Michael Jackson Album Hits No. 2 on iTunes, Despite Price Gouging

The King of Pop Michael Jackson’s posthumous album, This is It, launched yesterday on iTunes and almost immediately went to the no. 2 spot and 10 spots on the list of hot-selling albums.

As of this writing, it was second only to the soundtrack to The Twilight Saga, the New Moon.

The widely-anticipated album almost didn’t make it to iTunes.

Jackson’s last effort contains only one new song, the title track, and Jackson’s estate did not want to sell the album, as per Apple’s policy, on a track by track basis.

Fans who shell out $13.99 for the whole enchilada also get four demos and a poem with the 15 tracks including “They Don’t Care About Us” and “Billie Jean.”

The uneasy compromise: the new single only comes with the complete album.

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As commenter yippiyyip noted: “The lone fault is that the title song is not being sold separately. Buy the album for the song? No thanks.”

Would you shell out for an entire album to get just one track?

8 comments »

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Nicole Martinelli is a San Francisco native who has lived in Milan and Florence, Italy. She's written for Wired.com, The New York Times and Newsweek. You can find her on Twitter , Facebook and Google+.

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Posted in iTunes, News |

Paulo
No LP? common Apple !!
Sara
Your question on whether I’d buy the album for one new song. Answer is “YES” and “already have”.
The Twilight Saga is #1? give me a break. That’s a fad that won’t last long. Michael Jackson is proven.
It’s not just the new song, it’s the demo’s, the poem, and the voice we love. He puts current artists to shame. Just look at how many albums he’s sold since June compared to other artists. Even those that are new to his music realize what they were missing.
mariov
No way.
Observer
To answer your question, “Would I shell out $13.99 if all I wanted was the single?” HELL NO! That’s a rip-off.
If I wanted the whole album – ok, that’s a fair price, but I would never pay $14 for a single song.
Lu Galasso
LOL at Sara – Twilight at #1 is indeed a joke. It’s good to see real music selling well.
On that note, I absolutely loved this video for the new song “They Don’t Care About Us” – http://www.yeahoyeah.com/mjvideo.aspx?id=2348
christyxcore
I seriously cannot wait for the day that the whole Twilight fad dies away, in a painful and agonizing death.
It’s good to see some REAL music compete with that crap that is called Twilight and Stephanie Meyer’s crap franchise at least.
http://www.samanjj.com saman Jebeli-Javan
Die Twilight Die. We all loved MJ in our family. The funniest thing is a friend of mine read every twilight book for “research” because he “didn’t like it” and wanted to know why people mainly girls dug it. yeah right. ^_^
Chapman
HAHAHAHAHA … I just downloaded it apart of my Zune Pass. :) Do you … pay for it???? oh sad.