Worrell performed a mix of new and old Monday night at LiveArts at the release concert for The Honey Guide.
PHOTO BY HAWES SPENCER

Recently-defrosted classic Charlottesville singer-songwriter Shannon Worrell’s new album only came out a couple days ago, but it’s already turning heads at the largest music retailer in the country:

The Honey Guide is one of this week’s featured picks in the iTunes Music Store’s folk section.

This is actually a coveted slot; Apple has been known to pressure record labels for exclusive iTunes-only releases in exchange for placement in the store, for example— but Worrell says this one was just a no-strings-attached gift from the pod gods.

“I was fairly shocked,” she says. “Somebody placed it based on the artwork or listened to it. The label didn’t do any marketing.”

But iTunes isn’t the only place to get it — Worrell says they sent it to the usual suspects in online distribution— Nimbit, CDBaby, Microsoft Zune, eMusic, and a few others. Our bet? Buy it from Amie Street, where breaking independent music comes at an astonishingly steep discount until it gets really popular.

Worrell says it’ll be hard to gauge the effects of the placement because she only gets bi-annual reports from the label, but depending on how this iTunes thing plays out, you cheapskates might be outta luck pretty soon.