Everyone’s busy during lockdown. For Bill Cosby, Lockdown means, I’m afraid, forever. So what’s he doing? After being denied a motion to leave jail because of coronavirus, Bill has been nostalgic for the good old days. He had someone post the following to Instagram: he’s horizontal in his cell reminiscing about Sammy Davis Jr.’s 60 th anniversary in showbiz. Sad to say, Bill was probably thinking of who to drug and rape while the photo shoot was going on. Hey, hey, hey. PS No word on whether the Cos caught comic Hannibal Buress this week on “Who Wants to Be a Millionaire?” It was Buress — in a comedy routine — who dared to out Cosby for his misdeeds. The rest is… misery.
“Keeping Up with the Kardashians” Ends 6 Episode “Season” with Drop in Ratings by 2 Million from Beginning to End
The existential drama, “Keeping Up with the Kardashians,” aka “An American Family… on LSD,” has finished its six episode season. The show will return in September, like it or not.
From episode 1 to episode 6, the show’s ratings fell by 2 million viewers. That’s right. In five weeks, they slipped from just over 1 million to 800,000 questionable fans. One fifth of their audience departed for any other kind of entertainment.
When the show returns in September, it will features scenes from quarantine. Someone close to the family gets tested positive for COVID-19. All of them fail the SATS, LSATS, and the New York Post crossword puzzle.
In the preview already shot, Kris Jenner is filmed either in her home closet or the ladies’ department at Kohls. No one can tell the difference.
How will we live all summer without the Ks? I will miss their ratings descent, otherwise not so much.
(Watch) Bruce Willis, Demi Moore and Daughter Tallulah Dance it Up on Home Quarantine in Idaho
Ex spouses Bruce Willis and Demi Moore continue their odd quarantine in Hayley, Idaho at Demi’s pretty nice looking spread. They just posted this three part dance video with daughter Tallulah to Instagram. Bruce is really having a good time and smiling his million dollar smile, which is nice. I’m not going to get into why he’s with them and not with his wife, Emma, and their two little girls. I think Demi a pretty good sport for doing this whole thing. Families do pull together in times of crisis. Very cool. They’ve been up there for a month or more. (Emma, who used to be a big Instagram poster, hasn’t put up any pictures since their 5th anniversary five weeks ago.)
PS Rumer Willis, one of my favorite Hollywood Kids, posted this. She should put up some of songs. She’s a very good singer.
You Do Want to Hear Kelly Clarkson Cover Madonna’s “Like a Prayer,” Which Should Be Released as a Single
Uh…this is the way it should be sung…
Chart Week: Numbers Are In, and No Albums from Mariah, Madonna, Janet Made the Top 50
Well, the chart numbers are in for this week, thanks to hitsdailydouble.com and Buzz Angle.
No albums by Madonna, Mariah Carey, Janet Jackson made the top 50. They didn’t make the top 100.
The number 1 album for the week was by 38 Baby 2, called “Young Boy Never Broke Again.” Or vice versa, doesn’t matter Whoever they are, they sold 75,000 copies, most of which were from streaming.
The top selling CD/download was Trivium’s “What the Dead Man Say,” with 16,550 copies, almost no streaming.
The top 50 total was one of the lowest, if not the lowest in history.
Scamming and gaming of iTunes didn’t help anyone except nutty people who amused themselves. The artists didn’t know about it, and when they caught wind of it, I’m sure they were amused. Mariah Carey isn’t stupid. She knows when her lambchops go grazing in the wrong pasture.
Mariah’s “E=MC2,” number 1 on Monday, is currently number 54 on iTunes. Unless the 17 year old kid throws more of his parents’ money on downloading the 2008 album, the party is over.
The good news is that there’s a new Psychedelic Furs album coming on July 31st. It’s their first in 30 years.
Update on Broadway Star Nick Cordero: Holes in His Lungs, Still in a Coma and on Ventilator, Fighting for His Life
Nick Cordero’s wife, Amanda, has been updating his situation on Instagram stories. This young woman is just amazing. I don’t know how she’s doing it. She’s the mother of a toddler, and her whole life has been turned upside down.
To wit: Amanda Kloots reported on Thursday that Nick– who is in a coma, still on a ventilator, and has an amputated leg– has holes in his lungs. They are bad. Kloots says in her video that their doctor said if Nick were a man of 70 and not 41 “we’d be having an entirely different conversation.” But the doctor told her if it was his brother, he’d say keep fighting.
Kloots says that she’s struggled with crying and breaking down but she “will not give up hope.” Remember, she has never been in the hospital room with him because Cedar Sinai won’t allow it. She can’t take the chance of getting sick an infecting their little boy, Elvis. So she goes every day at 3pm to the outside of the hospital and blasts Nick’s song, a recording called “Live Your Life.”
Today the plan was to do a scan of Nick’s lung with ink to see what’s going on. He’s been septic and he’s had internal bleeding. His oxygen level has been low. This poor guy. This is torture and it’s cruel, but he’s fighting. And wouldn’t it be great to see him at the 2021 Tony Awards? Everyone is praying for him and that family.
See here, the Broadway cast of “Waitress” — his most recent show– singing for him.
iTunes Chart Manipulation Continues for Mediocre Old Albums by Divas: Madonna’s “American Life” is Next
Mariah Carey’s “E=MC2” is fading back into obscurity after its four day run up the iTunes charts. Number nothing on Sunday, number 1 on Monday, number 18 tonight on iTunes. Where will it be tomorrow? Falling, falling, falling.
Meanwhile, now that the fan bases for 80s divas have figured out how to game iTunes, the competition is fierce. Madonna’s “Bedtime Stories” from 1994 is number 1 tonight, no number to back it up. Just a faked surge in sales. Even better, Madonna’s really dreadful “American Life” is suddenly number 14! From Friday to Tuesday night it sold 4 copies. FOUR. Someone went out of their way today to throw a few bucks at it. The numbers will be in tomorrow.
These aren’t beloved albums that sold well in the first place. They were terrible and were not big hits. They are obscure. Maybe that’s what makes the game interesting to the players, like the 17 year old kid Rolling Stone found in Connecticut.
The Michael Jackson fans have launched their own campaign to make “Invincible” a hit. So far there’s no sign of it. But by the morning, who knows?
iTunes has said nothing so far. But these are scams, and they reveal iTunes’ security issues. If someone thought it through, the next thing would be gambling on an album’s chart position. Now that would be interesting.
A Connecticut Teenager Tells Rolling Stone How He Gamed iTunes on Behalf of Mariah Carey, Now Michael Jackson’s Fan Will Try, Too
Congratulations to Tim Chan from Rolling Stone. He’s solved the mystery of how old albums by old divas are hitting number 1 on iTunes. Good work tracking this kid down.
David, a 17 year old from Connecticut who was five years old when Mariah Carey’s “E=MC2” came out, decided to try and make the album number 1 by gaming iTunes.
“I saw that the album was discounted (iTunes priced it at $4.99 compared to $9.99 for most new releases) and it was slowly gaining momentum on the iTunes chart, so I, along with a few other fans, thought, ‘Maybe we should get it to Number One,’” David told Chan. “It happened before with Glitter; why not make it happen again?”
Yeah, why not? Kids have nothing else to do but game iTunes. Chan didn’t ask David if he’s behind the Madonna or Janet Jackson campaigns. It’s likely he just gave someone else the idea.
Now the Michael Jackson fans are pushing #JusticeforInvincible for Michael’s 2001 final album. Let’s see if it works.
It’s strange that the fans don’t realize this is actually a scam, it’s not real, the charts are being manipulated. I wonder if iTunes will just go along with this or make an effort to stop it. And it’s not about Mariah or Madonna or anyone. It’s about the fact that it’s wrong for any artist. But the fans want to make it something else. Not too smart.
Murdochs Wave White Flag with NY Post Purge: At Least 25 Staffers Furloughed or Laid Off as Paper in Free Fall
Years ago, in 1993 when the NY Post almost ceased publication for good, the drawing of founder Alexander Hamilton on the front page showed a tear falling from his eye.
And here we are again. Rupert Murdoch’s money losing but headline making tabloid is in a downward spiral that even he won’t tolerate. Or make that, his kids.
Yesterday saw a purge at the Post that they’ve never experienced during Murdoch’s second reign. At least 25 staffers are out, furloughed or outright laid off. The names will be noticeably missing to anyone who still follows the Post– and there are plenty.
Said to be out is long time business writer John Crudele. He’s been there for at least 30 years. Furloughed are editor Steve Cuozzo, the popular editor and restaurant reviewer; Lois Weiss, whose real estate column is a must read; Michael Riedel, the theater columnist whose poison pen drips with dramatic ink. I’m told that about 9 people in the sports department are out, maybe for good. There are possibly 20 total furloughs and 6 completely gone. Terrific arts editor/writer Barbara Hoffman is also out. Same for Serena French, fashion editor.
Still roaming around, however, is former editor in chief Col Allan, still there as a Murdoch shadow to real editor in chief Stephen Lynch.
The horoscopes remain, as well. But they didn’t predict this.
Don’t start gloating that you “always hated the Post” and so on. For one thing, these people are all talented journalists whose contributions make the Post so regrettably readable every day. For another, the tabloid press is what saves New York from ignorance. If we just had the New York Times for information, no one would know a thing. The tabloids quickly expose scandals for better or worse. We need them more than you think. The reason Los Angeles lumbers along mired in unresolved crimes is that they have no tabloids. You can literally get away with murder there. Not in New York, where the tabloids will run down every lead and make sure all 8 million of us know about it. The Post and the Daily News must remain alive, like it or not.
Let’s hope that when the pandemic is over, and life returns to some normalcy, the Post will bring all of these people back.
PS A salute to the late Vinnie Musetto, who wrote the Post’s most famous headline, “Headless Body in Topless Bar.” We miss you, Vinnie!
UPDATED Another Bizarre iTunes Chart Jump: First It Was Mariah, Now it’s Madonna with 1994 Album “Bedtime Stories”
THURSDAY 12:30pm: LOL “Bedtime Stories” is number 1 right now. Through Tuesday night it has sold 87 copies, up from 70 the day before. Mariah’s album has dropped to number 10. It was number 1 on Monday with just a few copies. iTunes has lost all credibility. Someone spent $170 on Madonna. I hope they’re happy.
EARLIER Last week, Madonna’s 1994 album, “Bedtime Stories,” sold 20 copies via streaming. This week, from Friday through Monday night, the same album sold 70 copies.
Somehow, “Bedtime Stories”– not a landmark recording– has landed at number 4 on iTunes tonight.
The Madonna album follows Mariah Carey’s “E=MC2,” which hit number 1 on Monday on iTunes even though its sales don’t reflect such a success.
Strangely, each of those albums– dormant for years– had a spike in sales on February 14th, then subsided. Now they’ve taken a second run at the top of the iTunes charts.
It’s the same, too, for Janet Jackson’s “Control,” from 1986. It was nowhere and is now number 7 or 8 on iTunes. Since Friday, “Control” has sold 337 copies. Last week, it sold 87.
None of the numbers for this week, for these divas’ old records, are comparable to current hit records. But somehow iTunes is counting them as top 10 hits. Three hit singers from the 1980s with fanatic fan bases. It’s likely not a coincidence. Someone is manipulating the iTunes chart.
The fan bases are all angry with me. They think I “hate” these singers or that I’m blaming the women themselves. None of it is true. But the peculiarity of the sudden jump in sales, the fact that the real numbers do not reflect these chart positions, and that they all had jumps on February 14th, raises a lot of questions.
The iTunes chart is often peppered with catalog albums. Right now there are some by the Beatles, Creedence Clearwater Revival, and Fleetwood Mac. James Taylor’s Greatest Hits got a bump, too. But that’s always attributable to something going in the media for the act. And those names I just mentioned are all in the news. Or their prices were deep discounted. But this is something else.
Some of the sales of old albums is also about the lack of new releases right now, and people looking for “comfort music.” But those three divas, and those particular albums don’t fit in that category. Whatever’s going on, it ain’t kosher. Will there be more of this? A Whitney Houston album? Stay tuned…