V2 And Hits Mag In Verbal Battle Over White Stripes

Hits Magazine and V2 are in a war of words after slamming the label, which released the White Stripes’ ‘Get Behind Me Satan’ on Tuesday. “Industry jokers joke that V2 ought to be renamed V1/2 as the understaffed company makes a desperate attempt to set up the most critical release in its brief history,” the magazine quipped. “If V2 was a functioning record company, the Stripes release would be much, much bigger…” V2 Records President Andy Gershon responded to Hits owner Lenny Beer, “Lenny, let’s face it and call a spade a spade. You got your facts wrong, not that you care about getting them right… the [new] Stripes record is set up quite well with a ship-out of 600,000 records. I don’t need to defend the label to you, and you know why? You trash people that don’t pay you [i.e., buy ads]. Pure and simple.”