, all these people make me feel so alone." From there, Wilson finds his redemption in the Beach Boys styled rocker "Going Home" where he's so "homesick...I'm even missing myself," before finding his way back "to piece of mind, one piece at a time."

On the closing "Southern California," Wilson then lays it all wide open for all the world to see. "I had this dream, singing with my brothers, in harmony, supporting each other," Wilson sings before concluding, "it's magical...I'm glad it happened to me."

If you know anything about the Beach Boys story -- and in particular that of Brian Wilson -- the story he weaves on That Lucky Old Sun is a bittersweet one to be sure. But it's also one that finds a happy ending, resulting in his best album of all new material in what feels like decades.

If you saw any of the concerts on Wilson's SMiLE tour, you already know how great his band is, and they don't disappoint here. The other thing though, is that Wilson's voice hasn't sounded this clear or confident since the Beach Boys.

This is a great, great album, and right now my hands down choice for best of 2008.

All Is Forgiven, Al Stewart

Music Review: Al Stewart - Sparks Of Ancient Light

Even though he once stole my girlfriend (long story), and I've never entirely forgiven him for it, I have to admit that I've missed Al Stewart.

Likewise, I have to begrudgingly admit that it's great to see him back in such fine form, doing what he really does best on his new album, Sparks Of Ancient Light. The album comes out in about two weeks on the Appleseed Recordings label.

For those new to Mr. Stewart, that something he does so well is weave these wonderful historical references into his songs. Literate as they are, Al Stewart's songs have this weird and wonderful way touching a personal nerve. Not only that, they can also be downright catchy.

As a lyricist who has a unique way of wrapping an engaging narrative around an equally compelling melody, I'd actually put Al Stewart just a notch under people like Dylan and Neil Young. He also has that rare gift of being able to turn a phrase in the sort of cinematic way that personalizes his songs in such a universal way they become something that, subject matter aside, nearly anyone can relate to.

Stewart really can be that good. And during his brief run at the top in the seventies and early eighties, everybody knew it.

The thing is, once Al Stewart hit the big time, he just as quickly abandoned that wonderfully literate storytelling, replete with historical references as it was, that got him there in the first place. On his big hits like "Time Passages" and "Year Of The Cat," the descriptive language remained. But the stories accompanying Stewart's best songs like "Roads To Moscow" and "Nostradamus" -- songs that took you to another time and place the same way that a great novel does -- were long gone.

By the mid-eighties, Al Stewart was just another cog in the soft rock treadmill of people like Christopher Cross and Gerry Rafferty, and in even quicker time he also suffered their same fate as a footnote of latter day, post-sixties folk-rock. Talented though he was, there would be no Dylan sort of accolades here. Today, Al Stewart is largely regarded as the sort of also-ran that doesn't even rate James Taylor props in the bigger picture.

Much as I loved Al Stewart back then, I have to admit that I haven't followed him much in the years (make that decades) since -- something about that whole girlfriend thing. Which is why I am happy to report that his new Sparks Of Ancient Light is such a pleasant surprise.

On this album, not only does Stewart's voice -- distinctive, wispy sort of willow that it is -- sound like it hasn't aged a minute despite the decades which have since passed. He's also picked up that whole literary thing right where he left it on those great seventies albums like Past Present And Future and Modern Times.

In an odd sort of way, it's almost like reconnecting with an old friend.

Stewart's sound from those days also remains by and large intact. Tim Renwick, the great guitarist from those old records is apparently gone, but his rather large shoes have been apparently filled quite well (and then some) by former Wings guitarist Laurence Juber. On songs like "Angry Bird," the guitar flourishes are so ultra clean, if you close your eyes you'd almost swear Renwick never left.

Speaking of those songs, Stewart once again instantly transports you back to such far away times and places as post World War II fifties America ("(A Child's View of) The Eisenhower Years"), 1970's pre-Ayatollah Iran ("Shah of Shahs"), and Great Britain circa the late 1890's ("Lord Salisbury").

On this album, Stewart practically recounts the history of the world in a way that would make Mel Brooks proud -- from the pre Christian calendar journey to the world's edge of "Hanno The Navigator" to the King's own religious experience in "Elvis at The Wheel."

Talk about your Time Passages. On Sparks Of Ancient Light, Al Stewart is back in peak historical, literate, and most importantly, lyrical form. You'll find it in stores on September 15.

And yes Al, all is forgiven.

The Rockologist: The Invincible And The Inevitable

Michael Jackson turned 50 this weekend, and I can't help but feel a certain irony there.

You see, as much as the Michael Jackson of 1983 symbolized everything about a music industry riding the crest of a perfect wave way back then, the arrogance of the way he called the last album he put out Invincible (despite circumstances proving otherwise at the time), epitomizes how and why that same industry finds itself barely on life support now.

There is a definite parallel there.

The record business Jackson's album Thriller did so much to revitalize in the early eighties is as dead in 2008 as Jackson's career. At least in the sense of the old school model that revolved around getting your song played on the radio or MTV, and having your album sold at an independently owned record store -- or even a hip retail chain like Tower Records once did.

No big revelation there, right? The signs have been all around us for at least a decade if not more, so this is hardly front page news. You already knew that.

The fact is, we could analyze what brought the once "invincible" record biz to its current somewhat sorry state (and in fact we will probably do at least a little bit of that here just to put things into proper context) until we turn blue in the face. We could also debate to death the various arguments as to the merits and curses of retail exclusivity deals.

Ditto for the wisdom (or lack thereof) behind how and why the business once again became driven by the single song (thanks to MP3s, iPODs, and the like), as opposed to the full length album for the first time since at least the early sixties.

But rather than content ourselves with merely repeating a long laundry list of the causes which many of you reading this already know all too well, I'd like to open this up a little. Since we've already got a pretty good idea of what got us here, I thought it would be interesting to take a look at where we could be headed next.

There is a very interesting article in the current issue of Rolling Stone that once read between the lines, actually offers clues to both questions (what brought us here and where we may ultimately be going).

On the surface, the article is about the lineup of big releases that the labels will be rolling out this fall. To that end, get ready for new albums by Metallica, AC/DC, U2, Eminem, Beyonce, and maybe even that ten years in the making Axl Rose album being pimped out as a new Guns N' Roses release.

But just as everyone is about to jump for joy at the promising slate of fall releases (particularly in light of a year three fourths gone now, that has provided little in the way of true star power), leave it to Fall Out Boy's manager Bob McLynn to burst that bubble with the following quote:

"Everyone's trying to put out a record while they still can. Who knows if you still can put out fucking records a year or two from now? Is it going to be online only? Is it going to be singles?"

So much for at least one potential answer to the question of where things may be headed.

What makes the Rolling Stone article really interesting however, is the way it shows how record label executives continue to carry on with an arrogant business as usual sort of nonchalance. Even as the walls of their ivory towers in New York and Los Angeles are crumbling all around them, they remain soporifically oblivious.

The days of multi-platinum smashes like Thriller, Hotel California, or Born In The USA are long gone, and don't look to be coming back anytime soon. Many of the biggest album sellers this year -- Kid Rock, Jonas Brothers, Mariah Carey -- aren't even double platinum (two million sold). Even more telling is the number of artists -- Nas and Sugarland for example -- perceived to have produced a hit album that hasn't even sold a million.

Neil Diamond, love him or hate him, is certainly an icon and arguably one of the most successful songwriters ever.

On the surface, Diamond's latest release Home After Dark has everything going for it. It's produced by Rick Rubin, arguably the hottest knob twister in the business (go ahead, name a producer who's hotter right now). It's not only Diamond's "comeback," but believe it or not, it's also the first #1 album of his entire career. All of that, and Home After Dark hasn't even sold 500,000 copies -- the magic number for a certified gold record.

Not only do the days of the blockbuster multi-platinum seller appear to be gone forever -- platinum and gold records themselves may not be far behind. So in the light of such statistics, as well as the increasing dominance of the mostly singles-driven MP3 format, when Fall Out Boy's manager muses aloud that we be may a year or two away from no more full length albums period, it becomes a statement not nearly as unthinkable as it first sounds.

Incidentally, I must give credit where credit is due for the above statistics about record sales. You can verify these for yourself by checking out a website called the The Lefsetz Letter.

Bob Lefsetz -- the guy who runs and writes everything at this site -- also publishes an e-mail newsletter which you can subscribe to there. Word of warning though. If you don't like seeing your mailbox fill up both daily and quickly, I'd advise against a subscription, because Lefsetz is nothing if not prolific. But if you are either as concerned, fascinated, or both by these things as I am, he comes highly recommended.

Like your Rockologist here, Lefsetz is a guy who is not at all afraid to wear his emotions on his sleeve. He clearly misses much about the way the record industry did business for decades, but he also correctly recognizes how things like their greed, their ignorance, and their excesses ultimately were all contributing factors to the implosion he sees now. Indeed, Lefsetz at times comes off in a sinfully gleeful manner, thumbing his nose at them in that sort of "nyah, nyah, told ya' so" way.

But he also recognizes the writing on the wall. He may not like seeing yesterday's radical rock stars practically tripping over each other today to sell out to WalMart deals or Ford Truck advertisements. But he rightfully sees them for the economic necessities they've become in the industry's present climate.

If Music Television (MTV) no longer plays actual music, and radio formats have become so restrictive there's little room for Springsteen and Mellencamp on the one side, or Radiohead on the other, an artist who wants his music to be heard has to get creative.

On the other side of the spectrum, the internet is so wide-open it becomes a "format" where anyone can get airplay, but without the repeated plays that constitute any kind of physical rotation. It's great for a garage band who otherwise might not be heard at all. But for a band or artist who is either already established, or may once have been, it amounts to searching for a needle in a haystack.

Anyway, Lefsetz understands these things. Which is probably why in his current newsletter he has a suggestion for Axl Rose -- or excuse me "Guns N' Roses" -- if and when they actually put Chinese Democracy out.

Forget an exclusivity deal with WalMart or Best Buy. Forget a name your own price download stunt a la Radiohead. Lefsetz instead suggests Axl finds a corporate sponsor like a soft drink company willing to pony up say $25 million for the right to give the damn thing away.

You heard me right Pepsi Cola. Gibbit, Gibbit, Gibbit All Away.

If you think about it, this actually makes perfect sense. Axl gets paid. The soda pop company gets roughly the same advertising exposure (or more) as they would from a sixty second spot during the SuperBowl for a comparable price tag. The fans meanwhile get the music free, which the age of the internet and downloads has taught them -- rightfully or otherwise -- is their God given right.

So how did it all come to this? The record companies will tell you it's all because of that great double headed Satan called the internet and downloading. My own feeling about the reality is that somewhere along the way these same labels began to get a little too comfortable and complacent.

As they charged higher and higher prices for their product, believing in a ride they thought would last forever and, like Michael Jackson, in their own "invincibility," they also became short sighted.

Choosing the quick nickel over the slow dime, they stopped developing artists for the long haul, and turned to pretty faces and the flavor of the minute. They also released albums with maybe three good songs out of twelve, while maintaining or even raising list prices. Meanwhile the frontlines of music retail saw none of that revenue -- and got shortchanged in terms of having anything added to an already razor thin profit margin.

What their lobby group, the Record Industry Association of America (RIAA) calls piracy, the music consumer sees as the viable alternative to shelling out fifteen bucks for an album which may yield only one good song. With the price of gas and all the other gifts that eight years of Bushonomics has brought us, you tell me which is your choice.

As a guy who grew up going to record shops, and pouring over the liner notes and lyric sheets found on albums like Blood On The Tracks and Quadrophenia, it's sad to see all of this going away. As a guy who also enjoyed watching the dizzying multi-platinum success of people like Fleetwood Mac, The Eagles, or even a one-shot like Peter Frampton, and admittedly enjoying a few of the excesses that followed, I'm also saddened to see the industry I worked in and loved so much for so long putting so many good people out of work these days.

But if it's an open question whether or not someone like U2 can even hit two million this next time out -- and like it or not that's the reality -- there can be little doubt that the party really is over.

Invincible? More like Inevitable.