AppleInsider Staff
The free iTunes Holiday Sampler download includes a variety of artists from wide-ranging genres, such as Toby Keith, Weezer, Glasvegas, Barry Manilow, and comedian Stephen Colbert. The iTunes LP collects the songs from a variety of albums and compilations, with Christmas classics such as "The First Noel," "Silent Night, "Twelve Days of Christmas, and "O Holy Night."
First released in September, the unique iTunes LP format bundles an entire album with additional bonus content and accompanying graphics and design, all encased in an iTunes window. Apple reportedly created the format with the intent of spurring sales of entire albums, rather than just singles.
iTunes LP content, originally codenamed "Cocktail," is a multi-party collaboration between Apple and large record labels EMI, Sony, Warner and Universal. LP albums add audio, video, pictures, liner notes and more, exclusively to full-album purchases.
The iTunes Holiday Sampler includes lyrics for some of the songs, and album art showcasing what record the song was originally a part of. The winter graphics include falling snowflakes in the background.
Apple updated its Apple TV software to version 3.0 in October, bringing support for iTunes LP, as well as the movie bonus material iTunes Extras. With the update, users can view and play back iTunes LP content on their HDTV via the Apple TV.
Malcolm Owen
Wesley Hilliard
Christine McKee
Amber Neely
William Gallagher
56 Comments
Apple really needed to do this; how is anyone supposed to trust that an LP is worth the cash if they have to shell out the cash just to find out? Good move on Apple's part, probably because they saw iTunes LP sales were slack for this very reason.
So, anyone know if album sales have actually increased due to LP?
What, no link to the sampler? =/
Good idea. I?ve been curious about these.
Apple is promoting its new iTunes LP format with a free downloadable selection of 20 holiday songs from a variety of popular artists.
This is only available from the US store. I can't get this through the Canadian store. Pity.