Green Day has just released a new album and it is at the top the charts. However, if you are going to purchase it, you can save yourself a trip to Wal-Mart. The mega chain store is not carrying it.
Wal-Mart, as you may know, censors some music. The company wanted Green Day to edit their new album, “21st Century Breakdown,” for language and content. Billie Joe Armstrong, lead singer for the group, was not agreeable. In a recent interview, he said “Wal-Mart’s become the biggest retail outlet in the country, but they won’t carry our record because they wanted us to censor it.” He added, “There nothing dirty about our record.” Armstrong also said, “They want artists to censor their records in order to be carried in there.” We just said no. We’ve never done it before. You feel like you’re in 1953 or something.”
Another band, AC/DC, who has had questionable content and language in their past albums, seemed to have had no problem complying to Wal-Mart’s policy, having release their last album, “Black Ice,” exclusively at the large retailer. Wal-Mart won’t stock any CD that contains a parental advisory sticker. Wal-Mart spokeswoman Melissa O’Brien said it is completely up to the artist or label to decide if they want to marked different versions of an album so the retailer can sell the “cleaner” version.
The lack of Wal-Mart sales hasn’t hurt Green Day. “21st Century Breakdown” sold 215,000 since it debuted last Friday and the band is kicking off a tour on July 3rd.
Alec Baldwin is in trouble for his words again. This time, he has offended the Filipino people. While on the “The Late Night with David Letterman” show on May 12, Baldwin said he wanted more children and that he was “thinking about getting a Filipino mail-order bride at this point…or a Russian one.”
Ramon Revilla, a Philippine senator, called Baldwin’s remarks “insensitive and uncalled for.” He also reminded people that the country has a law against mail-order brides.
For his part, Baldwin said it was just a joke, but he apologized to anyone he offended.
As far as I know, there was no official word from Russia about the comment.