Culture is future » Innovation and digital

Always further - music labels

Music labels launch iPad apps to encourage fans to buy albums.

Artists and music labels wish to develop iPad apps to revive the traditional album. The music industry, indeed, has paid attention to tablet computers as did Magazine publishers to attract their consumers’ attention. They hope to encourage listeners to buy more than a few tracks thanks to these apps. The Universal Music Group has decided to partner with the video company Eagle Rock Entertainment in order to create film versions of classic albums like Nirvana’s “Nevermind”. Social Networking features have also been set up to allow fans commentaries. For now, these projects are working without rules and give a large place for experimentation. However, the Swedish House Mafia app, for instance, has another aim, which is to preserve the album as a whole, since the recording industry remains the most important source of profit in the music industry. Labels hope that fans will buy the entire album if they can listen to more tracks, instead of buying singles as it is common on iTunes Music Store. Two years ago, Apple tried to develop a similar operation with iTunes LP, but this project had failed. Despite this failure, labels and artists are optimistic and hope that iPad apps will become an important part of the digital music’s world.

To learn more : http://mediadecoder.blogs.nytimes.com/2011/03/28/labels-and-musicians-enhance-albums-for-the-ipad/

A contribution of the Université d'Avignon by Coralie Pasero

Credit : Ray