14 DAY TRIAL // Over the weekend, Chris Brown used his Twitter page to let his fans and the music industry in general know that he was not happy with having his latest album, “Graffiti,” “blackballed.” The “rant” made international headlines and was applauded by all Chris Brown fans – with Rolling Stone now saying that it might have even been the reason behind the star’s decision to delete his Twitter page altogether.
“I wanna thank all my fans for their support. I love yall. Goodbye!” Brown tweeted the other day in what would turn out to be his last message of this kind, admittedly, for good. The Mechanical Dummy page was then deleted and no explanation for it was offered. Nevertheless, speculation has it that Chris did so only as a sign of protest towards the stores that refuse to put his CD on their shelves, as well as to the music industry in general for condoning such practices.
“Brown’s ire initially focused on a Walmart store in Wallingford, Connecticut, but Brown expanded his rant to make a blanket statement about how the industry views him after he pleaded guilty for assaulting his then-girlfriend Rihanna. It seems like Brown somehow stumbled upon the one Walmart that was actually sold out of their Graffiti stock, as reps for several big retailers tell Billboard.biz that Brown’s disc is actually ‘overstocked’ at most stores, with ‘Graffiti’ well underselling the 150,000-175,000 copies it was expected to move in its debut week,” Rolling Stone says.
Fans of the singer are not entirely forgotten, though. Brown’s Mechanical Dummy website is still up and running, showing absolutely no sign that it would suffer the same fate anytime in the future. Of course, there is also the possibility that Chris brings back his Twitter page, just like Trent Reznor of Nine Inch Nails also did in the past, the music magazine explains. If he doesn’t go down that route, an explanation from Brown will probably say so, since he’s not the type to do this to his fans (and followers) without as much as letting them know of his reasons.
“I’m tired of this [expletive]. Major stores are blackballing my cd. Not stockin the shelves and lying to costumers. What the [expletive] do i gotta do… yeah i said it and I ain’t retracting [expletive]. I’m not biting my tongue about [expletive] else… the industry can kiss my [expletive]. thx again to my real fans. u dont go unnoticed. love yall” Chris Brown tweeted over the weekend, in response to what he thought was the industry’s unwillingness to let him get back on the scene for issues that pertain to his personal life.