Evidence YouTubers "Faking" For the Money?!, Yellowstone Fans--This is teh Next "Must Watch" Western, The Instagram/TikTok--of Music?!, (The Five for 01/10/25)
Plus these Playstation games getting movies. No James Bond movies until the 2030's? Best time ever to buy a Tesla or oher EV? Mac Miller's lost album.
Hey, welcome to The Five, a publication about the stories that matter.
It’s Friday, so let’s dive into Culture & Commentary.
[one]
“More music is released in a single day in 2024 than in all of 1989.”
That’s a staggering statement, and one that’s hard to get your head around. And the number of people is only going to increase.
The research process to compile our long-read also indicated that the numbers are only going to grow. In business analyst MiDiA's recent 'State of the music creator economy report', they found that the overall number of music creators was around 75.9 million - a 12 percent increase over the previous year.
But, that number is projected to swell to 198.2 million people by 2030. The reason for this growth is fuelled in part by a rise in what it calls 'consumer-creators.' “Consumer-creators transformed photography (Instagram) and videography (TikTok); music will be next”, the analyst predicted in a blog post.
The report anticipates this expansion will be driven by what it calls 'casual music creators' - “Not only will casual music creation become mainstream, it will trigger an unprecedented widening of the music creator economy funnel”.
If I had to estimate, 50% of the music I listen to likely comes from creators who’s main source of money…isn’t music. There’s a lot of really creative, interesting stuff out there…that’s just too niche to support a full time income. I listen to the Lord of the Rings Lofi album at least twice a week while working, despite having no idea who Chill Astronaught is…but if I had to guess, it’s a 23-year-old line cook at Applebees in North Dakota who gets off work at 10pm and makes beats until 3am.
Similarly, I’m a huge fan of the band Gasoline Heart, who were briefly signed to a major label in the early aughts. As working class/punk/grunge musicians are apt to do after having a family, singer Louis Defabrizio scaled back on touring. In decades past, that would mean we never heard from this top-notch songwriter again…as the production tools and time were just too expensive.
Last I checked, Louis owns a moving company in New York and plays and releases music when he can. As his tagline on social media once read: “I move people, literally and metaphorically.”
The vast majority of music in human history was played by amateurs, after work, for the purpose of fun, connection, community, creativity and communication.
Technological advances are…ironically enough…taking us back to “the way things used to be.” Good. The examples I shared may fit your sonic tastes. But if you dig into playlists, I bet there are some amazing songwriters out there who may not have enough mass appeal to make a full time living…but deeply resonate with you.
[two]
The new Netflix mini-series American Primeval not only reunited Taylor Kitch (The Terminal List, Tue Detective) with Friday Night Light creator Peter Berg for an epic and true Western penned by The Revenant scribe Mark L. Smith…it’s also notable for being one of the most daring—and dangerous—set productions ever.
Shot on location outside Santa FE, NM, more than 300 people would trek into the mountains daily, often in sub-zero temperatures and battling real snow storms.
The conditions were so brutal Kitsch even had a bone in his foot amputated due ton on-set injury.
Outside of the impressive feat of actually filming American Primeval, the miniseries may ruffle some feathers, as it shows the murderous collisions of Mormon refugees, who fled Illinois after their leader, Joseph Smith was killed the Ute and Shoshone nations, and even peaceful settlers, who a group of Mormons slaughtered.
It came to be known as the Mountain Meadows Massacre and still stands as the bloodiest stain on the history of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.
Here, in brief, is what happened and how you can learn more about the violent attack:
It took place at a time of heightened tensions after the federal government, wary of the Brigham Young-led theocracy in place, sent troops to the Utah Territory. For their part, Latter-day Saints, fearing war, grew distrustful of any outsiders.
When a wagon train of emigrants en route from Arkansas to California passed through, Mormon militiamen laid siege to the company. Then, on and about Sept. 11, 1857, they waved a flag of truce. But instead of talking, militia gunners mercilessly slaughtered more than 100 men, women and children.
The full six episode series dropped yesterday. Although I haven’t had time to get to it yet, the buzz is that this is a great watch for fans of Yellowsone and survival tales alike.
To go a bit deeper on the story, check out Berg and Jack Carr (The Terminal List novels) podcast this week, and went into some of the more crazy details of filming this whole series under such harsh physical conditions.
[three]
YouTube viewership is largely driven by content creator/commentator channels…and one bad apple has a lot of users on social media wondering how many of their favorite personalities are lying about everything.
One of the biggest personalities on YouTube stopped uploading videos a few months ago. Finn McKenty of The Punk Rock MBA. The channel went in-depth on artists in the 90’s, 00’s and 10’s for…well, Millennials like me, I suppose.
Many assumed that “content creator burnout” (a phenomenon recently covered by the New York Times) was to blame…until Finn stepped out from behind the curtain and declared that he had simply made up a persona…to make money and was simply rehashing Wikipedia articles on the artists he covered.
In an interview, he claims he doesn’t even like music.
I don’t have any plans to do anything on YouTube… I don’t really have any interest in music. I was just doing it for the money and I hit my financial goals.
As far as his future, McKenty doesn’t know if he’ll ever return to creating videos due to all the hate he worries he would get.
I’ve sort of considered maybe doing like um maybe doing a channel sort of about entrepreneurship, maybe. But I don’t know because I have a feeling that a lot of people who know me for the music stuff would show up and be idiots.
[Insert record scratch sound here]. You mean…people feel burned from being taken in by your lies on your last channel…might not trust you to tell the truth on your next one?!
Getting to the top of YouTube is a VERY difficult endeavor, but it’s also a wildly lucrative one. And, at some level, any “public personality” is somewhat fabricated. I would know—I was in major market radio and TV for a decade—while I never “lied” to the audience, there were certainly times I had to feign interest in a topic because it was required for my job. That being said, Mckenty’s deception—and his insult to his fans on the way out the door, feel like they’re in a different universe than when I would interview a b-list celeb and put some excitment in my voice when I would have rather been napping.
Pick a topic on YouTube, and there are dozens and dozens of channels covering even the most obscure niches. Which means the viewer is buying into the personality as much as the content when selecting channels to view…so the relationship is highly personal. And people are going to take it pretty dang personally when they’re lied to.
QUICK NOTE: If you’re a business or brand looking to grow online in 2025, here’s the December report for a client that started with just 40,000 impressions a month before I signed on, and jumped to 1.3 million within 30 days.
Need help? Just have a question? Book a 15 minute call.
[four]
Yet another brick in the wall of the 2025 “vibe shift” happened this week, when Joe Rogan had Christian ancient and Biblical texts scholar Wesley Huff on….in what is, strangely, the most wide-reaching occurrence of spreading the Christian message, in human history.
Rogan’s podcast is downloaded in 190 countries (there are only 193 in total), meaning that a drug-loving, heavily tattooed comedian…is somehow up there with the invention of the printing press for spreading the message of faith.
Whether or not you count yourself as a believer (and I certainly do), this is another happening that would have been nearly unimaginable a decade ago.
The vibe shift continues…
[five]
As always, let’s head into the weekend with a pop culture roundup:
OFFICIAL RECCOMENDATION: Amanda and I saw the Ben Affleck basketball/alcoholism The Way Back the 2nd weekend of March in 2020, as STL had gone into a “partial shutdown” with COVID and we were worried we might be stuck inside for “two or three weeks.” (Two years later…)
My buddy and excellent film journalist Dan Buffa has a great writeup on this movie…while it’s cold and you’re stuck inside…stream this one!MOVIES: IGN just published their list of the 25 Best Action Movies of all time. I largely agree with the rankings, except for Die Hard. Which I’ve somehow never seen. Similarly, (I know, I know…my kids are little and my screen time is limited!) The 10’s fantasy/fairytale show GRIMM is getting a reboot as a streaming movie on Peacock. Looks like it will be years (and years and years?) before James Bond graces the big screen again. The Broccoli family (yes, their real name) retain half ownership of the IP due to producing the original James Bond films, with Amazon owning the other half thanks to purchasing MGM Studios for $6.5 billion. The two sides apparently can’t agree on anything. There is no story for the next movie—no script—and definitely no actor to take up the mantle of 007. This could be shelved until the 2030’s…which means that actors like Henry Cavill and Aaron Taylor-Johnson will age out of the role.
TV: Netflix is really winning on the live TV front. After breaking records with abysmal Jake Paul/Mike Tyson fight and live NFL games on Christmas Day, the streamer doubled it’s typical Monday night viewership by adding WWE RAW. The Friday Night Lights reboot is moving forward (if you’ve never seen the original series from 2006, it’s brilliant). No word on specifics, but Taylor Kitsh said he would reprise the role of Tim Riggins—but only for an episode. The Last of Us season 2 gets a new trailer ahead of it’s April release date—showcasing bigger monsters and…winter zombies?! (Watch here).
MUSIC: A posthumous album is on the way from the late rapper Mac Miller. Normally I’m against these kinds of projects, as they’re often more than demos strung together to cash in on an artists’ death. However, Miller recorded Ballonerism as a full album, and simply didn’t release it before his death because he had already released albums in 2013 and 2014. The lone feature comes from SZA. The Pittsburg native died in 2018, at the age of 26, due to fentanyl poisoning. Streaming 01/17.
VIDEO GAMES: After getting canceled as a TV series for Amazon, Horizon Zero Dawn will move forward as a movie…the video game is centered around a woman living in a dystopian future in which robotic dinosaurs terrorize the world. Similarly, Helldivers, the fastest selling Sony game in history, is also getting a movie.
The full trailer just dropped for Reacher season 3, revealing the ex-Army drifter will be heading undercover for this round, to get dirt on someone he thought he had previously killed. Looks top shelf, per as usual. This time, the imposing lead, played by the 6’3” Alan Ritchson, will square off against a much larger foe, played by Dutch actor and bodybuilder Oliver Rictchers, who stands 7’2” and tips the scales at 342 lbs.
Streaming 02/20.
A24, the studio that released Civil War last year, apparently said to themselves “what if we made that movie again, only set in Iraq, based on the historical war.” This looks like the most gritty, realistic war film in years. Oh, and Alex Garland, who penned both Civil War and 28 Days Later fame wrote this movie as well.
Out in 2025…but no release date.
Writer/director David Ayer is behind two of my favorite movies (End of Watch, Fury). Ayer most recently collaborated with Jason Staham (The Italian Job, Fast & Furious) on The Beekeeper…a movie about a blue collar worker who’s a former special forces soldier, out for revenge. Now, the duo are teaming up for The Working Man, a movie about a DIFFERENT blue collar worker who’s a former special forces soldier, out for revenge. But hey, this one is written by Sylvester Stallone, so maybe it will feel quite different.
It looks fun, but not quite theater worthy. It’s being released by MGM, which now owned by Amazon, so this one will get fast tracked to Prime Video pretty quickly…where I’ll happily oblige to take in the same action fare once again.
[music]
John Moreland was named by The Five as one of the best songs of 2024 for his collaboration “Memphis, The Blues” with Zach Bryan. But unless you’re pretty deep into the Americana scene, you may have never encountered the singer/songwriter from the creatively fertile “Red Dirt/Oklaholma Folk” subgenre that’s alive and well in the Southwest, and stretches back over a century to Woody Guthrie.
Moreland did release an album this year, but the place to start is Moreland’s 2013 release In The Throes, a quiet classic within the independent country music lane.
In a world of double-triple-mega-playlist-albums that stretch to 20 or 30 songs, it’s refreshing to hear an artist master a lean 10 tracks, and know when to call it a day on an album.
I was fortunate enough to have three of my four grandparents into my 30’s, then lost them all in a pretty brief window. The 7th track on the album, God’s Medicine” still hits me hard.
I guess by now I'm supposed to be a man
They said I'd find some kind of freedom
When I forgot I had a say
My grandmother still gives me ten bucks on my birthday
And she told me that sleep was God's medicine
[read & learn]
I suppose I’m getting strange in my early 40’s, as I seem to love cold weather a little more every year, and cherish long dog-walks in the early morning and late evening (relax, I have a mountain breed who loves the cold as much as Kim Kardashian loves attention) with the silence and beauty of a fresh snow…even in sub-zero temps.
If that doesn’t sound like you, then check out How to Winter: Harness Your Mindset to Thrive on Cold, Dark or Difficult Days. The author, a PhD student who grew up loving summers on the Jersey Shore, moved to the Arctic University of Norway (yup, that’s real), to study why people living through two months of darkness and enduring frigid conditions were…so dang happy, and didn’t seem to get hit by Seasonal Affective Disorder (SAD).
As most of the nation remains frozen…there’s no better book to stay in and read. But you might want to grab the Kindle version…those Amazon orders are painfully slow right now. Amazon | Barnes & Noble.
The Iced Coffee Hour is a solid podcast for long form interviews, but the latest with automotive influencer Doug Demuro, who runs the auction site carsandbids.com is a particularly fascinating deep dive. TL:DR, if you’ve considered buying a Tesla or Rivian, this is probably the year to do so.
Until the next one,
-sth