Last night while watching Stephen Colbert interview Kris Kristofferson, I became interested in learning more about the singer songwriters career.
Colbert’s interview mentioned some of Kristofferson’s accomplishments which included his being both a Rhodes Scholar and a Helicopter Pilot.
While watching the interview I searched Wikipedia and was surprised to learn Kristofferson flew helicopters in the Gulf of Mexico for Petroleum Helicopters Inc. (PHI) a firm who’s helicopters I had flown in many times while commuting to my offshore oil drilling job when I was a teenager.
Even more surprising to me was the fact, according to Kristofferson:
‘Help Me Make It Through The Night’ I wrote sitting on top of an oil platform.”
I did no such thing on top of the oil platform where I worked and I am pretty sure neither did anybody else.
I then decided to search for Kris Kristofferson in Google and noticed “Music” as an option in between “Web” and “Video”.
Google Music has been around several years, but I don’t ever recall seeing it as a vertical search option while searching for a particular recording artist.
Google Music
Clicking on the recording artists name lead me to a list of Google Album results for Kristofferson which were presorted by popularity.
Google Music Sorted by Popularity
Clicking on the “More music results for Kris Kristofferson >” link produced both a list of Albums and Songs which featured Kristofferson.
Google Music Artists Albums Songs
A Google search for Johnny Cash produces a Music search option yet displays YouTube videos in the initial search results.
An extra click or two will get searchers to the same type of Album and Song page for Johnny Cash as Kristoffersons.
Johnny Cash
Is Google now monetizing their music related search with Album or Song sales?
When Google displays Artist information atop their search results are they in turn generating affiliate income from clicks to the iTunes Store and the others listed who are featured next to “Buy Album” call to action?
Google Buy Album
My question is – Who’s really selling the songs?
Search Marketing Communications 
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