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Apple refuses to sell Adele’s new album as a physical CD in Apple retail stores

Adele has been turned down by Apple as the company is refusing to sell her new album in its stores. Whilst that may sound surprising, it turns out Apple actually declined from stocking physical CD album copies of her album in Apple retail stores as per Adele’s representative’s request (according to The Daily Mail). Apple declining to stock physical media … shocking right?

For the company that revolutionized digital music and released a streaming music service with much fanfare earlier in the year, it’s quite hilarious that a top artist’s team even tried such a request. You can, of course, get the debut single ‘Hello’ from Apple’s digital stores including Apple Music … but getting the Apple Store to sell physical media, especially when practically none of its products include optical disk drives, is a step too far in the past.

Adele’s new album ’25’ will be available to buy and stream from Apple Music / iTunes in late November. If you want a jewel case CD, well … maybe you can still buy that online on Amazon.

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Comments

  1. viciosodiego - 9 years ago

    In 2015 who the hell uses cd’s?

    • galley99 - 9 years ago

      As large as iTunes’ library may be, it only has a fraction of every album that has ever been released on CD over the past 33 years.

      • viciosodiego - 9 years ago

        Why wood anyone buy a cd anyways.

    • tonycheung2014 - 9 years ago

      I don’t know if you noticed, CD sound far better than shitty Mastered for iTunes AAC. You should hear a real CD played on your Mac with high end Headphone before you said CD is useless.

  2. cameroncovington - 9 years ago

    Why would Apple ever sell a CD in a retail store? And, probably the better question, who would buy a physical CD in an Apple Retail Store?

    • csiegell - 9 years ago

      Easy answer: An uncompressed wav on a CD is of a higher quality sound than a compressed MP3 or AAC. Simply put an authentic CD that you buy retail will sound better than any music on iTunes, but this may be mostly noticeable to “audiophiles”.

      • Rog Her - 9 years ago

        Bad answer. A classic CD is still a digital recording. It takes a trained ear and good equipment to notice the subtle differences between a high bit ratio lossy VS a lossless media like a CD.

        Now, from an HDCD or SACD and a lossy, we are talking sense, but Adele is asking to sell a plain jane CD.

        Further, it is not like Adele’s 21 CD was awful. The CD has a lot of dynamic compression, which could be the fault of the CD mastering engineer, to tell the truth. But after the disappointment of 21’s CD… I don’t think an audiophile would risk to buy another one.

        LP… well… maybe an LP played on a decent turntable with some good amplification and speakers. Or a good pair of Blue’s MoFi for that matter. But who in their right mind would sell an LP at an Apple Store.

        And a CD? What? Is the Apple Store suddenly a Starbucks or something?

  3. Jonny - 9 years ago

    Seems like Adele’s reps got exactly what they wanted out of this.

  4. pdoobs - 9 years ago

    how is this news? the only way this could possibly be news is if they did stock it because when the hell has apple ever sold cds in the apple stores?

  5. Apple doesn’t sell ANY music CDs in it’s stores. Why is this an article?

  6. Ardell Mafi - 9 years ago

    A usb would of been cool :)

  7. galley99 - 9 years ago

    Better yet, buy the CD at Target with exclusive bonus tracks!

  8. jameskatt - 9 years ago

    That would be silly to even request this of Apple.

  9. Jesse Nichols - 9 years ago

    Let’s see how many ways we can mock this non-article:

    “In other equally-shocking news, Apple won’t be selling Cinnamon Toast Crunch, Gillette Fusion Razors, or Black & Decker Cordless Drills.”

    “Apple is such a tyrant company squashing innovation. One can only assume that Apple is blocking Adele’s album because Tim Cook and Jony Ive are cutting an album to be released in Apple Stores next quarter.”

    “Maybe they can request that Apple just sell the music video on VHS!”

    “Apple’s representatives were forced to respond to Adele’s reps via carrier pigeon. Adele’s reps aren’t familiar with today’s technologies.”

    “In response, Adele’s representatives are not going to sell MacBooks on Adele’s website ANYMORE. Take THAT Apple!”

    Okay… I’m done. =)

  10. Marklewood at Serenity Lodge - 9 years ago

    What a stupid read this one was. 9-2-5, WTF???

  11. JOEY (@JOEYpore) - 9 years ago

    Apple needs to sell CD-quality Lossless files. Now that Apple Music streaming is a thing, just change over all of the iTunes store to lossless. They can both co-exist, and people who want the better sounding audio can buy the tracks. People who don’t care can stream. It’s perfect.

Author

Avatar for Benjamin Mayo Benjamin Mayo

Benjamin develops iOS apps professionally and covers Apple news and rumors for 9to5Mac. Listen to Benjamin, every week, on the Happy Hour podcast. Check out his personal blog. Message Benjamin over email or Twitter.


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