Apple Joins Forces With Record Labels

Financial Times:

Apple is working with the four largest record labels to stimulate digital sales of albums by bundling a new interactive booklet, sleeve notes and other interactive features with music downloads, in a move it hopes will change buying trends on its online iTunes store.

Read the whole story: Financial Times

Comments

[TalkTalkTAlk]

Lower music price, pay the bands more, stop overproducing it, encourage creativity not formulaic kid music, otherwise i'll still be going to that "pirate" website

[InofTouch]

99 cents is expencive?

[thegrifter]

"4 largest labels"... that's funny, they're the only major labels left. There use to be over 200...

[Louisknyc]

I think this might also lend credence to the "tablet" or "netbook" rumors.

[NHBill]

Sorry the main reason music is down is it just isn't as big a part of the culture as it used to be. MTV/VH1 hardly play music at all, for a reason. Whether it's the internet or games or social networks music has a lot more to compete with, just like newspapers and broadcast TV. And if you think those guys have it rough take a look at radio! Just as there will never be a dominant TV anchorman there will never be another dominant music group. Out entire culture has segmented into very small pieces never to be put back together again. Apple is just picking through the ashes.

[TaosJohn]

I used to buy albums. Have bought maybe three CDs per year since they were invented, hah. But I think Apple is wasting its time with this idea. That train has left the station.

[FinallyFreeOfGeorgeIII]

Two things:

First, vinyl LPs (and cassettes and 8-tracks) were a package deal. You couldn't buy tracks 1,2,4,6, and 9 and skip the rest. Today you can. In some cases that's a good thing. But what is lost is the way the album's creator ordered the songs and tried to build a longer experience. For record companies to lament their falling album sales is silly when they caused the 'problem' by making any individual track from any record available. And as others have noted here, a lot of us don't go out and buy six new CDs at a crack in the current economy. Money is tight.

Second, I am concerned that when Apple hooks up with the record companies and RIAA, there won't be any defense against the litigious record industry cruising through your music collection for "illegal" copies. Coming soon to a computer near you...iSpy­.

[PoliticalRockChick]

Finally.

[bokiluis]

Finally...­.except I think it is a little, too little, too late.

Besides for "boomers", the orginal lovers of the album concept, reading liner notes on the computer screen, forcing you to be tied to your computer does not speak to an age of "portability" and "accessibility". (We have trained this generation to not care about liner notes and other superflous info).

Good idea though very late in coming.

[kmac23va]

This isn't new with the liner notes, they've been doing it for awhile...I guess we'll just see a lot more of it now. What I hope they don't continue doing is making some of the songs "album only" - there were a couple of albums where the best songs were tagged "album only" so you had to get the dregs to get the good stuff.

As for the tablet, it'll be interesting to see what they come up with. Those devices could also have uses in doctors' offices, rather than using terminals in the rooms, just have carry-along devices.

[KarateKid]

Message to Artists and Record Labels:

The reason album sales are down is that much of the "filler" songs are cr@p. And Apple raising its prices only makes file sharing all the more attractive. We're in a depression. Get it??

[GetoffMylawn]

This means more work for artists making those booklets.
That is very stimulating to an artist like me who would really love to help create this new format.
I'm all for it!!!
I am an album listener, I like the whole thing and that's usually how I like it.

[Nick Gallegos]

Why does Apple think it's sales need stimulation? Even if sales go down, the company still gets the $0.29 that they added a few months ago to increase profit!

[monty]

Hey, I have an idea that will help the record companies convince people to buy entire albums: stop putting out crap! Now there's a concept!

[slc1950]

lol

[Demster]

This is about choice. If you want the extras, buy the album. If you don't want all the songs you can buy them individually. I only wish Apple would release their iPhone for any carrier. Where I live, I do not have AT&T coverage.

[Perry Clease]

Apple and AT&T have a contract, the other carriers were not interested when Apple was shopping the iPhone. You are going to wait a few years before you maybe can get an iPhone that works on your local cell carrier. Where do you live?

[davenav]

I think this is a great idea, and unsurprisingly it comes from Apple, the house of good ideas.

I'd love to see artists start to take the 'album' more seriously, rather than just a compilation of tracks. Sgt. Pepper, Pet Sounds, Tommy, and so many more where great as unified presentations.

[Tyrione]

I agree, but then again those were amazing musicians. The 20 something generation of musicians today don't hold a candle in music theory, composition and artistic style to those before the invention of the modern computer and today's mixing software.

[PoliticalRockChick]

So true. I have music theory and so called musician producers don't know anything about that. They depend on computers only now these days. Nothing with that, but I believe having both knowledge is good.

[Perry Clease]

There was bad music back in the old days and there is good music these days. It isn't the era, it is the artist in the era