Apple, Record Labels Try To Boost Album Sales

The music ‘biz was-a-stirrin’ Monday with news that Apple had partnered with the four largest record labels — EMI, Sony, Warner and Universal — to help boost digital sales of albums by packaging new interactive booklets, liner notes and other interactive features with music downloads.

It’s a move Apple believes might tweak buying trends on its iTunes store.

“It’s all about recreating the heyday of the album when you would sit around with your friends looking at the artwork, while you listened to the music,” one executive familiar with the plans told Financial Times.

The Apple album project has been code-named ‘Cocktail,’ and there’s talk of a September launch date.

FT also reported today that Apple is “racing to offer a portable, full-featured, tablet-sized computer in time for the Christmas shopping season.” The device could be launched alongside Apple’s new content deals, including the plan to stimulate sales of CD-length music.

It might not be the same as returning home from your local record store with the latest LP by (insert your favorite artist here), examining every inch of the album sleeve as the record player spins – but it’s not a bad move by Apple in this writer’s opinion. However, whether or not this exclusive up-sell is enough to shift consumer habits and upend the sales charts is up in the air.

There’s already digital liner notes with certain albums and special, album-only content on iTunes, but clearly that hasn’t led to more people bypassing individual singles for the whole album. And I’m still unsure why there are certain songs that can only be purchased if you buy the entire album. That’s annoying, in my opinion. But that’s another article.

Plus, with a little search engine razzle dazzle you can pretty much find all the lyrics and photos you need.

Interactive album material – be it photos, lyrics, liner notes or video interviews – definitely appeals to me, especially if it involves an artist I’m a huge fan of. But it’s going to have to be some killer, bonus material involved to ‘invest’ in the complete album. The more exclusive, perhaps the more most fans will be tempted to go all-in for the whole album.

It’s not that digital sales are sluggish, but no one really gets too excited about purchasing full-length albums; liner notes and interactive booklets might help, though maybe just not enough.

Is it so bad to just want one or two songs from the new Dead Weather album? I mean is that so terrible?

So let’s all grab our favorite vinyl LP (I’ll go with Elvis Costello’s This Year’s Model for starters), think back to the good, old days when albums ruled and wonder if we can get that same feeling with the magic of Apple.

What do you think? Is all this exclusive content with album downloads enough to pull you away from buying single tracks?