Tom Jones has been called a sick joke by his record label in previous week, but now he has had the last laugh! Tom Jones’ new album, Praise and Blame, has managed to outsell Eminem’s monstrously dominant Recovery album in the U.K.
Having just been released yesterday, Praise and Blame has shot to the provisional Number One spot in the U.K. music charts after one day of sales, leading to Jones suggesting that the two chart heavyweights should join forces in the future for continued world dominion:
“I couldn’t be more proud of this album and I’m really blown away by the response from everyone… It’s great to be top of the charts with Eminem, maybe next time we could be top together.”
Tom Jones has hit back after a leaked email from an Island Records U.K. executive branded his comeback a “sick joke.” The initial email was sent by SVP David Sharpe on the 19th May, which stated that the label should pull back this project immediately! The album, “Praise & Blame,” is a record of blues and spirituals on which Jones goes back to his roots.
A lot of people thought this was a clever marketing stunt to get as much press as possible for a Jones that is coming to the end of his major label career. However, Jones stated to a Welsh newspaper that he was very angry about the comments and has received an apology from Island Records.
“People are going to read this and think the record company doesn’t like [my album], or that I’ve made a mistake,” he said. “It’s not coming from the creative people in the record company, because they’re backing [the album] up all the way, I mean they’re thrilled with it, so I don’t understand it.”
“When I questioned them and said, ‘What the hell is this all about? Who is this fella? I don’t even know who he is,’ I found out that he’s some fella who signs checks or something. But he’s not in the creative side of it and they’re 100% behind it, but people don’t know that.”
He added: “People tell me that all publicity is good publicity, that’s what I’ve been told. People say to me, ‘Well it’s being talked about,’ but to me it’s being talked about in a negative way. Hopefully, if there’s any good that comes out of it, it’s that people will wonder about [the new album]. But it isn’t the way I would handle it by going and making a stupid statement. That’s not going to help it. They’ve apologized, they can’t apologize enough – and they’ve said, ‘We’ll make good on this.’”
EMI is praying that Santa is generous this season as it stares down a major post-Christmas payment due on £2.7 billion in loans from Citigroup. UK analysts are warning that EMI must generate significant cash by March to meet its obligations, If not, Terra Firma, the private-equity which bought EMI for £2.4 billion and already added £10 million three months ago to avoid default could be forced to inject more funds.
