This kind of overproduction is a clear indicator that after a decade of its worst losses in history, the music industry has returned to the practice of crowning superstars. As the Boston Globe’s Ben Sisario put it, the music industry “reversed its recent trend of showering acclaim on modest sellers, sticking instead to the biggest names in entertainment,” or at least entertainers like Lady Gaga, or the young Taylor Swift, whom they hope will be able to generate mega-sales for years to come.

While there will probably be a place for superstars in the music industry of the future, gone are the days when a single-minded focus on a handful of artists will be able to sustain an entire industry. Have mainstream record executives learned nothing from the downloading debacle that has already brought them to their knees? If the experiences of downloaders tell us anything, it’s that the music business would do well to pay attention to those “modest sellers,” because in the longtail digital economy that is upon us, they are the key to future profitability. Once you remove the constraints of bricks and mortar storage and sales, modest sellers in the aggregate will rival the superstars for market share. And if one of them goes viral, they can make it big without the massive promotional overhead.

Another lesson from recent music industry misfortunes has been the value of touring. What happens in the rarefied atmosphere of superstars doesn’t always give us an accurate picture of what’s going on at street level. Case in point: the January live shows of Lady Gaga and a Latin-pop group many of you have probably never heard of called Aventura in New York City. For all her hype, Gaga performed four shows at the 6,000-seat Radio City Music Hall, while Aventura booked an equal number of dates at the 19,000-seat Madison Square Garden. That puts Aventura in the same league as touring performers like Miley Cyrus, Britney Spears, Madonna, and Billy Joel. So why is it that that Lady Gaga gets booked on the mainstream talk show circuit, while Aventura, according to Jim Farber of the NY Daily News “has the profile of quickly rejected contestants on ‘American Idol’”? And, when will we get to see Aventura as the opening act on the Grammys?

In 2003, Steve Jobs railed against music subscription services, telling Rolling Stone that “People want to own their music.” Now it appears that Apple might be changing its iTune. Apple’s recent $80 million plus purchase of music subscription service Lala suggests that the company that made it easy (and legal) to download digital music files to your iPod or computer might now be envisioning the future of music as a big jukebox in the clouds. One big question is where this will leave users? Another is where it will leave musicians.

People thought Jobs was prescient when he opined in 2003 that music subscription services “are going to fail. Music Net’s gonna fail, Press Play’s gonna fail … . You don’t want to rent your music.” He was right about that. And more recent ventures have borne him out; RealNetwork’s Rhapsody and Best Buy’s current incarnation of Napster have yet to show any real results. So why Apple’s change of tune? In a word — smartphones. Storage strapped hand-held digital devices have wrested some control from wireless carriers over which mobile apps one can use (including music apps), but they can’t compete for storage with the 160 GB of music one can store on a computer.

Then along came imeem — a social media network whose music locker service allowed users to store 80GB of music on their servers, which could then be streamed to a smartphone. Their Android and iPhone apps looked promising but for one problem: once a user uploaded their music to imeem’s servers they could stream it at will, but they couldn’t download it again, which amounted to another form of digital rights management (DRM). Financially, imeem faced an even bigger problem: their revenues didn’t cover the fees that the major labels charged them to license their music.

MySpace Music tried to address that issue by granting the major labels an equity stake in their new venture. Here the problem was an uncoordinated rollout and a failure to include the indie musicians and labels who formed the backbone of MySpace’s artist pages. Interestingly it appeared that imeem could solve that problem. Imeem’s earlier purchase of a faltering Snocap (developed by Shawn Fanning, inventor of the original Napster) had provided imeem with a technology for content identification and registration that would enable independent artists and labels to control the online distribution of their music through Snocap’s embeddable storefronts. MySpace apparently saw it that way too. They picked up “certain assets” from imeem’s foreclosure for the fire sale price of under $1 million.

Now here’s the rub: Not included in the sale was imeem’s debt to the more than 110,000 independent artists who had been selling their music through Snocap’s storefronts. These artists have little or no chance of recouping their sales revenue and the servers that hosted their storefronts have been taken offline. As usual, as the various players in the music industry jockey for future position, struggling artists are usually the ones left out in the cold. Let’s see if Apple can do it better.

In early October 2009, the Austrailian TV talent show Hey Hey It’s Saturday Reunion presented a Michael Jackson tribute act called the Jackson Jive, who performed in blackface. Taken aback, judge Harry Connick Jr. gave the group a “0.” “If they turned up looking like that in the United States,” said Connick, “Hey, hey, there’s no more show.” Ironically, the same group had appeared on the same show 20 years earlier doing the same performance and won! Here is their performance:

The October 2009 issue of French Vogue, which is dedicated to “supermodels,” reportedly used no black models and, adding insult to injury, model Lara Stone appears in a 14-page spread in blackface. Here’s one shot by photographer Steven Klein:

HONK! Is a new name for a time-honored tradition of street music that is acoustic and mobile, activist and engaged, borrowing repertoire and inspiration from a diversity of traditions: It’s New Orleans; it’s Klezmer; it’s Samba—with all the passion and spirit of Mardi Gras and Carnivale.

HONK! is totally fun, free, completely non-commercial, inclusive, participatory, and community-based.

Imagine the scene: Activist marching bands from across the country and around the world fanning out to Boston neighborhoods on Friday Oct 9; two dozen bands honking their hearts out for free in Davis Square all day Saturday, Oct 10; then struttin’ and strollin’ our way to Harvard Square on Sunday Oct 11 for rousing performances at Oktoberfest; wrapping up the weekend with a killer all-band blow-out at the historic Somerville Theater in Davis Square on Sunday night at 8 PM.

HONK! Schedule

Friday, Oct 9, 3 - 6 pm HONK! on Boston: Visiting bands play alongside local community bands in East Somerville, East Boston, Roxbury, Dorchester, Chinatown and the Boston Common

Saturday, Oct 10, Noon - 9 pm HONK! on Davis Square: 25 activist street bands, from around the country and beyond, perform outdoors for free

Sunday, Oct 11, Noon - 2 pm HONK! Parade down Mass Ave. to “Reclaim the Streets for Horns, Bikes and Feet” featuring all bands plus Bread & Puppet Theater and many other local arts and community organizations, from Davis Square to Harvard Square Oktoberfest celebration

Sunday, Oct 11, 2 - 6 pm Bands perform on HONK! stage at Harvard Square Oktoberfest

Sunday, Oct 11, 8 pm - midnight Blow-out final show at Somerville Theatre in Davis Square ($10 admission)

Rock with You (1979)
http://www.mtvmusic.com/jackson_michael/videos/207127/rock_with_you.jhtml

Don’t Stop ’til You Get Enough (1979)
http://www.mtvmusic.com/jackson_michael/videos/15223/don_t_stop_til_you_get_enough.jhtml

Billie Jean (1983)
http://www.mtvmusic.com/jackson_michael/videos/26708/billie_jean.jhtml

Beat It (1983)
http://www.mtvmusic.com/jackson_michael/videos/26721/beat_it.jhtml

Thriller (1984)
http://www.mtvmusic.com/jackson_michael/videos/13322/thriller.jhtml

We Are the World (1985)
http://www.mtvmusic.com/jackson_michael/videos/41071/we_are_the_world.jhtml

Bad (1987)
http://www.mtvmusic.com/jackson_michael/videos/111954/bad.jhtml

Man in the Mirror (1988) http://www.mtvmusic.com/jackson_michael/videos/206759/man_in_the_mirror.jhtml

The Way You Make Me Feel (1988)
http://www.mtvmusic.com/jackson_michael/videos/208859/the_way_you_make_me_feel.jhtml

Smooth Criminal (1988)
http://www.mtvmusic.com/jackson_michael/videos/8895/smooth_criminal.jhtml

Black or White (1991)
http://www.mtvmusic.com/jackson_michael/videos/18164/black_or_white_long_version_.jhtml 

Remember the Time (1992)
http://www.mtvmusic.com/jackson_michael/videos/99091/remember_the_time.jhtml