Highs & Lows

Earlier this month I posted a commentary about trying to keep tabs on the releases of your favorite producers, which isn't one of the easier aspects of being a fan of electronic dance music.

Here's another thing though that's been on my mind though lately- the prices of tracks right after they're released on digital download stores.

For the rest of the music industry (not EDM), the long-standing rule has been that an album or individual songs are cheaper the week of their release, and then go up in price shortly thereafter.

Last week I was able to purchase Story Of The Year's new album, The Constant, for only $7.99 at Best Buy. Now if I went there it would run me $14.99 for the hard copy. AmazonMP3 also has been commonly pricing select full-length albums for only $2.99 on their release day for a special 24 hour period.

Why do these retailers do this? While I'm not a complete authority on the music industry, my guess is that all the reviews, hype, and airplay that a album will get during its release week will help push sales from casual listeners looking for new music at a discounted price. If someone was browsing Best Buy this week and saw that Story of the Year album for $14.99 and weren't a serious fan of the group, would they consider buying it? Probably not as much as the week before.

So here's where this all ties into dance music- this industry apparently operates on a digital model that's opposite of what everyone else does.

When a new track comes out on Beatport, it's going to cost either $1.99 or $2.49. While I've bought my fair share of Beatport downloads at the $1.49 pricepoint, which is a little high, the former two prices are pretty ridiculous.

I've heard the argument before that any price is worth it as long as the song is good- but really, $2.49 for a file?

Let's attempt to rationalize this:

"Maybe they do it because every other digital store does the same"

- Not really. Prices of tracks on Beatport, Trackitdown, Junodownload, and other stores are significantly higher than the likes of iTunes, AmazonMP3 and Rhapsody.

"It costs more overhead for a store like Beatport to store a file on their server than someone else"

- This could be it, but at the same time there are still countless indie and smaller digital music stores offering the same $.99 pricepoint as the big guns.

"They do it because DJ's will pay anything to be able to play the latest hot track in their set"

- This is the closest I could come up with, but at the same time it still doesn't make sense. There are more fans listening and dancing to the music who might want to purchase it than DJ's spinning in the booth.

So what's your take on this subject?