On air/On sale - When the public just won’t wait

Picture the scene.  You’re cruising down the road in your car and hear a song you love on the radio.  Maybe it’s a long awaited comeback from one of your favourite artists or maybe it’s a brand new act.  Later that day you sit down at your computer, load up the iTunes store and search for the track, only to find it’s not out for another month.  Instant frustration!

But times are changing - Take pop darling Britney Spears and her brilliant new single Hold It Against Me as a case in point.  The song premiered on January 10th and went on sale in the US the next day.  But in the UK, the single originally wasn’t set to be released until February 20th, a whole five weeks later than the US.  But due to overwhelming public demand, record labels Sony and Universal decided to bring the release date forward and make the single available to download on UK iTunes.

They call this new system On air/On sale, and while sounding like one of those fancy ‘buzzword’ slogans marketing types dream up in offices, it may very well represent the future of music.  In other words - now, if you want Britney’s latest slice of hot, catchy-as-hell dance-pop, you don’t have to wait an age for it (Please do download it by the way, it’s properly amazing).

The system has already been used extensively in America; and as television, school slang and the Iraq war have shown us, where America leads, Britain usually follows.

Interestingly, the whole situation of delayed release dates in the UK has also thrown up the bizarre situation of what I like to call ‘budget versions’.  As there is a huge demand for big new singles, there are companies out there that specialise in quickly pumping out versions of these songs and putting them up on iTunes so that music fans eager to download the real version of the song will often accidently download the ‘budget version’.  This system is essentially a factory of mediocrity, as it were - an endless stream of cheap imitations that are never as good as the real thing, but that continue to thrive because people simply aren’t willing to wait.  They want their new music, and they want it now.

If you’ve ever had the misfortune of downloading one of these budget versions by accident, or just had a listen because you want some cheap laughs, you’ll know these awful ‘cover’ versions are voiced by poor karaoke singers belting the lyric out over backing tracks that sound like they’ve been cooked up in someone’s bedroom on an economy-price keyboard.

Clearly there is an issue with release dates.  While the traditional method of playing songs on the radio for a few weeks to build up demand before they go on sale has its merits, the music industry has shown itself time and time again to be a thing of constant change.

Maybe the moves made by Sony and Universal simply represent the next element of change.  With 99% of the UK singles market now comprised of digital downloads, a system of On air/On sale is looking more and more likely to become a reality.