To the sole surprise of music industry executives (and the likely bemusement of nearly everyone else), the Perez Hilton US tour has failed to generate the dollars or buzz Hilton and his backers expected. Slow ticket sales have forced prices very, very down; what's more, the tour lost a key performer when Ida Maria suffered a meltdown onstage last month. In a recent article, the Guardian UK -- along with a lengthy list of prominent music bloggers who contributed quotes to the article -- reasoned what the music industry, apparently, did not: that celebrity doesn't necessarily translate into sales. The paper wrote:

"Celebrity is not the same as popularity: that was the lesson Perez Hilton should have learned, but almost certainly didn't, last week. Maybe he thought his name would be enough to make the Perez Hilton Presents US package tour of hip up-and-coming acts – including Ladyhawke and Little Boots – a hit. After all, he's the ubiquitous gossip blogger, friend-to-the-stars and self-proclaimed "queen of all media" who has become an A-lister himself in the last few years. Nevertheless, ticket sales for his tour have been so poor that prices had to be slashed – in some cases to nothing – for the remaining dates."

Although Perez has been mum on his losses on his own site, he has reportedly reacted to naysayers with passive-aggressive venom. Maura Johnston of Idolator (who the Guardian quoted as saying of Hilton, "His blend of self-aggrandisement, barely concealed agendas, misogyny and poor grammar is quite a noxious cocktail") noted in a recent blog post that "a certain Technicolor-haired Internet scourge" had blocked her on Twitter (though she notes she hadn't even previously been a follower).

Whether or not this will impact Hilton's Warner Music vanity label -- an idea that seemed particularly bad when it was announced and now sounds impossibly worse -- remains to be seen. [Guardian via Daily Beast]