Rock, Roll, and 'Rithmetic

I recently bought Suzanne Vega's 1996 album 'Nine Objects of Desire'. Decent album, nice Mitchell Froom production.

My complaint: there are twelve tracks. Not nine. Twelve.

I suppose this is a bonus really: I'm getting one-third extra, for free. But it raises the question:

Why does pop music hate counting?

Think about it. Ben Folds Five had two fewer members than advertised. There were three Cocteau Twins and three Thompson Twins (faking blood relationship being another classic pop con, from the Flying Burrito Brothers to the Puppini Sisters). Blink 182, Sum 41 and Eiffel 65 all fall drastically short of their purported member count. (Come to think of it, those last three groups have been all off the radar for a while - the moral of the story being, surely, that innumeracy doesn't pay).

We deserve better than bands who fiddle the figures. Next time you go to see a beat combo calling itself "The ******* Five", should there be fewer than five members on stage, stand up for your consumer rights and demand your money back. Unless it's the Jackson Five, in which case there may be a valid reason.