Australia awaits Apple’s iTunes Music Store launch

21 years ago

“There may be some relevance for the still musically dark Antipodes in the opening last week of iTunes Music Store in Denmark, Norway, Sweden and Switzerland. This extends iTMS’s reach to 19 countries, or 70 per cent of the world music market, but continues to exclude the sixth-largest sector of the business on this scarred and stained planet, namely Australia,” Garry Barker writes for The Sydney Morning Herald.

“While we are ecstatic that sales of Swiss mountain yodelling and Scandinavian herring pickling tunes will undoubtedly soar, we consider it tasteless that Australians now find themselves, musically speaking, in the third world. Australia should have had access to iTMS by now; Slim Dusty and Joan Sutherland should have been up there with the lederhosen slappers and the musical rollmop munchers,” Barker writes.

“Although it is easier to prise a village chook away from a hungry tiger than extract a comment on this from Apple, we understand the launch here was poised for lift-off. Promotions had been booked and the gateway to the iTMS library in the US had been tested… I hesitate to forecast when iTunes may open here; maybe tomorrow, maybe in a week or so,” Barker writes. “The culprit for the delay was a record company that failed to meet the agreed deadline to sign the done deal. Why, we know not – try inefficiency, venality, a holiday in Bali or even a last-gasp attempt to hold on to the old ways.”

Full article here.