Bob Lefsetz drops more truth-bombs in Aus Music Week keynote

Australian Music Week headliner Bob Lefsetz didn’t disappoint during his much-anticipated keynote yesterday.

In scenes not witnessed since stars of the Nashville TV show hung out in the VIP area at CMC Rocks Queensland, industry delegates have been lining up throughout the conference to get a personal moment (and photo) with the celebrated industry commentator.

Lefsetz has been admired by many over the years for his ability to see into the future.

He’s been openly critical of major record label reluctance to embrace technological change as quickly he would have liked them to.

In fact, he likened this to Kodak taking too long to embrace the move to digital cameras.

Lefsetz is most credited for being one of the early believers of streaming and its potential to bringing the music industry back into growth.

And if his ability to look into a crystal ball and predict the future is to continue, then Elisabeth Warren will be the next president of the United States.

While being no fan of Donald Trump, Lefsetz says Trump is the “modern rockstar” whose narrative appeals to “people who got screwed by globalization”.

“He is in the news every day,” he said. “Rockstars used to say outrageous things. Now they are afraid to upset the corporations who pay them.”

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He suggested that many have got it wrong in their reasoning as to why many young people haven’t adopted radio as their primary listening source.

“The oldsters have it all wrong when they say the kids of today have a short attention span. That’s bullshit, they just have an incredible shit detector.

“They can play a video game for up to 72 hours straight!”

Lefsetz says that artists releasing new tracks on a regular basis are on the right track.

“The one thing they [the fans] want, other than f*%king the artist, is more product.”

He also considers podcasts to be an “underserved” opportunity in the music industry at present, believing that “people want long-form” and “deep” audio content.

His most intriguing comments came when talking about the Americana genre.

While acknowledging its growth and potential, he said that the genre is “yet to come up with a superstar”.

In his view, Americana is “a great album away” from becoming “the great conciseness in America”.

The Australian Music Week conference concludes tomorrow.