Mike Campbell talks about FM in New interview

[bombaysaffires]

Apples and oranges.

Stevie, who presents herself as a pre-eminent songwriter, produces a film of a series of shows on a tour in which she sings material that averages somewhere around 30 years old (with songs written within a range of the last 50-15 years). Sure, the packaging is new -- a new film that is distributed over a variety of platforms -- and *maybe* some of the chatter accompanying each song in the film is new (and maybe not so much) with the result that she is heralded as doing something new and innovative. In reality, while the merching may be new, the content is not. It is a re-packaging of the same old. However, her goal is and always has been unabashedly to make money. She likely is succeeding (I haven't seen sales figures or revenue figures for her film but figure plenty of fans are buying). An additional goal is to be seen as still relevant, and that includes releasing a new product to sell (and singing backup with younger artists) As per above, she indeed has a new product (film) but on closer inspection the content isn't new at all.

Lindsey is recovered from a near-fatal medical event, one that put him in the ICU and treatment of which damaged his vocal cords, potentially permanently. Having come out the other side of that, his goal is to let the world know by letting them see him performing live and unedited that he has fully recovered not just medically but also functionally, i.e. that he can still sing and play and perform for an audience as well as ever. He, like Stevie, would like to make money. He, like Stevie, has new product to put out. Unlike Stevie, his new product will be made of new content because, rather than *tell* people how prolific he is and making them take his word for it, he actually creates new content (in the form of a forthcoming new album). While he achieved his goal of showing the world that he is back and in fine form, his noted lack of acute business sense led him to not include any of that new content *now*, in his live stream. This was a real mistake and a reflection of his continuing lack of appreciation of how the market works. We know the album is done, why make us take your word for it, why not actually play something from it?

Comparing her large, year-plus-in-the-making, highly-produced and overdubbed glossy film to his at-home, direct-interaction-with-fans, off-the-cuff livestream is apples and oranges. Her primary goal was making bucks and reminding everyone how legendary a songwriter she *was*, his primary goal was to show the world he's alive and well and better than ever, and to whet fans' appetite for new material that will show what a great songwriter he *still is*. Which he should have done by playing one of those new songs NOW rather than making us take his word for it a la Stevie. This kind of misstep is where we see his lack of a "big machine" PR team behind him. Critique his PR savvy, sure, but don't conflate his goals with hers.