Apple Give Fans a Reason to Buy… Or Do They?
The Apple event took place yesterday after weeks of anticipation and among the big announcements; a new and improved iTunes 9 (surprise surprise), a new, cheaper iPod Touch line, a new iPod Nano equipped with a video camera and microphone (don’t look at me), increased storage and price cut for iPod classics and a “genius” function for the iPhone and iPod touch that creates playlists based on your history.
But what you all really want to know about is the not-so-top-secret “Cocktail” project. Well, I can reveal that Apple has launched a new digital album format called iTunes LP.
The iTunes LP is pretty much as we expected. It’s a digital album with extra features such as music videos, artwork, liner notes, lyrics, photo albums, bonus tracks etc.
Sounds good? I agree.
One thing we always talk about is artists giving fans a reason to buy, this indeed does. All these bonus goodies are likely to make albums more attractive to fans.
However; there is no such thing as a flawless idea in the music business, and this is no exception.
Apple is charging $16.99 for these LPs. That’s $7 more than a normal digital album. It’s not a reason to buy because fans are paying for the additional features, most of which they can download for free anyway. And one person is not going to want all of the extras, probably just one or two. So they’re going to be paying for stuff they don’t want.
The point is people don’t want to buy albums, so offering them the same thing at a higher price is not a smart move. Artists need to be offering fans this kind of stuff in the first place, not at extra cost. It will be interesting to see what kind of sales these LPs see over the next 6 months. My prediction is not many.
I really hope no one buys these. This should be a “free” part of every digital album as an incentive. Makes me a little sick actually.
@Dante Castro
I agree Dante. This is the kind of thing labels should have started doing years ago, except not on iTunes, on their own network where each artist has their own page similar to this.
But they chose to just sue everyone instead :D
the price is too high. itunes LP should not be the same price as a real physical CD, it should be less because you dont have the convenience of owning something you can hold in your hand and rip if you want it on your computer library. should have priced it at 12.99 or something, thats more fair. I still always buy a CD format when i want an album, iTunes is only the way to go for single songs and exclusives IMO.