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So everywhere I went today, I saw about five million copies of the new Fall Out Boy CD on the shelves. I have never had the slightest interest in Fall Out Boy. If I had to choose between listening to their new album and shredding my nutsack with a cheese grater, I'd probably go with the genital mutilation. But I have no doubt I'll hear endlessly about the ******** thing, because I spend most of my time on Gaia in the Music forum, and every time a record by anyone even marginally popular is released, threads show up about them for days or weeks or sometimes months. It's annoying, but I've gotten used to it. Repeats are just a part of life there.

But I am annoyed that the focus on this barely competent, musically unimaginative band will obscure far more interesting and entertaining releases that deserve to be heard. Take Yoko Ono's new album, for instance. I should state right off that I have no use for those who dismiss Yoko because of her reputation from the days of the Beatles. I don't give a s**t about the details of her marriage, I'm interested in the music, and while Yoko's voice is definitely an acquired taste (probably one more easily acquired now than then, actually; if you're a fan of Björk, Yoko doesn't sound that extreme in comparison), her avant-garde inclinations have always appealed to me. The new record, Yes, I'm A Witch, finds her turning over a selection of her older works to a variety of collaborators, from the Flaming Lips and Antony to Hank Shocklee and Peaches; and while it's not the most consistent album in the world, it sure as hell isn't boring.

But you're also not going to find Yoko's record on the main new release display at Target, because Astralwerks knows it's not going to sell beyond people who (a) like her music already, or (b) like the people she's working with (I'd have bought it for Antony alone, even if I wasn't already familiar with Yoko's past work). It lacks the mass appeal of a Fall Out Boy record, which is not to say that records with mass appeal are automatically bad, or that more experimental music is always superior to what sells; it's just obvious that the blander and more streamlined something is, the easier it is to sell to a wide range of people. The old truisms haven't entirely died in the era of niche marketing and Internet downloads.

And if Yoko's not going to receive a big marketing push, then Enrico Rava doesn't stand a chance. The great Italian trumpeter's latest album, The Words And The Days, was also released today by ECM, a company I've long regarded as the greatest record label in the world (and one of the few that's had major sales successes with unabashedly avant-garde performers, notably Keith Jarrett). It's a reflective, meditative album, very much in keeping with the approach of his last two sets for ECM, and as such will probably only sell to fans of that label's approach to jazz. It'll never sell as many copies as Fall Out Boy, and that's probably as it should be; but I'd still like to think a few curious listeners might give it a try, however overly optimistic that hope might be.