Unfortunately, The Offspring were convinced by their record company that releasing their new album to the internet is not a good idea. They will be pre-releasing only one song. Of course, Columbia Records is currently knee-deep in the legal motions to shut down Napster ... what a neato little coincidink.

In the meantime, Pearl Jam released 25 albums yesterday. That is, they released a double CD live recording for every single show on their summer European tour. Why the wank-rock extravagance? PJ claim it's for the fans, who have now been rescued from the arduous task of having to track down low quality bootlegs.

Bull$h!+. They're not doing it for the fans, they're doing it for themselves. The band is aware that their fan base is as devoted as they come, and this is the perfect way to sucker people into dropping a whole whackload of money just in time for Christmas. PJ know that the bootleggers have made a killing off of taping their concerts, so why not give something back to the fans by taking all that bootlegging money?

The end result is that PJ will be seen as a joke. A sickenly grandiose statement that is the release of 25 live albums is especially ironic given the bands all-too-often-self-professed hatred of the music industry, namely, the labels that exploit them, the ticket sellers that rip off their fans, and the celebrity-hungry public that demands their heroes' precious time in the forms of videos and interviews. Yet that same band has made the biggest fart-rawk statement of the decade, a 50 hour (25 albums x 2hrs/album) bloated gesture that must have Jerry Garcia laughing in his grave, and worse, they've tried to pass it off as doing a favour to their fans, rather than a (misguided) attempt to boost their sales which have been declining since Clinton took office.