AC/DC and Verizon team for craptacular promotion

AC/DC--not the electrical current acronym but rather, the hellraising purveyors of '70s hard rock--have apparently decided to extend their bad boy ways well into the digital age. Eschewing the usual iTunes deal, the band has decided to sign a contract (presumably in blood) with Verizon Wireless for the exclusive digital distribution of their music. So, what do AC/DC fans get out of the deal? Well, you can now purchase all of AC/DC's albums from Verizon--but only as albums, there will be no single track sales (with the exception of "You Shook Me All Night Long," the only single that will be sold as an individual download). Well, at least those albums will be priced to move, right? Wrong. At $12 a pop, these puppies are going to be more expensive than iTunes albums--heck, they're even more expensive than physical copies of the same albums on CD from Amazon. But for $12, you've got to own these things for real... right? Wrong again, my friend: the tracks will be available only through your VCast account and will not actually download to your handset. So let's recap: for more than the price of the same album on a CD, you gain the ability to stream songs (that you probably already own in another form) over Verizon's network to your handset ... and that's it. I'm sure AC/DC and Verizon are going to be laughing all the way to whatever the opposite of a bank is thanks to this brilliant strategy.

For more on the unappealing download service:
- see this Crunchgear article
- and this press release