Did Making The Album A Little Harder To Enjoy At No Charge Make It More Appealing On Store Shelves?

The Black Keys might be at the forefront of a movement.

No, they are not the saviors of rock and roll. They are not stirring up a flood of blues rock duos, filthy-sounding guitars or jumpstarting a wave of Nickelback-dissing in the media. Those are well-established trends.

But the Black Keys might have demonstrated a way of amplifying album sales at a point in time when stumping up for music appears so last century.

In December, the Keys dropped their 7th album, "El Camino," and landed it at No. 2 on the Billboard sales chart. This could appear like a minor accomplishment for a band fresh off two Grammy Awards in 2011 and recent appearances on "Saturday Night Live" and "The Colbert Report." But let me refresh : It's their 7th album, and netted their highest first-week sales.

Sure, the band has steadily grown in both popularity and accessibility over the past decade. But with the buzz, the Akron, Ohio pair chose not to make "El Camino" available on release on the taking-the-Web-by-storm streaming services Spotify and Rhapsody.

Did making the album a little harder to enjoy at no charge make it more attractive on store shelves? It's tough to think differently.

Services like Spotify could be a great discovery tool for music fans. I've used it to delve into unfamiliar bands for months and hope it continues to pick up steam. In December, Billboard reported Spotify had notched up more than 10 million users. And now with full Facebook integration, more and more users will be digging into the library of more than 13 million tracks.

Another supporter for this method is Billboard juggernaut Adele. "21" isn't available to streaming services, and not only was the best-selling album of 2011 but is in the midst of a Billboard-topping run not seen since 1998's "Titanic" soundtrack. It has been No. 1 for 16 weeks, only the twentieth album in history to reach that landmark.

Of course there are infinite other variables in play with the successfulness of "21," though not giving listeners the ultra-convenient opulence of streaming the album on Spotify likely is a factor.

It's worth realizing that though neither "El Camino" or "21" are streamable, the most important singles from each record are accessible on Spotify. As perhaps a way to whet fans' appetites and permit new listeners to pay attention, the Black Keys' "Lonely Boy" and Adele's "Rolling in the Deep" are out there, free of charge. Both songs still are ranked in the top 40 of Spotify's most-played songs. If the singles are getting play, interest in the full works must be raised.

It might not benefit hot artists to skip out on streaming services because such access can get new music into the earbuds of the general public just as easily as radio play especially as the number of rock radio stations continues to diminsh. Except for mid- to top-tier acts, taking a page out of the Black Keys playbook might be a smart business decision.

The entire idea looks to be clear. In a issue of Rolling Stone magazine, the CEO of Taylor Swift's label compared it to the film industries' approach with dramatic and rental releases. A film hits the Cineplex, then the video store, Redbox and Netflix and ultimately, many go into steady satellite TV rotation.

Perhaps this is the way forward for the industry. Like a big-budget smash hit, an album could be made available for sale in physical and digital forms on one date, and then a few months later get even more widely available thru streaming services.

An album hitting the Web could mirror a movie playing on wire. Perhaps sometime the Black Keys' "El Camino" will be to Spotify what "The Shawshank Redemption" is to TNT as reported tagza.com.