What to do when your album isn’t selling? Try giving it away, almost. Lady Gaga’s ARTPOP has been such a dud that amazon.com has been deep discounting it like crazy. The CD sells for $6.99 and the MP3 download goes for $4.99. Albums cost $6.99 back in 1975, if you’re keeping count.
By comparison. Amazon sells Katy Perry’s “Prism” CD for 15 bucks, Britney Spears’s new “Britney Jean” for $11.99, Eminem’s hit “MMLP2” for $16.88, and the new One Direction collection for $19.46.
Lady Gaga’s $4.99 download isn’t exceptional, but it’s about as low as you can go without just tossing the albums in a recycle bin.
Meanwhile, iTunes has left ARTPOP at a full price of $14.99. It’s dropped to number 20 after three weeks.
The amazon sale helped ARTPOP stay in the overall Top 10 this past week and even increase sales a bit according to the hitsdailydouble chart. Last week ARTPOP sank 81% after one week, so Universal Music had to do something.