Timbaland releases first 'mobile only' album

The American music star Timbaland will release the first “mobile only” albumas the record industry targets phone users as a solution to illegaldownloading.
Tim “Timbaland” Mosley, the R&B producer responsible for hit collaborationswith Nelly Furtado and Justin Timberlake, has signed a ground-breaking dealwith the Verizon Wireless network.
Timbaland will release a track each month, featuring star guests, madeavailable exclusively to subscribers of V Cast, Verizon’s mobileentertainment service. Footage of Timbaland recording the tracks will beshown on his own mobile channel.
With CD sales in freefall and the legal downloads via computers failing tomake up the revenue slump, the music industry is now looking to mobilephones for salvation.

Teenagers unwilling to buy albums from iTunes appear happy to spend up to £3on a video track phone download. R&B songs based around an insistent hook,Timbaland’s speciality, are the most popular mobile ringtone and trackdownloads.
Timbaland’s syncopated sound has dominated the pop charts for a decade,spawning hits for Destiny’s Child, Jay-Z, and prompting comparisons to thelegendary producer Phil Spector. He is currently working on Madonna’s newalbum.
Each month, he will work with a different artist on a track while touring theUS on a Verizon bus. The songs will be sold to subscribers for $1.99 (£1)each and then compiled as a mobile album. The tracks can be transfered to acomputer.
Ed Ruth, Verizon director of digital music, said: “Our goal is to show themusic industry that we’re truly a viable distribution platform for them.”
Timbaland, nominated for five Grammy awards at tomorrow night’s Los Angelesceremony, said: “Not every place has a CD player but everybody has a mobilephone. Just producing a mobile album has never been done. I’m the first toever do it.”
Mobile downloads are attractive to the music industry because they are lesssusceptible to piracy. Sales of mobile full-track downloads doubled lastyear, accounting for 12 per cent of the digital market. In Japan, mobiledownloads sales rose 32 per cent creating an 18.2 billion yen industry (£87million).
The UK has the greatest penetration of music enabled phones howeverprohibitive data charges have prevented the market from taking off. A newNokia service offering unlimited downloads to subscribers is expected tokickstart the industry.
Timbaland said mobile networks could ultimately replace record companies, manyof which are downsizing, as distributors of music.
Branded events such as the O2 Wireless festival in London and Leeds attractbig name acts. Verizon Wireless, a joint venture with Vodafone, could bringthe mobile-only album to Britain.