It's hard enough to get concert tickets without being told you don't have the right credit card to buy them when they first go on sale. The concert business likes to call them "pre-sales," but considering how few tickets can be left by the time everybody else has a chance to compete for them, that's a willful misnomer. Why not just call the pre-sale the general on-sale, and call the general on-sale the "post-sale" or something? I got three separate pre-sale codes Monday for JANELLE MONÁE in Los Angeles, from SPOTIFY, LIVE NATION and the GREEK THEATRE; what, then, does the idea of a "public on sale" date on Wednesday even mean? And if you're a NICKI MINAJ fan without a CITI card, it appears you might be not be invited to that general pre-sale for her upcoming tour. This isn't new, obviously. Artists have been doing similar promotions with credit-card companies like Citi and AMEX for years. But the harder it becomes to navigate the ticketing process in general, the deeper the frustration grows, while the ability to complain directly to the artist gets ever easier. Within a half-hour of Minaj asking her fans Monday morning, "Do you guys have a Citi bank card?," she was feeling the blowback and tweeting, "Dang...lemme think." Her fans, of course, don't have the "lemme think" option. If you're a 19-year-old Minaj fan and you don't have a Citi card, it's not as if you can think on it for a minute and magically have one by next week or whenever you need it. Either you have one or you don't. (There are hacks available to you when the time comes to buy, though, and you should by all means use them.) I love the idea of pre-sales for fan-club members or through email lists and sponsorships that don't automatically shut out most of the population. High-priced "VIP" tix for the front rows? Sure: If you've got the cash, go for it. But selling spots in the ticket queue based on credit ratings and credit card preferences? That's exclusionary and yucky... 03 GREEDO's management says he's been sentenced to 20 years by a Texas judge after pleading guilty to possession of meth and a firearm. But the district attorney's office isn't confirming that... R. KELLY, meet the WOMEN OF COLOR WITHIN TIME'S UP. Also co-signing the #MuteRKelly campaign: QUESTLOVE, JOHN LEGEND, AVA DUVERNAY, SHONDA RIMES. Says Kelly's management: "We will vigorously resist this attempted public lynching of a black man who has made extraordinary contributions to our culture." Says RCA RECORDS: Not a thing... Tuesday funnies: The '80s bass player dance... Terrible snare sounds of the '90s... Musicians making fun of BOB DYLAN... RIP LIL LONNIE.