INTERESTING: IS OZZFEST “BURYING THE LEAD?”

Bram Teitelman at Metal Insider wrote a really interesting piece this morning, in which he wonders if Ozzfest is “burying the lead.” In case you’re not familiar with that journalism term, it’s basically when a company or publicist or whomever releases bad news at a time when they hope the fewest possible number of people will see it – e.g., sending out a press release announcing lower-than-expected quarterly earnings on a Friday night, when folks tend to be enjoying their weekends and not watching the news.

So with rumors abounding that the 2010 “comeback” edition of Ozzfest will have a less-than-stellar line-up, and practically every band Ozzfest could possibly want already booked on one of the many competing big summer package tour (Mayhem, American Carnage, Carnival of Madness, Summer Slaughter, The Cool Tour, etc.), Bram wonders if Ozzy, Sharon and company aren’t using that very trick for this evening’s tour announcement:

“The 2010 version of the Ozzfest is going to be announced later tonight via Ozzy’s Twitter. It’s actually cool to see Ozzy/Sharon/management getting involved in social networking, and the way they unveiled the album art and will be announcing the lineup is pretty cool. But for them to do it on a Friday night after the 9-5 crowd and metal blogosphere has logged off for the weekend seems to suggest that the announcement itself might be a little underwhelming.”

I guess the only possible hole I see in Bram’s logic is that we’re all gonna know if Ozzfest has a crappy line-up sooner or later anyway; it’s not like you’re gonna buy a ticket before you know who’s playing and then show up for the gig and be like, “Hellyeah? Aw, nuts!” But I guess the same thing could be said of any story where the lead has been buried – so Bram could be onto something.

Read the rest of Bram’s article here. And sometime tonight, we’ll know who’s playing Ozzfest this summer.

-AR