In a move set to infuriate not only her record company but all music conglomerates worldwide, Lady Gaga has announced that her new album Born This Way isn’t worth more than the 99 cents it was offered to the public by Amazon as a loss leader.
Speaking to the august institution, the Wall Street Journal, when asked if she believed that her album was worth more than the 99 cents 400,000 Amazon punters paid for the total 1.1 million copies sold in the US this past week, she said ““No. I absolutely do not, especially for MP3s and digital music. It’s invisible. it’s in space. If anything, I applaud a company like Amazon for equating the value of digital versus the physical copy, and giving the opportunity to everyone to buy music. It also wasn’t really 99 cents, because Amazon paid the difference on all of those purchases as part of their promotional campaign for one of their new services. I think it’s amazing and it was a really nice surprise and I felt honoured that they chose my record to be part of it.”
Her response is sure to infuriate the record industry in America, which has only just been congratulating itself on her album giving it a massive sales boost. Indeed, industry rag Billboard ran an article this week in which it breathlessly asked “Did Amazon’s 99-Cent Lady Gaga Sale Save the Recorded Music Business?”
However, Ms Gaga admits that Amazon copped a significant loss on the sale. She says “It also wasn’t really 99 cents, because Amazon paid the difference on all of those purchases as part of their promotional campaign.” Nonetheless, it’s about the only positive thing for the music industry in America – it’s helped to drive a whole 0.35% increase in sales across the industry.
Nielsen SoundScan in America reports 2011’s year-to-date album-sales total of 125.86 million as of May 29, represents a whopping 0.35% increase over the total 125.42 million units scanned in the prior year’s corresponding period. That equates to 445,000 more album-unit sales in 2011 than clocked up in 2010.
