Last week The Wall Street Journal ran an article on some artists' and labels' dissatisfaction with single track sales on iTunes hampering album sales. Kid Rock, for instance, doesn't offer most of his albums at digital stores. So what exactly happens when a track is removed from iTunes and consumers are given only the option of purchasing the album? It's hard to say, but now we have a sample of one instance that won't teach us much but shows how strategies for a singles-driven album make the results hard to control.

Reports (outside of the U.S., which is on holiday) today claim Estelle's album Shine took a dive when the album was removed from iTunes in order to increase CD sales. The BBC says Shine dropped to #159 on the U.S. album chart after peaking at #38. (Dropped from what? When did it peak? Unfortunately the BBC didn't bother mentioning the number of spots on the chart Shine lost after the single was pulled.) Estelle's hit single, "American Boy," dropped to #37 from #11, which wouldn't be a big deal if an increase in album sales made up for lost singles sales.

But I'm getting mixed signals. Maybe the album dropped at iTunes, but it's currently at #20 at Amazon.com. And Australian music news site Undercover claims sales of Shine increased 35% after the single was pulled at iTunes.

If there was a large drop in album sales, it probably was not caused by pulling the single from iTunes. I have a hard time believing CD sales could be so strongly influenced by what is going on at iTunes. There are all sorts of reasons the album could drop. Maybe the album was losing steam. Maybe there's not enough product in the market and iTunes had an unusually large share of sales. (Although one would assume WEA, WMG's distribution arm, would have sorted that out before the album was pulled from iTunes.) Maybe the people buying Estelle are more digital album buyers than CD buyers. That would explain why the CD is #360 at Amazon.com while the digital album is at #20.

But Kid Rock has had great success even though his album is not available at digital stores. Why the difference? Well, one is an established superstar with a current hit single. The other, Estelle, is an almost unknown British newcomer with a hit single. To buy a Kid Rock album is far less a risk than to buy an Estelle album. Like I said in my post about the WSJ article, pulling a single by a new artist can have artist development issues. A superstar can offer only albums and get away with it. A new artist has a long way to go before asking so much from the public. Estelle is known for only one song. If she wins the Mercury Prize the album will have stronger legs to stand on.

And pulling out of iTunes is different than never being available on iTunes. At least Kid Rock is consistent.