BULLETT

Weird, turns out that for only the 10,000th time in a row that massive internet buzz hasn’t turned into anything approaching tangible, real money in the actual marketplace. Meh, it’ll probably pan out next time, giant corporations, so you should definitely keep trying. The shocking revelation comes, as nearly everyone on the internet has been reporting this weekend, that jazz violinist Kreayshawn’s debut Something About Kreay, was the worst selling record by an artist on a major label of all time, moving only 3,900 copies, a stunningly low figure for an internet icon who could literally fart glitter into a camera and pull in millions of YouTube views. Maybe that’s not a good example, because I’d definitely watch that, but you know what I mean.

“Schadenfreude is ours at last!” trumpeted thousands of nobodies whose debut nothings sold zero copies in imaginary stores that don’t exist the world over. But, LOL, joke is on you, haters, because it isn’t even the worst selling major label record of all time — it’s just one of them. The record belongs to one time MTV personality that actually existed, a Mr. Jesse Camp, whose 1999 debut Jesse & The 8th Street Kidz sold a depressing 2,600 copies, back when people actually traded currency for recorded products, as LA Weekly suggests. (Or does it? See below).

Camp, if you don’t remember, is kind of what would happen if Julian Casablancas, Russel Brand, an ostrich, and Kreayshawn sent a petri dish of frozen sperm and eggs fertilized with cocaine back into the past to make the future safe for the 9tz fashion revival.

So, congratulations and apologies to our girl Kreayshawn are in order. All things considered, this has to be seen as a victory. Still, there are two important lessons to draw from this entire kerfuffle. 1) Don’t trust anything you read on the internet* and 2) don’t dress like that if you want people to buy something you made.

*Including this post, because UPDATE: The plot goes deeper than we thought. Deeper into the crapper that is. Complex has a round up of some of the lowest selling albums ever, which those ingenious internet bastards have arranged into a 30 page slideshow that isn’t even in order, thereby necessitating that I clicked through the whole damn thing, going against everything I believe in as an internetter. Ja Rule’s Pain Is Love moved a mere 3,200 copies when it debuted, they point out, while Theophilus London strained 2,800 recorded nuggets of Timez Are Weird These Days out into the bowl. Lil B’s I’m Gay (I’m Happy) sold an unhappy 1,700 copies, which he probably thought “was gay.”

Not to be out done, Heidi Montag, simultaneously the polar opposite and mirror twin of Kreayshawn, sold 658 copies of her debut album Superficial when it was released. Although it was technically released by Pratt Productions it was affiliated with Warner Music Group so I guess that technically counts as  “major label release.” Good work Heidi, you’re still the worst after all these years.

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