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Seven years after its inception, Apple's iTunes store sold its ten billionth song on Wednesday. Neither the name of the lucky customer or the tune that marked the milestone sale have been announced yet, but whoever it may be is set to receive a $10,000 gift card from the company.
Earlier this month we posted iTunes Top 25 Most-Downloaded Songs Ever (again, "ever" only stretches back to 2003). But if memory fails you, fear not—you can peep at the top-selling tracks once more after the jump.
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Posts Tagged ‘iTunes’
Lists
How Many Of iTunes’ 25 Most-Downloaded Songs Do You Own?
2:59 PM on Fri Feb 12 2010 by Robbie Daw
Looks like Journey's "Don't Stop Believin'" will never be so 2000-and-late. As the iTunes store approaches its 10 billion downloads mark, the digital retailer has revealed its 25 most-downloaded songs since its inception in 2003. And if you thought the Black Eyed Peas were approaching the E.N.D. of the line, you'd best think again—and check your computer. Because we gotta feeling you might have some of the quartet's jams lurking around in there.
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iTunes Rewind 2009: See What The Masses Were Downloading This Year
7:51 AM on Wed Dec 9 2009 by Robbie Daw
Exactly what do the Black Eyed Peas, Miley Cyrus, Kings Of Leon and Lady Gaga have in common, besides dominating the airwaves across the country over the past year? They all landed high up on iTunes’ Rewind 2009 list of top-selling songs and albums.
Surprisingly, the Peas, who had two of the top downloaded songs of the year, only ranked at #10 with their album The E.N.D. Guess there really is a threshold when it comes to a full hour of Fergie.
Check out what ended up being the most downloaded music of the year at the digital retailer, and what was singled out by iTunes editors—including the not-so-surprising (Artist Of The Year: Micheal Jackson) and mildly-surprising (Best Soundtrack: (500) Days Of Summer)—after the jump. More »
News
Oh Hey, That “Beatles Albums Arriving On iTunes” Chatter Is Starting Again
2:00 PM on Tue Aug 18 2009 by Maura
According to the tech-news site AllThingsD, Apple has a music event scheduled for Sept. 9. ATD says that the event will involve “upgrades to the iPod line and an update to iTunes that may involve some sort of social element.” But since that date just happens to be a big one for Beatles fans—the band’s remastered catalog is coming out, as well as The Beatles: Rock Band—other news outlets are wondering if this will be the day that the Fab Four’s catalog finally comes to iTunes, after years and years of speculation on the part of the music press. And if it doesn’t happen? Well, music-tech reporters will probably be thanking their lucky stars that the dusty story about the band’s digital upgrade can have life breathed into it at least one more time. [AllThingsD] More »
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Brake The Drake? “Degrassi” Alum Scales Chart Despite Online Stumbling Blocks
4:00 PM on Fri Jul 24 2009 by Chris Molanphy
When the music story of 2009 is written, the year’s debutante queen and king will be Lady GaGa and Drake, who have treated Billboard’s Hot 100 as their playground lately. Each is a lock for a Best New Artist Grammy nomination next winter, because each is exactly the sort of not-too-innovative, chart-friendly act the Recording Academy routinely rewards.
For both acts, however, the path to the Top 10 has been a bit of a slog. GaGa’s on a roll now, but she spent most of 2008 watching her debut “Just Dance” creep up the Hot 100 before its January 2009 triumph; each of her chart-toppers needed an abnormally long time to scale the list. Her latest, “LoveGame,” has had the easiest rise of all, even as it peaked below the top slot.
Drake is poised to join GaGa as a debutante chart-topper with “Best I Ever Had” (No. 2), if he can get past the Black Eyed Peas. Compared with the Lady, the former Degrassi: The Next Generation cast member has had an easier time, exploding into the Top 10 with “Best” and the Lil Wayne-backed Young Money single “Every Girl.”
But even Drake has had bumps along the way—in particular, a week in which “Best” took a one-week, Estelle-like swoon thanks to a dispute over who was allowed to release his songs on iTunes. He’s more than recovered, but the mix-up and the song’s temporary plummet show how critical digital sales are to the Hot 100.
I don’t normally talk here about technology or digital rights, but in the wake of Amazon’s disastrous recall of two George Orwell e-books last week, it’s worth exploring what happened to Drake’s hit and what it means for chart tabulation and the songs we buy. More »
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iTunes Users Taking A Look At Their Libraries And Making A Change
10:30 AM on Fri Jun 26 2009 by Maura
It’s not all that surprising that the wake of Michael Jackson’s death has resulted in the pop titan possessing more than a third of the slots on the current iTunes Top 100. But the top-selling song on that chart is an unexpected one: It’s “Man In The Mirror,” the inspirational track from his 1987 album Bad that spent two weeks at No. 1 on the Billboard Hot 100 the following spring. More »
Idolator's American Idolatry
iTunes’ Copywriters Also Very Surprised By Kris Allen’s Victory
11:30 AM on Thu May 21 2009 by Maura
Over at the iTunes Store, the person responsible for writing Kris Allen’s winners-circle copy is either still mentally recovering from being reminded of “Big Girls Don’t Cry (Personal)” during last night’s American Idol or slyly noting that the sales data for this year’s studio versions of Idol performances has finally been released, and that at the moment Adam Lambert has nine and a half songs in the store’s top 100 to Kris’ seven. (There’s also an errant “win” on Adam’s page, aw.) [iTunes; HT TwigLA @ MJ's Big Blog] More »
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From Asher to Jeremih: Selling Chart Hits on the New, Pricier iTunes
5:00 PM on Fri May 15 2009 by Chris Molanphy
It’s now been just over a month since Apple flipped the switch at the iTunes Music Store and gave the major labels what they wanted: higher-priced hit singles.
Since April 7, downloads at the world’s largest music retailer have varied in price–from 69 cents for hundreds of low-profile catalog tracks to $1.29 for best-sellers, both new and vintage. For most observers, the question has been what effect these changes would have on what remains of the music industry, and, to a lesser extent, on Apple’s bottom line.
But I’m equally interested in how it might affect Billboard’s Hot 100.
You can’t figure this out by looking at the top of the chart. One song, the Black Eyed Peas’ “Boom Boom Pow,” has been No. 1 that entire time. And for reasons that remain, aesthetically, a mystery to me, it seems that people will buy it at almost any price (it was 99 cents its first week on sale, $1.29 thereafter). Nothing has threatened the Peas’ dominance, priced at 99 cents or otherwise.
Instead, to really get a sense of it, you have to look at a hit that’s in the middle of the pack: big enough to matter, but modest enough to provide a useful test case. Let’s give it a shot, by comparing two tracks by new acts that were, respectively, the fastest-rising sales hits of March and May–just before and just after the switch. And while these songs emerge from different sides of the pop spectrum (quite literally), they’re both youth-oriented, seemingly viral in their chart rise, and kinda dumb. More »
News
“The Downward Spiral” Apparently Too Hot For The iTunes Store
12:45 PM on Mon May 4 2009 by Maura
The latest update to Nine Inch Nails’ iPhone application has been rejected by the content czars at Apple. Why? Because it contained “obscene, pornographic, offensive or defamatory content or materials”–namely, “The Downward Spiral,” which is one of the songs on a podcast that could be streamed to the application. As you might expect, Nine Inch Nails main man Trent Reznor has some thoughts! More »
News
11:30 AM on Thu Apr 23 2009 by Maura
Here’s an elevator pitch for cash/idea-strapped music video channels, courtesy of the blogosphere: “You know what would be amazing? If say, MTV or VH1, or Fuse partnered with iTunes to make ‘albums’ of their Top 10/20/50 countdowns. The weekly ones and the ones that are themed (like, Most Influential Songs of the 90’s or whatever). Then you could buy the countdowns (videos, or audio) like you would albums.” I also like the idea of doing this in reverse, with one of those channels giving up a chunk of time to a show that counts down iTunes’ top albums, or even music videos. Hey, it’s at least a little more legit than VH1’s street-team-abused Top 20 show, right? (Yes, that’s still on! I know!) [mover&shaker] More »
