It appears that AC/DC's strategy works for new releases as well as catalog titles: Sell CDs and skip the downloads. The band's new album, Black Ice, is #1 in the UK and Australia and is on pace, according to some reports, to move 800,000 units in the first week of its US release.

Forget about how many times the album is being traded online. That's not the bottom line. The bottom line is the bottom line, and AC/DC's bottom line is doing very well.

Of course, AC/DC gets to play by its own rules. It came of age during the golden era of the album. It's catalog was reissued five years ago, and Sony BMG has done a very good job selling its back titles. The band has changed little over the years and has retained its credibility. It has benefited from exposure to video game players. Black Ice doesn't depend on radio spins, so the band can afford not to break up the album to appease those consumers who want only the familiar tracks. Oh, and there's that little deal that puts Black Ice on sale for $11.98 exclusively at Wal-Mart stores. The value of the press, in-store merchandising and television spots alone has got to be far outside the budget for most any album. Only a few artists a year can land such a deal. (To see what the top of the food chain gets these days, read this article about the marketing push AC/DC is getting from Wal-Mart: special sections in 3,500 stores, features on the website, a mobile campaign, all sorts of in-store displays and signs.)

The industry at large should not look to AC/DC as a role model. This is an atypical situation. The industry needs to embrace new technologies, look beyond the CD, tinker with different ways to bundle content. But any single band should do whatever is in its best interests. For AC/DC, the best payday comes doing what they've always done: put albums in brick-and-mortar stores (only now the CDs are joined by T-shirts and video games).

It should make people think, at the very least. Maybe the album isn't as dead as people thought. Maybe people will buy CDs if they're priced right and put in the right stores. Maybe the old way of selling music -- a powerful gatekeeper, a physical format -- has its advantages. For some bands. Not all.