Amazon.com to Add Los Lobos, Richard Thompson, Merle Haggard, Lynyrd Skynyrd,
Amazon.com Offers Customers More Free Downloads From Established Artists Than
Any Major Online Retailer
SEATTLE, Aug. 5 /PRNewswire/ -- Amazon.com (Nasdaq: AMZN), the Internet's
No. 1 music retailer, today announced plans to add five major recording
artists to its Free Downloads area over the next two weeks. Free downloads
from Los Lobos, Richard Thompson, Merle Haggard, Lynyrd Skynyrd, and Brad
Mehldau will join recent additions from Alison Krauss, Styx, Speech (the
former lead singer of Arrested Development), Franke Potente from the Run Lola
Run soundtrack, and Venice.
"Not only is our Free Downloads area the best place for music fans to
download songs from well-known artists -- it is also extremely successful at
driving sales of the CDs featured in this area. For example, Amazon.com's
share of total U.S. sales of Robert Cray's album Take Your Shoes Off is nearly
9 percent, and our share for Lyle Lovett Live in Texas is more than 6 percent.
This is extremely high when you consider that last year, Internet music sales
from all online retailers represented only 1 percent of total U.S. music
sales," said Jennifer Cast, general manager of Amazon.com's music store.
"These figures demonstrate that free downloads are great for customers, and
they're a great way for labels to promote their artists and CDs."
Starting today, music fans who visit Amazon.com's Free Downloads area can
download a song from Merle Haggard's newly released album, Live at Billy
Bob's, plus two songs from Richard Thompson -- one from his upcoming album
Mock Tudor plus a previously unreleased track available exclusively at
Amazon.com. On August 12, Amazon.com will make available tracks from Los
Lobos, Lynyrd Skynyrd, and Brad Mehldau.
With these additions, Amazon.com will offer music fans 49 free full-length
downloadable tracks from 30 established recording artists -- the largest
selection of free downloadable music of any major online music retailer. The
complete roster of artists and songs now available in Amazon.com's Free
Digital Downloads area is as follows (recent additions are marked by
asterisks):
*Merle Haggard "Motorcycle Cowboy/Blue Model #13"
*Alison Krauss "Forget About It"
*Franke Potente/Run Lola Run "Believe"
*Styx "Everything Is Cool" & "While There's
Still Time"
*Speech "Clocks in Sync with Mine"
*Richard Thompson "Crawl Back" & "Fully Qualified to Be
Your Man"
*Venice "The Man You Think I Am"
Perla Batalla "Camino a Santiago" & "Morning Star"
David Byrne "Fear"
Cheap Trick "Oh Caroline" & "Surrender (Remix)"
Cowboy Junkies "I Saw Your Shoes" & "River Waltz"
Robert Cray "All the Way" & "Let Me Know"
Sheryl Crow & Emmylou Harris "Juanita"
Kristin Hersh "Echo" & "Pretty Polly"
Indigenous "Holdin' Out" & "Things We Do"
Jazz Is Dead "Row Jimmy" & "Ship of Fools"
The Mavericks "Hot Burrito #1"
Randy Newman "I'm Dead" & "I Miss You"
Pavement "Spit on a Stranger"
Elliott Smith "The Enemy in You" & "Waltz No. 2"
The Stone Coyotes "Church of the Falling Rain" & "My
Little Runaway"
Rufus Wainwright "April Fools" & "Foolish Love"
Cheryl Wheeler "Sylvia Hotel" & "Beyond the Lights"
Barry White "Staying Power"
Widespread Panic "Bear's Gone Fishin'" & "Red Hot Mama"
Kelly Willis "Talk Like That" & "Time Has Told Me"
The following artists and song titles will be added on August 12:
Los Lobos "This Time"
Brad Mehldau "Elegy for William Burroughs and Allen
Ginsberg" & "London Fog"
Lynyrd Skynyrd "Edge of Forever" & "Workin'"
About Amazon.com, Inc.
Amazon.com, Inc., the Internet's No. 1 music, No. 1 video, and No. 1 book
retailer, opened its virtual doors on the World Wide Web in July 1995 and
today offers Earth's Biggest Selection(TM) with online auctions, toys,
electronics, free electronic greeting cards, and more than 4.7 million book,
music-CD, video, DVD, and computer-game titles. Amazon.com seeks to be the
world's most customer-centric company, where people can find and discover
anything they may want to buy online. As part of its efforts to provide the
best shopping experience for customers, Amazon.com provides secure credit-card
payment, personalized recommendations, streamlined ordering through
1-Click(SM) technology, and hassle-free auction bidding with Bid-Click(SM).
Amazon.com operates two international Web sites: www.amazon.co.uk in the
United Kingdom and www.amazon.de in Germany. Amazon.com also operates
PlanetAll (www.planetall.com), a Web-based address book, calendar, and
reminder service. It also operates the Internet Movie Database (www.imdb.com),
the Web's comprehensive and authoritative source of information on more than
150,000 movies and entertainment programs and 500,000 cast and crew members
dating from the birth of film in 1892 to the present. Amazon.com also operates
LiveBid.com (www.livebid.com), the sole provider of live-event auctions on the
Internet.
In addition, Amazon.com has invested in leading Internet retailers that
are improving the lives of customers by making shopping easier and more
convenient: drugstore.com, an online retail and information source for health,
beauty, wellness, personal care and pharmacy, at www.drugstore.com; Pets.com,
the online leader for pet products, expert information, and services, at
www.pets.com; HomeGrocer.com, the first fully integrated Internet
grocery-shopping and home-delivery service, with operations in Seattle and
Portland, Oregon, at www.homegrocer.com; and Gear.com, which offers brand-name
sporting goods at prices from 20 to 90 percent off retail, at www.gear.com.
This announcement contains forward-looking statements that involve risks
and uncertainties that include, among others, Amazon.com's limited operating
history, anticipated losses, unpredictability of future revenues, potential
fluctuations in quarterly operating results, seasonality, consumer trends,
competition, risks of system interruption, management of potential growth,
risks related to auction services, and risks of new business areas,
international expansion, business combinations, and strategic alliances. More
information about factors that potentially could affect Amazon.com's financial
results is included in Amazon.com's filings with the Securities and Exchange
Commission, including its Annual Report on Form 10-K for the year ended
December 31, 1998 and Quarterly Report on Form 10-Q for the quarter ended
March 31, 1999.
NOTE: Amazon.com, Amazon.com Auctions, Amazon.co.uk, Amazon.de, Internet
Movie Database, PlanetAll, Earth's Biggest Selection, Bid-Click, and 1-Click
are either registered trademarks or trademarks of Amazon.com, Inc., or its
affiliates. All other names mentioned herein may be trademarks of their
respective owners.
SOURCE Amazon.com, Inc.
CO: Amazon.com, Inc.
ST: Washington
IN: MLM REA ENT
SU: PDT
08/05/99 07:00 EDT prnewswire.com |
