So, this new Nirvana song. The first Nirvana we've heard in almost a decade, and the last new Nirvana song we'll ever hear. And we all know that Nirvana helped start it all, and that they are the Gods of Alternative Music. How can we forget when we are reminded by every single alternative station's "Best Songs of All Time" countdown over whatever holiday weekend and "Smells Like Teen Spirit" is always #1? I'm actually going to go out on a limb here and say that... hold on to something... I don't like the new Nirvana song. And while I think it's great that the diehard fans have something new and I'm glad they're enjoying it and I'm glad Courtney Love finally got that stick out of her ass and allowed them to release it, I wasn't so impressed. I dunno. It just doesn't grab me. People keep talking about how the song keeps talking about how much pain Kurt Cobain was in and how it finally shows in this song, but it was evident long before "You Know You're Right" was recorded. If you listen to The Beavis and Butt-Head Experience CD, you'll find a little track kicking off the disc that's entitled "I Hate Myself And Want To Die." Guess who recorded it? Right on -- it was Nirvana. If you're not hearing pain and angst in that song, you need to reorient your compass. And guess what? It came out while Kurt was still alive! Here's my biggest problem with the song. My problem is with the record label that put it out. First of all, the song was leaked to the Internet over a weekend. Radio stations all over the country heard from their listeners that the new Nirvana track was available on the 'Net. So rather than look like chumps to these people who were calling to say, "I've got this track, how come you don't?" the stations did the only thing they could -- they downloaded the track and started playing it. It was a good strategic move for them, because radio stations need to keep that image as being the place people go to hear new music, especially with the way they're being hit these days, both by the media and as far as advertising sales goes. Here's where the record label shot itself in the foot: It started distributing cease & desist orders to the stations. Despite the fact that this song was already leaked, was being played all over the place and frequently -- hell, one station in Atlanta played it 10 times in an hour the first day it was leaked -- the record label wanted to contain the leak so people wouldn't hear it on the radio, they wanted stations to wait until the song was "officially" added the following week to play it. Bad, bad, bad PR. When news is out, you don't deny it, you try to spin it to your advantage. When a song is leaked and it's already spread as widely as this one was, you don't try to block it. You try to spin it to make it look like it was your idea all along, or even if you can't do that, you work with the stations to get them "official" versions of the song or at least give them a CD copy of it so that they don't have to use their MP3 that they got off some kid's hard drive. If you fight them on something as important as this, they may not be so willing to play some of your other stuff that you're trying to push. My other big problem with the record label is this: Radio stations obviously did not have the song in their hands yet, since they had to download it to get it. The media didn't have it, and everyone in the media was under the impression that the song wouldn't be coming out for a little while based on the fact that Courtney Love hadn't come to an agreement with the label to release the Nirvana best-of collection yet. The record label was the only entity that had the single. So, if they keep complaining about people leaking songs and albums to the Internet for downloading before they're available... well, I think the evidence points pretty readily at someone at the record label leaking this one. I don't think they can blame anyone else, and rather than constantly blaming the little downloaders and the radio DJs for spreading their material all over the Net before the CDs are actually released, they ought to take a long hard look at their own employees to see if any of them who might have an MP3 ripper and an Internet connection might have put the stuff up pre-album release. Don't blame the rest of us if it's your own damn fault.