Kelly Clarkson's newest album, All I Ever Wanted was set to release on March 10, 2009, but iTunes in Norway had an error that allowed iTunes users to download the entire album as of yesterday. Typically, people are allowed to listen to 30 second clips of the songs before hand, but this error allowed people to legally purchase the whole album about a month before it was supposed to be released to the public.
This is not the first time that iTunes has leaked music before it was supposed to reach the world. In March 2008, iTunes released The Raconteurs album, Consolers of the Lonely, before the album hit shelves. The group did everything they could to prevent this sort of snafu from occurring by not telling the music world about the album until about a week before it was set to go on sale. Somehow, iTunes accidentally leaked the album just a few days before the March 25, 2008 release date.
Coming from the perspective of the artist, how much of a bummer would it be to build up all this anticipation and then learn that the release date is not going to matter since the people that really wanted the album already have it. These sales before the release date count towards record sales, but they probably skew the opening week sales statistics. This might hurt the artist's chances of getting an award to record sales. On the side of the listeners though, this is a really awesome deal! You can get a head start on the music that you love and have another month to enjoy the album. It is not like the label and the artist won't get paid for the album sales since the iTunes users bought the album the same as always, just a month too early according to the release date. The music world is getting all bent out of shape about these premature releases, but why should it matter so much? It seems to me that they just want another person to blame just in case the album bombs.
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