June 09, 2008

By By Jonathan Cohen, N.Y.

AC/DC's next studio album will be exclusively sold at Wal-Mart stores in the United States, according to a report in the Wall Street Journal. The as-yet-untitled Columbia album, which, as previously reported, was produced by Brendan O'Brien, is expected in the fall.

AC/DC becomes the latest veteran act to pact exclusively with the retail giant, following Garth Brooks, the Eagles and Journey. The Eagles' "Long Road Out of Eden," released last summer, has been an enormous success, having sold more than 2.98 million copies in the United States, according to Nielsen SoundScan.

The new AC/DC album is the legendary hard rock act's first since 2000's "Stiff Upper Lip," which has shifted more than 930,000 copies. A tour is expected to follow its release.

AC/DC is one of the only major acts yet to make its music available via Apple's iTunes Music Store. In August 2007, Verizon Wireless snagged the exclusive rights to sell the band's entire back catalog through March 2008, becoming the first and only digital music store to offer AC/DC's content.

However, the deal was limited to full-album downloads, one of the reason's AC/DC's music has not appeared in digital form to date. Since full album downloads are too large and too expensive to sell from mobile phones, Verizon only sold them from the PC version of its VCast Music service for $12 an album.

Both Columbia and Wal-Mart declined comment to the Journal.

Additional reporting by Antony Bruno, Denver.

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