Watching TV this morning and hearing Muse's "Uprising", I decided that I'd buy the album on iTunes. As it happens, Muse's "The Resistance" is an album with iTunes LP content, so I thought I'd share the experience here for those interested in how iTunes LP works.

I am assuming that the content with iTunes LP is copyrighted, so I have watermarked many of the images because if this so they can't be taken and used elsewhere.

When purchasing an iTunes LP enabled album, iTunes will indicate this. You can see here that iTunes is indicating the minimum requirements needed to view iTunes LP content. It's great that iTunes LP content does not cost a user any more than buying a standard album...

Once you purchase the album, you'll note that in the download window of iTunes, there is an additional file to download. This is the iTunes LP content all wrapped up into a single file (in .itlp format). In the case of this album, the file was about 186 Mb, but of course this would vary with every album depending on what they put in their content...

The .itlp file downloads to the same folder that contains the album's music...

You can see the difference between a standard album in your iTunes library and one with iTunes LP content when you move your mouse over the cover art. Instead of a button to play the album, you are given two choices...play or access the iTunes LP content...

When you then click to view the iTunes LP content, this is the screen that appears. It takes over the whole of the iTunes screen and you can of course, change iTunes to take over the full screen of your Mac. Think of this as the home page for the album's iTunes LP content. From here you navigate to the various items of iTunes LP content for the album by clicking with your mouse...

A listing of the songs, with information about each song...

When you choose to listen to the album from within the iTunes LP content, the screen changes to an animated visual that could best be compared to a screen saver (I personally didn't find it all that exciting)....

There are 10 photos to look at in the photo gallery...

The content includes 3 movies two watch...

This is one of the movies...

Credits related to the album....

If I have any gripes about the additional content, it's a small design one in this instance. The text "The Resistance" on the splash page within iTunes is exactly the same as all the hyperlink text, making you think it's clickable. It's not until you move your mouse over it that you realise it isn't a link. It would have been better to at least make this text a different colour...

Obviously this is just one very quick example of the content that you get with an album. Content for other album's and artists would vary.

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