CUPERTINO, California (Digital Journal) — Are you a fan of John Mayer, Ben Harper, Motorhead or Green Day? Ever chilled out to Ray Charles, Norah Jones, Kanye West or Herbie Hancock?
Buying downloaded songs from these Grammy-winning artists is now funneling less cash from your bank account. Apple’s iTunes Music Store is offering discount pricing on all albums that include a Grammy award-winning track, slicing $2 off an album’s original cost, which brings the price of most albums down to $7.99.
“We want to extend our congratulations to all of the Grammy nominees and winners,” said Steve Jobs, Apple’s CEO. “We’re thrilled to be able to honour the industry’s top artists by showcasing their award-winning music on iTunes Music Store.”
Also announced is the availability of the Grammy-telecast song “Across the Universe,” performed live by legendary musicians including Bono, Steve Wonder, Alicia Keys and Tim McGraw. The track will cost 99 cents on iTunes in both Canada and the U.S. Apple says all proceeds go to the Southeast Asia tsunami relief efforts.
The Grammy-linked announcement is an emboldened effort to wean MP3 fans away from peer-to-peer file-sharing sites. iTunes is already doing a successful job: as of mid-2004, it claimed 70 per cent of the paid music download services market while Napster nabbed just 11 per cent, according to NPD Group.
iTunes features more than one million songs and close to 9,000 audiobooks, and has sold more than 250 million songs since it went online.
