Music Ally

2009 was the year of the App Store, as Apple passed the two-billion downloads milestone for its store, which now has more than 100,000 apps available. The year also saw labels and artists jumping onto the bandwagon with their own branded iPhone apps.

The most successful, like Smule’s I Am T-Pain (pictured right) sold tens of thousands of copies a day. It’s only fair to point out that the vast majority sank down the app charts fairly quickly though – proving that iPhone apps provide a return on investment for the music industry wasn’t a huge priority this year.

Even so, there was plenty of creativity being put to work. To highlight it, we’ve chosen a selection of 40 branded music apps that we thought were innovative this year – which were all covered in the Music Ally Daily Bulletin.

They’re all based on artists, labels and other music brands – the list doesn’t include apps for music services like Spotify or Pandora, nor does it include pure music games like Rock Band or Tap Tap Revenge (although one of the latter’s artist-branded spin-offs is included).

Read on for a snapshot of what was released this year, and let us know your thoughts on the best and worst of what the App Store had to offer. Oh, and yes, we’ve put them in a rough order reflecting how much we liked them, starting with the best.

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Here’s a double whammy for dads everywhere: Snow Patrol and Neil Diamond have launched new iPhone apps.

Snow Patrol are grizzled veterans of the App Store world, having been one of the first artists to launch their own iPhone app last year. Now the band has put its name to a follow-up, the logically-named Snow Patrol. It includes a news feed, forum access, store and a nifty photo galleries feature. The latter will allow fans to take snaps at Snow Patrol gigs and upload them from the app to a dedicated section of the band’s website.

Meanwhile, there’s also a nice snowflake interface – fans use touch to make a unique virtual snowflake, which then becomes their way of navigating around the app. The free application is promoting the band’s new Greatest Hits album.

And Diamond? His first iPhone app has been released to promote his upcoming A Cherry Cherry Christmas festive album, and offers Neil news, his Twitter feed (no, we didn’t know he was on Twitter either), photos and videos.

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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Polydor’s head of digital Paul Smernicki says the label is pleased with the success of its Snow Patrol iPhone application, which was launched last month to promote the band’s new album.

“We’re relatively pleased with the results,” says Smernicki. “We gave away more than 30,000 of them in the first week. The next step is to figure out what it’s added to the campaign, but the initial download numbers would suggest that it’s added quite a lot, as well as the buzz around it ahead of the album release. Of course, we won’t get that buzz every time.”

One thing the app ISN’T is an interactive album, as reported online earlier this year when details first leaked out. In fact, the blogosphere was buzzing with claims that Snow Patrol had signed some kind of deal with Apple to become the first artist to release an album through the App Store rather than iTunes.

“We were quite surprised by the level of interest,” says Smernicki. “The product manager mentioned it in an interview quite vaguely as one of about ten points of the album campaign, and those quotes turned into huge online buzz and speculation about it being an interactive album. We never said that, although we were pleased to be getting that kind of online buzz.”

He’s hugely enthusiastic about the potential of iPhone applications, while stressing that it’s early days to figure out whether they deliver a decent return on investment for labels. He’s been combing the App Store for interesting examples.

“There’s a lot that we can learn from non-music applications,” says Smernicki. “There are some really clever things going on with stuff like GPS. You could follow bands on tour, map their tour around the world, and make live video or audio from gigs available. You might have interaction from the artist too, creating video diaries and reviewing the shows. There’s potential to create something that has a real function.”

Smernicki was talking to Music Ally for a feature in this week’s Music Ally Report, which is published today. For more details on our premium service, click here.

One of the things we’re tracking at Music Ally is how artists and labels are using mobile and online to promote music. And since we’re tracking it on an ongoing basis, we thought it was worth rounding up some of the notable campaigns for last month.

Not all are straight digital marketing campaigns – some are more distribution deals – but we think they give a snapshot of what companies are up to. See what you think.

1. AC/DC Excel video (above). Sony BMG turned the new video from the Aussie rockers into an ASCII-art video, embedded into an Excel spreadsheet. The idea: fans would be able to email it round workplaces without fear of getting carpeted by bosses. Watch It

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