Pet Shop Balls up

In the week of a flurry of PR by Pet Shop Boys, it appears logistics - the distribution of the CD version of Love Etc. - could render most of it pointless. It may only be day three of the first week, but everyone has been caught out: the punters looking for said CD (there are none), the shops (they haven't ordered enough), the online shops (they haven't ordered enough) and the record company (they haven't produced enough). All of this is symptomatic of the CD single's demise, but in this case, and after all the money, time and energy spent so far, I find it hard to believe that there has been such a stupid cock-up. And why produce a track only available on this elusive CD? On HMV's website, they're out of stock for another seven days. Whoops. There goes a chart position.

The digital classification on iTunes is also causing problems. Looking to buy Love Etc. in Top 100 songs? It's not there. The digital bundle offers two superfluous tracks which means it appears in the iTunes ALBUM chart as an EP.

Flo Rida will go back up to number one this week. Most of his 18,500 sales are digital and 2,500 of them are through mobile downloads. Pet Shop Boys have 6 mobile phone downloads. There will be five times more than 2,500 wanting a PSB CD and there aren't any available but if you want to be the seventh person to purchase the track via your phone, that's fine. It's there. The music industry needs understand it caters for ALL needs during this time of change, which, as is made very clear by this situation, isn't going to happen overnight.

**UPDATE** Love Etc has popped up on iTunes Top 100 Songs list overnight (thanks for the pointer, Robbie) at number 36.

**UPDATE PART DEUX** From Pet Shop Boys' Twitter just after 6pm Wed 18th March: "EMI have assured us that Love etc should be back in the shops now."