Record Stores Criticize Kanye and Jay-Z For Best Buy Deal

'Watch the Throne'

Independent record stores are backlashing against Kanye West and Jay-Z's collaborative album as the Throne. The organizers of Record Store Day have called on independent retailers throughout the United States to sign an open letter to the superstar rappers taking them to task for signing a deal with Best Buy that gives the big box chain exclusive rights to sell the deluxe version of the Watch the Throne CD for the first 10 days of its release.

Photos: The Best Record Stores in the USA

The open letter to Kanye and Jay-Z insists that deals such as the one they have made with Best Buy are a "short-sighted strategy" and that they do "great damage to over 1,700 independent retail stores." The letter has already been signed by the owners of several record store owners, including  famous shops such as Newbury Comics in Boston, Amoeba Music in Los Angeles and San Francisco and the Sound Garden in Baltimore.

• 
  MUSIC Exclusive Live Chat With Linkin Park and Incubus
• 
  MOVIES & TV Peter Travers: 'The Avengers' Has it All
• 
  POLITICS Matt Taibbi: Jon Corzine Is the Original Zimmerman
• 
  VIDEOS Exclusive Premiere: Tenacious D's 'Tinnitus'

Song Stories

“Baby Got Back”

Sir Mix-a-Lot | 1992

While watching a Budweiser commercial during the Super Bowl, Sir Mix-a-Lot thought the skinny female models in the ad didn’t represent reality. So he wrote this ode to ample bottoms, featuring its famous to-the-point lyric: “I like big butts and I cannot lie.” MTV banished the video, featuring shaking booties and sexually suggestive fruit, to 9 p.m. or later. “I thought my career was over,” he told Rolling Stone. “Then I called Rick Rubin, and I told him the video was banned, and he was like, 'Great!' We sold another 2 million records.”

More Song Stories entries »

Twitter