Once again, we present Rock-Critically Correct, a feature in which the most recent issues of Rolling Stone, Blender, Vibe, and Spin are given a once-over by a writer who's contributed to many of those magazines, as well as a few others! In this installment, he looks at the new issue of Rolling Stone:
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Anyone with a working knowledge of The Hills and Don Henley & Co. can feel free to draw parallels between each of the individual cover subjects of Rolling Stone's last two issues; me, I'm just going to wonder what demographic Jann Wenner et al are going to pander to next time out. Maybe this guy?
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After noting that the just-announced CMT Music Award nominees include rockers (or "rockers") Robert Plant, Bon Jovi, Huey Lewis, and the Eagles, the CMT blog says this is nothing to get worked up about. Really, Huey Lewis is just nominated for songwriting because Garth Brooks covered him (!). And Plant, of course, is there because of his duet with Alison Krauss. As for the other two? Well...
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So while Maura's off at SXSW or Margaritaville or wherever the hell she's going this spring, I'm being sent to Myrtle Beach in June for the opening of the Hard Rock Park, the long-awaited rock-themed amusement park brought to you by the Cafe people. There I'll enjoy opening weekend festivities like a live set from the Eagles, the Moody Blues "christening a ride set to the band's hit song 'Nights in White Satin,'" a ride on the Bryan Ferry-is Wheel, and plenty of alcohol-related blackouts. [Myrtle Beach Online via Rolling Stone]
Hey, did you know that the Eagles won a Grammy last night? Yes, their wooing of the Grand Ol' Opry crowd led to them taking home the Country Performance by a Duo or Group With Vocals award for their song "How Long." And the win made Don Henley get a little misty-eyed: "This Grammy win is particularly sweet because of the length of time that has passed since we (the Eagles) won our first Grammy in early 1976. I was 28 years old then. I'm 60 now." And he's ready to make 61 an even more awards-laden year! 
Apparently, Don Henley & Co. did the nation's Super Bowl halftime show watchers a big favor: Instead of being jilted by the game's halftime-show planning committee in favor of the much more tolerable Tom Petty, it turns out that they were the ones who turned down the appearance. Guess selling 3 million non-returnable CDs to Wal-Mart does make you a bit cocky! [Canadian Press]
So a few months ago it looked like Henley and Frey Ltd. were going to ruin the year's most expensive TV time slot, with the Eagles rumored to be the entertainment for the 2008 Super Bowl halftime show. Well fear not, one-day-a-year football fans, because although the Eagles are still on track to outsell just about every other musician on the planet in 2007, the National Football League has wised up and instead chosen some weirdo with a fetish for cannibalizing Victorian schoolgirls.
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In case you haven't bought your copy of Long Road Out Of Eden yet, there's good news: Only three weeks after its release, the album's coming out in a deluxe two-disc version, complete with 40-page booklet and "red linen wrapping." Hey, Don Henley, way to make the one and a half million people who already plunked down the cash for your album feel like complete chumps! [CNN]
Don Van Cleave, the head of the Coalition of Independent Music Stores, on the Eagles' so-called Wal-Mart exclusive and its performance on his sales chart of shops that are decidedly not the Bentonville big box: ""...many of our guys picked up the WALMART EAGLES new release at Walmart to resell back in their stores. We heard stories for the past few weeks about customers asking indie stores for the WALMART EAGLES. When informed that they would need to go to Walmart to pick up the title, the customers responded "Dude, we don't go in that damn place" or something similar... (Soundscan) told me that they were obviously resales and they zeroed them out... They don't want to count them twice...Streetpulse let me know...The WALMART EAGLES come in at #22 on our chart." [hypebot]
We got a tip this morning from a reader who saw copies of the Eagles' Long Road Out Of Eden at the Times Square Virgin Megastore yesterday, and a little detective work by Rolling Stone confirms: the so-called Wal-Mart "exclusive" has been spotted in the racks of other record stores, often at a substantial markup from the Sam Walton-approved price of $11.88. (Hey, they have to make some profit.)
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By now, you all know about the tussle between the Eagles and Britney at the top of the charts this week—and the universe would fall in on itself if all the photos at the top of Idolator were of Don Henley and Company—so let's talk about last week's top two country debuts. First, there's Carrie Underwood, whose Carnival Ride saw a pretty steep drop in its second week on the charts. The album's sales figures tumbled 68%, from 527,000 to 170,000, although that only resulted in a two-space chart drop. And then there's the Robert Plant/Alison Krauss collaboration Raising Sand, which, sure, had a shorter perch from which to fall, but its 28% drop (it fell from No. 2 to No. 6, beating out the Backstreet Boys) seems pretty impressive to me, given the second-week swan dives that have become commonplace on the charts this year. (It's hard not to wonder how many classic-rock diehards bought the Eagles/Plant-Krauss as a twofer last week.)
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Hoping to evade the possibility of an asterisk-tainted chart, the powers that be at Billboard and Nielsen SoundScan changed their rules for charting albums last night in such a way to ensure that the Eagles' Long Road Out Of Eden—their Wal-Mart-only album that sold 711,000 copies last week—would top this week's Billboard 200, pushing Britney Spears' 290,000-copy-selling Blackout to the No. 2 slot.
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Those of us who regard following the Billboard charts as our version of sports fandom have a problem, of the Roger Maris-in-1961 variety, to contend with on this week's album charts: two different, legitimate No. 1 albums.
On the official SoundScan tally, to be released at end-of-day today and published in Billboard later this week, the victor will be Britney Spears's Blackout, with about 300,000 albums sold.
But in terms of actual, nationwide sales, the winner—announced this afternoon in a press release—is the Eagles' Long Road Out of Eden, with a staggering 700,000 sold.
That's the second-largest first-week total of the year, and it was achieved through just one chain: Wal-Mart Stores, Inc. (including Sam's Club and the Wal-Mart/Sam's websites). And therein lies the confusion, and the problem for us score-keepers.
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Last week, people around the world had to make a difficult choice, a choice between drugged-out, leathery pop musicians of two very different generations. England chose Glenn Frey and Don Henley. Just something for Anglophiles to keep in mind in the future. [BBC]
Britney Spears' Blackout is already being projected as the decisive winner on next week's Billboard albums chart, but Eagles manager Irving Azoff tells Billboard that Britney fans shouldn't be too sure—at least if Wal-Mart, the only place where people can buy the new Eagles album Long Road Out Of Eden, decides to throw its sales figures into the ring.
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Hey, Guess Who's Playing The Super Bowl Halftime Show This Year
After Prince, it's something of a...step down:
Idolator