It’s Australia Day. There’s a good chance many of you are sitting back, beer in hand listening to Triple J’s Hottest 100. Others may be listening to Whispering Jack on repeat (It’s okay, we’ve all been there). The point is that music on Australia day is as Australian as Anzac biscuits. Which makes Lifehacker’s monstrous study of Australian music availability on iTunes so much more pertinent.
Gus combed through the past 30 years worth of ARIA chart information and searched for the biggest selling songs and artists, as well as the Aussie chart music, on iTunes. The results are laid out in a spectacular table over at Lifehacker, but the end result is essentially this: There’s a lot of iconic Australian music missing from iTunes. It appears that just like The Beatles were holding out for a better deal before releasing their tunes to Apple’s music store, Aussie artists like AC/DC, Cold Chisel and Icehouse are doing the same. There are also a heap of compilations missing from the iTunes Store.
Gus offers a few thoughts as to why there is so much content missing, despite digital distribution’s advantage of not needing shelf space for stocking tracks. If you’re a music fan, or you’ve ever just wondered why you can’t download Daryl Braithwaite’s Rise album on iTunes, you should definitely head over to Lifehacker and read this epic analysis.