One of my favorite big dumb rock bands of all time is AC/DC. I’ve seen them 9 times over the years and I’ve been anxiously anticipating the 10th time I would be able to immerse myself in their gloriously shallow end of the pool.

On October 20, the Australian kings of three-chord rock will release “Black Ice,” their first album in over eight years with a worldwide tour to begin later that month. Press releases are claiming that the new album is in the mold of the 1980s classic, “Back in Black”, but, as a rule of thumb, you should never trust anything that a record company tells you. Obviously they are going to compare the group’s new record to “Back in Black” because, with over 22 million copies sold, the record is fifth-best selling album in U.S. chart history and they are hoping (and hyping) that they have another mega-million seller on their hands. Though I haven’t heard the new album, I find that assertion highly suspect. Old men simply cannot recapture the fire of youth even if they are AC/DC. In the world of rock and roll, once you make a record that sucks (everything they’ve released since “Back in Black”), there is no coming back to greatness. After that, bands just have to be content to ride the coattails of their former glories.

Don’t look for the forthcoming album in the new release racks here in Richmond at Plan 9, BK Music or any store that makes their living selling music. The only place you’ll be able to buy it will be at Wal-Mart, the very same mega-conglomerate retail outlet that 29 years ago declined to carry copies of “Back in Black” because of its explicit content. Following the trend set by fellow dinosaurs the Eagles and the Rolling Stones; this exclusive deal is part of a disturbing development in the music industry that shuts out the stores that sold these group’s records when Wal-Mart refused to. Some say that downloading is killing music, but these deals with the devil are the true highways to musical hell.

Why is buying music (or anything else for that matter) at Wal-Mart a bad idea? Let us count the ways in dollars and cents:

1. Wal-Mart drives down retail business in the United States 3 billion dollars every year.
2. Wal-Mart costs taxpayers $1,557,000,000,00 dollars a year to support its employees.
3. Average Wal-Mart hourly sales employee wages per year: $13,861.
4. In 2004, the total value paid to Wal-Mart in subsidies: $1.008 billion.

And that is just the tip of the iceberg.

In a recent report by the Wall Street Journal, it has been confirmed that Wal-Mart Stores Inc. is mobilizing U.S. store managers to lobby against employees (or, in this case, indentured servants) to not vote Democratic in November’s presidential election, fearing they will make it easier for workers to unionize. And that is the company’s biggest fear; that workers would be able to unionize and demand higher pay. While Wal-Mart employees get paid the same salary as unionized employees in similar lines of work, they make 25 percent less than their unionized counterparts after two years at the job. Full-time employees are eligible for benefits, but the health insurance package is so expensive (employees pay 35 percent - almost double the national average) that most cannot afford it.

If all that doesn’t bother you, consider Wal-Mart on a purely selfish musical level. If you want a record with adult content, sorry, we only sell the sanitized versions. Besides, NWA sounds so much better without all the profanity. Say you have a hankering for music that isn’t the Jonas Brothers. Wal-Mart’s tyranny over brick and mortar music commerce caused all the record shops to go out of business. And how about your band? Sorry, we’re not interested. We only sell major label releases.

Welcome to the world of Rock ‘N’ Roll Damnation. 

You know bopst, you’re right after all.

The truth is, that I have neither the time nor the patience to sit here and shoot holes in your arguments. It would be like trying to teach a pig to sing. First, a pig can’t carry a tune and second, it only annoys the pig ‘cause it’s incapable of understanding the exercise.

Since your position comes from opinion and mine from experience we should just agree to disagree. It’s most unfortunate that you can’t disagree without being disagreeable. Your opinion isn’t going to change and neither is my experience.

As I originally stated, I came to this site anticipating that I would get a record review. If I wanted the author’s, your, or anyone else’s position on Wal-Mart, I would have gone to one or more of the many sites that trash this company.

You see, I don’t often shop at Wal-Mart because I get tired of waiting in line to get out of the place. It’s called choice, and I choose to take my money elsewhere. Since you consider this company to be evil incarnate, I suggest you do the same. Obviously, many disagree with us or Wal-Mart would be long gone.

I’ve already stated the facts regarding taxation so there’s no point in going over that again. You don’t care anyway.

I wish this discourse had been as fun for me as you claim it was for you.

I came here for a record review and didn’t get it. I registered my displeasure with that fact you attacked me.

So, you win. I’m going to take my neanderthal butt on to a place where I can get the informaiton that I desire and leave this place to you elitist geniuses so that you can continue to trash public companies whose sole purpose is to make profits for their stockholders.

Enjoy your victory. You’ve certainly earned it.

Man, what a laugh riot this column provoked. Thank you. I greatly appreciate it.

And on Labor Day (or, in this case, the day after Labor Day), to defend the dubious business practices of a corporate behemoth such as Wal-Mart is really comical. Tragic comedy, but still, comedy nonetheless because if Wal-Mart had their way, the day set aside for celebrating America’s labor movement wouldn’t exist. Priceless…

Oh, and to you my dim-witted friend Shut Up & Sing, a special thank you. The way you can side with multi-million dollar bosses instead of working men and women is totally genius. And on Labor Day no less. I can’t get over your brilliance. And your hatred of government is especially succulent. Maybe we should do away with government altogether and let the free market run everything? That would be like so totally awesome, wouldn’t it? Bravo, sir, bravo. I have seen the free market light. We all should just let corporations control everything. They know best.

And paying taxes is stupid. We don’t need roads, pipes to flush our feces away, public schools or clean drinking water. Hell, let Wal-Mart do it. They’ll pay people pennies on the dollar to do it, deny them healthcare, stilt their ability to unionize and lock ‘em underground until the job is done. But that will never happen. You know why? Because they need government and the the millions and millions of dollars in corporate subsidies you and I pay them. How else can we get crumbs from the master’s plate if we don’t give it to them first? Riddle me that, Batman. I do agree that government has let the people, you and I, down. Our government has put the needs of big business before that of the average citizen (You know, the people who know AC/DC is the greatest minimalist rock & roll band on planet earth). Does it not bother you that the top 300,000 Americans collectively enjoyed almost as much income as the bottom 150 million Americans? Or that per person, the top group received 440 times as much as the average person in the bottom half earned, nearly doubling the gap from 1980? How about the fact that we have the greatest wage inequality in this country since the great depression? I guess not. While corporations such are Wal-Mart get richer and richer, you and I, my friend, are getting less and less.

I consider paying taxes a civic responsibility. I just wish that those hard dollars went to fixing our infrastructure instead of lining the pockets of rich men happy that don’t need it.

And in regards to AC/DC, one of my favorite bands in the world. Does anyone really need a critical dissertation on their new record to decide if they should buy it or not? I don’t think so. That decision has long since been rendered. It’s not like they are going to do anything radically different (you don’t have to worry about them making a techno record). What is different is their decision to sell their new release exclusively (in brick and mortar stores that is) at Wal-Mart, a store that’s employees, if they wanted to see AC/DC in concert, would be hard pressed to be able to afford to see them.

>>Ummm… how ‘bout that new AC/DC album, you dumbshit.  Didn’t you just read that?<<

Here’s something ELSE I just read, fartface....

“Online, the CD will be available with free shipping and handling via the band’s web site, http://www.acdc.com.”

This was found on AC/DC’s official website, so I suspect it’s correct. I believe this would qualify as “some other place.” ;p

Ya’ll are some bitter, nasty people.  It’s labor day weekend man.  Go chill out and have a cocktail or sniff some glue or whatever it is you do to unwind.

“If you don’t like Wal-Mart, don’t shop there. Last time I looked, they don’t sell anything that you can’t get some other place.”

Ummm… how ‘bout that new AC/DC album, you dumbshit.  Didn’t you just read that?

This article is called Rock ‘N’ Roll Damnation!!! Not Wal Mart Damnation!!! I wanted to read about my favorite band AC/DC, not your crappy opinions about wal mart. If your not happy about their new album being sold there, than don’t buy it(or anything at all).

>neanderthalls like you can read?<

Douchebags like you can write? Astounding!

Since you bring it up, genius, let’s talk about taxes and “financial truth”....

The financial truth is that corporations, companies and other businesses simply don’t pay taxes. Period.

Just in case you missed it; corporations, companies and other businesses simply don’t pay taxes. Period.

People pay taxes. Period. Just as with all of the other costs of doing business, companies pass taxation to customers. If a company’s customer is another company, that customer passes the tax to IT’s customer and so on until it gets to you. This is the most basic of financial truths.

This simple fact is either overlooked or intentionally ignored by those who would hand their lives over to the government in the name of collecting money from someone else so that wealth may be redistributed.

In truth, you don’t hate Wal-Mart per se. The fact of the matter is, if Wal-Mart didn’t exist, you’d hate some other evil corporation. If you truly understood any of this, you’d hate government far more than any mere business entity.

The fact of the matter is that nobody makes anybody work for Wal-Mart. The truth is that we are forced to work for the government for nearly half the year before we can enjoy the fruits of our own labor. If you think Wal-Mart is tight with benefits just try getting any of your hard earned sweat back from the government that you seem to think has your best interest in mind.

Since, by your own admission, you don’t mind paying taxes, how about you just turn over all the rewards of your hard work and let mommy government give you back what it thinks you should have after taking its cut? It’s obvious from what you write, that you have no problem with taxes as long as they’re taken from somebody else.

Now, to the real point. If you don’t like Wal-Mart, don’t shop there. Last time I looked, they don’t sell anything that you can’t get some other place.

Now get to work so some government bureaucrat can continue living off YOUR hard work. Remember, he knows what’s good for you better than you do.

Didn’t come here to catch another Wal-Mart rant. Came here to see a record review for one of my favorite bandt.

neanderthalls like you can read?

and I’m to assume that nothing shady lurks under McCain’s skirt either, uh?

Check it:

McCain voted to let companies like AT&T;put tollbooths on the Internet and gain more control over what you see and do online as well. The vote ( February 12, 2008, 11:03 AM) was on an amendment to deny AT&T;and other telecommunications companies legal immunity if they are proven in court to have violated federal privacy law by opening their networks to the National Security Agency. Obama voted for the amendment. That’s a vote for electronic privacy and for the rule of law. It means that AT&T;and any other companies that may have violated the law would be held accountable for any illegal actions they committed. Conversely, if AT&T;, et al, violated no laws, its lawyers have nothing to worry about.

And in regard to taxes, please. Obama would restore the 36 percent and 39.6 percent income-tax rates for couples with taxable incomes above $200,300 and $357,700. He’s also suggested higher capital gains taxes and Social Security taxes for those with incomes exceeding $250,000. I could be wrong, but I think you (or the majority of us for that matter) don’t fit in either of those income brackets so please, stop your chicken little routine about taxes. It simply has no basis in any financial truth.

What you could hammer Obama on is that these tax increases will only generate about $80 billion of revenue in 2010, says the Tax Policy Center. By contrast, the 2008 budget deficit is estimated to be $389 billion.

McCain’s, um, “tax cuts”, are even more inconsequential. He denounces wasteful spending, citing congressional “earmarks.” These are projects usually designated by individual members of Congress for their districts. In 2008, earmarks numbered 11,610 and cost $17.2 billion, estimates Citizens Against Government Waste. That’s less than 1 percent of federal spending.

And Wal-Mart loves congressional earmarks. As an example, consider the 2005 passage of $284 billion highway in Congress. The bill they passed was a 1,132 page mammoth and the legislation contained 4,128 political earmarks at a total cost of $12.4 billion. Of all of those earmarks ($2 million for the rebuilding of the Brent Spence Bridge in Cincinnati), here is the one that makes the least sense. $37 million was set aside for widening and extending the road in Bentonville, Arkansas that is the main access point to the headquarters of Wal-Mart Stores Inc. Republican Representative John Boozman (R-AR), whose district includes Wal-Mart Stores Inc.’s headquarters, was largely responsible for getting the earmark. He proposed an amendment to the highway bill to exempt retailers, such as Wal-Mart, from federal truck driving rules. To get this amendment to go away, Rep. Don Young (R-AK) offered Boozman an additional $34 million for the road in his final revisions to the bill. Wal-Mart’s one project comprised 35% of all Arkansas earmarks. Not too shabby. Welfare is fine as long as it goes to multi-million dollar a year businesses, I guess.

To be truthful, I don’t mind paying taxes, but when my hard earned dollars (and the rest of American Taxpayers money) are used to line the pockets of multi-billion corporations such as Wal-Mart, I think that something is more than a little amiss in our current tax system.

Didn’t come here to catch another Wal-Mart rant. Came here to see a record review for one of my favorite bandt.

Thanks a lot, bung hole!