On Monday Curb Records released a brand new single from Tim McGraw’s long-disputed album Emotional Traffic called “Right Back Atcha Babe”. The timing of the single release is somewhat puzzling. Many McGraw fans are refusing to partake in Emotional Traffic and it’s singles, not wanting their money to go to the label that kept him under thumb for years.
After a court win on Wednesday that allowed McGraw to be able to record new music and pursue another label, Curb has apparently capitulated their previous stance that the music on his album Emotional Traffic is not “topical,” and has decided to finally give the album a release date of January 17th, 2012.
Whatever Curb’s motivations or plans, it looks like the tide has turned for Tim McGraw. However the battle is far from over, and fans should not be happy about the single release, they should be wary of its motivations. Mike Curb is shrewd if he is anything, and no doubt this move was pre-calculated to coincide with the court order.
This week the music world was agog that Lady Gaga topped the charts with her latest album Born This Way selling over 1 million copies. But I was neither shocked nor appalled that Lady Gaga made #1. What blew my mind was to see the post-contract Hank III release from Curb Records called Hillbilly Joker crest #10 of the Billboard country charts last week.
Billboard.com has just reported that Tim McGraw has filed a countersuit against Curb Records who filed suit against McGraw last week over his Emotional Traffic album. In the aftermath of Curb Records filing a lawsuit against Tim McGraw, fans are now calling for a boycott of the record label.
On the same day Curb Records released Hank III’s Hillbilly Joker, marketed as a “new” album on displays at Hastings and other outlets even though the album is 8-years-old, they filed suit against cash cow and perfume magnate Tim McGraw for breach of contract. McGraw has been trying to get Curb to release his Emotional Traffic album that he turned into Curb last Fall.
The situation with Tim McGraw has gone from dysfunctional, to immoral, to ironically funny, to now outright insane. The country music star and part-time perfume magnate’s troubles started with Curb in 2008, when the label decided to release a Greatest Hits album instead of new music McGraw had sitting on the shelf. Now Curb is refusing to put out his last album on his record deal, called Emotional Traffic…