Idolator

speaking of the purple one, let's hope this soundtrack is no Lovesexy

I don't understand this. Jay could sell the album on iTunes and have everything be "Album Only". Sure, there would be a whole bunch of "iTunes needs to sell [---] by track!" comments, but Jay and Apple could just ignore all that.

Is this really about something bigger? Is Jay's bullshit "my album must be appreciated as a whole because it's art" attitude really just part of the larger industry beef about the collapse of the CD market? After all, Jay is a label head himself...

Like many rappers past 35, I bet Jay-Z doesn't have a darned thing to rap about now.

...his "Deloused In The Comatorium", his "They Were Wrong So We Drowned", his "Bat Out Of Hell"!...

@DHMBIB: Yeah, I don't understand this at all, either. iTunes does "album only" deals all the time (albeit mostly for older releases), plus I'm pretty sure I saw "buy the single, pre-order the album" ads for Blue Magic/American Gangster on the iTunes store weeks ago. Plus Jay had to have noticed that Kanye's record-breaking first week digital sales (133 thousand out of the 957 thousand total) played a big part in the Graduation's victory over Curtis.

I'm at work and can't check the iTunes store to see if it's there today, can anyone verify if the album is available there at all?

I just checked and: "The item you've requested is not currently available in the U.S. store."

@GovernmentNames: On Jay-Z's iTMS page, American Gangster is the first album listed. It is still listed as a "pre-order" with an "expected release date Nov. 06, 2007". However, if you try to "click" on the album to bring up the album page, you are told "the item you've requested is not currently available in the U.S. store". And if you try to "pre-order" it from Jay-Z's page, you are told "the item you tried to buy is no longer available".

It looks like Jay and Apple hit a last-minute dispute about something. I'm sure it's all about the Benjamins, baby...

Wow, what a dumb move. I mean, Jay said he doesn't care about sales this time out, except that he wants another #1 album for the record books (putting him in third behind The Beatles and Elvis for the most #1 albums, tied with Bruce, Barbra, Garth and the Stones). Not that I think Chris Brown will beat him even if he does deliberately take a loss on 10% of his potential sales, but if that does happen he'll have noone to blame but himself.

don't believe the press release.

def jam pissed off itunes by switching singles quickly and not offering up "roc boys" for sale in advance.

itunes retaliated by cancelling the pre-order promotion, and either they decided not to sell the album as well, or def jam decided to pull the album.

i'm going with itunes decided not to sell the album.

@brainchild: @GovernmentNames: Been thinking about this while on lunch break. Here's my completely uninformed and grossly rank speculation...

Maybe this relates to the much bigger feud between UMG and Apple?

Recall that earlier this summer, UMG made a big deal about how iTunes was too inflexible on pricing, going so far as to propose yet another industry-backed store [who can forget the smashing successes that were MusicNet and Pressplay???] that would give the labels more control over pricing. Perhaps UMG proposed to Apple that once the record was "available", the pre-order price would disappear and the retail price would go up to [say] $13.99 or $15.99 or whatever. Maybe also the record would be "album only", as stated in the Variety item. Maybe Apple pushed back and UMG pulled the iTunes release at the last minute -- note that we are only hearing this story today.

UMG/Jay know that this record will sell anywhere between 600K-1M units in the first week -- the reviews have been excellent, and it's a Jay-Z record, after all -- and that most fans who want the record will get it somehwere, perhaps at a Big Box [Best Buy, etc.] if it's not available at iTunes. Maybe UMG looks to tout the [anticipated] success of this record as "proof" that the labels don't really "need" iTunes after all.

Is label-head Jay-Z simply taking one for the team -- perhaps, in this thinking, a "few thousand" sales lost from people who won't buy it unless it's at iTunes -- as part of the bigger dispute between gigantic music companies?

@DHMBIB: the UMG/itunes feud may have played a part, but essentially what i posted earlier is what it boils down to.

wow, i already downloaded and deleted this album-- it was pretty generic and boring, i thought.

I know this is kind of douchey seeing as how I work for Amazon MP3, but we have American Gangster. To be fair, so does Rhapsody and I imagine Napster has it, too. I know XXL blogs linked to Digital7's preview player a while back, so they definitely have it. It's not like this album isn't available digitally anywhere.

@Jeff Reguilon: its available as album only at amazon though. not sure about rhapsody.

@brainchild: That's an interesting theory, although you're stating it with a little more authority than if it was a mere theory, so I'm curious where you're getting your info from, if anywhere. I don't understand why Jay switching singles or releasing 2 before the album would be some big issue or deal-breaker, practically every major label rap album these days switches singles at least twice before settling on the one that becomes a big hit. Why iTunes would only sweat it in this instance (in which case, neither song really seems like a potential major hit to me) makes no sense on the surface.

Also, hi Jeff! Didn't know you were working at Amazon now, good to hear that you landed on your feet post-Tower.