I awoke this morning at 5:26am to the feeling of my left testicle being tangled up in my underpants. Has this ever happened to you? Sweet Jebus, what a scare. I apparently did some sort of scissor-kick in my sleep that made my boxers form a tourniquet around my left nut. It hurt like heck and scared the living daylights out of me. I sprung from my bed about .0000000002 seconds after the scissor-kick and went into the bathroom to inspect any potential damage and let that puppy work itself out. Through the miracle of the human body being flipping awesome, all was fine. But it was so frightening that I was unable to fall back asleep, so I went into the den to surf the internets before work.
That’s when I opened the iTunes store and saw that M. Ward’s fantastic new album, Hold Time, is the #5 best-selling album on iTunes. How can that be? Is M. Ward famous now or has everyone completely given up on buying full albums?
I did some quick research, and found that 16 times more songs were purchased online than albums. Not surprising, but pretty amazing. Here are the actual numbers from my research:
1.07 billion digital tracks were purchased in the US in 2008
65.8 million digital albums were purchased in the US in 2008
Somewhere around 4% of males have but one testicle
{ 6 comments… read them below or add one }
That’s wild. Most of the time people I meet who ‘know’ music are not familiar with MWard. I was lucky to have been introduced to Mdub. I remember the time well.. I had just moved back to Chicago, about 4-5 years ago and I was in a taxi with some random driver who had his ipod set up to speakers in the back of his taxi. Great wiring on his part. I had to keep asking him, who’s playing? This is great. and the driver would mutter the name but I couldn’t figure it out. it’s a strange stage name. Again I would ask, WHOOO is this? i could not understand “m ward” — imagine trying to picture the spelling in your head? em wahrd? emwhord? Em Wohrd? I asked him to spell it.
thanks for letting me share.
on another note, have you guys reviewed his new album yet? in all honesty, i hope there’s not too much zooey on it. i think i remember seeing lucinda williams being on it, which i’m okay with. she’s COOL.
We haven’t reviewed it yet. I might be in the minority, but I get a bit bored with M. Ward. When I first heard him I was floored, but with each album it feels like more of the same.
Drinking Buddy – I’m glad your boys are okay. I’d switch to baggy mesh shorts. Too much can go wrong with boxers.
I agree with you about MWard. I was floored at first (and also less experienced with music at the time I was introduced) but now I’m, meh…take him or leave him.
forgot to mention-that was another great introduction here that left me laughing out loud while having no idea where we were headed but enjoying the journey through DB’s morning..
Can’t wait for Deer Tick esta noche!
hahah, great story telling, that is a frightening tale indeed. Also, very interesting on those sale numbers, thanks for that.
truly enjoyed the tale of the testicle. on a related note, a friend of mine had his own ball scare last year. by some evil intervention, he tore his sack playing flag football, exposing his … i’ll stop there and let the imagination finish up. he spent a few months sitting on a donut as he was unable to reach his butt cheeks to a chair, etc. because of enormous swelling.
i still make fun of him.
Most key line in this entire post: “Through the miracle of the human body being flipping awesome, all was fine. ”
But I think it’s a combination of the two: M Ward’s pretty big. He also had some well-timed exposure on the late night shows this week. And, yeah, people just don’t buy stuff anymore.
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