by The focus of the music world seems to have turned of late to streaming services, but music downloading still has a few muscles to flex. On Friday morning, Beyoncé unleashed a surprise self-titled album—complete with videos for each song—exclusively on iTunes. Even without any advance hype, the album proved to be so popular it briefly shut down the service.
The release comes just days before Apple will reportedly release 59 previously obscure Beatles tracks, according to The Guardian. Until now those songs have been available to digital listeners only in bootleg form. While observers speculate Apple’s hand is being forced because of copyright issues, the mass release seems to portend another good sales day for iTunes.
Add it all up, and there’s still some life in the old download dog yet.
“It’s still a fantastically good place to do album releases,” said Seth Schachner, a former Sony and Microsoft executive who now analyzes the music and digital industries for Strat Americas in Miami. “Any artist, particularly an artist with major-label backing like Beyoncé, would look to that platform to do new and cool things.”
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