Apple lowering prices on iTMS?

hom · February 2, 2004 2:38PM

I went to check out the Green Day cover of I fought the law and looked around their iTMS page and found that a couple of their albums are now $7.99. Now I know that if an album has less then 10 songs Apple likes to have the album priced below $9.99, but Dookie has 15 songs, but is only $7.99. Could the competition from Craptser and Music Match be working and forcing Apple to start competing on price? Have you seen any other albums that are 10+ songs but less then $9.99?

buonrotto · February 2, 2004 3:14PM

That's the first I've seen that are popular music. There are a bunch of cheap classical CDs that sell for $5.99, but that's the only other case I've seen so far.

I swear they're adding stuff to the store that isn't showing up on the "Just added" list either. I've found a couple of things recently I either missed on that list, that weren't pu on the list, or they were added more recently than last Tuesday.

dmband0026 · February 2, 2004 6:08PM

I hope they are, but they don't have too much money to play with here. Apple is making no more than a few cents on each of the songs they sell, in fact it's still widely believed that the iTMS is a money losing venture and will be for a while. As for the competition from Napster et. al. I don't know...the iTMS has been unstoppable, even now that the market is becoming flooded with iTMS wana-bees.

fuzz_ball · February 2, 2004 6:17PM

They're making up for that $7.99 album by charging more for other albums. I can't remember which one now, but I was searching for something a couple months back and they wanted $13.99 for an album. Now this wasn't a "partial album." It was a full album, and they wanted that much. It shocked me at the time (I even complained since that's close to the full CD price, and lets face it, AAC is good, but not as good as an original CD).

Who knows? In the end it could be just what you said: competition.

pscates · February 2, 2004 6:57PM

Closely tying in to what I told Messiahtosh in a General Discussion thread yesterday, it could simply be the fact that Green Day sucks to such a horrific degree of lameosity, that charging $9.99 for their crap just didn't sit well with Apple? Can't say that I disagree.

Expect it to drop to $3.99 by May.

"Dookie" indeed.

[ducks]

amorph · February 2, 2004 7:20PM

The record company has far more say in iTMS pricing than Apple does. If someone wants $13.99 for a CD on iTunes, Apple's probably paying them about $12.99 from each sale - they gross a little over 10 cents per song.

Apple's involvement stops at the price guidelines: They'd really, really like everyone to charge $9.99 or $.99 times the number of songs, whichever is lower, but as with their original insistence that only full albums can be offered, they've proven flexible.

Particularly large and powerful acts, or acts with particularly large or powerful agents, might also place a significant influence on the price.

pscates · February 2, 2004 9:03PM

Quote:

Originally posted by tonton

Well, at least Dookie is not "hookless, pretentious crap" .

Hey, I have standards and I know what I like. Somewhere between Green Day's knowledge of two chords and ELP's use of 11,000 of them in a lumbering 18-minute "masterpiece", lies an area I'm comfortable in.

Just ask Mr. Petty.

bunge · February 2, 2004 9:08PM

I would guess that Dookie is only $7.99 because it's one of the most easily accessible used CDs in the USA.

bauman · February 2, 2004 9:10PM

I recently bought Joss Stone: Soul Sessions for 7.99... but there are only 10 songs.

I still thought it was a good price, though.

pscates · February 2, 2004 9:17PM

I like those pre-built "Essentials" collections. Just poking through those, I've come across some old songs I used to like (and have forgotten about), or brand new stuff that I like the sound of.

I hope they do more of those.

I got an e-mailed iTMS certificate for my birthday and I've pretty much burned through it already!

buonrotto · February 2, 2004 9:58PM

The one-hit wonders "Essentials" are great.

There are still a few they've missed, though.

I've seen the most popular albums sell for more than $10 since day one. They've also apparently come to some consensus on when a track is too long to cost $99. Problem with it is that instead of charging more for a 10 minute son, you can only buy them with the album. I realize they're avoiding looking like BuyMusic and Napster which talk about cheaper tracks but have a lot more expensive ones too, but maybe some system should be set up for those amazing 20 minute Butthole Surfer jams.

eman · February 3, 2004 7:51PM

A few new ones are $13.99. Screw that, I went out to Tower and Best Buy to get them instead. I'll pay $9.99 on the iTMS, but I won't pay more unless it's something I can't get elsewhere.

Apple lowering prices on iTMS?

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