Walmart bans new Green Day album | Hacker News Reader

Walmart bans new Green Day album

new.music.yahoo.com

3 pointsmshafrir5 comments

Added bassist Mike Dirnt, more succinctly but just as effectively: "As the biggest record store in the America, [Wal-Mart] should probably have an obligation to sell people the correct art."

Where does this logic end? At what level of "bigness" are you no longer allowed to decide what you're willing to sell? Are you allowed to draw any lines about content? Green Day can't sell at Wal-Mart because they won't strip swear words out of their record. What about overt racism?

Best just to let the market handle this. Green Day is doing the right thing; it's not that Wal-Mart is rejecting them, it's that Green Day is effectively boycotting them. Great. One step closer to the day when we stop selling bits on little plastic disks.

I don't think he meant it as a legal obligation, just an obligation to its customers. Selling a censored album, even if it's labeled, isn't selling the real album. It's a rip-off. Considering the movies and video games they still sell, it's also hypocritical.

And you're right, Green Day made the right move by deciding not to have their album cut down. Seeing as it debuted at number 1, their fans seem to agree.

It doesn't matter if Walmart chooses to sell their album or not. It isn't as if they're being hypocritical, they aren't, they frequently sell censored material. They were the first to drop GTA after the Hot Coffee scandal; I believe I recall discussions of them possibly not carrying the game at all. Meh. I won't buy censored music or music with DRM anyway, so I very rarely buy music from Walmart. It's marked I'm not being ripped off and that's the way it should work.

Walmart has no obligation to their customers to sell a given product, their obligations run toward taking back broken and rotten goods. It's not as if they have a monopoly on musical recordings.

I'm more annoyed with Greenday here. Their album goes straight to number one and, still they play the bitch.

The hypocrisy comes from claiming the censorship is based on moral grounds when it clearly isn't. Dropping GTA but keeping Saints Row; not selling 21st Century Breakdown because of profanity but selling The Boondock Saints just two aisles over. They aren't doing it for moral reasons, they're doing it so they can claim the moral high ground when scandals hit.

Labeling something as censored means the buyer isn't being scammed. It's a rip-off because it's a bum deal. They aren't getting the real product. I doubt there are a lot of Nirvana fans happy with their Wal-Mart copy of In Utero having the song 'Waif Me' on it. Isn't that the reason you won't buy censored music?

You nailed it about their obligations. But that's the problem: they should have an obligation to their customers to sell them the best possible product. It could be one of the many reasons they aren't the top music retailer anymore.

And how is Green Day playing the bitch here? They aren't going after Wal-Mart. They aren't suing or filing complaints. They didn't even bring up the issue.

Well, I reacted bit out of emotion there. Hence the shot at Greenday. I've been in a bad mood today, sorry. I didn't mod you down by the way, your comment doesn't deserve a down mod so I righted it.

Our ideals are different, and I disagree that the one you suggest, that Wal-Mart should be obligated to sell their customers the best product. It isn't exactly what Walmart does. I believe that Walmart is as consistent as a company its size can be expected to be. With movies it falls back on the expectation that a 17 year old can make their own decisions, and likewise with games. So, I don't mind dropping GTA during the scandal, and not Saints Row, which hadn't scandalous content; I just think they were dumb because the content required effort to get to. With the music you referenced I'm not sure that the other recording didn't just slip through the cracks.

I don't believe Walmart should be expected of anything more just because they have a lot of stores. I rather that the burden be placed on me to know better than to support their music, video game, or film sections. You can make the distinction between being scammed and ripped-off, but even if I accept that, I only see myself as ripped off if I am dumb enough to buy that censored album. I want the trouble to be on me.

You're right, I was being too harsh on Greenday. They didn't bring it up and I reacted emotionally to something that was barely there. When I read Greenday complaining like they did, even though they're rich, it sounds to me like some punks complaining that The Man is keeping them down, that society is keeping them constricted, and they just won't play along with the rules. Like angry young men. But, they could be a mini-Bono.

Well, I don't think we really disagree, so this can die.

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