Creed for Success: Music, Not Internet

Although the facts in “Label Gets Top Spot With Online Spin” [Oct. 7] were interesting, I believe that the article’s analysis was fallacious. It gave the impression that the success of Creed is due to marketing--furthermore, Internet marketing.

The bottom line is that Creed sells records because they are good, and their music resonates with a large audience.

Garth Brooks’ “Chris Gaines” album had lackluster sales for a triumvirate of reasons:

* People are burned out on him and there is a backlash.

* The album was sold as Chris Gaines as opposed to Garth Brooks, and this caused confusion in the marketplace.

* The album isn’t very good (and not in his conventional genre either).

If it were solely about marketing, the other three acts on Wind-Up would be platinum. Alas, they’re not even close. Although the Internet is a valuable marketing tool, its importance/efficacy has been way overblown.

What sold Creed was simple word of mouth--which spreads like wildfire among teenagers in their hot-house high school world.

The reason the previous album never hit the top 40 wasn’t because of some newfangled Internet promotion. Rather, without the money of a major, Wind-Up broke the record market by market--in tried-and-true ‘70s fashion--with a combination of touring and radio play. In the final analysis, the success of Creed is more about looking backward as opposed to forward. Using the aforementioned ‘70s tools, Wind-Up sold a credible act that spoke to the audience’s souls as opposed to a teeny-bop, evanescent act through millions of promotional dollars.

It’s this that bodes well for the future of the music business: commitment to a quality act as opposed to some Internet magic.

BOB LEFSETZ

Santa Monica