Long Tail my ass


What is up with iTunes Store??
Immediately after upgrading to 7.0.2 today, I was thrown into a Japanese store. I was looking up Gary Primich and when I looked at any of his albums, the prices were all quoted in yen! It took me a while to realize that this was because the entire freaking store was in Japanese (because I was not going to the front page of the store and the album notes were in English). I was checking with a friend who supports the store to see if this was a known issue, was told to change the store from a link on the bottom of the page, and by then I started to get messages that my request could not be processed now, that the Store was temporarily unavailable. OK. It was fine by the time I came home.

Now, for the part that seems more long lasting and stupid. I was looking for Pearl Jam's new album, and there are NO Pearl Jam albums for sale on the store at all. This is for a band that at one time was responsible for at least 1000 of the songs on the store, since iTMS carried just about every live album PJ released, and there were tons of them. OK, even though Starbuck's now carries Pearl Jam albums, I can live with this. I think. But why?
Throughout the night, a lot of other acts whose music I have purchased from iTMS couldn't be found there any more: Greencards, Mercury Rev, Aqualung. All of these are acts whose music I have bought from the Store -- what possible benefit could Apple get from taking them off the catalog? If it were only Pearl Jam, maybe it would be the result of a label dispute. Those guys are constantly getting pissed at someone. But all of these bands?

On the plus side, I still found and bought some fun Rufus Wainwright, Regina Spektor, Decemberists, Innocence Mission, Jonatha Brooke & The Story, and Richard Thompson. I guess I can bitch about missing bands, but I am still giving iTunes my $.

But this weekend I am going back to my friends at Waterloo Records and looking for Mercury Rev and Aqualung. And in the past, I have tried to link to iTMS pages when I mention TV shows or bands. No more. Back to linking to the artists' sites themselves. I'm sure Apple will never miss this, but I am seriously annoyed.

Posted: Wed - November 1, 2006 at 12:04 AM        

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