Question about long tracks and 'bonus' tracks

[WindowSills]

Here's kind of a strange question, but it's related to the "album experience" so I threw it in here.

It seems that the exceptions to the iTunes store's individual song downloads policy are: tracks from some various artists compilations, some "bonus tracks" and songs that exceed a certain length of time. My question revolves around the latter.

If songs over 10 minutes (or whatever the length of time is) are always considered "album only" - what if there were only two tracks on an "album"? Track one would be side one and track two would be like side two of an LP, each track would be 15-25 minutes long, but consist of 5 or so songs. Would one be able to charge $9.99 for this album, or would it be only $1.98 or somewhere in the middle?

Thanks,
Dave

[initialsBB]

Check out Vangelis - Heaven and Hell at the ITMS. It's two tracks and you can buy the complete album for $1.98.

[PeterTuneCore]

$9.99, Dave. Pure and simple.

The thought behind the "album only" track is to keep the amount of music connected in some sane way to the purchase price. No cut-and-dry rule of thumb would prevent upset customers. Consider:

--The sound effects album with 300 tracks. If each 4 second track was $0.99, no one would dream of buying them one at a time!

--The 2-track album, each track is 25 minutes long. What artist would ever submit these to iTunes if 50 minutes of music sold for only $1.98?

iTunes's 10-minutes rule is a compromise, and one that seems to work fairly well. We get very few inquiries about it!

--Peter
peter@tunecore.com

[WindowSills]

That's cool to know. I was thinking this could be a way for bands like Radiohead and AC/DC to get their stuff onto iTunes. It's a bit of a workaround, but if they really are concerned about "the full album experience" - what's more album like than having two sides? I first heard of Michael Penn doing this for the promo CD's of his most recent album. He wanted people to listen to it as he conceived it - as an album with two sides. In the end, the CD and download versions had individual tracks for each song.

As for myself as an indie artist, I think it might be fun to try it as an experiment. Perhaps have two versions available, with the "album experience" version having an extra song on one of the "sides" that the individual song download version doesn't offer (as incentive to try the new/old format) - and see which one sells better.

[Derek Sivers]

Originally Posted by WindowSills

I think it might be fun to try it as an experiment. Perhaps have two versions available

I like that idea!

If you do it, please let me know how it goes.