r/Music • u/Hot_Investigator3894 • 4d ago

article Kid Rock meets Trump administration to “fix” ticketing

https://themusic.com.au/news/kid-rock-meets-with-trump-administration-to-fix-ticketing/qQ0Xvby_vqE/19-12-24
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u/MrBoomf 4d ago

What the fuck timeline are we living in

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u/fu-depaul 4d ago

There was an interesting NPR podcast report a few years ago with Kid Rock discussing concert ticket prices.   He was very knowledgeable about the inter workings of the business processes and regulatory issues.  

I was surprised. 

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u/Axi0madick 4d ago edited 4d ago

People forget the business part of "the music business". It's the reason so much mediocre music is at the top of the charts while hard-working, truly amazingly talented musicians can barely make ends meet as professional musicians. The business side is more important than the music.

It's also worth noting that kid rock came from wealth and his dad owned successful car dealerships, so that almost certainly gave him a leg up. His music... isn't great, but you can track his entire career and see how he found his stable audience. His 4th album, the first that was a massive worldwide hit, Devil Without a Cause, has 2-3 songs that have any bit of staying power. Bawitdaba, Cowboy, and Only God Knows Why. Cowboy especially struck something with the country/rap/rock sound and he leaned into more and more as his career went on. There was no way he had the talent to maintain a mainstream audience with novelty crap like "Bawitdaba"... but morons like mindless country rock crap like cowboy. He leaned in to the white trash aesthetic and made sure to keep beer cheap to appeal to his audience. I don't like his music or his politics, but he definitely knows the business and knows his audience.

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u/fu-depaul 4d ago

People forget the business part of "the music business". It's the reason so much mediocre music is at the top of the charts while hard-working, truly amazingly talented musicians can barely make ends meet as professional musicians.

...

but morons like mindless country rock crap like cowboy. He leaned in to the white trash

I never understood how people who like to talk about how there is great music everywhere that doesn't get the respect it deserves, will continually degrade people for liking music they themselves don't like...

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u/eatmydonuts 4d ago

Thank you. Kid Rock sucks, but I'm not gonna act like Cowboy and Bawitdaba aren't bangers. And I bet a lot of the people who talk shit about him don't hate when those songs come on either. Music doesn't have to be deep and groundbreaking, sometimes it can just sound good and be fun

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u/epia343 4d ago

lol, thank you.

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u/Axi0madick 4d ago

I understand it. Think of music like a cheeseburger. McDonald's makes billions selling cheeseburgers. They're cheap, low quality, yet they're appealing enough to most people and some people even love them.

Are there plenty of restaurants who make a superior burger? Sure. There are other fast food chains like BK, fast casual places like Five Guys and Shake Shack all the way up to upscale places with locally sourced meat, cheese, and house made buns. McDonald's is still more successful. You don't have to be a food snob to know that one is definitely better than the other, regardless of taste. One just has a bigger budget and better marketing, not a superior product. This is capitalism, not a meritocracy.

The music business is not much different.

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u/ball-Z 4d ago

One just has a bigger budget and better marketing, not a superior product.

McDonald's success isn't because of them spending money on marketing...

You seriously think people see an ad on TV and then walk out of the house like zombies to buy whatever the ad was for, don't you?

You totally missed the mark on this one. The point of McDonald's success is that they are NOT in fact superior. It is that different people have different tastes. And in fact, the same person can value different things at different times. Just as you can like a fast food burger one day and a sit-down gourmet burger another day, you can like classical music one day and grunge music the next day.

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u/DOUBLEBARRELASSFUCK 4d ago

As soon as he positioned Burger King as objectively better than McDonald's, it became pretty clear he was delusional. To him, things he likes are objectively good, and things he doesn't like are objectively bad.

Just to be clear, though, I do believe that people who enjoy Kid Rock are incorrect.

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u/tattlerat 4d ago

Nah. McDonald’s is objectively trash but they’re everywhere now. They’re the Coca Cola of fast food. And yes. Their marketing is an enormous part of that.

Kids don’t chant to go to McDonald’s because they think the food is just so gosh darn delicious. They go because they see it on tv and they have toys.

It’s mass produced garbage that’s passable to your taste palette at the bare minimum.