Chris Brown Claims Stores Are "Blackballing" New Disc "Graffiti"

Chris Brown's Graffiti is projected to land at Number Three on the Billboard Top 200 this week with sales of 95,000-110,000 albums, per Billboard. But the 20-year-old R&B singer's last album, Exclusive, moved 294,000 copies its debut week in 2007, and Brown thinks he can explain the difference: in a series of angry tweets over the weekend, Brown accused stores of "blackballing" him and failing to stock the album in the wake of his guilty plea for assaulting Rihanna earlier this year.

Brown's Twitter rant ramped up after he stopped into a Walmart in Wallingford, Connecticut, where he couldn't find a copy of his record. "didnt even have my album in the back... not on shelves, saw for myself," he wrote on December 12th. MTV News reports that the Walmart in question had actually sold out of the album. One day earlier Brown posted, "im tired of this shit. major stores r blackballing my cd. not stockin the shelves and lying to costumers. what the fuck do i gotta do..."

In one Tweet, Brown claims that he spoke with the store's managers "and the[y] didn't even know anything. Wow! But they had Alicia Keys album ready for release for this Tuesday comin'… The manager told me that when there are new releases, its mandatory to put 'em on the shelves… BUT NO SIGN OF GRAFFITI. BS."

The album's first two singles, "I Can Transform Ya" and "Crawl," haven't exactly been burning up Billboard's charts, either. "Crawl" has yet to crack the Top 50 on the Hot 100, and "Transform Ya," which features Lil Wayne, only made it to Number 20.

As Rolling Stone reported last week, in the new issue of Vibe, Brown laments that producers for the BET Awards wouldn't let him perform during a Michael Jackson tribute last June, when he was still in the middle of court proceedings attached to his Rihanna altercation.

Related Stories:
• Chris Brown Laments Missed Michael Jackson Tribute in Vibe
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Song Stories

“Smells Like Teen Spirit”

Nirvana | 1991

"Smells Like Teen Spirit," named after a brand of deodorant marketed to girls, was Kurt Cobain's attempt to "write the ultimate pop song," he said, using the soft-loud dynamic of his favorite band, the Pixies. Cobain "had that dichotomy of punk rage and alienation," the song’s producer, Butch Vig, told Rolling Stone, "but also this vulnerable pop sensibility. In 'Teen Spirit,' a lot of that vulnerability is in the tone of his voice." Sadly, by the time of Nirvana's last U.S. tour, in late '93, Cobain was tortured by the obligation to play "Teen Spirit" every night. "There are many other songs that I have written that are as good, if not better," he claimed.

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