It appears the Corrs’ record company has finally, after a long and painfully slow struggle, decided to use this groovy new thing called “The Internet” to promote and sell the group’s music. However, they are doing a tremendously bad job: denying willing buyers the opportunity to purchase the product can hardly be called brilliant.

The situation is as follows: “Dreams: The Ultimate Corrs Collection”, the latest album, is released as a (physical) CD and you can download it as well. The single “Goodbye” on the other hand is only digitally available, meaning download is your only option. Which would be fine, if it weren’t for the fact that it is only available at iTunes UK.

And there’s the catch: not only do you need to have iTunes installed and running – not everybody can do that due to firewall restrictions or other reasons – no, you also have to be a resident of the UK, too. It is not possible to switch between iTunes shops for different countries unless you have a billing address in the country you want to shop in.

Now pray tell whose ingenious idea that was X-(? The single itself is not the problem, because for once, they have done something right – it offers a demo version of “Goodbye” sung by Sharon (whoohoo!!!) and a new instrumental called “Pebble in the Brook”. In short: I. WANT. THIS. NOW.

Unfortunately for me and approximately oh, just about 5.994 billion other people, I don’t live in the UK, ergo I don’t have access to this single.

Which really pisses me off. I am willing to spend money for this bloody thing, even though it is not more than just some binary data which happens to be encoded in such a way that it plays the Corrs. Did you hear me, iTunes? I want to BUY it, not download it for free on some dark corner of the web. I want to give you my money and you won’t let me? How exactly is that great marketing :roll: ?

Even though this whole mess isn’t the Corrs’ fault (they seem to stay mostly clear of this release – what else would Sharon be doing in South Africa at the moment?), it reflects badly on them if such stupid things happen. It makes fans angry, and even though that may sound a bit presumptuous, you do not want to have angry fans, really not. They may not buy all of the records, but they will buy the first record after a five year break, they will buy every single, they will buy the concert tickets and they will buy the DVDs of those concerts.

While offering the single as a download is a long overdue step in the right direction, there are so many bumps on this specific road it’s more of a nuisance than a blessing. Making it available to more potential customers would be a good start. You know what they say: don’t be your own enemy.