The subject of the pricing of Taylor Swift’s new album as a digital download on Amazon and iTunes continues to intrigue me.

As Felix Salmon notes, the reason for the initial low price of $3.99 on Amazon, versus the $11.99 you have to pay on iTunes, was probably more a matter of Amazon doing some loss-leading to lure people away from its rival than a tribute to the music industry, as I suggested.

The album has now gone up to $8.99 on Amazon, while the price on iTunes remains the same. The strange thing is that, not only is the product more or less the same on Amazon (and arguably superior since all the music downloads on Amazon come in MP3 format with no digital rights restrictions), but it can be set to place all music in one’s iTunes library.

Despite all of this, most people are still paying a higher price for an inferior product on iTunes because of inertia, ignorance or innate loyalty to Apple.

In fact, anecdotally, many people I talk to do not realise that they can download music just as easily from Amazon as from iTunes. It demonstrates the power of distribution and brand, even in a seamless digital environment where Amazon is a click away from iTunes.

I imagine that Amazon will have to do quite a bit more price discounting to persuade sufficient numbers of people to switch loyalties. So I look forward to buying more cheap music there in future.

Taylor Swift’s second album Fearless, favourably written-up by Sasha Frere-Jones in The New Yorker among others, came out today. It is already top of the chart of MP3 downloads on Amazon.com.

It is also selling for $3.99. Yes, $3.99, which is less than some Starbucks drinks for a 13-song collection. So why would you not buy it, if you are even mildly interested?

It strikes me that the music industry is coming to terms with the online world.

My FT column this week is on Amy Winehouse. Well, not exactly. It is more about the music labels and whether they can survive. I conclude that they probably can, but it does not matter too much anyway. You can read it here and comment below.

Guy Hands, the man whose Terra Firma private equity fund took over EMI Group last year, was brutally honest this week about whom he blames for the fact that his acquisition is not going exactly to plan: A&R men.

These mysterious characters (the acronym stands for “artists and repertoire”), who have been responsible for signing acts to music labels, have not been earning their money, and certainly not being held accountable for it, according to Mr Hands:

The power and the decision has sat with the A&R man, who is someone who gets up late in the day, listens to lots of music, goes to clubs, spends his time with artists and has a knack of knowing what would sell.

They were committing money with no sign off, no nothing.

What we are doing is taking the power away from the A&R guys and putting it with the suits - the guys who have to work out how to sell music. Trying to persuade 260 people to give up their power has been hard.

We had labels at EMI that were spending five times as much on marketing as their gross revenues. We told them you could stick a £50 note on the cover of a CD and have the same effect, and we also wouldn’t have to pay them. Those sorts of comments don’t go down too well.

We’re getting there - a little slower than I would like, but I’m always impatient.

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