AC/DC get ready to to rock the music world with iTunes snub

Brian Boyd on music

OVER THE past few months, we've had big hit singles in the shape of Estelle's American Boyand Kid Rock's All Summer Long -the latter being a worldwide number-one hit. Next month, AC/DC will release Black Ice, and with U2 not releasing this year, this will be the biggest selling album of 2008 (taking the title away from Coldplay's Viva La Vida). And this year, like every other, The Beatles are still selling an easy three to four million albums.

What all the above have in common is that they are all unavailable on iTunes. Since the music site launched in 2001, this is the first time that it has faced having such a commercially popular grouping of iTunes refuseniks in the same place at the same time. Add to this the fact that recent Mercury winners Elbow are still threatening to carry out a boycott of the site, and that one other huge rock'n'roll name is rumoured to be on the verge of leaving iTunes, and you're looking at the first real threat to iTunes' pre-eminent status in the marketplace.

The much-vaunted iPhone was supposed to shore up iTunes sales, but next month, that will face competition from the release of a Nokia "Comes With Music" phone that allows you to download music for a competitively priced fixed monthly subscription fee.

AC/DC will sell a few million copies of their new album in its first week of release alone. A sizeable percentage of punters will be looking to buy the album on iTunes, but will be sorely disappointed. AC/DC have always refused to allow their work to go up on the site for the simple reason that iTunes refuse to allow an artist to "lock" their album.

While not having The Beatles on their site is a major inconvenience for iTunes (which might have something to do with the long-running battle between the band and the site over the use of the Apple name), not having one of the most sought-after releases of the year could have widespread consequences.

AC/DC are now anti-iTunes evangelists. The band claim that two very big names in the rock world have been in touch with them about their iTunes stance and, heartened by what they heard from AC/DC, are seriously considering their iTunes position. There is also the curious case of Estelle and American Boy. Her label, Warners, found that nobody on iTunes was bothering to buy any of the other tracks from her Shinealbum so, in in a move cynically described as "strategic positioning", they removed the entire album from the US iTunes store.

This meant that anyone who wanted American Boyhad to buy the full album in its physical format. But nobody wanted the album (because it's crap, basically), so this week, Warners did a strategic "re-positioning" and meekly put the album back up on iTunes as a bunch of individual downloads.

Many major league acts will be looking to see how AC/DC perform without an iTunes outlet. If they do (as they should) have the biggest selling album of the year, expect other big names joining them in the iTunes wilderness to increase.

Particularly because as recent figures suggest, one big-name band simply can't get no satisfaction from their existing iTunes sales.