The new "Cruel Summer" album download is apparently missing from iTunes Music Store as of its official release date on Tuesday, September 18th. While this isn't a mystery of great proportions, it leads many to wonder why? Is this a new marketing strategy by Kanye West for his G.O.O.D. Music collaboration, or something else going on involving Apple and his music?
The new album, pictured at left, is currently available for download online at websites including Amazon.com. However, iTunes doesn't have the album among its new releases and a search for it doesn't turn up anything either. The iTunes store famously sold pre-orders of Kanye's "Watch the Throne" project with Jay-Z, which was heavily guarded right up until its official release. One has to wonder how much time, effort and money went into those sort of measures, and if Kanye deemed it wasn't worth selling the product on iTunes. So far, MTV has been unable to get any comments on the matter from Kanye or his label, and they indicate there are no issues between Def Jam and Apple that could cause the album to not sell at iTunes.
Still, it seems strange for the hot new album featuring Kanye and his G.O.O.D. Music crew to be absent from one of the biggest digital music retailers online. That seems especially true considering there was an album preview of snippets via iTunes about a week ago, which also disappeared. Quite possibly, Kanye was unhappy with something, or the people behind the album promotion decided on a different strategy. The fact it's available in physical form, when these days more people shop for MP3's online, seems odd, but then again Kanye's a master at turning "odd" into art.
(Image Source: Amazon.com)
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