Seattle Times
This week a new Hendrix bootleg appears, but it won’t be sold at collector swap meets, or out of the trunk of a car: Instead it is available exclusively from Amazon.com. “The Jimi Hendrix Fan Pack” is the 12th “official” bootleg issued by Experience Hendrix, the Seattle-based company that runs his estate.The fan pack is more than just a CD: It is instead an elaborate oversized cardboard box, complete with a T-shirt, music, and memorabilia reproductions. The CD version will be priced at $62.99; an even more deluxe edition runs $92.99, but includes a vinyl version of the album. Those list prices seem high? Consider that the set is yet another example of new paradigm in a music industry decimated by illegal downloading. Even such Hall of Fame artists as Jimi Hendrix have seen sales hurt by file sharing, and one response has been to add special features to the physical music product. Even at those price points, some deluxe sets have been hit sellers, with fans citing the elaborate designs and liner notes as a return to the golden age of album packaging. “With the Pearl Jam set [a reissue of ‘Ten’], we sold a ton and continue to sell them,” notes Matt Vaughan, owner of Seattle’s Easy Street Records. Vaughan is disappointed, however, that Experience Hendrix is making the Jimi set an Amazon exclusive, as these increasingly common deals are hurting the few remaining indie record stores around.
THE ALBUM IS DEAD, LONG LIVE THE APP
Wired
The iTunes music store sells single songs at approximately the same price, with artist presented in more or less the same way. Apple’s app store, however, is still somewhat like the wild west (at least as far as music goes), where the rules are being made up in real time. Artists and labels can sell music alongside other digital offerings through the app store at any price from zero to $999.99. As Wired suggested last summer, this creates an opportunity for artists and labels to distribute a new type of product, especially because the app store concept is spreading to other mobile phone platforms. On Monday, six of the 20 most recently submitted music apps to appear in the App Store featured a single artist: Jason Carver, Jessica Harp, Jimmy Cliff, John Butler Trio, Kadence, or The Cribs. Each showcases music videos, photos, news, photo-jumble games, concert listings, and/or community features that let fans share photos with each other. And all of them were made with iLike’s iPhone app toolkit. For the full story on how apps are changing music distribution, check out the above link.
