Kid Rock is one big-ticket act who is representing the small faction of artists and labels who are rebelling against the singles-only format of the iTunes music store.
As you probably know, music that is licensed to iTunes can ONLY be sold on a per-track basis. When iTunes was first introduced, this represented the saving grace of the music industry in that it allowed fans to get what they wanted from a band without having to pay 15 dollars for a 12-song album with 2 good tracks and the 10 "filler" tracks. However, for many bands, a lot of time is spent writing and recording a full album, then figuring out the track listing, which can often make or break an album (read Dave Simpson's article about the importance of track listing here. By allowing users to cherry-pick their favorite songs from the iTunes store, the concept of a complete album is essentially nullified. As Kid's manager told The Wall Street Journal,
"In so many ways it's turned our business back into a singles business," says Ken Levitan, Kid Rock's manager. Mr. Levitan says the rise of iTunes is far from being a boon to the industry; instead, he calls it "part of the death knell of the music business."
Common sense would dictate that Kid Rock's notable absence from the iTunes music store would detract significantly from his music sales and popularity. After all, almost 850 million individual songs were bought from digital-download stores last year, while there were only 50 million digital albums sold. However, since his album's release almost a year ago, Kid Rock's album, Rock 'n' Roll Jesus has launched all the way to the #2 spot on the Billboard charts on the back of All Summer Long, selling 1.7 million copies since June. According to Nielsen Soundscan, the company that tracks music sales, sales of the album have increased in 19 of the last 22 weeks and show no signs of stopping.
Kid Rock's not the only artist to challenge iTunes and still have success. AC/DC has never licensed its music to iTunes and consistently sells over a million CDs every year in the United States, with almost 3 million sold last year. Rapper Jay-Z, who sells most of his music on iTunes, didn't want his album American Gangster, an accompaniment to the movie of the same name, placed on the digital store because,
"As movies are not sold scene by scene, this collection will not be sold as individual singles,"
Whether you like Kid Rock, AC/DC, and Jay-Z or not is one thing, but I think this new phenomenon is incredibly fascinating, and I'm not sure how I really feel about it yet. On the one hand, I'm a bit old-school in that I still really like going to a CD store, sifting through the shelves looking for what I want, opening the shrink wrap and packaging, and enjoying the album as a whole. I love the iTunes store, but generally only buy things from there if they're iTunes-exclusives or something. If an album is available in a physical copy, I'm much more likely to go for that.
On the other hand, we can't know how popular Kid Rock would be had he decided to sell his music on iTunes. Based on the pervasiveness of All Summer Long, we can assume that he would have sold millions upon millions of songs, with the song likely taking the top spot of the iTunes singles chart.
But at what cost? I'm sure plenty of people have bought Rock 'n' Roll Jesus simply to get the hit single. If they were able to buy his music on a per-track basis, the chances of him selling a lot of albums is pretty small. iTunes is also notorious for taking a huge cut, about 30%, of each music sale, so artists generally make more money by selling fewer albums than if they were to sell more singles.
In my opinion, I think bands and labels should have the option to sell their music as albums only. I'm sure there will still be plenty of pop acts who will want to continue to sell music per-track, but I think a lot of rock acts will want to go the album-only route. Let's be honest, some acts would (and still should) stick to selling singles, and the cherry-picking nature of iTunes will continue to benefit those artists who create albums with singles and filler. But for a lot of bands, the iTunes modus operandi devalues their music.
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB121987440206377643.html?mod=rss_whats_news_technology&apl=y&r=766090
http://arstechnica.com/news.ars/post/20080828-album-loving-artists-blame-itunes-for-changed-music-tastes.html
http://www.billboard.com/bbcom/news/article_display.jsp?vnu_content_id=1003844114
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