Yesterday, Money Mike let everyone know what they should’ve known, even if they didn’t know. Jay-Z’s Blueprint 3 was moved up a few days to a normal Tuesday release date, away from the 9/11/09 release date, which would’ve been the 8th anniversary of his first Blueprint album.

While I understood the meaning immediately of the release date, it still left a slightly bad taste in my mouth for him to specifically release his album on a day where thoughts should be elsewhere. I don’t know how everyone else felt originally about that, but now, it’s neither here nor there, because the album was moved up.

Jay-Z's Blueprint 3

Jay-Z's Blueprint 3

But the reason it was moved up had more to do with Def Jam putting out the first and second Blueprint albums in the store on the same day in one special package to either confuse buyers, or entice buyers to buy their special edition release, alongside Jay’s newest joint.

However, if you go to iTunes, where I buy all of my music, the album still has the 9/11/09 release date. I pre-ordered the album beforehand and expected it to be all queued up on Tuesday morning before I went to work. I had a yearning to hear some Empire State Of Mind. But alas, that track, as well as the other tracks from the new album, are nowhere to be found.

So iTunes, where is my Blueprint 3 and why didn’t y’all get the memo that the release date was bumped up?

I will send Apple an e-mail and see if I get a response. If I do, I’ll let everyone know right here.

Update: 4:25 PM Pacific

I didn’t actually e-mail Apple, but they had a chat feature that I was able to use. In short, for whatever reason (and the nice lady didn’t know), they’re not releasing the album until Friday.

What was funny is that when I told her that the album actually came out everywhere on Tuesday, she asked me if iTunes let me know, rather than being on the up and up in the music news. She probably didn’t have to necessarily be on the up and up when it came to music, but being that she’s doing customer service for iTunes, it’s probably a good idea to know what’s going on.

Even though I was bothered that they simply didn’t have a clue what was going on, she did refund my pre-order money and apologized. I may still buy the album from iTunes on Friday, but I wanted the freedom to get it from the store, in case I had the chance.

All in all, iTunes has failed me for one of the only times in my life.