This month’s two big record releases–Madonna’s
Hard Candy and Mariah Carey’s
E=MC2–were kept under super-secret lock and key by their record labels, but that didn’t stop them from leaking approximately 10 days before they were scheduled to hit shelves, with both leaks being marked as the “retail” editions of the album. Somehow in my life I’ve never worked in a record store, so I’m wondering exactly why these retail editions have always seemed to show up at the same time on even the most protected albums. (Recall that even the Raconteurs record leaked, despite its much shorter lead time.) Wouldn’t it make more sense to get the albums on store shelves as soon as the shipments arrive? Why is the music industry still so attached to the Tuesday release date, anyway? I realize that even in these hard times it’s a large, lumbering beast, but you’d think that protecting a revenue stream would at least spur
some sort of action. [Photo via
Spojen?]
This month’s two big record releases–Madonna’s Hard Candy and Mariah Carey’s E=MC2–were kept under super-secret lock and key by their record labels, but that didn’t stop them from leaking approximately 10 days before they were scheduled to hit shelves, with both leaks being marked as the “retail” editions of the album. Somehow in my life I’ve never worked in a record store, so I’m wondering exactly why these retail editions have always seemed to show up at the same time on even the most protected albums. (Recall that even the Raconteurs record leaked, despite its much shorter lead time.) Wouldn’t it make more sense to get the albums on store shelves as soon as the shipments arrive? Why is the music industry still so attached to the Tuesday release date, anyway? I realize that even in these hard times it’s a large, lumbering beast, but you’d think that protecting a revenue stream would at least spur some sort of action. [Photo via Spojen?]
