4.25.14 Adam News & Info, Pro Sweet Sixteen Party pics

Thanks Cassie! Great answer! And I always did my best homework thinking afer midnight. But try getting the normal world to understand that.

Louise ‏@louise_mtn_bert 12m

For those who remember from FS1, @adamlambert 's oldest fan Isabel passed away last night at age 93.  It was such an honor to take part in bringing her to that show.

I think that we are seeing the beginnings of a change in this direction, things will need to go further. The strength of youtube and streaming services as a measurement of mass interest, is already taken as a fact in the industry. Billboard has reacted by including numbers from those services into their most important chart calculations, and the percentages were mostly taken away from radio. Of course, that also has the effect to lift a song that is just a fad (Gangnam style) to the top of the charts, but the reality is, that song did have an overall cultural impact, even though its musical contribution was probably marginal. But just like burger consumption, when the masses love something, it does not mean quality, but it does mean wide spread public interest.

The fact that a company like Fremantle (idol's company) is finally recognizing that fan videos are not an attempt at stealing content, but rather a sign of appreciation and interest, and as such need to be valued, and marketed, and potentially multiplied by tweeting about them, is a sign of progress.

The market has and will continue to become more direct.

None of this means, that the customers are choosing quality.
But that is true of many areas and music is a very subjective product and does not lend itself to objective quality measurement.

There are industries, where price is used to actually create the presumption of quality. Wine for example. If you are not very familiar with a certain wine, then, at the wine store, you have exactly two things to go by. The information on the label and the price. We assume that a higher priced bottle of wine will be better and deserving of that mark-up. And yes, we can be cheated, but probably only once. In most cases, the wine store will have an interest to price fairly, and hence this becomes an important qualifier.

The music industry has eliminated price as a market regulator, has instead relied on an inefficient and biased system of middle-men who are rigging the system on both sides (the label on behalf of the artist, and radio on behalf of the listener) to define demand, and it has done little to learn about the consumer.

The only other system I have encountered, where this commerce model was in use, was the Soviet style communism. In East Germany, the price was fixed, supply side rigidly planned years in advance, independent of any knowledge of the market demand. The result was a completely off-kilter recognition of value and interestingly, theft was everywhere, even for goods you could have bought at the store at low prices. Stealing meant protesting a system and the goods represented that system.

These same East Germans now behave like anyone else, now that they are used to a regular market. Theft is again a marginal problem, like anywhere else.

If the music market would make sense, things would work itself out. People would buy and pay according to perceived value, and quality would be at least one part of that consideration. Given that quality in music is a very subjective term, it will never be possible to adequately measure this. Opinions will vary. Some think 20/20 experience is the best thing ever, and others could not care less. Nothing wrong with that. We don't need to all define quality the same way. The internet is helping us get closer to such a model, the influence of labels and radio is changing and eventually, a new market model will develop. I see a lot of good signs of this already, and even CHR and AC radio has become a much better experience now, than it was 10 or even 5 years ago.

Adam's fee varies but I know that Pittsburgh Pride was $250,000 + travel and accommodations, and that included the band. 

He has gotten less than that for two events that were private events.

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The part I do not understand about this fund raiser -- is that 600 people at $400 = $240,000 -- so that is not a fundraiser unless Adam discounts his fee a lot -- or it has big sponsorships.