The music business fuckery continues. An industry so destructive it only benefits the top dogs (and even so, temporarily), while the actual players continue to eat sand out of peanuts. Who's winning? Who's losing?
Dig in for this week's music-bidness shenanigans.
WINNING
Viacom: The company's revenue is up 56 percent, thanks to a confluence of higher cable fees and low operation costs.
The bulk of Viacom's earnings came from MTV, VH1, BET, Comedy Central and TV Land. I guess reality shows do pay. Ain't that grand? I don't want to live in a world where a Beastie Boy is dead and Snooki is a best-selling author. Take me now.
The Beastie Boys: Speaking of Beasties, the boys hold down No. 6, 16 and 23 on the Billboard 200, with Licensed to Ill (15,349), Paul's Boutique (7,189) and Solid Gold Hits (6,196), respectively. None of those albums was on the chart the previous week. #PouroutsomeliquorforMCA
Katy Perry. Named NARM Artist of the year Thursday night. I don't know about this one. I would've voted for Jessie J.
LOSING
B.o.B.: Diagnosed with Pop Ambitionitis (symptoms include cupcake-rap and cheesy jingles) and with no cure in sight, Bobby Ray has some 'splaining to do. After shelling out for big enchiladas (Taylor Swift's two-bar appearance alone should sink his budget), he only managed 76K.
Yes, Atlantic will probably ship out single after single to make up for the weak album sales, despite the fact that we've already established that singles no longer sell albums. This flop is clearly the universe telling Atlantic to stop force-feeding us singles. They should probably listen.
David Cook: RCA Records dropped the Season 7 American Idol winner after just two albums. So this is what happens to Idol winners not named Carrie Underwood or Kelly Clarkson? Put out one or two albums and get dumped like a bad sack of potatoes. Yipes.
