Green Day Lashes Out at Wal-Mart Policy

Green Day keeps its street cred:

Green Day has the most popular CD in the country, but you won’t be able to find it at your local Wal-Mart.

The band says the giant superstore chain refused to stock its latest CD, “21st Century Breakdown,” because Wal-Mart wanted the album edited for language and content, and they refused.

“Wal-Mart’s become the biggest retail outlet in the country, but they won’t carry our record because they wanted us to censor it,” frontman Billie Joe Armstrong said in a recent interview.

Actually, nobody asked anyone to censor anything. Wal-Mart just asked Green Day, like they ask all artists, to provide a version of their CD that meets their policy. Green Day's choice and Green Day chose not to participate. Wal-Mart seems okay with it and so does Green Day - they're selling their CD just fine without Wal-Mart. So what's the big deal?

Well, that's my point. How is this newsworthy? A rock band decides not to have a major outlet carry its CD because they want to keep their naughty words intact and everyone's okay with that. Wal-Mart continues to make kajillions, Green Day continues to sell hundreds of thousands of CDs, and the last I checked, the world's still turning.

I guess the idea of a punk rock group thumbing its nose at "the man" was too tempting to resist. Some news cliches just won't die.