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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Artists have always had opinions about what music (other than their own) is great. But in the digital era, there are far more chances to trumpet those tastes to their fans. The idea of ‘artist as curator’ is gaining currency, with a variety of examples.

Usher’s Top 100 iPhone app

R&B star Usher is the star of Melodeo’s latest streaming music iPhone application. It’s a playlist of 100 songs apparently hand-picked by the man himself from his favourite ever tunes. That means Arethra Franklin, James Brown and Michael Jackson among other artists.

The app – powered by Melodeo’s NuTsie service – then streams the songs to users, who’ve paid $3 for the privilege of downloading it. Melodeo has released a number of generic streaming compilation apps like this, but Usher is the first big star to put his name to one.

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Usher has teamed up with Melodeo and Wizzard Media for a new iPhone app, which claims to stream his 100 favourite songs. Or, as the blurb puts it, the app “represents Usher’s jam-list and is like having Usher personally spinning tunes for you”.

Featured artists include Aretha Franklin, James Brown and Michael Jackson. The app costs $3 in the US App Store, and joins numerous other apps launched by Melodeo – using its nuTsie service – offering compilations of streaming music.

However, it’s interesting to see the company hooking up with artists to curate individual collections. We’re taking it on trust, obviously, that these really are Usher’s top 100 tracks, as opposed to 100 R&B and soul songs thrown together with his name on the splash screen.