Rock: the iTunes hold-out

It's not so long ago - yesterday, in fact - that selling well "on downloads alone" was considered noteworthy. Today, though, it's commentworthy that Kid Rock's All Summer Long single (a summer anthem which makes Una Paloma Blanca seem like a considered work of genius) has managed to sell without being available on iTunes.

Kid has his reasons:

Rock points out a particularly ironic twist to his logic in holding out from iTunes. "It's funny, I have a shitload of stock in Apple — I think it's one of the greatest companies in America," he says. "But it's just not very American to me when Apple tells you how they want to sell your product and tell you what it's worth."

Bless his little confused head - does Mr. Rock really think that he has control over the pricing and displays in WalMart? Or Target? If musicians could tell stores how much to charge for records, CDs would cost about thirty quid by now, wouldn't they?

I'm also not sure if Rock has really grasped the idea that retailers are normally the people who set prices - does he think when King Soopers knocks thirty cents off a box of Coke that that is, somehow, "unAmerican"? "Buy one, get one free - what are you - some sort of Communist?"

Still, let's just bask for a moment in the man and his own self-build hypocrisy: he's decided that Apple's business practices are contrary to the demands of his patriotism, and yet is quite happy to take the dividends this apparent flag-burning activity can deliver. Except when it's his bottom line. A flexible, profit-maximising patriotism, then.

[Thanks to Michael M for the link]