Posted on 11/25/2007 1:02:18 AM PST by gpapa
One of the most popular rock bands of all time has finally managed to offend--not for its songs, but for how it sells them. There's a lesson here in technology, new business models, and hidebound "progressives."
The first new album from the Eagles in over a decade, "Long Road Out of Eden," has already sold more than a million copies, hitting Billboard's #1 in its first week. It's the kind of blockbuster that used to pay Christmas bonuses at the big record companies, only this album wasn't produced by a big record company. The Eagles released it themselves and are selling it exclusively through Wal-Mart.
This isn't going down well in certain elite precincts. Music blogs accused the group of selling out, while a review in Rolling Stone opined that there is an "inevitable contradiction in buying a record that attacks corporate greed . . . from a superchain with a bleak record on employee rights and health care." A piece in the Boston Herald noted that "The deal will make the Eagles richer. But it could cost them cool points (if the aging rockers have any left)."
(Excerpt) Read more at opinionjournal.com ...
Good one. NFL week 12 and I've got NE in the Suicide Pool. Go Pats.
Bwahaha. The history of the record companies screwing artists is legendary. For them to cry about WalMart is laughable.
You are not alone in your sentiments. I'm a frugal person so I'll always shop there. Why pay double the price for hiking shoes at the trendy sporting store when you can get the same pair at Wal-Mart and have money left over for socks, a garden hose and a couple of extension cords!
But when I go to Wal-Mart, I park in the farthest reaches of the parking lot where my car door won't get dinged by thoughtless welfare moms in their old clunkers and I don't have to jockey for position with the same who actually sit in their idling cars waiting for a parking space close to the door because they don't want to exercise their fat butts any more than they have to in order to stock up on more sweatpants. Which leads me to a personal observation: People who wear sweat pants in public apparently exercise the least.
“it could cost them cool points”
What in the hell is a cool point?
I’ll sacrifice “cool points” for high sales volume any time.
hmmmm...let’s see... A dynamic company, a shining example of American entrepreneurship and ingenuity, brings hundreds of entry-level and growth-potential jobs to a community while raising its tax base, provides multiple goods and services at affordable prices, involves itself in programs and local charities that affect the common good and heads the list for many national charities and health care issues and often is, at least, a second responder in disaster (those greedy bums!). NOW, an iconic band, the Eagles, wants to team up with this simply HORRID, EEEEEVIL, corporation.
Well! I am incensed, I tell you! Alert the pop media and the idiots on the leftie blogs! THIS canNOT stand! Don’t they know that the unwashed masses must buy from organic farm stands and the indigenous native americans?!
I wish someone would tell these left wing morons, idiots and loud mouthed A#$H)*&$s to just SHUT UP.
I’m all about being frugal too, but sometimes you get what you pay for.
The last time I bought anything at Walmart was last summer. I bought a pair of Capri style jeans and a cute matching cotton top. I really liked the outfit until after the first time I put them in the washing machine – they literally fell apart at the seams (and I did following the laundry instructions).
I thought the outfit was so cute and quite a bargain when I bought it, but considering I only got to wear it twice, it turned out to be relatively expensive.
So am I, but I have no problem shopping at WalMart.
They are bad in city centers, but what store is not?
Rural super centers are as nice as any store other then the snobby Saks 5th Ave types :P
Their offending the ivory tower crowd with the "creative capitalism" and "politically incorrect" thing is just one more reason I believe I'll have to buy this CD. ;-)
It seems that Don Henley loses his concern for the so called down ridden employees of Wal-mart when the bottom line comes into focus. Typical liberal.
“No serious music fan goes to Wal-Mart to buy music.”
Why, do you have to dress down?
Blue Light Blues Special on Aisle 4!
149,500 of which have been crap.
Thanksa lot, gpapa! I never should have looked. Now I’ll have that stupid “Desperado” song in my head the rest of the day, LOL!
Everybody else get off the gravy train.
..... The worst of them, though appears on Disc two. Three songs almost in a row, “Long Road Out of Eden.” “Somebody,” and “Frail Grasp on the Big Picture” all go for scolding America, Americans, and just about everything that we are. Calling us an “empire” and basically calling every American stupid, the Eagles paint a grim picture of the very people who they are asking to spend $12 bucks at WallMart for the privilege of being called idiots by these aging rockers.
Liberals LOVE capitalism as long as they are ones benefiting from it!
It resolves nothing and I'm impervious to it and disdainful of it.
Not exactly correct.
Those who sing, and for that matter listen to, these songs believe that promoting such ideas by definition sets them apart from those they are denigrating. Such songs are not self-criticism at all. If they were they wouldn't be so egregiously self-congratulatory.
They are not, "Aren't WE awful," they are, "Aren't THEY awful," with the singer and his audience by definition excluding themselves from the group being decried.
Desperate Liberals! Why don't you come to your senses
You been out staging "protests," for so long now
Oh now you're brainwashed
but i know that you got your reasons
These things that are pleasing you
can hurt you somehow
Don't you draw the king of liberals boy
he'll beat you if he's able
You know the king of Kings is always you're best bet
Now it seems to me some fine things have been provided for you by so-called war-mongers
But you only want to piss and moan and abort 3000 kids a day
Desperate Liberals
You sure as hell ain't lookin no younger
Your wrinkles and gray hairs
they're drivin you completely nutso
Freedom? Oh freedom
That used to be hippies (but now only neocons) talking
Your prison is "clinging to these delusional communist dreams of yours, dude...let it go..."
Don't your feet get hot/cold/whatever in the winter time
The sky won't snow and the sun won't shine
It's so damn hard to tell your platform from day to day
Your losin' all your marbles now, ain't it funny how the common sense really goes away (when you don't go to church much)
Desperate Liberals It's Bush's Fault this time, we're pretty sure...
and Cheney, Condi, Karl Rove, Scooter and Rumsfield - their all scum of the earth
It may be raining, but there's a rainbow above you (if you'd care to notice once in a great while)
You better let some neo-cons save you
Let some neo-cons save you
You better let some neo-cons save you
before it's too-oo-oo-ooo..........laaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaate...
“Their offending the ivory tower crowd with the “creative capitalism” and “politically incorrect” thing is just one more reason I believe I’ll have to buy this CD.”
I went to Amazon.com to read reviews on the Eagle’s new album. From some of the lower ratings, it sounds as though the Eagle’s make some political statements in some of the songs that are anything BUT politically incorrect. A couple comments I read said that they have some songs on the CD that are anti-American, anti-Bush. I have no problem with their decision to sell exclusively through Wal-Mart. However, if these reviews are true, I do have a problem with a band, no matter how big, that feels the need to bash our country and president, and in general spew the liberal line.
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