iTunes - remember that? You know, that slightly cumbersome bit of software you used to fire up when you wanted to rip CDs and put them on your iPod. And later, the platform you may have used to buy and download music.
Of course, for people of a certain age, ‘iTunes’ never really went away - it’s still the name they use for Apple Music, the app that replaced it - but in reality, it now exists only in the memory and on older computers.
But wait, because thanks to - you guessed it - Taylor Swift, iTunes is back in the headlines.
Swift has long been a fan of releasing multiple physical versions of her albums (and long been criticised for it in some quarters) but for her latest release, The Life of a Showgirl, she’s offering an exclusive digital edition… via iTunes.
Which means that, to the internet’s excitement, Apple’s long-dormant iTunes X/Twitter account has sprung back to life, with a first post since 2019 saying: “The Life of a showgirl era takes center stage. Pre-order Taylor Swift’s new album on iTunes now and get exclusive content once it drops on October 3rd.”
That ‘exclusive content’ appears to be different cover art and a video titled A Look Behind the Curtain - some kind of short behind-the-scenes ‘making of’ documentary, we assume.
It should be noted that, if you’re a subscriber to Apple Music, you’ll be able to listen to the album at no extra cost - and watch the video, too, presumably. If not, you can head to the iTunes Store section in Apple Music (there’s no need to download a different app) and purchase it for $/£11.99.
It’s not hard to see why Swift is keen to get people to pay for a download of her album rather than stream it. Not only will the royalties be higher, but it may also help with chart performance - in most charts, paid-for downloads carry a heavier weighting than streams.
Although this all feels anomalous in the streaming era, it’s worth remembering that iTunes exclusive releases and other partnerships with artists used to be quite the thing. The most famous and controversial of them came in 2014, when a deal between Apple and U2 saw the band’s new Songs of Innocence album being automatically ‘sent’ to the ‘Purchased’ section of around 500 million iTunes account holders, whether they wanted it or not.
While U2 fans who got the album for free were doubtless delighted, many other people weren’t too impressed with being force-fed the band’s new record, and Bono reflected on the episode in his 2022 memoir, Surrender: 40 Songs, One Story.
"If just getting our music to people who like our music was the idea, that was a good idea,” he wrote. “But if the idea was getting our music to people who might not have had a remote interest in our music, maybe there might be some pushback. But what was the worst that could happen? It would be like junk mail. Wouldn’t it? Like taking our bottle of milk and leaving it on the doorstep of every house in the neighbourhood.
"On 9 September 2014, we didn’t just put our bottle of milk at the door but in every fridge in every house in town," he continued. "In some cases we poured it on to the good people’s cornflakes. And some people like to pour their own milk. And others are lactose intolerant.”
Seemingly accepting that it probably wasn’t such a good idea, Bono was happy to take responsibility: "I’d thought if we could just put our music within reach of people, they might choose to reach out toward it. Not quite,” he said.
Whether Taylor Swift’s fans will be happy to pony up for a digital download of The Life of a Showgirl remains to be seen, but with dedicated portable audio players apparently enjoying something of a resurgence, maybe that finely-tuned business brain of hers might be onto something yet again...
