Music Ally

Are labels and managers doing a good job of building communities around their artists on Facebook? Well, none make the ten most popular fan pages on the social network.

In order, they are: Barack Obama, Coca-Cola, Homer J Simpson, Nutella, Pizza, Mr Bean, Michael Phelps, Facebook, Windows Live Messenger, and Kinder Surprise. This is according to a chart compiled by AllFacebook.

I’ve dug out the 20 most popular music artist fan pages from the chart though, and they are (with number of fans):

1. Rihanna (1.52 million)
2. Coldplay (1.49 million)
3. Lil Wayne (1.34 million)
4. Linkin Park (1.33 million)
5. Chris Brown (1.3 million)
6. Metallica (1.22 million)
7. Pink Floyd (1.16 million)
8. Bob Marley (1.13 million)
9. Red Hot Chili Peppers (1.12 million)
10. Justin Timberlake (1.05 million)
11. AC/DC (997,000)
12. Daft Punk (912,000)
13. Beyonce (906,000)
14. Queen (900,000)
15. Evanescence (873,000)
16. Jonas Brothers (843,000)
17. Radiohead (793,000)
18. Kanye West (792,000)
19. Katy Perry (791,000)
20. Akon (753,000)

It’s a good resource, anyway. Props to Mashable for spotting it.

Lil Wayne has announced a release date for his new album, Rebirth, and there’s plenty of digital promotion planned around it.

The lead single is debuting on his MySpace profile today, but he’s also signed a deal with AT&T, which will showcase the single on Facebook, as well as streaming an upcoming gig by the rapper on the social network.

AT&T will also offer an exclusive ringtone of the single, Prom Queen, to its subscribers, along with a full-track download. The Facebook webcast is taking place tomorrow (Wednesday) at 9.40pm PST. It’s a sign of how artist partnerships with telcos like AT&T are stretching beyond the traditional gig sponsorships and ringtone promotions.

(via Billboard)

We’ve been banging on about iPhone applications for a while ago, and in last week’s issue of the Music Ally Report, we covered some of the ways iPhone apps are coming onto the music industry’s radar. But which apps are we actually using on our iPhones, hmm?

We thought we should tell you. So, here’s a dozen of the best iPhone music apps, complete with links to buy them.

1. Guitar Rock Tour (£4.99 – right)
A music game that pretty much swipes the Guitar Hero formula and runs off with it cackling. You have to tap the frets at the bottom of the screen as notes travel down a guitar, with an array of proper songs including Beat It, Smoke On The Water, Heart-Shaped Box and – yes! – Rock You Like A Hurricane. Get it

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