iTunes runs into trouble after Depeche Mode pack faillure
Earlier this week Side-Line announced that Apple's iTunes was to release a special Depeche Mode pack holding 640 tracks of which 59 were considered to be 'rare' songs. We also mentionned in updates that the first packs were either defect, incomplete or simply not purchasable. This has now been confirmed by iTunes who pulled all of the packs from all of their online stores. According to the store there are some technical issues on the various iTunes stores with song titles not matching the actual songs. Actually there was more going wrong than just this. On the Belgian store for instance it was impossible to get the complete packet, period. One only got partial tracks and there were also constant error messages saying the songs could not be purchased at the Belgian store. As a result of all of these issues, iTunes pulled everything offline including the special publicity they had reserved on the homepages of the stores. It looks like that iTunes will have the set back up as soon as they have solved the remaining problems. Also, and this is new, the pack will not hold remastered tracks only but also early not so clear masters which is a rather weird choice. It would have been the 4th time in the history of the downloadstore that such pack was made available. The pack consists of no less than 640 tracks of which 59 are exclusive and previously unreleased. As far as the pricing is concerned, iTunes has set the pack at roughly 179 US dollar / euros. Not all of the rare tracks will be available seperately and this has already caused quite some mayhem amongst the fans. Unlike what is being suggested here and there, this pack will be available outside the USA as well though it has become clear now that the releasedate will not be the same everywhere due to the above described problems. Strangely enough no official word has come from the Depeche Mode management or the band's label, Mute Records, regarding this event. It was only when Side-Line launched the news one week ago that a short statement was made. Does this indicate that it was merely a test by iTunes or will Mute rather focus on having physical release ready for the next months which might explian their silence on the matter? Time will tell.
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