THE PEANUT GALLERY: OK--we asked for it....

THE PEANUT GALLERY: OK--we asked for it. Several weeks ago Pop Eye (wearing his liberated-guy hat) wrote: “We’d love to know what the female execs at Columbia Records think of their company’s trade ads for the new Billy Joel single, ‘That’s Not Her Style.’ The full-page ads feature Joel hiding behind a naked woman whose bare bottom apparently inspired the ad’s tag line: ‘Bare Essential.’ Offensive? Perhaps not. Sexist? Definitely.” The reaction? First we were dissed by female staffers at a rival label, who complained that our choice of words implied that one could be sexist, but not offensive--when sexism is always offensive. (Fair enough.) Now 18 female execs at Columbia have written Pop Eye to declare, “We don’t feel the nude body of the model in the Billy Joel ad is in bad taste at all. . . . Lighten up and kiss our collective butt!” OK--OK. But you can’t help but wonder--aren’t their any women in the music biz who think its tacky (and yes, sexist) to use female nudity to sell records?