Sausage,

It really is what it is all about. But more important is that you are giving advice that works. i am lucky in that I have seen so many ins and outs of this industry without being killed, in prison or broke. So many people I know, people who have been to the top of the mountain and back again, have not ended up so well.
Drug and substance problems, broken lives, bankruptcies and suicides are rampant in a buisness like entertainment, and it can take a hefty toll.

My role in most things, including conversations like these are to give perspective and comment on things I have direct personal knowledge on. Even when it is not as pleasent as I would like, it is the truth.

In every one of the people I mentioned as well as the Lady Ga Ga, Taylor Swift, or whatever senario you want to name, it comes down to creating a product that attracts and keeps the attention of the public. Then getting it in front of as many people as you can. That has never changed.

With all the changes in delivery systems, all the challenges everyone faces, increased competition, declining money, all of the things we talk about here, it is still about someone writing a song or songs, singers delivering them, connecting with the inside of the industry, propelling them to higher and higher levels and the bottom line, connecting with the general listening public. That will never change.

In the instances I speak of, the people invovled had a "GO TO attitude" that supersesded anything else. When their contemporays would not do what is nessasary, when those people complained that the "System was against them, that nothing could be achieved,that you had to do everything the way everyone else did and conform" they continued on,working within the system to make it work for them.

Not anyone can do this. Very few. Sometimes all the hard work,desire, even talent, just don't make it. The fates just work against them. That is something you can't do anything about.

These people did everything for the things they could do something about.

That is what I like to focus on. I ask not what can't be done. I ask why can't it be done. And try to find ways to get it done.

Borrowed a quote from ol' Bobby Kennedy there, but that is really what it is. You just keep going and working at it.

Scott, how do modern artists make a breakthrough? They find a way. Same as any one who has ever achieved anything. First is by showing up.

MAB