How the Music Industry Just Killed Itself. Again.

Yes, iTunes changed its pricing on April 7th, and no, no one's very happy about it. Now as other music retailers like Amazon have followed suit, it's becoming clear(er) that the labels are behind this latest pricing change.

Music is their product, and they are free to price it as they wish. Consumers are then also free to weigh whether a 30% increase in a product's price is worth it, or whether their time is better spent searching for the song by other means.

Ironically though, it seems like having tiered pricing may have created a new headache, especially for the artists. Billboard has done some preliminary research, and it looks like in general, tracks on the top 100 chart priced at $1.29 have fallen in rank, while a majority of $.99 tracks have moved up. 

What does it tell us? It means beyond musical sensibility, beyond the art behind the music, consumers are looking at the cold hard cost of buying a track. No artist should have to wonder whether it was a lack of public interest, or the pricing decision of the record label that led a track to fail or succeed. Just look at the app store to see how the price of apps has been driven lower, potentially at the cost of losing quality apps at a higher price point.

The industry has created a slippery slope, in which in six months time, we could see the charts dominated by those (now rare) $.69 cent tracks. When getting to #1 is more about the price of the track than the viability of the music, the industry loses. The end game is free tracks, and while that will be great for consumers, the record label execs can start packing their boxes now.

Five Hidden iTunes Holiday Gems

'Tis the season for holiday music. And while you might be quite familiar/tired of some of the overplayed traditional songs we scoured the iTunes store to bring you some refreshing sounds of the season.

Fiona Apple's Rendition of Frosty The Snowman:
Fiona Apple may not be the first singer to come to mind when you think of spreading holiday cheer, which makes this track, irony free, quite compelling. Fiona Apple: Frosty The Snowman

The Brian Setzer Orchestra Does Sleigh Ride
Ah the 90's... After the flannel shirts and grunge started to fade, Ska and Swing ever so briefly made a return to fill the void. (Ok, Swing is still enjoying a higher level of popularity than in the 80's. No need for nasty letters/emails.) Setzer and his band souped up this holiday classic all their own. It's a bright, fresh take on the classic.Check out Sleigh Ride from The Brian Setzer Orchestra

Jon Stewart and Stephen Colbert, Can I Interest You In Hannukah?
Here at TDL HQ, we eagerly anticipated the Stephen Colbert Christmas Special. Unfortunately, it was a bit of a letdown. The highlight though, was the music, and specifically the Stewart/Colbert duet "Can I Interest You In Hannukah?" Let's face it, other than Adam Sandler's Chanukah Song, this is one holiday that gets overlooked in the sounds of the season. Stewart tries to explain Hannukah to Colbert with catchy and humorous results.

The Vince Guaraldi Trio: A Charlie Brown Christmas
This might qualify as a classic, but I'm going to let it slide because A: It's a fine selection, and B: It's at a heck of a sale price right now. Charlie may not win at baseball, but his Christmas album is a home run (come on, allow me some schmaltz here!).

The Bird and The Bee: Carol of The Bells
Some friends of mine, will be less than thrilled to see this one on the list. Where others hear an annoying rendition of a classic that's trying too hard, I hear a light, fresh, but not-too far in left field cover. The iTunes Preview will give you a good sense of whether you'll love it or hate it. Let us know what you think in the comments.

Happy Holidays, Everyone!

The New Napster: What You Need To Know

Not content with their subscription service, (although maybe that's what they really want to you to get.. more in a moment) Napster has announced it's own music download service. And, get this... individual tracks are $.99 with most albums being $9.99 Here's the skinny:

Pros:
Library of 6 million songs
Great sounding / quick previews
Previews automatically go into the next track, allowing you yo easily preview the entire album.
iPod Compatible, and great sounding DRM-free 256 kbps MP3's.

But it's certainly not all good..

Cons:
Not Safari compatible
Doesn't interface with iTunes like the Amazon store
The interface feels cluttered.

But probably the most bothersome part to me, and the most Windows-ish feature for those of us who try to avoid such things, is the signup process.

Here's a look at the first page:

Seems harmless enough: Enter a username and password, and continue to the next page:

Notice anything odd? The only two account preferences are for the two types of subscription services, which are only nominally Mac compatible. (these songs won't play on the iPod, for example.) So now what do you do? The only two options are streaming accounts. but if you back out of this screen, and return to the main interface, you'll discover that you're now a "Light" member.

It feels slimy to only have two streaming options to choose from, essentially cancel out of that screen, only to discover you now have an account anyhow.

The selection and sound quality are great, but like most iTunes competitors, the user experience is sorely lacking. This store is definitely a distant third to iTunes and Amazon, and all the songs in the world can't make up for that.

TDL Live: This week's Apple news and rumors

If you missed, below is this week's TDL Live, bringing you the roundup this week's Apple news and rumors, in handy video form. We're talking about the death of GoLive, the iTunes Music Store birthday, new iMacs and more, Enjoy!