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Apple Teams Up With Record Labels to Revive the Album

By Rob Quinn,  Newser Staff

Posted Jul 27, 2009 8:50 AM CDT
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(Newser) – Apple has joined forces with four major record labels on a mission to get music buyers to start buying albums again instead of just single tracks, the Financial Times reports. The project—codenamed "Cocktail"—will bundle album downloads with lyrics sheets, sleeve notes, photos, and assorted interactive features in an effort to lure consumers into buying the whole package.

"It’s all about re-creating the heyday of the album when you would sit around with your friends looking at the artwork, while you listened to the music,” one Apple exec says. The project, which pairs Apple with EMI, Sony Music, Warner Music, and Universal Music Group, is being readied for a September launch. Insiders say it may be accompanied by the introduction of a new, tablet-sized Apple computer.

Apple aims to boost album sales by creating a next-generation, interactive version of the old format.
Apple aims to boost album sales by creating a next-generation, interactive version of the old format.   (AP Photo/Josh Reynolds)
A window display for Apple's online music store iTunes at an Apple store in Santa Clara, Calif.
A window display for Apple's online music store iTunes at an Apple store in Santa Clara, Calif.   (AP Photo/Paul Sakuma)
iTunes' single sales are healthy but execs are trying to boost album sales.
iTunes' single sales are healthy but execs are trying to boost album sales.   (AP Photo/Jacques Brinon, file)
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COMMENTS
Showing 3 of 4 comments
nathanielfoster
Jul 29, 2009 2:59 AM CDT
"Apple is teaming up" AKA getting money from doing this. You think Apple would do anything just to revive some kind of artistic cliche. Apple is a company, the record industries are companies. Their interested in doing what it takes to make money. It's not about the artwork and lyrics. This comes from an iPhone and Macbook Pro user. Not some Windows fanboy.
Spudsy
Jul 27, 2009 8:37 AM CDT
Too much filler on albums since the late sixties. Itunes store made me so happy when I could buy the only the tunes that the artist put any effort into. Let us not return. Did anyone ever listen to the other side of Inna Godda Da Vida more than once? No.
partialobserver
Jul 27, 2009 7:49 AM CDT
It would help if record labels signed artists with talent, and not just a pretty moneymaker who's willing to sacrifice artistic dignity for those extra zeros in his/her/their payout. Not to say there aren't talented artists signed to major labels, just lots of people in it for the money, like everyother American art form today.

 
music industry • iTunes • Apple • Universal Music Group • EMI • Warner Music • sony • album • record label • album sales

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