As her fans continue to bask in the glory of its sales, Beyonce‘s self-titled new album now finds itself at the centre of heated ‘industry debate’ this year, now Apple have called on record labels to learn from the icon’s strategy.
Details on their ‘Beyonce‘-fuelled demand below…
Released exclusively to iTunes as a surprise release on December 13th 2013, Knowles joined its owner Apple in watching the project sell 1 million units worldwide in its first week of release.
In response, the company’s music chief Robert Kondrk spent this year’s ‘Grammy week’ urging label executives to follow suit, arguing that streaming outlets such as YouTube and Spotify are to blame for the decline in download sales, with users able to stream entire releases without purchasing them.
Billboard Biz reports:
“In the meetings during Grammy Week, Apple’s iTunes contingent, led by Kondrk, even suggested the albums don’t even have to be exclusive to iTunes, and that labels could give albums to other stores as well – but not streaming services. Republic Records’ artist Kid Cudi this week released his album ‘Satellite Flight’ exclusively to digital retailers — led by iTunes.
Ironically, Kondrk also asked that individual track sales be locked down for a window of time before allowing tracks to be purchased separately making the album available to streaming services, said executives from two major labels. This runs contrary to the album unbundling strategy first negotiated by Apple founder Steve Jobs with his original iTunes store label deal in 2003.”
So, let us know…