October 24, 2007

Bruce Springsteen Edges Out Kid Rock for #1 Spot; a Relieved Nation Weeps With Gratitude

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He couldn’t stop George W. Bush, but at least this is something. Billboard magazine is reporting that The Boss’ new album Magic just barely beat Kid Rock’s Rock N Roll Jesus for the #1 spot this week, with only a few hundred copies separating the two titles. Both albums debuted at #1 (Rock last week and Bruce two weeks ago) and their sales figures fell significantly from previous weeks, with both albums selling just over 77,000 copies, but a few more good Samaritans making sure that Kid Rock’s reign was short.

While I haven’t heard Kid Rock’s whole album, and Kelefa Sanneh of the New York Times kind of liked his show (huh?!), the first single, “So Hott,” is probably the most-mocked song of the year amongst people I know, its lyrics (“I don’t wanna be your friend/I wanna fuck you like I’m never gonna see you again”) so profoundly stupid they almost read as parody. Although, come to think of it, doesn’t Thom Yorke sing the first line of that, er, couplet, in “House of Cards” on the new album? Is Kid Rock the American Radiohead?

Back to the charts: in another sign of declining music sales, Jimmy Eat World’s latest long-player, Chase This Light, debuted at #5, one notch higher than the 2004 debut of Futures. However, the new CD actually sold only 62,000 copies, less than two-thirds of the 99,000 first-week figure for Futures. And that’s without OiNK!

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We just wrapped up a shorter-than-normal, urgent-as-ever fundraising drive and we came up about $45,000 short of our $300,000 goal.

That means we're going to have upwards of $350,000, maybe more, to raise in online donations between now and June 30, when our fiscal year ends and we have to get to break-even. And even though there's zero cushion to miss the mark, we won't be all that in your face about our fundraising again until June.

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