Jumblin’ Osbornes
President Barack Obama recently revealed a musical secret — his favorite R&B singer is Jeffrey Osborne. This we learned when, more than once, the Prez referred to British chancellor George Osborne as “Jeffrey” during a briefing at the G8 meetings. According to ft.com, Obama realized his error and said, “I’m sorry, man. I must have confused you with my favorite R&B singer,” which probably really pisses off Al Green. Both Osbornes had a good laugh about it. At least the President didn’t call the chancellor “Ozzy.”
NOT George Osborne:
This is Fucking Awkward
It’s not a stretch to suggest that Macklemore & Ryan Lewis owe their careers to Goodwill. Their big hit, “Thrift Shop,” name-checks Goodwill and the video was filmed at a Seattle Goodwill store. Likewise, Goodwill has the duo’s song to thank for alerting younger people of the store’s existence. It’s been a modest, mutually beneficial set-up for both sides. So far. LA Weekly recently found several Goodwill posters at a Californian store that appear to be part of some cool (like, The Gap cool, not actually cool), new marketing campaign, each featuring lines from “Thrift Shop” and a young model. It’s a great idea, but the musicians reportedly had no knowledge of it, meaning it’s copyright infringement. No word yet on the duo’s plans, but suing the charity/secondhand store that made them would be nightmarish PR.
Phoning in Sales? Not So Fast …
Ages ago, music was occasionally delivered via flexi-discs, thin, bendable plastic that would play on a turntable. The records’ “flexi”-ness made them easy to insert into magazines and things like cereal or laundry detergent boxes. Just as Sha Na Na gave out free music inside every box of Tide in the ’70s, Jay-Z’s deal with Samsung — which purchased 1 million copies of the rapper’s new album, Magna Carta Holy Grail, for $5 a pop, to be given away to its customers three days before the release date — is a smart way to get your music to a wider audience. But the initial hopes of Jay-Z’s marketing crew to have those numbers count in the total sales tally (making it a Platinum album before it’s even available) have been dashed. Both Billboard and the U.K.’s Official Charts Company decided that the albums given away by Samsung won’t count on the charts.
