LOS ANGELES : UK R&B singer Estelle plunges down the US charts after her record label plucked her off the US iTunes music store.
Record label Warner decided to follow in Kid Rock's footsteps, after his album sold 1.7 million copies and reached number one despite his insistence to keep his music off the iTunes music store.
Warner had hoped that this move would encourage fans to buy Estelle's CD "Shine", instead of individual digital song tracks, which is not as lucrative for the company.
A spokesman for Warner told the Wall Street Journal that the removal was a strategy "uniquely tailored to each artiste and their fanbase in an effort to optimise revenues and promote long-term artiste development".
However, this had backfired for Estelle who saw her smash hit single "American Boy" featuring Kanye West fall from 11 to 37 on the Billboard Hot 100, merely a week after her removal from iTunes.
Meanwhile, her album has nose-dived, dropping over 100 places to 159 on the Billboard album rundown. "Shine", which has been nominated for the prestigious Mercury Music Prize in the UK, had previously spent 17 comfortable weeks on the chart, peaking at 37.
To add insult to injury, an opportunistic band called the Studio All-Stars did a cover version of "American Boy", which appears at number 43 on the download chart.
The album is still available in the UK iTunes music store, and it remains to be seen whether this will be implemented in other countries as well.
- CNA/sl