iTunes and New Releases

I suspect that the sustained amount of tracks that Apple will continue to sell via the iTunes music store will continue to decrease. I think this because they don’t seem to have the new releases that matter to what I perceive as their target audience. The new Radiohead cd, Hail to the Thief, was released today, and it is nowhere to be found on the iTunes music store. In fact, they also do not have about ten other new major label releases that I think matter from the last couple of months. For instance, the new Metallica cd, although that may have something to do with Metallica themselves, I find it amusing that their music is not available via this legal electronic distribution channel when they complained so vehemently about Napster. While adding the indies will be a huge step forward, and I am happy to see Apple pursuing them, I think they need to take a look at the Billboard top 200 album chart every week, and ask themselves why about half the CD’s on the current one are not available from their store. I don’t think a brick and mortar store would find it acceptable to only have half the merchandise that their customers were asking for, and I hope that Apple is treating this the same way.