Jon Bon Jovi did "American Idol", "The Today Show", "Unplugged" and all he could sell was 285,000 measly albums? Wanted dead or alive? I’d say NOT WANTED TOO MUCH!

Hey Jon, why didn’t you get arrested and violate your probation so you could get out of jail when your album was released?

This is a sad, sorry state of affairs. All you fans of classic rockers, even hair metal bands, acts that can still play live, YOU’RE GONNA HAVE TO BUY THEIR FUCKING RECORD IN ORDER TO SEE THEM!

No one gives a shit about Bon Jovi’s country album "Lost Highway", least of all the patrons eager to see the dude at the Meadowlands. But in order to be up close and personal, in order to relive the 80s, you had to BUY THE FUCKING ALBUM TO GET A SEAT!

Oh, you could wait. But then you’d be sitting so far back, you’d be better off watching the show on V Cast. Hey Jon! Why didn’t you think of that! Showing YOUR concert on a mobile phone AT the stadium! It’s just another $3.95 built into the cost of the ticket!

But why stop with the album and the V Cast. Why not include the T-SHIRT!

Because the t-shirt doesn’t CHART!

What we’ve got here is good old media manipulation.

That guy with the blown-dry hair. Who’s always smiling for the camera? He’s a crass businessman who doesn’t truly give a shit about his audience, otherwise he wouldn’t be charging so DAMN MUCH FOR TICKETS! He just wants to be part of the business infrastructure. He just wants to get PAID!

And the ignorant fucks he’s dealing with are clueless when it comes to the music business. So he needs a number one in order to impress them, in order to get them to PLAY BALL!

Why is everybody so dishonest? No wonder the music business is tanking. It’s run by the shadiest sociopaths, who will do ANYTHING to make money and retain their power.

Why SoundScan allowed this deception in its chart, I have no idea. Everybody cried FOUL when Prince GAVE AWAY his album with concert tickets and ended up in the Top Ten. So now you’ve got to pay. But did they envision THIS? The tail wagging the dog? The consumer getting fucked in the process?

The charts are now meaningless. Certainly those of album sales.

If SoundScan wants to have any credibility, it’s got to exclude sales that are part of any promotion, tied in with any other product. Or else establish a NEW chart, a jail for those looking for an edge, trying to game the system.

"Lost Highway" isn’t number one. It’s no different from Barry Bonds breaking Hank Aaron’s record fueled by steroids. If you’re not true to the game, the game becomes tarnished.

The music game was always peopled by pricks like Pete Rose. But as album sales dry up, as those in power are immobilized, refusing to monetize new modes of acquisition at lower prices and suing those who are just doing what is convenient, we’re seeing new levels of desperation, resulting in activities that show the true colors of not only the executives, but the acts themselves.

Bon Jovi, maybe what you need is six weeks in jail. With the hoi polloi. Sans your creature comforts and your money. Where your wink and your smile only draw people to your butt. Then maybe you’ll renounce your heinous ways.

An everyman? Not unless you consider Tony Soprano, Jon’s New Jersey neighbor, to be a model citizen.