Canadian indie rock band Arcade Fire sold 156’000 copies of their new album ‘The Suburbs‘ in just a week which was enough to propel them to the number one spot on the US Billboard album chart , but many think that part of the success has to do with the pricing policy implemented for the sale of the new disc.
Ex Superchunk member and Merge Records co-founder Laura Ballance went as far as to claim that the Arcarde Fire’s choice to sell their new hit album for a mere $3.99 ‘devalues’ the music business and explained why she thinks it was less than fair this way, “Just to make it so cheap that it tips the scale. It’s tricky. I find the resistance I had five years ago to music getting cheap is being broken down over the years by relentless pressure. People want to pay less.” On the other hand Ballance admitted that the low price of the album was perhaps the only way to get fans to stop downloading free music on the web.
Approx. 60% of the 156,000 copies of The Suburbs’ sold were online digital sales. – Retailer Amazon’s priced at $3.99.
“Devaluing music is something that concerns me greatly.” Ballance went on to explain to the LA Times. ” But it’s hard to draw a hard line on it. At this point, people can download music for free if they really want to. If you’re trying to get people to buy music, people who wouldn’t otherwise, maybe that’s the way to do it.”
I think 4 bucks (US) for a digital copy of an album is a fair price. In fact, that should probably be the de facto, standard price. Price it any higher and more people will steal it than buy it.
Of course it’s fair, this “controversy” is ridiculous. The fact is Arcade Fire record all of their music, they own the rights to all of their music, and can do whatever they desire with it. Dropping prices on products that don’t require as much man work (ie: digital downloads) is the only way to combat piracy.