From the Boston Herald:
Not since the heyday of John Steinbeck and Woody Guthrie has the working man had a friend like Bruce Springsteen. From his eulogies for the American Dream on “Born in the U.S.A.” to “The Grapes of Wrath”-redux of “The Ghost of Tom Joad” to the union-rallying music fueling “We Shall Overcome: The Seeger Sessions,” the Boss has championed blue collar causes.
So what led Springsteen to release his new hits package solely through Wal-Mart, a company that pro-union organizations including the AFL-CIO and American Rights at Work blame for “Main Street’s whitewashed windows and vacant stores” that haunt “My Hometown”?
Nobody but Springsteen and his inner circle knows. And they aren’t telling.
Hey, Bruce: Wal-Mart? Huh? Hello?
More here.
5 comments:
I doubt this one would have been released without upfront signing money from Walmart. And that makes it even more disappointing because the release itself has no real reason to be other than straight up sell out.
TBLMISBT
WTF is he thinking? "Wal-Mart only" releases are "exclusives", and the artist is paid for that designation in addition to per-unit $$$. Only out he's got is if by some stretch of the imagination the label did it with no input from Springsteen, which I find highly doubtful.
Maybe he should donate all $$$ to a fund for health care for Wal-Mart "associates." He surely doesn't need this sell-out dough.
Margaret says it is one of the only places the working man can still afford to shop....
The Wal-Martization of America has had a huge hand in that sad fact. Wages driven down, anti-unionization, death of community stores, lousy healthcare, etc., etc., etc.
Steve Lopez in the LA Times did a great series on Wal-Mart a few years back, addressing what an $8.69 polo shirt REALLY cost. It may still be available somewhere on line...
I'm not arguing your point; I'm merely taking the view that the Wal-Martization of America has serious repercussions.
More a musician, The Boss is surprisingly tin-eared on this one.
The assumption is that the artist control distribtution. That is almost never true for records or books, and in an era in which record stores are disappearing (because we are all downloading pirated music which is a kind of stealing), WalMart and Target are about all that is left.
If you don't want to go to WalMart try Itunes the day after it is released :)
Patrick
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