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It's common knowledge that iTunes, and its a la carte sales model, is killing album sales. And, honestly, why would (or should) fans buy a full album's worth of music when they're only interested in one or two songs? You'd have to be kind of dull to spend more for less, right? This truism is being put to the test—with solid content and coordinated marketing, artists and labels are finding that iTunes can deliver album sales. Billboard (Yahoo) reports that in recent months labels and artists have begun releasing multiple tracks in advance of an album's street date to promote new releases, relying in no small degree on Apple's iTunes Music Store's Complete My Album "For artists that have multiple tracks out, if the album is solid and there's an offer that makes sense to consumers, they will use it," said Cameo Carlson, senior vice president, digital business development, Universal Motown. "Traditionally, there's been some concern about how much content gets out there [singles]. Complete My Album definitely helps alleviate some of that concern."  The concept, according to this March, 2007 press release from Apple, is quite simple: [Complete My Album] allows customers to turn their individual tracks into a complete album at a reduced price by giving them a full 99¢ credit for every track they have previously purchased from that album. Since its introduction, according to Apple, Complete My Album has been responsible for 52% of the album's sales and conversion rates have averaged around 10%. But those rates could start climbing now that acts like Lil Wayne, Jason Mraz, the Cure and the Jonas Brothers are using the feature as a marketing tool. Rather than just releasing singles digitally in advance and leaving fans to figure out for themselves how to fill in the blanks when the full album is released, these acts are encouraging the practice by explaining how it works via their iTunes profiles, MySpace pages and personal Web sites. In mid-May, Insanely-Great Mac reported that digital album sales in the UK grew 69.3% in the first quarter over the same period last year. Likewise, IGM also wrote in January that US digital album sales were up 53% in 2007. Editor's note: Solid content plus coordinated marketing leads to higher sales. Who'd have thunk? + FREE Shipping + Printer + Parallel Desktop 3.0 after Rebate(s)
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