Apple Pushing Record Labels for More Exclusive Beyonce-Like iTunes Albums

[ProVideo]

iTunes feels like more of a dinosaur than AOL did by the early 2000s. AOL at least tried to keep up with the times for a while.

Apple's problem with services is rooted in the way they approach products in general. It takes Apple an enormous amount of time and resources to come out with a product. When they finally come out with it, it's well-polished. But it never really changes after that. Apple lets the product waste away, and eventually it's supplanted by something else. With iTunes you can see that Apple has tried to make updates, but those updates have turned iTunes into a mess, and the core iTunes Store experience hasn't changed. I would say it's gotten worse. Searching is incredibly unwieldy across apps, books, and music, and can't compete with the convenience of streaming unlimited content. Apple has never gotten Internet services. They've shuttered all the online services they've ever created except for iTunes. They didn't improve .Mac; they shut it down. They didn't improve MobileMe; they shut it down. They had to send out OS update discs just to get people to migrate their e-mail to iCloud. Who else has an e-mail service that is reliant on a particular OS?

It seems like iTunes is a chore to them and has been barely kept alive in order to remain compatible with all the devices they sell. If Windows is Microsoft's legacy product it has to maintain for past compatibility, Apple's equivalent is iTunes. But the original iTunes and original iTunes Store were both amazing. It just seems that Apple can't do things well until they scrap something and start over.

Agreed. What I find funny is that Mac.com & MobileMe could still be used as the names for iCloud and it would still make more sense than continuing to call iTunes by it's name. It seems Apple has no problem dropping and replacing product names, but for some reason they have held onto the iTunes name long after it gained more than just Music. On pretty much every tech or social site that isn't Apple based, iTunes is usually seen as a bloatware with an unfriendly user interface and more often than not is used as a punchline. If there is any product of Apple's that would need re-branding it would be iTunes and it's store. I guess as long as profits keep going up due to the natural migration of the public, they don't see a need to fix anything.

QuickTime Player is another application that exemplifies your point. In August, QuickTime X will be 5 years old. It's still pretty much as simple and useless as the day it was first released. I still find myself using QuickTime 7 Player 95% of the time because of the features that X continues to lack.

 

[Homerpalooza]

Those who follow the fads and the popular music will support sites like Spotify. Those of us who are true fans and want to support the music and the musician support iTunes

Like a lot of posts, this is just a false choice. There are those that use Spotify to determine/listen to new music or even listen to a complete catalog by an artist we've just discovered. Then, if it makes sense, go local and buy the CD or vinyl or buy from the artist directly at their concert.

I see a future where Spotify could even have a "donate to artist" link on their page, going straight past the "I'm Apple, I wanna make 30% on brokering this sale" bullcr*p.

 

[springsup]

I'm pretty sure that the movie companies are setting their own pricing in iTunes. That decision is not up to Apple.

It's not as simple as that. Apple have tiers at which movies can be priced. This is exactly the same way the iTunes music store and AppStore work. The tier prices are probably written directly in to the contracts, which means renegotiation of content deals would be required.

Rentals cost a standard rate:

- £2.49 for catalog movies (£3.49 for HD)
- £3.49 for new movies (£4.49 for HD)

As do purchases:

- £6.99 for catalog movies (£9.99 for HD)
- £9.99 for new movies (£13.99 for HD)

That's just too much. Basically, I could rent the new Thor movie for about £5, or I could use that money to subscribe to Netflix for an entire month. Which option would you consider to provide more enjoyment and entertainment for my money? Also, you can't even rent all the movies - if you want to watch Jaws on your HDTV from iTunes, that means you pay £9.99

This is why movie piracy is so rampant. If I really want to see that specific Thor movie, a £5 rental is just too much; most people would stream it illegally for nothing and save their money for a content deal which provides more value (such as Netflix).

The movie industry today is like the Napster-era for the music industry; piracy is rampant (then P2P, now streaming). People are also starting to demand more complex stories - even from television (Kevin Spacey said that House of Cards was like a 13-hour movie). That is good for the movie industry, which is where more complex stories are traditionally told - it means more demand for their type of content. iTunes can supply them the content, but not at a reasonable price.

I would really like to see Apple improve the value of the iTunes store. People's viewing habits have changed, and they've changed in such a way that iTunes provides very little value.

1. No additional fees for HD content (rental or purchase).
2. Drastically lower rental prices. £0.99 for catalog movies, £1.99 for new movies.
3. Drastically lower purchase prices. £3.99 for catalog, £4.99 for new movies.
4. More bundles, let people complete bundles if they own some movies from it.
5. Subscription options; e.g. 3 catalog + 2 new movies for £4.99 per month? unlimited rentals for £9.99 per month?

 

[ellsworth]

Who's Beyonce?

 

[AngerDanger]

Who's Beyonce?

I don't know, but I've heard she can only bey once without passing out! (I can usually bey three or four times, btw)

 

[petsounds]

IMO, there's just a lot of music released these days that most people perceive as "so-so". They may like a song or two from one of the bands, until it's overplayed and they tire of it. But it's rare to find a band with any "staying power", who keep cranking out hits and who "speaks" to a really large cross-section of the population.

Against the current backdrop, it's not surprising people don't want to pay much to download (or stream) music. They long ago bought the older stuff they liked (if they are from that generation). Now, you just consider going to the occasional show where you probably won't pay a whole lot for a ticket, and you don't really care if you own the album or not.

I addressed this a bit in my third paragraph. Requiring music artists to constantly tour kills the creative process. For instance, I'm positive that The Flaming Lips could have never made The Soft Bulletin if they were required to constantly tour. There's a lot of other reasons for the decline in music quality, but that's off-topic. But another big factor -- and more relevant to your pop music examples -- is that the major record labels no longer take any chance at all on any musicians that are different. This has been a long-running trend -- there used to be a thing called "artist development" -- but after the music industry crumbled due to piracy and then streaming services, the major labels will often sign a band and if their first single doesn't do well, they get dropped. And the ones that do get signed fit into a very narrow window. And the records that do get produced are recorded on the cheap, often in home studios by the bands themselves.

In terms of why current albums aren't great listening, Paul Cantor has a good piece on that. TL;DR -- good art is about editing down to the essence, and without the format constraints of physical media, bands are just doing a shotgun approach and seeing what sticks with fans. This is IMO also a symptom of trying to get above the noise of endless crappy bands on Soundcloud fighting for attention. Record labels used to serve an important purpose by separating the wheat from the chaff. There's a whole lot of chaff floating around the internet now.

 

[Joesmith13245]

I haven't purchased iTunes music in ages as I subscribe to a music service that allows me to listen to whatever I want, whenever I want.

Apple is inching toward this model which is evident with the introduction of iTunes Radio. It's coming.. Once Apple's financial gurus can prove they will make more $$ with a streaming service.

 

[Jessica Lares]

As long as it eventually comes out to the other stores a week or so later, I have no problem with it. That, and that they give us a choice of both the album with or without the extras (which probably won't happen, but one can dream ).

 

[Revearti]

I hope more artists get iTunes exclusives.

I love iTunes, and I love buying music over streaming music due to music contracts expiring and not being available as time passes. I've used iTunes since it's first release, and I've enjoyed the changes as the years go by. Remember the Pepsi cap promotion?

iTunes is one of the top five apps that are always running on my Mac, and I still believe it's the best media manager. I'm definitely glad it's an app versus a web browsing experience.

 

[Todd B.]

ITT: Lots of hipsters and music snobs who think they know how to run a music business trying to tell Apple - who runs a billion dollar music story - how they should run their business.

I hope they do get more exclusive content like that; the Beyonce album was one of the best! Aside from Last.fm which I use also, I still think iTunes >>> every other service.

I just wish they would expand iTunes radio and turn it into a satellite radio type of service to compete with XM, with DJs and such; sort of like BBC Radio.

 

[johnhw]

No, and it's ridiculous that they don't. Especially now that you can buy the actual CD on Amazon, which is sometimes even cheaper, and instantly get MP3s using AutoRip.

Wow that sucks. I still buy regular CDs from record stores. You get more for usually less. I remember even some giving free posters and other freebies on each purchase. Nothing beats the quality and the stuff they put with CDs.

 

[EbookReader]

word on the street is that Amazon is jumping into the on-demand subscription music market too.

http://recode.net/2014/02/27/amazon-talks-to-music-labels-about-a-streaming-service/

It might look like this

$59: Amazon Prime free shipping
$89: Amazon Prime free shipping + Prime Music + 1 free ebook rental
$89: Amazon Prime free shipping + Prime Video + 1 free ebook rental
$119: Amazon Prime free shipping + Prime Video + Prime Music + 1 free ebook rental


Prime Music is just Amazon version of Spotify/Deezer/Rhapsody/Beats Music/Google All Access Music/Xbox Music/Rdio.

 

[dumastudetto]

This is an argument that is trotted out a lot by people who want music to be free, but it just isn't reality. Musicians have *always* been touring and selling merch at shows. People act like this is some amazing new way of making a living. The fact is, the small amount of money made from ticket sales (most venues get the majority of revenue) and merchandise (paltry) goes to pay for the tour itself -- traveling, even by car, is not cheap. It's usually break-even. If you're a bigger artist who is not expected to put on an elaborate show, you might make some money. But that money will probably go towards paying for the recording costs of the album.

Great post actually. I had to snip most of it for reasons of forum etiquette, but I enjoyed reading.

But despite all the passion and emotion you pour into the cause, the bottom line is this is a business. You have to show a willingness to adapt and evolve to take advantage of new opportunities while old markets shrink/disappear. Crying about old models and the way people used to do things doesn't shift everyone back in a time capsule to the days when consumers were willingly ripped off to build physical collections of recorded music.

Do I miss those days? Actually I do. I love physical collections of music, vinyl especially, the big album sleeve artwork, etc. I've always remained much more interested in continuing to buy the physical recording versus the iTunes download version. But time has moved on, and it's basically a niche market now.

Apple can try a few things like the iTunes Exclusives but generally it's acting out of self-interest with big mainstream artists, and does nothing to help those lower on the food chain.

Of course live music and merchandising isn't new. But the market is bigger than it's ever been. More people are going to live shows than ever before, spending more, paying more. This is where the money is in the industry. Artists have to get smart and try and take advantage of that, if they are serious about wanting to make money doing something they love! You can be sure the grey suits long ago starting shifting agreements from focusing mainly on the recorded music, to moving them in the direction of live events where consumption in music spend shifted.

Also artists have direct connections with their fans through social networking and online activities. Some merchandising opportunities are bigger than ever. They can shift special edition signed copies of recordings to their hardcore fans. They can sell all kinds of merchandise around the world very easily. They can sell digital downloads of special recordings and gigs. They can promote their live shows to large audiences without having to travel around the world doing tv and radio promotion. They can even put on intimate live shows via the internet without a massively expensive venue.

Opportunities exist but if artists have continued to handicap themselves by signing terrible deals with labels, managers and other hangers-on then that's their own fault!

 

[captain kaos]

I bet they are. KA-CHING!!!!

 

[X Cruz 187]

.Mac turned into MobileMe which turned into iCloud, so completely wrong about those being shut down. Now if there's a point to make it's that they got bad enough to need rebranding twice.

I'm too lazy to identify specifics in your other exaggerations, but you've also got a point about iTunes.

Why did we have to loose .mac I had it for years then, one day I didn't pay for a month and then it didn't work anymore? Wasting time with all this .icloud

 

[D-Dave]

And Apple is the first company to completely focus on what the consumer really desires.

Call me a cynic ... but to me it always felt that Apple focuses on what Apple wants the customers to desire...

 

[sshambles]

As much as I prefer having MP3's instead of streaming, we OWN our vinyls a lot more than we OWN anything from iTunes.

Absolutely agree.
I agree, but that said, I still own my MP3's regardless of what is said by Apple or anyone. I can do what I want with them. I dislike the notion of - oh you don't own the mp3's you buy. Then you won't have really bought it in any case. Absolute crap. I can pass them onto whoever I want, they just won't have the iTunesMatch availability online is all.

 

[rboy505]

Beyoncé is one of the few who could generate that many sales through iTunes for being exclusive for only a few days.

Most artists would most likely not see much good come of being exclusive in this way...

tann, actually Brooklyn rapper Kid Cudi's latest album was dropped as an iTunes exclusive last week and shot up the charts, and interestingly they were confident enough to make it an album purchase only. He's not a household name but it seemed to both him and Apple to be worth whatever it meant and it was a success.

I agree with every angle of how exclusive agreements are negatives for us. There's really no upside I can figure for the consumer. But for the artists and the companies there are huge upsides if their hunch is right (and the whole music business release world is built on hunches, so it's just one more for them). I have no idea what the money figures would be or even if there needs to be one. In the artist's case the they get splashed all over Apple pages, which they couldn't buy even if it were available. And for Apple, they need to do nothing more than they would do ordinarily beyond that.

For sure it is the way the industry is going to go, no question. Not deep into it but there will be exclusives on all the music providers all the time. And I'm thinking there will likely be a kind of tacit agreement among themselves that they will all make more money if no one gets too greedy and tries to get every potential exclusive, that if they let it spread around a bit in a "natural selection" kind of way, it will be rosy for all of them. This aspect isn't part of what they see as following what the customer wants, or rather what is best for the customer. Any more than when any record company used to do anything.

But this is absolutely the beginning of many more in assorted shapes, sizes and time frames by the whole industry.

 

[kingtj]

re: record labels

I agree with you completely about the record labels not taking any musical chances anymore. Doesn't that likely have something to do with the backgrounds of the people in charge of them today, vs. a few decades ago? (I believe most, if not all, of the major labels used to be run by people who had backgrounds as musicians themselves, or recording engineers? Today, it's pretty much all business majors.)

I'd also say that in my opinion, a lot of modern artists are focusing on something completely different than musicians did in the past, at least in the "modern rock" category. The fast track to popularity, right now, seems to be a marketing person hearing your music on the net someplace (whether MySpace or SoundCloud or whatnot) and deciding it's perfect to license as background music for a commercial. Writing with intentions of catching the ear of marketers is VERY different from writing to express your feelings about a subject.

I addressed this a bit in my third paragraph. Requiring music artists to constantly tour kills the creative process. For instance, I'm positive that The Flaming Lips could have never made The Soft Bulletin if they were required to constantly tour. There's a lot of other reasons for the decline in music quality, but that's off-topic. But another big factor -- and more relevant to your pop music examples -- is that the major record labels no longer take any chance at all on any musicians that are different. This has been a long-running trend -- there used to be a thing called "artist development" -- but after the music industry crumbled due to piracy and then streaming services, the major labels will often sign a band and if their first single doesn't do well, they get dropped. And the ones that do get signed fit into a very narrow window. And the records that do get produced are recorded on the cheap, often in home studios by the bands themselves.

In terms of why current albums aren't great listening, Paul Cantor has a good piece on that. TL;DR -- good art is about editing down to the essence, and without the format constraints of physical media, bands are just doing a shotgun approach and seeing what sticks with fans. This is IMO also a symptom of trying to get above the noise of endless crappy bands on Soundcloud fighting for attention. Record labels used to serve an important purpose by separating the wheat from the chaff. There's a whole lot of chaff floating around the internet now.

 

[jonyive4]

"We"? Who is we? People who don't want to pay for music? Because most music artists are suffering under this Spotify era. You think Beyonce did her iTunes exclusive just to be different? I just talked to the singer of a mid-level indie band today who is planning to do exactly what Apple wants with their next album. Not because of pressure from Apple, but because since they started releasing their albums on Spotify the same day as digital stores their album revenue has dropped tenfold. Their next album will have a period of exclusivity on digital stores before going to Spotify.

Gee, let's see how long it takes for one user to generate $10 for an album on Spotify:

About $0.007 per listen => $0.07 for an entire 10-track album play through (60 minutes) => ~140 hours. => 6 days of listening consecutively

Now, if the music is good, the user is going to listen to that album MORE than 140 hours during a 10 year life span. I have a track in my iTunes library that I've listened to 9091 times, that translates into about 60 bucks of revenue FROM ONE TUNE had I listened to it on Spotify.

now, how artists setup the royalties with the record labels, I can't comment on that. but in terms of generating a revenue, if the music is good, it's better to go with spotify.

does that put pressure on artists to make good music? yep. exactly how it should be IMO. artists don't deserve $10 for putting out a crap album.

 

[FernStar2808]

iTunes companion ?

Does anyone know of a software program that would have more music album information than iTunes 11 offers? I miss the details of the inside CD cover or the details from the back of a vinyl album cover for example what additional music artist played on the album. My entire music library is all in iTunes with the exception of my vinyl collection. The majority of my CD collection has been uploaded and the remaining has been downloaded from iTunes.

 

[petsounds]

I agree with you completely about the record labels not taking any musical chances anymore. Doesn't that likely have something to do with the backgrounds of the people in charge of them today, vs. a few decades ago? (I believe most, if not all, of the major labels used to be run by people who had backgrounds as musicians themselves, or recording engineers? Today, it's pretty much all business majors.)

Well, there have always been good and bad seeds, but prior to the 80s it's true that many of the record label heads respected musicians and saw themselves as supporting art, while still making a profit of course. There was a big profit-focused shift in the 80s, but they still let a few bands be creative. But the big record labels are so lean now that they don't have the financial ability to absorb poor sales, though with physical product dwindling this might change. The smaller record labels are still taking chances, but I think many medium-sized indie labels have lost their voice as curators, as they have also been hit hard by the falling fortunes of the industry.

The fast track to popularity, right now, seems to be a marketing person hearing your music on the net someplace (whether MySpace or SoundCloud or whatnot) and deciding it's perfect to license as background music for a commercial. Writing with intentions of catching the ear of marketers is VERY different from writing to express your feelings about a subject.

To be fair, that trend started in the late 90s because it's always been hard for even good bands to live off of their artistic work, but after record sales plummeted this became a good way to support themselves, if they were lucky enough for an Apple to choose their single. Then the internet came, the industry and labels became lean and bands were trying anything to get discovered and get some money. I can't really blame anyone for trying to make a buck, but I agree that many bands are focusing too much on marketing and not enough on making good music.

I would pin the recent lack of interesting diversity and individuality in rock music on the internet itself. Once a musician could go on SoundCloud or YouTube and hear what anyone in any city was doing, then "local scenes" sort of disappeared. But local scenes were what historically incubated new sounds. Think about the 1980s NY hardcore and noise scenes, 70s/80s London punk scene, 80s/90s D.C. post-punk scene, 70s/80s Glasgow punk-pop scene, SF psychedelic scene, etc. By the 2000s you could take an LA band and it would sound the same as a Portland band or a NYC band, and I think it's only getting worse.

 

[Edu Camargo]

Hi guys, I'm knew to this forum. Thanks for the great contribution here, from both users and blog creators. Sorry for joining the discussion so late but I found it very interesting. Here are my thoughts.

I read all comments regarding the iTunes exclusives and I think that the points on the article mentioned by petsounds are very compatible with how people deal with music these days. Although I'm not subscribed on the streaming services mentioned, I think it explains the need for a change in our perspectives if we want to survive doing music. The whole thing about albums being so disconnected are probably one of the reasons in which streaming comes in handy to many people. I always do some comparisons that help me to understand why this huge gap in music:
Books are still interesting because the author always puts effort on a subject. When a book is a compilation of texts, thoughts and etc, it's explicit to the reader. Films go the same path. I don't think people go to theaters to see a particular film because of a specific chapter, or scene. Yes, the 33RPM lp was invented in 1948, those were other times, but the idea was to fit suites in a single disc, surpassing the limitations of the 78. When you see albums such as Gaye's What's Going On, Pink Floyd's The Wall, The Dark Side... and many others, Beatles' Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band, we understand the importance they still have in music to many people. Thank God there are still people thinking artistically and makin' life out of it, but they're not on the mainstream.

With all this in mind, I don't think that giving exclusives will restore the strength of the so called "music industry. If you just want to make a catchy song, then do a single and that's it. If you want to make an album, then I think that an unified theme should be a better option if you need people to buy the long play. Not that it should be a mandatory formula, but it helps to put some light on how we want our record to be treated. If you want to pay tribute to a certain artist, or genre, at least it helps the listener to look for what he/she wants at the moment. But the whole thing about doing a record with just 1 or 2 killer songs and the rest just space fillers makes me look after YouTube for just what I need. Recently I had this problem with Nicole Scherzinger. Super voice, released a single called “Your Love”, the buy button was just one click away so I could click and then have the music right on my library, but then I heard a 60 second preview. Not surprised with the song, I went to YouTube and looked for the video, only to avoid hitting the iTunes buy button. Not even with access to Qobuz (which I've aquired recently), I'd buy this track in FLAC format.

Again, I think it's time for some of us to get focused. The exclusives might help to a certain extent, but if the song is not that much atractive, if is there anything that people will cut from their budgets is this so-so music. There's too much worrying about the change in trends and less focus on music that people care about, music that reflect our own lives and, consequently, the life of others.

Peace,

Edu.