A very sad story was a second most read of the week. It was about the passing of Hughie Thomasson (Outlaws/Lynyrd Skynyrd). The world lost an important voice in music on Sunday. It's really sad that on the same day that we got to witness just how much quality has disappeared from popular music with the MTV VMA awards someone like Thomasson, who should have outsold every "artist" on that stage, lost his life without much media attention. But in the end he dedicated his life to the music he loved and we still have that gift from him and the people that matter the most, his fans, recognized what a loss was suffered. RIP Hughie you will be missed.

The third most read individual Day in Rock story this week wasn't a story at all, it was a bit of a rant we ran on Friday called "We Are Not For Sale" about selling editorial coverage. The response was overwhelming. We got hundreds of emails of support and only three negative ones. (2 from people that run sites that engage in the practice of selling editorial content with their lame excuses.) We'll address some of those emails in a mailbag segment next week but a quick thanks for all the support from everyone. You are why we keep doing this. It really is all about the music stupid. Even the stupid music we make fun of here. And also an FYI that the CEO of the PR company that sent the email that started this mess did issue an retraction and apology on Friday. It appears it was sent by mistake by someone that's pretty new there that didn't understand what they were doing. That wasn't spelled out in the retraction but that's what we read between the lines and we will take the apology in good faith it appears to have been sent with. We'll repost that rather long rant at the very end of this recap instead of the top 3 for those that missed it. In a perfect world the strong feelings expressed by us and a handful of other publications behind the scenes about this would convince labels and PR companies from working with sites that trade coverage for money but this isn't a perfect world and the music business is anything but perfect. Nevertheless, we'll keep on doing it for the right reasons and be able to look ourselves in the mirror.

The fourth biggest story was Kid Rock punching Tommy Lee. It's pretty self explanatory. Surprisingly, even though they no longer sell many albums the couple of articles about Motley Crue and Tommy leaving the band came in high as well. To be fair the do a great business with their tours. We won't go into all that.

Interestingly, some of the least read stories were probably about the two artists getting the most media attention this week (aside from Led Zeppelin.) Do we even need to tell you? Yes, Kanye West and 50 Cent who both released hyped up albums this week. We'll include one story in the round up simply because it shows Pocket Change getting beat and despite him being beat by an equally worthless "artist" it's still good news.

Before we continue with the other big stories from this week we have a quick update about a story we've been following. A FYI for Van Halen fans. Two additional shows go on sale this Saturday (9/15) at 10am local time. The shows are 10.28 in St. Louis, MO and 11.25 in San Diego. good luck!

Want to see what other stories grabbed the most attention this week? - Read on!

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