9.25.2007

RS+BH=True Love

Rolling Stone hearts Ben Harper.

That's fine. But, it reeks of something being up. Nothing like payola or anything, but something more personal, like he's somebody on the staff's favorite or something. Don't get me wrong, I'm not hating on my homie, but this is just...illogical.

Fine, they did an article on him a couple of weeks back. Great. Same issue, he headlined the Review section. Great. Three and a half stars out of five. A good record. Curtis by 50 Cent received Three and a half stars as well. As did Foo Fighters and Manu Chao's newest records. Solid.

But--and here's where I question--in RS's Top 40 Albums section, they have a call-out for BH's 24th slot, "Big Ben Clocks In." It mentions that the album has sold 60,650 copies in its first two weeks. Is that something good? I guess. Moving from position 9 to 24th in weeks three and four, respectively, isn't. That's trending downward.

Doesn't appear on the college radio top ten albums. But they happened to select CD World of Dallas, Texas as their Local Favorites. Ben Harper's new record is number one there. Icky Thump in sixth. Wilco 8th, Arctic Monkeys in 9th, and Liars in 10th. I've heard no personal buzz for Lifeline.

No disrespect, Ben. But, the Rolling Stones love seems out of proportion to Lifeline's sales. And, truthfully, I'd take either, 60k sales in two weeks or RS love.

And, "Big Ben Clocks In"? What kind of cornball is that?