former warners boss says albums should cost a quid

Booklets are a major reason why people still buy physical cds? That's a statement that comes straight from the 90s. Have you seen the average quality of booklets nowdays? 12 glossy pages, most of them just white with the lyrics printed on in ultra-minute letters that you have to use a magnifyign glass to read. No liner notes about the record (unless its a re-print), just the credits. A couple of pictures if you're lucky. Honestly, do you really check the booklets of your records more than once a year? Do you find valuable information on booklets? I have records that I've spinned to earbleed but never gave a fuck about the booklet.

And I'm talking about the "average booklet", not sophisticate stuff made to look like a perfectly useless luxory/collectable item.

Independent label are a lot smarter and most of them understood that the digipack format is a much clever solution. Basically you print on the cardboard case both the album cover and the credits/liner notes, so you don't need extra-books. It's cheaper, recyclable and the effect is very nice. Proof is that nowdays all the bootlegs are released in digipack format, because they cost less to make and can be sold for a competitive price.

And for one like me, who buys the records because they sound good, not because they look sophisticate, it's great if I can pay £6 for a digipack copy instead of £10 for a jewel case+booklet one.