Shock: iTunes price increase hurts songs' chart positions

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Good Heavens. Billboard must have broken out its abacus as it was calculating this little number: songs on the iTunes Store that saw their price jump from $0.99 to $1.29 have dropped in chart position. Could it be that, gasp, people saw the $1.29 price for that damn Lady Gaga song—if you’ve been following this story with us, I always (unfairly) single out Lady Gaga; she’s the archetype for pop music—and thought to themselves, “Nah, no thanks.”

And, as you might expect, songs that were $0.99 jumped up in chart position.

Keep in mind that, as a result of the higher price, the record labels (or is it music labels? I keep forgetting.) may still make more money than they did when everything was at $0.99. Because who doesn’t get all giddy cheering on faceless corporations as they make profit hand over fist?

So, no real surprise here.