"Is this Feist again?" my friends asked at the Super Bowl party I attended last Sunday, as Apple's latest product-porn ad popped onto the plasma.

"No, no," I said, confidently. "Apple doesn't re-use acts in these ads. I think this is Regina Spektor."

Oops.

I pride myself on being able to nail a song in one or two listens, but I think I can be forgiven for botching that call. The fact is, no one in America had heard of Yael Naïm before her perky, warbly "New Soul" became the soundtrack to the first MacBook Air commercial. But that's all changed, now that "New Soul" is the top-selling song on iTunes. In fact, in her first week on the Hot 100, the indie-label-backed Israeli native pulls off something that took Feist about a month: Reaching the chart's Top 10.

When Feist's "1234" appeared in Apple's commercial for the video-capable iPod Nano last September, her album The Reminder had been out for nearly half a year and its song "My Moon My Man" had been worked to a few radio formats. The inevitably huge sales of "1234" did bring thousands of new consumers to Feist, but she had a small but sizable base of fans already; the album was already halfway to gold by that point. The rise of "1234" on the charts was staggeringly swift, but it did take three weeks for the song to achieve its peak position of No. 7.

Yael Naïm, on the other hand, enters the charts this week with no U.S. sales history whatsoever; her album is released globally by Tôt ou tard, a French label formerly affiliated with Warner Music but independent since 2002. This explains how "New Soul" is able to explode onto the Hot 100 at No. 9—there was no major-label battleship to turn around. Both Feist and Naïm have enjoyed brief periods where their Apple-fueled songs topped the iTunes sales list, and neither one has had much radio airplay to speak of (Billboard reports that "New Soul" was played last week exactly three times—three plays, total, nationwide—on monitored radio stations). But where Feist's song had to attract different—read: non-indie/Amazon/Starbucks—fans who hadn't discovered her already, Naïm is attracting everyone from scratch.

Over the five years that Apple has been shooting songs to stardom in TV commercials—starting in earnest with the company's single-handed launch of Jet in 2003—there's been no clear chart pattern. Some songs, like Jet's, Feist's and Naïm's, become bonafide Top 20 Billboard hits. Others, like Caesars' "Jerk It Out" (iPod Shuffle, 2005) or the Fratellis' "Flathead" (iPod 5G, 2007) never fully cross over.

One thing is clear, however: as iTunes has increased its influence over the Hot 100, its biggest sellers have an increasingly outsized chart footprint. Two or three years ago, it would have been unthinkable for iTunes to produce a national Top 10 hit with no radio support whatsoever. In the last four months, it's happened twice.

Here's a quick rundown of the rest of this week's charts:

• One of the scary things about Flo Rida's run on top of the Hot 100 is that, for all of the seven weeks he's been there, he's retained his bullet—Billboard's indicator of airplay and/or sales growth. This means that, even while we're waiting for a new song to end his run, he keeps piling on points—there have been weeks where he's been down in sales, but he's compensated with steady airplay gains. This week, he's still No. 1 in overall digital sales (179,000 downloads sold), and he's on top of the Hot 100 Airplay chart for a second week.

• However, the challengers are closing in, with Chris Brown's "With You" inching up to No. 2 and Rihanna's "Don't Stop the Music" leaping two notches to No. 3. Both are up strongly in airplay, but Rihanna's gain is bigger, and on the digital side, "Don't" is now outselling "With" by nearly 20,000 downloads. For Rihanna to upset Brown as the next No. 1, she'll have to keep gaining in airplay—he's still got her beat there by a big margin—and widen her sales advantage. One last thing working in her favor, not on next week's charts but the week after: the post-Grammy bump. She's got a showcase performing slot on the show, and while that will mostly affect sales for the nominated track "Umbrella," anything with her name on it will probably sell more in the days after the show—as long as she doesn't botch her performance.

• The biggest digital-sales gainer on the whole chart is Buckcherry's "Sorry," which fuels an 11-point rise on the Hot 100 to No. 11. The song's radio gains have been slower—it's up only one notch to No. 38 on the Hot 100 Airplay list—but the sales burst will probably make the crossover to Top 40 radio easier, and Finger Eleven's recent chart success has probably warmed pop-radio PDs to frat-friendly rock.

• Other debuts, on the chart's bottom rungs: Jack Johnson's "If I Had Eyes" (No. 71), Ray J & Yung Berg's "Sexy Can I" (No. 77), Panic at the Disco's "Nine in the Afternoon" (No. 79—a notably slow start by a returning TRL-beloved act), Hannah Montana's "Rock Star" (No. 81), Missy Elliott's "Ching-A-Ling" (No. 83), Soulja Boy's "YAHHH!" (No. 86), Trace Adkins's "You're Gonna Miss This" (No. 95), Lil' Wayne's "I'm Me" (No. 97) and... ugh: Puddle of Mudd's "Psycho" (No. 100).

• Billboard's Country chart is an all-airplay list, which makes it very regimented; country is one of radio's most carefully managed and conservative formats, and songs on the list generally march up and down in slow, steady patterns. That's what makes the four debuts in this week's Country Top 10 so unusual. As Billboard's Fred Bronson reports, that's the largest turnover in the winners' circle in nearly 10 years. Two of the debutantes are superstars, one old—Alan Jackson, with his 47th Top 10 hit—and one new—Carrie Underwood, with her sixth Top 10 in just over two years. To give a sense of how fast that is, she's now got one more Top 10 hit than another guy entering the list: Craig Morgan, who's been releasing records since 2000.

• How many Top 10 hits do you think Radiohead has had on the Modern Rock chart? No, lower. Try three, total, over 15 years—and they've come at roughly seven-year intervals. After scoring with "Creep" (No. 2, 1993), they had to wait until 2000 for the second one—"Optimistic," from Kid A (No. 10)—and only now, seven years and three months later, do they earn their third, as "Bodysnatchers" moves to No. 9.

Top 10s
Last week's position and total weeks charted in parentheses:

Hot 100
1. Flo Rida feat. T-Pain, "Low" (LW No. 1, 15 weeks)
2. Chris Brown, "With You" (LW No. 3, 10 weeks)
3. Rihanna, "Don't Stop the Music" (LW No. 5, 11 weeks)
4. Timbaland feat. OneRepublic, "Apologize" (LW No. 4, 27 weeks)
5. Alicia Keys, "No One" (LW No. 2, 22 weeks)
6. Sara Bareilles, "Love Song" (LW No. 9, 14 weeks)
7. Fergie, "Clumsy" (LW No. 6, 17 weeks)
8. Snoop Dogg, "Sensual Seduction" (LW No. 8, 10 weeks)
9. Yael Naim, "New Soul" (CHART DEBUT, 1 week)
10. Sean Kingston, "Take You There" (LW No. 7, 14 weeks)

Hot R&B/Hip-Hop Songs
1. Alicia Keys, "Like You'll Never See Me Again" (LW No. 1, 15 weeks)
2. Keyshia Cole, "I Remember" (LW No. 2, 14 weeks)
3. Mary J. Blige, "Just Fine" (LW No. 3, 19 weeks)
4. J. Holiday, "Suffocate" (LW No. 4, 18 weeks)
5. Webbie, Lil' Phat & Lil' Boosie, "Independent" (LW No. 7, 16 weeks)
6. Snoop Dogg, "Sensual Seduction" (LW No. 6, 13 weeks)
7. Trey Songz, "Can't Help But Wait" (LW No. 5, 26 weeks)
8. Mario, "Cryin' Out for Me" (LW No. 8, 23 weeks)
9. Flo Rida feat. T-Pain, "Low" (LW No. 10, 20 weeks)
10. Chris Brown, "With You" (LW No. 9, 10 weeks)

Hot Country Songs
1. Brad Paisley, "Letter to Me" (LW No. 1, 17 weeks)
2. Rascal Flatts, "Winner at a Losing Game" (LW No. 2, 17 weeks)
3. Gary Allan, "Watching Airplanes" (LW No. 3, 29 weeks)
4. Rodney Atkins, "Cleaning This Gun (Come on in Boy)" (LW No. 7, 20 weeks)
5. Kenny Chesney with George Strait, "Shiftwork" (LW No. 9, 16 weeks)
6. Billy Ray Cyrus with Miley Cyrus, "Ready, Set, Don't Go" (LW No. 4, 28 weeks)
7. Alan Jackson, "Small Town Southern Man" (LW No. 11, 13 weeks)
8. Carrie Underwood, "All-American Girl" (LW No. 12, 10 weeks)
9. Chuck Wicks, "Stealing Cinderella" (LW No. 13, 24 weeks)
10. Craig Morgan, "International Harvester" (LW No. 15, 21 weeks)

Hot Modern Rock Tracks
1. Seether, "Fake It" (LW No. 1, 23 weeks)
2. Foo Fighters, "Winner at a Losing Game" (LW No. 2, 15 weeks)
3. Linkin Park, "Shadow of the Day" (LW No. 3, 18 weeks)
4. Paramore, "crushcrushcrush" (LW No. 5, 12 weeks)
5. Foo Fighters, "The Pretender" (LW No. 4, 27 weeks)
6. Avenged Sevenfold, "Almost Easy" (LW No. 7, 18 weeks)
7. Serj Tankian, "Empty Walls" (LW No. 6, 21 weeks)
8. Rise Against, "The Good Left Undone" (LW No. 10, 32 weeks)
9. Radiohead, "Bodysnatchers" (LW No. 12, 15 weeks)
10. Chevelle, "I Get It" (LW No. 8, 29 weeks)

"Never say never, but customers don't seem to be interested in it," Jobs told Reuters in an interview after Apple reported blow-out quarterly results. "The subscription model has failed so far."

His comments come as the company he co-founded gears up for contract renewal negotiations with the major record labels over the next month.

Since Apple launched iTunes in 2003, it has sold more than 2.5 billion songs and now offers increasing numbers of television shows and movies.

Many in the music industry hope iTunes will ultimately start, in effect, renting music online, so record companies can make more money from recurring income. But Jobs said he had seen little consumer demand for that.

"People want to own their music," he said.

Maybe Jobs doesn't want to dredge up memories of the first dot-com bubble, but there's something else that labels seem to be forgetting about in their banging on about subscription services: Few things last forever on the Internet. So the resistance to the subcsription model probably isn't just rooted in the fact that people want to own their own music; they also want decide for themselves when they want to surrender it. (OK, they probably also want to carry around those cute iPod Nanos, instead of crippled players that claim to have access to "2 million songs" but really only allow users to hear a fraction of that. But still! That goes back to consumer choice, too, right?)

Jobs says Apple customers not into renting music [Reuters]
Earlier: Apple Requiring Labels To Deliver Content DRM-Free?

- As Lily Allen knows all too well, Apple offers front-page priority to artists who provide exclusive tracks. This is standard procedure for digital outlets, but Apple is "especially aggressive and has outsize clout."
- Labels aren't always thrilled with the practice, but they comply, as an album that's on the front page "can sell about five times more copies on average through the site than it does in the three to five weeks that follow, when the album isn't featured."
- In anticipation of Prince's Super Bowl performance, Rhino and iTunes reduced the price on several of his catalog albums to $7.99; afterward, Soundscan figures for Purple Rain increased fivefold.
- The iTunes staff is made up of professional music geeks, including radio DJs, former record-label staffers, and a guy who helped manage Paul Simon's Graceland tour. And its California headquarters is situated "in a cluster of nondescript cubicles that could easily be confused with a software-development group but for a smattering of music posters on the walls."
- Now that store has started selling TV shows and movies, music staffers have to start lobbying for high-visibility album and artist placement three to six months in advance. The iTunes managers say they refuse to accept payment from labels in exchange for better real estate.
- The store's front page is broken down into the following categories: "Splashes" (the rotating images at the top of the page); "swooshes," the 8-item that appear right underneath the splashes; and "bricks," the image-driven buttons that are often used for celebrity playlists and other exclusives.
- Steve Jobs is training a legion of cyborg bumblebees in a Nevada canyon, preparing them for a world takeover that should begin in mid-2009.

Music's New Gatekeeper [WSJ]

The London-based EMI is believed to have held talks with a wide range of online retailers that compete with Apple's iTunes. Those competing retailers include RealNetworks Inc., eMusic.com, MusicNet Inc. and Viacom Inc.'s MTV Networks. People familiar with the matter cautioned that EMI could still abandon the proposed strategy before implementing it. A decision about whether to keep pursuing the idea could come as soon as today...

According to people familiar with the matter, EMI initially began exploring the issue in earnest in late December, when it circulated proposals to online music retailers. Part of its proposal was a request for a one-time, multimillion-dollar "risk-insurance" payment that would not be tallied against future sales. Three people familiar with the talks said online retailers generally balked at the request.

EMI then returned with a new proposal in late January, around the time of a music conference in Cannes, France. EMI asked the online retailers to tell it what size advance payments they would offer in exchange for the right to sell its music as MP3s. Those proposals were to be submitted yesterday, said one person familiar with the matter. This person understood that EMI would decide whether to forge ahead with the MP3 strategy based on the offers' aggregate worth.

We're pretty sure no one at EMI is reading this, but if so, for God's sake, do it! There's no time left for "risk-insurance" dilly-dallying or advance-payment fussing about; the music industry as we know it is has about three or four more years left before it becomes a small-scale equivalent of the drug trade, and this is your chance to be its Newton Blade: You can control the product, set up the street rules, and still feel justified if you need to bust some heads now and then. Plus, you can buy a $25,000 salt-water tank, and fill it with baby hammerheads.

EMI Mulls Lifting Online-Music Restrictions [WSJ]

Apple's offer to license [the Apple DRM] Fairplay to other technology companies is a welcome breakthrough and would be a real victory for fans, artists and labels. There have been many services seeking a license to the Apple DRM. This would enable the interoperability that we have been urging for a very long time.

Perhaps the RIAA's Web-enabled computers, still crippled by the last remnants of the Sony rootkits they inadvertently installed a couple of years back, didn't load the entirety of Jobs' essay? In addition to skipping the essay's anti-DRM railing, they missed this bit:

"Apple has concluded that if it licenses FairPlay to others, it can no longer guarantee to protect the music it licenses from the big four music companies."

Unless that's what the RIAA wants—all of the rigamarole and pain-in-the-ass aspects of DRM, but none of the "security" it allegedly offers. And honestly, given their recent track record, we're not so willing to rule that idea out.

Jobs to DRM: Drop Dead [Bit Player, via Listening Post]
Earlier: Steve Jobs To Record Labels: Tear Down Your DRM Wall

The Wall Street Journal is reporting that Apple (the company in charge of the Beatles' catalog) and Apple (the computer company that can't seem to make a decent battery) have settled their trademark dispute:

Under a new deal that replaces one reached in 1991, Apple will own all of the trademarks related to "Apple" and license some of those back to Apple Corps Ltd., the Beatles' record label. The trademark lawsuit between the companies will be withdrawn. Terms of the settlement are confidential.

"We love the Beatles, and it has been painful being at odds with them over these trademarks," said Apple Chief Executive Steve Jobs in a prepared statement. "It feels great to resolve this in a positive manner, and in a way that should remove the potential of further disagreements in the future."

Jobs added, "This has nothing to do whatsoever with the fact that we desperately want to put Rubber Soul on the iTunes store before the introduction of the iPhone. Nothing! Now excuse me while I give Yoko a hot-stone massage."

Apple, Beatles Reach Deal Over Use of Trademark [WSJ]
Earlier: More MacWorld: Will The iTunes Store And The Beatles Finally Come Together?

As [Johansen and his partner] explain DoubleTwist in a conference room they share with several other companies, he points to a sheet of printer paper tacked on the wall that has a typed quote [Steve] Jobs gave the Wall Street Journal in 2002: "If you legally acquire music, you need to have the right to manage it on all other devices that you own." As Johansen sees it, Jobs didn't follow through on this promise, so it's up to him to fix the system...

"Today's reality is that there's this iTunes-iPod ecosystem that excludes everyone else from the market," says Johansen. "I don't like closed systems."

Unlocking The Hero [Fortune]

Of course, this is like catnip to the geeky hackers of the world, who relish the opportunity to stick it to the man, especially if that man is Steve Jobs. Uncompatible Systems has a step-by-step guide to stripping your iTunes songs from all the add-ons (it even works with iTunes 7). The best part? You can do it using Apple's own products, meaning Jobs will now cry himself to sleep on his giant pillow stuffed with money.

"Using Apple Products To Remove Apple's DRM"