Idolator
If you've been paying any attention at all, you don't need the Associated Press to tell you that album sales are tanking as individual-track tallies continue to climb. (Nothing against AP, of course.) But hard data is good to have, and their story delivers the pause-worthy stat that digital tracks are up a hefty 49 percent over the past six months. Something tells us this research was not sponsored by Universal. Or maybe it was. Or wasn't. Or ... oh, who knows?
Album Sales Down, Digital Track Sales Up [AP via BusinessWeek]
Universal Refutes Apple's iTunes Negotiation Claim [Information Week]
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From the Universal article you linked to: And according to Bloomberg News, EMI senior VP Lauren Berkowitz reported that sales of Pink Floyd's "Dark Side Of The Moon" rose by 350% in the week following the launch of iTunes Plus.
At this rate, Pink Floyd's collective great great great great great grandchildren will be living well of the profits of that record!
This talk about album sales reminds me of the last page of an iPhone review I read earlier today -- scroll down to the comments by Charles Starrett.
He offers a novel theory about Cover Flow, the jukebox-like music-surfing interface Apple introduced in iTunes months ago, but which just became cooler and more useful on the iPhone:
Due to the rich attachment people of my age and older have with the cover art of our CD (or LP) collections, and because of the enjoyment I get using the iPhone's coverflow interface--which, by the way, is far superior to that of iTunes--I'm already considering making my iPhone an album-only device, something I never would have considered when I created the playlists currently on my iPhone.
It's a bit of a stretch, but the guy has a point - Cover Flow might be Steve Jobs's way of rebuilding interest in the album and throwing a bone to the labels screaming bloody murder at him for (they claim) undercutting their CD business. After all, Steve's a Dylan/Beatles-loving Boomer; he probably retains some residual affection for the album, too.
Just saying, it'll be interesting to see if album sales pick up a teeny bit after the iPhone penetrates the market further.
@dennisobell: It needs the storage space to be able to hold a few albums first.
But as 32gb solid state chips start hitting the market cheaply, I can picture Apple buying up a bunch of them to make high capacity iPhones (and other "i" products) that don't have the bulk and failure rates common with lugging around portable hard drives.
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