Eugene David<br>...The One-Minute Pundit

Posted 11:16 AM by Gene

The editorial director of Billboard (and, from the sounds of it, a former rock music critic) launches into an incomprehensible 1,508-word defense of his rag's stats, which reminds us that even after decades no one's been able to quite fathom The Paper of Re-CORD's Book Revue's, and this diatribe hints that even with the latest statistical tools -- and the Bill's may be more trustworthy than most -- there is still no completely reliable way of gathering who buys what in show-biz, which will never prevent the public-relations specialists from writing press releases full of words like "record".

Speaking of stats, its site boasts that a certain PC politically-incorrect wuhk has busted into its 200 chart with 13,000 COPIES SOLD!!!!! The stat is even less flattering seeing how many people still buy, oh, say, daily newspapers, and magazines, and other such dying things. Well, as we said before, somebody named Paul Whiteman sold 214,575 copies of a whatisit called "Whispering" featuring a slide whistle. The trendy will always be with us.

P. S. at 11:51 p. m. In counting words we missed this:

Who's to say that in three years or three months or even three weeks that the accepted value of an album won't be .99 cents? I realize that's an alarming (and unlikely, at least in weeks or months) thought for many of you, dear readers. But the decline in the perceived value of recorded music is not exactly a secret in 2011.

Keep declining!