Lady Gaga released her new album today, and Amazon.com is using the much-anticipated second-full length release from the singer to bolster its own music offerings. Amazon is selling digital downloads of the 14-song album and digital booklet — yes, the entire album — for a mere 99 cents.
Peter Kafka at All Things D notes that the same album — Born this Way — is selling for $11.99 on Apple’s iTunes.
Why such a deep discount? Kafka speculates that Amazon is using the debut of Born this Way to tout its new cloud music service, Cloud Drive.
And, in fact, right there smack in the middle of the Lady Gaga page is a promotion of the service.
“Start with 5GB of free storage or get a free upgrade to the 20 GB tier with an MP3 album purchase,” according to the promo.
Amazon was the first major retailer to release a cloud-based music locker service, but it is facing additional competition from the likes of Google and Apple.
