Signed, Sealed, Downloaded
Taylor Swift proved “digitally autographed” albums can drive sales, but other artists are seeing mixed results
EARLIER THIS YEAR, TAYLOR Swift’s evermore jumped back up the Billboard 200 chart with a well-orchestrated physical sales campaign six months after its initial release and a secret weapon: digital downloads.
On June 3, for one day only, Swift’s online store sold four “digitally autographed fan edition” downloads, including a “Willow” remix with a graphic of her signature scrawled across the new album covers for $4.99 each. While most sales came from vinyl preorders for a record 102,000 units and a signed CD campaign that generated most of another 69,000 sales, these digital copies pushed the album across the finish line. Overall, they goosed U.S. digital sales to 21,000 for the week ending
June 3 (up from
400 in the previous week), according to MRC Data, helping drive evermore from No. 74 the week prior to No. 1 on the chart dated June 12 — edging out Olivia Rodrigo’s Sour by 16,000 units. Since then, other artists have released downloads with digitally autographed covers, too.
These digitally signed albums are really just old-school album downloads whose virtual cover contains an image of a signature. Unlike non-fungible tokens, the ownership of which can be tracked on a blockchain, these can easily be copied and widely shared online. They only exist on fans’ computers, presumably next to the original version of the album without a signature on it. But while Swift’s strategy made the difference for another No. 1, as digital album sales continue to decline (down 29% so far this year, through the week ending Sept. 16), not everyone has had the same results.
On June 11, when Migos released their Culture III on Motown Records, the trio also released a digitally signed version of the album on its webstore. Ultimately, the album sold 23,000 downloads and landed at No. 2 on the Billboard 200 behind Polo G’s Hall of Fame. On Aug. 18, nearly two months after Doja Cat’s Planet Her had debuted and peaked at No. 2 on the Billboard 200, her label, RCA Records, also released four versions of a $4.99 signed digital album on her webstore. It helped boost her digital album sales 540% to 2,700 units, from 500 the previous week, but didn’t get her a No. 1. (The album jumped 5-2 on the Billboard 200 that week.) K-pop boy band Tomorrow X Together received a similarly lackluster response in August when the group’s label, BigHit Music, released three digitally signed versions of The Chaos Chapter: Freeze on its webstore, each with a different bonus track, resulting in just 900 U.S. digital album sales in the week ending Aug. 25.
With each of these releases, fans have voiced confusion and skepticism about the motives driving the strategy.
“I really like culture III but this is sad,” said a Reddit poster of Migos’ digitally signed album. Another expressed respect for “the hustle.”
Asked one Doja Cat fan: “Doja baby what does the autograph matter if it’s online?”