Submitted for your approval, Bullz-Eye’s take on Lollapalooza 2006.
The Mayor of Simpleton and I, after soaking our feet for about 12 hours, sorted through our pictures and broke down our weekend of fun, sun, and being on the run in Chicago. All in all, a very good time, but holy smokes, were we tired. Hell, we still are.
One last shoutout to my Dredsen Doll friend in the front row.
“I hate the Dresden Dolls.”
Huzzah to Donna Da Iguana for introducing us to The Superficial. It’s just like Defamer, only less chatty. And, like Defamer, they love the rack. I know, I know, who doesn’t? Especially Jessica Simpson’s, when it’s popping through her dress?
“Man, have you tried that sudoku game? It’s HARD.”
For a larger look, click here. To see the gallery, click here.
And the joke this time – and a not very funny one, at that – is that, for the third time, Elvis Costello’s early catalog…his first 11 albums, to be specific…are being reissued, this time by Universal Music Enterprises. Shockingly, although the albums were previously put out in special editions by Rykodisc and Rhino (the latter including an entire second disc’s worth of bonus tracks), Universal assures us that these will be the “definitive reissues.”
Backed into a corner, Costello admitted he’d spent the money from the Rykodisc and Rhino reissues maintaining his nasty Faberge Egg habit.
Equally, I can assure Universal that, although I have all of Elvis’s albums (and, quite frankly, have had no real aversion to sticking with the Ryko reissues of those initial 11 albums, bonus disc or not) and have seen him live multiple times, there’s just no way in Hell that I’m going to buy these things again.
By the way, the above lyric is from Elvis Costello and the Attractions’ “It’s Time,” from All This Useless Beauty, an album not included in the reissues. (It’s from 1996.) Still, it was that or once again use Morrissey’s all-too-apropros line, “Reissue, repackage, repackage…”
…and Al sticks it right back!
Actually, this is kind old news, but a response to an earlier posting where I posited that “Weird Al” Yankovic’s parody of James Blunt’s “You’re Beautiful” (called – naturally – “You’re Pitiful”) would be on his new album, Straight Outta Lynnwood was deemed inaccurate, so I went into research mode. It made sense that it’d be on there, after all, he’s made the song available as a free download on his site, so I figured it was intended as a teaser for the upcoming disc.
Yeah, not so much.
Isn’t it amazing what a haircut and a shave can do for a guy?
(Yes, we’re serious. This really is “Weird” Al Yankovic.)
Although Blunt himself gave the go-ahead for the cover, according to Yankovic in an E-mail interview with NPR, Blunt’s label – Atlantic Records – quashed his plans to put it on the forthcoming album.
“The legality in this case is somewhat moot,” Yankovic wrote NPR. “James Blunt could still let me put it on my album if he really wanted to, but he obviously doesn’t want to alienate his own record company… and my label (Volcano) could release the parody without Atlantic’s blessing, but they don’t really want to go to war with another label over this. So really, it’s more of a political matter than a legal matter. I have a long-standing history of respecting artists’ wishes, so if James Blunt himself were objecting, I wouldn’t even offer my parody for free on my Web site. But since it’s a bunch of suits — who are actually going against their own artist’s wishes — I have absolutely no problem with it.”
Word.
Relating to the Spotlight Kid’s fine posting below, one should also be aware of a highly disturbing article which appeared on the always-fair-and-balanced Fox News website last week about the album. What’s worse is that there’s nothing in it that really surprises me…
Record Biz Crisis: Top 20 Misses 750K
By Roger Friedman
The top 20 pop albums sold fewer than a total of 750,000 CDs last week.
You read that correctly. The actual total was 738,211. The number includes 220,000 copies of a greatest hits singles collection from all the labels, “Now That’s What I Call Music! Vol. 22.” Without “Now 22,” regular releases came in around 500,000 copies.
This is a crisis that no one acknowledges in the record business. But consider that recently dismissed Sony execs Donnie Ienner and Michelle Anthony were making $2 million a year, and that their income is typical of upper echelon management in any record company. If the half million CD sold at full price — $15 — then they didn’t even pay for a small part of one salary.
Consider also the execs at radio conglomerates, who have tightened playlists so that few new records are played unless — as identified by New York State Attorney General Eliot Spitzer’s findings — stations receive free trips, gadgets and other gifts as inducements. You might wonder how any of the companies on either side can afford to stay in business.
Consider that last Tuesday, “Now 22” was not the only new release. Sony/Epic issued a new CD by writer-producer Butch Walker, a performer whom this column has extolled over and over. Not only did no one from the company bother to send it here, this reporter only learned about it by accident — yesterday. Walker, who should have a following from his extensive touring — he produces and opens for Avril Lavigne. But he’s been ignored by his label and radio. What’s he supposed to do? The CD sold fewer than 15,535 copies — the minimum it would have taken to hit the top 50. And here’s an amazing statistic: four songs from the new album have been played a total of 200,000 times on Walker’s MySpace page. I doubt this is the work of one person who clicked the links that many times. Some group of people is interested in Butch Walker. They’re just not a group that his label or radio stations are interested in, apparently. If they were, there would be more of an investment in Walker’s career — and other countless talented artists like him — by the record companies. Instead, the record stores are empty, and customers are drifting toward other entertainment.
There isn’t a lot to look forward to right away in terms of new releases: Rapper DMX has a new album on Aug. 1, but his last one was three years ago. Rocker Tom Petty’s waited four years to put his new CD, and the last one wasn’t exactly a bestseller with fewer than 350,000 copies sold.
Yesterday’s crop of new releases has only one promising title, by Los Lonely Boys, whose previous album sold 2 million copies. All eyes will be on them to see if they can beat their last first week sales record: 4,000 copies. That shouldn’t be too hard. Or Music, a satellite label from Epic, sticks with their artists the way most labels do not.
© 2026 Eat Sleep Drink Music
Theme by Anders Noren — Up ↑
