Idolator

I understand your point behind calling "BS" [no pun intended] on the explanation for the Britney move, but I actually think there may be a lot of truth to the label's explanation. Britney's target demo is smack dab in the middle of the group who are probably the heaviest internet downloaders. Britney will make lots of money on the tour she'll inevitably put together -- Britney seems to have developed a Michael Jackson-like fanbase of very rabid, very forgiving fans -- but for the label, their only shot at $$$ is from CD sales, so they *are* legitimately worried about the bite that an early leak will take.

Also, another common reason for advancing the CD release date in the past was that the label wanted to capture momentum from an unexpectedly strong single performance. Gretchen Wilson's Here For The Party was released something like 4 months early after "Redneck Woman" exploded on radio and TV. Not sure if the moderate success of "Gimme More" has anything to do with the advance in this case, but I do think -- in this environment -- that Jive wants to capture any thing they can from what I suspect may be Britney's last reasonably-selling CD.

I'd include Wu-Tang Clan's 8 Diagrams in this list as well. It's been scheduled for release, what, at least three or four times now. Its supposed 12/4/07 release date is not listed on Amazon.com, and who even knows if they've finished it yet? Imagine having to continually revise your deadlines to have merch printed/manufactured.

who the hell is Blake Lewis? i'm too lazy/apathetic to do a google search.

@brainchild: The beatboxing runner-up/second-hottest hottie of this year's American Idol.

you can post 100 comments in the span of two hours during the hip hop honors post, but you can't google a name??

he was this year's american idol runner-up.

@maura: dare I ask who the hottest hottie was?? (please say Sanjaya)

@maura: *blank stare*

a beatboxer was runner-up on American Idol???

i hate to link to this a second time today, but its necessary...

[i89.photobucket.com]

@Weezy F Baby: well somebody "had" to liveblog it. Jess seemed preoccupied.

plus there's a difference between a boring sunday night at home, and a somewhat busy wednesday afternoon at work.

@brainchild: Sorry to say this, but you sound like you must be new here. Here's the archive of Maura's [brilliant] work on last season's edition of Idol, wherein you can find everything you need to know about Blake Lewis...and Sanjaya Malakar [shudders]:

[idolator.com]

@DHMBIB: i've been here over a year. i just skipped anything that looked like it might be AI related.

@brainchild: Cool, I didn't mean that to sound insulting or anything. But Idolator's coverage of AI was pretty awesome.

Re: the Blake kickback - my guess at the "real" reason is they're taking care to space out his release from Jordin Sparks's album.

I failed to mention this in my (already long enough) Hot 100 column last week, but Sparks had the highest debut on the chart with that single you previewed on Idolator a couple of months ago. So the label is walking carefully through her setup plan, and they probably told Blake's management to give them breathing room.

We'll see tomorrow how her song did in week two, and I'll try to mention it in the column.

@dennisobell: There were rumors today that Jordin's album was pushed back as well, actually.

um, counting crows moved theirs to january ok i'll shut up now