Remember when Amazon, to promote its fledgling digital
music service, sold Lady Gaga's sophomore album Born This Way for 99
cents during two days of its debut week, and it broke the Billboard 200?
Lady Gaga (or, more accurately, her label) was laughing all the way to
the bank, since Amazon paid full price for every download sold, and
Amazon began a habit of digital music-as-loss-leader that it continues
to this day. Now Google, to promote its own third-place digital music
operation through Google Play, is offering Katy Perry's third album, Prism, for just a click of a mouse and maybe a little piece of your
soul.
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| It's all about the price tag |
Prism, which came out in 2013, is obviously not the kind
of draw Born This Way was, but it's almost certainly going to be a
major windfall for Capitol Records, Perry's label, and a boost to
Perry's sales record, even if Billboard probably won't count the free
"sales" on the Billboard 200 (I've reached out to Billboard for
confirmation, and will update if and when I hear back). It's uneasily
clear that Perry and her team have little shame when it comes to
promoting an album that, perhaps unavoidably but perhaps deservedly
hasn't lived up to the enormous and record-breaking success of the smash Teenage Dream.
I originally decided not to buy the album after determining that
it was more economical to cherry pick the tracks I liked. However, I am not made of stone, and despite my issues with the album
and Perry's overall performance of this era, I went ahead and took
Google up on its offer, and I plan to revisit the album to see if my
perspective has changed at all since its release. Of course, that's a
victory for Katy Perry, although whether it will prove a victory for
Google remains to be seen - even as an Android user, I have yet to spend
a cent through Google Play (Amazon works just fine for me).
But clearly
it's a risk one of the largest companies in the world is willing to
take. And I'm willing to risk Perry and company misconstruing my
"purchase" as an indication of approval of her current activity, because
that alt-rock masterpiece I've long suggested she had in her is
something in which my faith has already eroded enough that I don't much
worry that anything I do now could make it any less likely to
materialize. As far as I'm concerned, Katy Perry is permanently in the
friend zone; going forward, I don't really care to fux with her. I'm at peace with just hanging out and enjoying the occasional single.
Prove me wrong, Katy!
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