Wal Mart is King. Now ACDC too?

LONG ROAD OUT OF SYDNEY: AC/DC is planning a Wal-Mart exclusive for its long-awaited new studio album, the band’s first for Columbia, according to the Wall Street Journal, citing sources, though Steve Barnett declined
to confirm it. The label deal reportedly took part in structuring the
deal with the chain. The Aussie hard rockers are one of a handful of
bands still withholding catalog from the iTunes Store. (6/9a) ALL WAL-MART, ALL THE TIME: The phenomenon of the Wal-Mart exclusive is examined by writer Robert Levine in a New York Times piece titled “For Some Music, It Has to Be Wal-Mart and Nowhere Else.” Levine doesn’t have the AC/DC news, but he does discuss in depth the chain’s deals with the Eagles and Journey, peppering the piece with quotes from Irving Azoff, Larry Mestel, Terry McBride and other movers and shakers. Read it here:

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/06/09/business/media/09walmart.html?_r=2&adxnnl=1&oref=slogin&ref=music&adxnnlx=1213020845-y9YVpOCA8ZiuBILlApEeCg&oref=slogin

My fave Bob Lefsetz www.lefsetz.com had a bunch to say on the subject:

THIS is a mistake.

Have you heard the new Eagles album? I'm guessing no. Even though 3 million
copies were moved by Wal-Mart, it was an impulse item for baby boomers. Sure,
some hard core fans purchased the disc too, but if you don't care about the
Eagles, it's like the album didn't even come out, like it doesn't even exist.
There was some airplay for the initial J.D. Souther-penned song "How Long", but
who listens to music radio anymore anyway? The Eagles/Wal-Mart deal was about
the money. A way for the band to get a ton up front, guaranteed, and the
retailer to drive customers into its stores to hopefully buy a washing machine
or another big ticket item.

But I ask you, is a kid going to go to Wal-Mart to buy the new AC/DC album?

This is a head-scratcher. You see AC/DC is still signed to a major label. But
you know why they made a deal with Wal-Mart? For the MONEY! Majors don't give
a shit about an act's career, they just want their dough up front. To limit
AC/DC sales exclusively to Wal-Mart is akin to limiting bubblegum sales to
Tiffany. There aren't many outlets and kids aren't going to go there anyway!

Sure, there are oldster AC/DC fans. But if the band were only interested in the
geriatrics, why did they wait eight years to make a record? They could have
just recorded some power chords or goose farts and the oldsters would have
picked up the CD at a discounted price at Wal-Mart. This is not educated
buyers, listening to cuts on the radio first, this is out of it cretins who are
shopping for detergent and giant boxes of corn flakes. Your hard core rock and
roll audience? Give me a break.

Not that AC/DC doesn't attract a blue collar audience, that might be its core,
but why in HELL is the band leaving all the kids out? Does it just figure teens
will steal the new album and is writing them off?

AC/DC is the biggest band still alive in the minds of teenagers. Pink Floyd
vows to never tour again and Led Zeppelin ain't hitting the boards soon, so that
just leaves Angus and his crew, as the torchbearers of rock and roll. Oh, you
say, what difference does it make, the band doesn't offer its catalog on iTunes
ANYWAY!

If METALLICA can make a deal with Apple, AC/DC certainly can. Is the band just
that out of it? Having spent too much time Down Under? Kids want files, for
their iPods, to take with them everywhere, to play at parties... And they want
vinyl, as a badge of honor. And some even want the CD, to evidence their
addiction. But AC/DC cares not a whit about all this, about the new generation.
It's like they're having a fire sale, trying to get everybody's dough one last
time. They don't understand what they MEAN TO PEOPLE!

What kind of crazy fucked up world do we live in where a band won't let its fans
buy its record? One where the only thing that matters is money? Where music
takes not even a back seat, but rides in the trunk?

And I've got news for you Angus... Everybody listens to cuts now, everybody
listens to his iPod on shuffle. To deny this is to appear as demented as the
major labels themselves. If people want singles, let them buy them. You know
how it works, don't you? If you love the single, you buy more... Isn't that
the essence of fandom?

iTunes is not a perfect solution. But we live in a digital age. The album is
dead. To keep one's head in the sand, to stand on ceremony, is just fucking
stupid. Who's managing this band anyway?

The key is to make the music easier to access, easier to buy... Owning "Back In
Black" should be so awe-inspiring, that you choose to experiment with earlier
tracks. We want experimentation, don't we? We want people to check things out,
don't we? So why do you have to drive to fucking Wal-Mart to buy the whole
fucking album when all you want is the damn thing on your iPod?

And you wonder why recorded music sales are in the crapper. Not only the
labels, but the acts are so out of touch with how people acquire and listen that
the gulf may widen to the point where it's ultimately impassable and music is
truly free. AC/DC is BEGGING people to steal this album. The closest Wal-Mart
to me is almost twenty miles away! Assuming there's no traffic, that's an eight
dollar fuel surcharge on the disc. But at least I've got wheels... Kids, home
from school, music addicts, but without their driver's licenses, are inured to
getting their music online. And if you won't sell it track by track, they'll
steal it that way. If you don't know this, you're still living in the twentieth
century, still waiting for Napster to come along and blow your mind.

Metallica arrives in 2008, tries to dream up new paradigms, tries to satiate the
fan (http://blog.wired.com/music/2008/05/metallica-and-w.html), and AC/DC wants
to fight the same damn battle Lars lost years ago. Utterly ignorant. And
despicable.



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He has been bitching about the Wal-Mart thing for a while, and yet still has not mentioned Journey. Cat