There is some kind of conspiracy going on to get me to go to Walmart.On the heels of the Eagles' out of the park success in ditching their record company and making their new album available only at Walmart, and the new Journey album also being available only at Walmart, now AC/DC is doing the same thing with its new CD.
Chicago Tribune writer Mark Caro posts about the news in an installment of "Is This A Sell Out?" called "For Those About to Rock - Shop At Walmart" saying:
The Eagles and Garth Brooks previously have sold CDs exclusively through Wal-Mart, with last year’s Eagles album, “Long Road Out of Eden,” considered a success story with about three million copies sold. But AC/DC? The classic headbangers’ new album won’t be available at any sort of rock music store, but you can pick it up along with a box of Huggies? Maybe this isn’t about AC/DC. Maybe this is about the death of the record store.
Other tidbits from the story in the Wall Street Journal (as picked up by the AP) include:
AC/DC is one of the few major acts yet to make its music available via Apple's iTunes Music Store. In August 2007, Verizon Wireless snagged the exclusive rights to sell the band's entire back catalog through March 2008, becoming the first and only digital music store to offer AC/DC's content.
But the deal was limited to full-album downloads. That requirement is one of the reasons that AC/DC's music has not appeared in digital form to date. Because full-album downloads are too large and too expensive to sell from mobile phones, Verizon sold them only from the PC version of its VCast Music service, for $12 an album.
This shite is big business, people. But I gotta say, while I will be only marginally OK with buying the new Journey CD at Walmart (because I HAVE to), I WON'T be buying anything else while I am there. Not even a Twix bar.
3 comments:
you can stand outside and shoulder tap some old fart going in to buy hunting accessories like fake deer pooh to buy the disc for you.
like we used to do in front of the 7-11 when we wanted a 40 of Schlitz Malt.
Seriously, AC/DC the business must be doing well to turn away the profits they would surely enjoy from selling their catalog on itunes. I would probably spend at least $20 the day it became available, $20 I will not be giving to AC/DC otherwise.
You don't have to walk into a WalMart to buy any of those 'exclusives', fortunately. Just take a look at Amazon... they've got 'em! I've even seen the Eagles' disc pop up at Amoeba. I expect the same will be true for the new AC/DC disc. Somebody's still looking out for our freedom of choice, apparently.
Good call, Harmolodic. Other music outlets are even going into Walmart, buying piles of the Eagles CDs and re-selling them at a mark up at their own stores. So I guess what I should have said is, if you want to get the disc at the low, low Walmart price, you might have to go into the store! Otherwise yeah, you can find it elsewhere. Argh!
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