Perez Hilton Gets Paid to Swipe Ideas

Oh, hello, casual music listener. Did you know that corporate America just handed over a wad of cash to a large pink alien who feasts off the souls of the rich and famous to tell us what music we should listen to? But the thing we all love to romanticize about the internet is that it's a veritable orgy of unsolicited thoughts and pilfered ideas, and that is how the internet functions. The minute you commit a bit of brilliance to the internet, it flutters away like a fat, inbred pigeon into the vast wilderness of hypertext markup. However, it becomes problematic when someone like Warner Bros. bankrolls this sort of grifting. I suppose no one would mind if the nickels and pennies were going to someone whose life's work consisted not of sketching dongs and coke trails onto paparazzi photos, but something just a millimeter deeper. Or if it went straight to the source where Perez Hilton nabs his "recommendations" from and not Hilton himself, who's just the sloppy middleman.

More bizarre is why a big company would pay someone to troll through the forums section of more respected blogs. Especially since the rest of us do it for free! Which is what Warner Bros. is doing by way of handing him his own record label imprint. Certainly they’re not trying to turn a profit on his “fan base”—as it’s pretty much nonexistent anyway.

But it gets cuter: His claim to detecting music genius is traced back to how he “[has] an ear, which is really important in the music world—to be able to hear a hit and to be able to know who has a good song or not ... I’m more than just an A&R person. I’m also a marketing person. I’m also a manager.” Ah yes, you mean like this! I mean if we’re going to give music bloggers label imprints so they can advise music consumers to busy too sniff out new talent on their own, it would make sense to hand it to PopJustice’s Peter Robinson, who basically does Hilton’s legwork without any bitchery. So consider this bunch of dubious conspiracy theories a PSA for the dinosaury Warner Bros. execs who are probably kicking themselves for making such a poor decision in the first place.

Performer: Florence & the Machine
Originally discussed: April 28, 2009.
Perez-ized: July 13, 2009.

Performer: Marina & the Diamonds
Originally discussed: January 29, 2009 (Morning, GMT in London).
Perez-ized: January 29, 2009 (3:15 PM, PST in L.A.).

Performer: Julian Perretta
Originally discussed: February 18, 2008.
Perez-ized: February 23, 2009.

Performer: Little Boots
Originally discussed: November 28, 2008.
Perez-ized: January 17, 2009.

Performer: Jordin Sparks
Originally discussed: June 30, 2009.
Perez-ized: July 9, 2009.