Back on October 30, 2007. Legendary Hall of Fame Band "The Eagles" released their first all new studio album in 27 years, what made this unique was the way they did it. LONG in a fight with labels over rights, also fighting with things like iTunes with "Payment" for songs if they were released digitally, and also Don Henley who long was in a fight for artists rights, at war with MOGUL david geffen for years (geffen sued Henley for 30 million) basically Henley wanted to get a publishing deal with EMI and geffen fought it and forbid it, prompting Henley to fight the label and Geffen, in fact Henley became more of an activist than others on this issue, and also GOT booed a bit at the Grammy's for speaking on "rights" interesting.

Well back to the release of "LONG ROAD OUT OF EDEN" an album that sold nearly 4 million in the states, but what was different. NO LABEL at all, this album was available only at Eagles.com or Walmart, that was it. Now we all remember what happend next right? Well The Eagles sold 711,000 albums in week one, Brtiney SPears sold 290,000 of her new album that week, starting a huge fued with "stans" that proclaimed this was illegal for the Eagles to do.

INTERESTING, selling through one retailer only, well at the last minute Billboard re-wrote its chart rule for 2 reasons, ONE was the times were changing, they had to know that the days were coming of NO LABELS and maybe NO CD's, but also the reason was slumping industry numbers, Britney selling 290,000 was nothing to sneeze at maybe now, but in 2007 it was a huge drop all around, music sales were diving, and the Eagles selling 710,000 was something for Soundscan to tout as a victory for the business, when in reality, the Eagles sold this record with out help of any form of business, this was their label that funded it, and their pockets were all costs taken from. In the end this was a first, no matter what people say, this was the moment things changed and the reason the only reason things changed.

JUST as fact the old rule was that a release HAD TO be available universally, exclusives were omitted, so example, Guns N Roses who sold exclusively through Best Buy couldnt have even had a chart debut, PRINCE with his "Lotus" exclusive top 10 debut NOPE couldnt happen if it wasnt for the Eagles. It also should be noted, this was a true comeback, first album in 27 years, totally indie to become a number one album but also FACT was the biggest selling album in 2007 despite coming out with 2 months left in the year.

I didn't know about this..interesting .