We've all seen the drama started whenever an artist decides to discount their song or album, in order to get higher sales.

"Desperate", "cheap", "cheater" are adjective all thrown at the artists who use these methods. However, are these accusations fair?

We've had Born This Way's album discount, a 90% discount that helped Lady Gaga secure a 1,108,000 debut on the Top 200.

We've had Only Girl's discount, which helped it secure a #1 on the Hot 100 after the second single already hit it.

We've had TGIF's discount, which helped secure its second week at #1 on the Hot 100.


Are these sleazy ways of getting higher sales without doing much promo work? Or are they an excellent way of offering consumers the chance to get a product they may not normally look at due to a higher price?

And how much of a discount is too much? Is a 23% discount ok, but a 90% too much? Are they all too much?

And what kind of relevance to these discounts have in a world full of Groupons and Dealfinds and consumers looking for ways to stretch their dollar in an unforgiving economy.

Discuss (but please don't get too shady. Save it for SYG if you have to)

You gotta do what you gotta do to get dat moolah.

+1

I'm here for more people getting their music legally. But when it's only a 1 week trick to get a #1, I don't think it's really necessary.

This. Though generally, music being made cheaper to get should always be applauded. But not if it's strictly for the reason described above.

You know the pop star whom you are referring to has only discounted two of her singles, right?

My thoughts exactly. If you're going to lower the prices, don't do it for one week only to jump start sales of a song or album. Do it every week, make those discounted prices the normal price. These discounts have proven to me that people will still buy music legally...at the right price, of course.

To be honest it doesn't really matter.

I don't buy music off iTunes anyways, so it's not really my money.

Discounts should be used for sales and bargain bins, not tactically.

I'm kinda on the fence; I like discounts in general, but I wholeheartedly disapprove of artists discounting charting singles for a week... Drastic album price cut downs (ie $.99) aren't that great either, but I find Billboard's new rule to be acceptable.

I think the singles discounts should be limited exclusively to songs that aren't charting. An acceptable alternative would be to reduce prices from $1.29 on all songs always since they're overpriced to begin with.

If it means everything ends up at .69, then sure. That's even better than the pre-2009 pricing!

I think that discounting albums on a release really isn't a very smart or good move. That I think is a cheap tactic when it is just being released, sell it for what it is wroth. However, I think singles are different. Your only paying for one song, so I think it is okay to an extent to lower the price if it has been on the market for a considerable amount of time and if it isn't doing that well. Other than that, it isn't good to use that either. But I think overall, the general public couldn't care less and only people who look seriously into music will.

That's honestly the price a song should be. $0.50-$0.69. $1.29 is obviously not ideal & since that price has been set, digital growth has slowed down dramatically.

What would even be the motive? She has reached the peak with this album and has already broken records, I honestly don't see them doing it again. But neither of us can say that for sure so I think it is safe to say that we just don't know.