The physical CD market is admittedly pretty lousy these days as people lose their affection for liner notes, plastic cases and shiny discs. However, R&B singer Ciara is going to get you into the record store one way or another, with whatever gimmick it takes, for her upcoming album
Fantasy Ride. How about three five-to-six-track discs in one package, with each disc showing a different aspect of her personality? First, the sensual side on a disc called
Groove City, then a disc of what is described as house on
Kingdom of Dance, followed by an unspecified emotion on
Crunktown. Adding additional production costs for an album that might not sell that well anyway? What could go wrong? [
FMQB]
Idolator
A few attendees of the 
Today's USA Today has a big piece on rock merch, talking about how $55 concert T-shirts are purchased by people who are "style-conscious and socially conscious" (oddly, the word "suckers" is not used), how being sold at Target hasn't hurt the alleged cool factor of Beatles and Rolling Stones shirts, and how the ever-annoying Katy Perry designed her merch in such a way that's inspired by (her apparent non-reading of) Lolita and "fruit motifs, especially strawberries and cherries." (Because eating them is, like, just like kissing a girl... plant!) It even finds some poor sucker to trot out the already-old-and-reliable "you can't download a T-shirt" notion! But perhaps the best part of the story is Edna Gudnersen's guide to "t-shirt etiquette," which seems to have been taken out of some sort of sidebar storage unit that was last replenished in 2004.
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