What kind of crazy fucked up world do we live in where the number one selling artist, DWARFING the first week numbers of almost every other act, can’t do shit live?

How the fuck did we get here? With the media wanting stars, the labels delivering them, and the public scratching its collective head and saying WHAT THE FUCK?

I don’t want to denigrate T.I. But, even though he sold 465,000 records last week, he’s STILL NICHE! That’s just a small fraction of the number of people in the U.S. But he’s number one, and we must obey and respect him. Rap rules. Top Forty rules. Even MTV rules. HUH?

So music video started out as home movies. Then Michael Jackson brought it into the realm of features. And then rappers made them about lifestyle, RICH lifestyle, bitches and ho’s and rims and boats and… It was good for TV, but ELSEWHERE?

I mean can I fuck a chick to a movie?

But advertising sells records. And MTV was the greatest music advertising medium of all time. So, the labels delivered more rap videos. And the rappers themselves? They knew more about marketing than the skinny white boys with guitars. Oh, the alternative rockers wanted to be rich too. They just couldn’t figure out HOW TO DO IT! Oh, you know they wanted that success. Otherwise, why would the Shins have gone on SNL? Or Arcade Fire? They want to be big TOO!

At least Arcade Fire normally practices a different philosophy. Positively cottage industry. Doing it outside the system. But most of these acts want in, and they don’t understand that not being dangerous, not even speaking the truth most of the time, they can’t COMPETE with the rappers.

Yup, the rappers were shooting each other. In feuds. Hell, you were afraid to leave your house, even if you lived in the SUBURBS! Some Escalade might come by and the bullets might start to fly.

But the children, they were drawn to the danger the way boys are now buying "The Dangerous Book For Boys". The rappers were better outlaws than middle class men like Nicolas Cage in overproduced action adventure movies. Matt Damon scary? No, the scary stuff was happening on the street. So I can kind of understand why rap started dominating, it had all the honesty and truth absent from rock and roll.

But then rap became a caricature of itself. About the same time CD sales started tanking. But rather than invest in the future, which is NICHES, the labels just invested in more high concept drivel, which they could sell to the media. The Pussycat Dolls? Why does the media keep lionizing Jimmy Iovine? He’s got all kinds of revenue streams, he’s taking them to Vegas, WHAT THE FUCK HAS THIS GOT TO DO WITH MUSIC?

Not much. And that’s why I’m focusing on T.I.’s sales here. This incredible number proves that the sales chart has lost touch with music, REALITY! Oh, there’s a game being delineated in the album sales world. But is it THE game? Or is it the SIDESHOW!

The album sales game is a winner take all world, expensive to play, where most stuff loses. For every T.I. success, there are a zillion failures. But if you get a band together, and play live and people want to see you, and you build it from there, are you a failure? No. You’re already in the BLACK! And if no one comes, YOU BREAK UP!

That’s the world today. People making music at home, putting it up on the Web, trying to have it catch fire. No, there might not be any stars, maybe there never will be, but CUMULATIVELY, the niches are EATING UP MARKET SHARE! But the story is about the big label hypes.

Oh, it’ll be all over the press. T.I. enters the chart at number one! He’s a STAR!

You want stars? Go see the Police sell out stadiums. Go see KENNY CHESNEY sell out stadiums. T.I. is NEVER going to sell out a stadium, not even close. So he wins this week, more power to him. But let’s have a little perspective, a little context. T.I. is on fewer iPods than Led Zeppelin, and always will be. Pink Floyd too. Sure, most people acquiring classic rock aren’t PAYING for it, but that doesn’t mean it’s not the biggest music in the land.

And if classic rock is the biggest music in America, how come all the stories are about these evanescent Top Forty wonders? How come new rock acts aren’t trumpeted? Oh, I’m not talking the Arctic Monkeys, even Amy Winehouse, but stuff more PALATABLE TO THE MASSES!

Oh, I guess you call that country.

And you don’t listen to country. That’s fine with me. But that proves my point. We live in a scattered, niche landscape. Each into his own thing. And the fact that a guy who’s GOOD AT SELLING ALBUMS gets all the press sticks in my craw. Albums are no longer the only measuring stick. They’re just one piece of the pie.

The labels control the media.

The media are hacks who want the perks of access.

The public has tuned out. Believing that the labels and media are out of touch, have no CLUE what is truly going on.