While the iTunes Store has sold north of 5 billion song downloads since it started five years ago, a growing number of labels say selling singles on iTunes in some cases is crimping overall music sales, Smith and Wingfield point out. The evidence for this hypothesis is persuasive.
Kid Rock's Rock 'n Roll Jesus, which was kept off iTunes' virtual shelves, has sold 1.7 million copies in the
Certain label execs, managers and artists have long complained about Steve Jobs’ policy prevents them from selling an album only, on both fiscal and aesthetic grounds.
"In so many ways it's turned our business back into a singles business," Vector’s Ken Levitan, who manages Kid Rock, told the WSJ, calling iTunes "part of the death knell of the music business."
Levitan argued that if the album had been sold according to iTunes policy, many of its sales to date would instead have shown up as 99-cent downloads of the single "All Summer Long."
More supportive examples supplied in the piece: Katy Perry has sold 2.2 million downloads of "I Kissed a Girl" in the
"Check some of these artists that have hit singles, versus their album sales," Levitan added. "Then compare it to what Kid Rock is doing."
Mega-manager Irving Azoff told the reporters that a few years ago he presented the Eagles with a financial analysis showing that their royalties to date from iTunes sales were far lower than anyone expected. Glenn Frey did some back-of-the-envelope math of his own. "His comment was that it amounted to 39 minutes onstage in
Though he didn't disclose the royalty figure, Azoff’s implication was that the band had received less than $500k from its iTunes sales at that point. While band's iTunes income has increased since then, Azoff said, "I'm underwhelmed by the number of sales I see on iTunes for the classic bands."
AC/DC, one of the biggest-name holdouts, sold an estimated 2.7 million CDs world-wide last year, up from 2.55 million in 2003. The band has consistently sold more than 1 million CDs annually in the
Former Yahoo Music exec David Goldberg opined that a widespread shunning of iTunes is unlikely unless a number of acts on the level of Coldplay and U2 were to join the boycott. Even then, Goldberg believes many artists would be hurt by such a move.
"On certain albums, you can justify it, but you're also going to push people to the illegal stuff," he said.
LIVE NATION POSTS (ANOTHER) RECORD QUARTER
More butts in seats than ever before. (5/3a)
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THE NEW UMG
Gosh, we hope there are more press releases.
TIKTOK BANNED!
Unless the Senate manages to make this whole thing go away, that is.
THE NEW HUGE COUNTRY ACT
No, not that one.
TRUMP'S CAMPAIGN PLAYLIST
Now 100% unlicensed!
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