Island Def Jam shifts up the hotly anticipated LPs from traditional Tuesday launch to get a jump on holiday sales.
By James Montgomery

Ludacris' <i>Theater Of The Mind</i>
Photo: Def Jam

If you're one of the millions of fans anxiously awaiting new albums from Kanye West, Ludacris and/or the Killers, you're in luck. Your wait just got a little bit shorter.

In a move no doubt designed to get a jump on holiday sales (and facilitate maximum one-stop shopping), Island Def Jam announced on Monday (November 10) that it has moved the release date for three of the label's biggest albums — West's 808s & Heartbreak, Luda's Theater of the Mind and the Killers' Day & Age — from a traditional Tuesday launch up to Monday, November 24. All three albums will be available both digitally and physically on that date.

According to a spokesperson for the label, it's a "one time only" strategy, which will jump the industry-wide release schedule "in anticipation of big Thanksgiving-weekend holiday gift shopping."

It bears mentioning that Tuesday release dates have become more and more arbitrary in recent months: Metallica's Death Magnetic was released on Friday, September 12, AC/DC's Black Ice hit Wal-Mart shelves on Sunday, October 20, and Guns N' Roses' much-anticipated Chinese Democracy is slated for a Sunday, November 23, release at Best Buy.

The release-date shakeup is nothing new for Island Def Jam. Last month, the label made headlines by pushing Fall Out Boy's Folie à Deux album from its November 4 date to December 16, a decision which FOB bassist Pete Wentz told MTV News was "unfortunate ... it was not the date we had originally planned, nor the optimal date according to some demographic-marketing analysis."

• Kanye West
• Ludacris
• The Killers