I'm a digital boy living in a digital world
Labels Halt Downloads to Increase CD sales is fascinating. Here we are in the instant-everything age and music labels are trying to figure out whether releasing singles prior to the album release is less profitable. I'll be interested to see where the labels end up after they've had some more time on this one. It seems to me that counting on radio play and marketing to build excitement for an album is risky business. Do kids even listen to the radio these days? And is waiting really going to increase album sales? I know people who are perfectly happy with the "upper right-hand corner" of their Picasso. I have to admit that I'm pretty pleased that I can buy a single song for $0.99 these days. I always found the "single" to be a rip-off and I didn't buy many albums to get just one song. I don't think the timing of the release is going to affect that for me.