Hasta La Gadget!

An interesting sidenote on the intersection of music and commerce: Billboard reported last week that the iTunes Store’s new variable pricing plan has had a bit of an impact on sales rankings on individual tracks, giving $.99 songs an advantage over their $1.29 counterparts. According to the magazine, numbers for Wednesday, April 8, show that the iTunes Top 100 chart had 40 songs at the $1.29 price point, and 60 at $0.99 — the premium songs slid an average of 5.3 places, while the $0.99 songs gained roughly 2.5 chart positions. On Thursday the trend continued, with the 53 songs priced at $0.99 rising roughly 1.66 places on the chart, while the remaining songs — priced at $1.29 — lost an average of two chart positions. None of which answers the most pressing question: When will Miley Cyrus’s reign of terror come to an end?