HOT: ‘Cubs’ on the Charts
Chicago’s loveable losers winning its first World Series in over 100 years not only made millions of Cubs fans happy — it apparently made them want to listen to the team’s weak rally song over and over again. Steve Goodman’s “Go Cubs Go” saw a spike in digital downloads the week the Cubs won the series that was big enough to push it to No. 21 on Billboard’s Pop Digital Song Sales. It marked the first time the tune (written in 1984, the year Goodman passed away) had reached any Billboard chart. In a sad twist, Goodman’s family had sold the rights to the song just months before the end of the World Series.
WARM: Electronica-Phobic?
A strange law nearly led to the cancellation of a concert by Electronic music pioneers Kraftwerk in Buenos Aires. After five people died from drug overdoses earlier this year during an EDM festival, the city knee-jerked into place a law banning any concert featuring performers using “synthesizers or samplers as their primary instrument.” Promoters of a planned upcoming Kraftwerk show asked for an exemption and convinced the city’s government that the event (which has no alcohol sales) would not lead to anyone’s death.
COLD: Cold Comfort
There probably weren’t many diehard Wu-Tang Clan fans rooting for Donald Trump to become president, but his election victory did result in a consolation prize for them. Martin Shkreli, who became something of a super villain when it was revealed his former pharmaceutical firm was raising the cost of an AIDS-fighting drug from $13.50 per tablet to $750 per tablet, played snippets during a video livestream from the only copy of Wu-Tang’s Once Upon a Time in Shaolin album, which he bought for $2 million. Shkreli had promised to release the album to the public if Trump won, but beyond the snippets, he said he’s still figuring out how to put out the rest of it. Don’t hold your breath — Shkreli’s a troll who once said he was going to destroy the album.
