Success In The Music Industry
September 16 2011, 11:16 AM
Filed in: Indie Advice
I've heard the name, but knew nothing about him. But after reading the most recent Lefsetz Letter (from Bob Lefsetz) titled Howard Bloom - Success in Music Industry, I was beyond intrigued about this former music industry publicist, Howard Bloom.
Howard Bloom is an American author. Born June 25, 1943 in Buffalo, New York, he was a publicist in the 1970s and 1980s for singers and bands such as Prince, Billy Joel, and Styx. In 1988 he became disabled with chronic fatigue syndrome. Since then he has published three books on human evolution and group behaviour, The Genius of the Beast, The Global Brain and The Lucifer Principle, which are informed by his ideas about what underlies the success of major rock and roll artists.
These books generalize and extend his ideas about what makes rock and roll artists successful to human nature. According to him: "Everything from the wolf-pack behaviour of music business executives to the lemming-like conduct of hypocritical journalists helped shape my insights" and that "The real magic of rock happens at a concert, where if the performers are successful, individuals ... merge in a pulse of common emotion ... This consolidation mirrors the force that create much of both human good and evil".
Turn off the TV. Hit pause on your music… and watch the video below, it's 6 minutes well spent. There are so many incredible quotes from Howard in this short little video, including:
"There is no such thing as being a genius. Every single day you have to deliver things in wondrous ways to the best of your minimal abilities."
"The trick is persistence… once you get a sense of what you want to do, do it with all your strength and all your might and do it every day…"
What take-aways did you get from this video?
— Brian Thompson
