Who says nobody buys music anymore?
Today, iTunes announced the sale of the 25 billionth song on the digital-retail giant.
The track, Chase Buch’s “Monkey Drums (Goksel Vancin Remix)” was downloaded by a German gentleman named Phillip Lüpke. His good fortune (and his enthusiasm for deep house remixes) has netted him an iTunes gift card worth 10,000 Euro.
The iTunes store first launched in April 2003 and has often celebrated milestones like this along the way. They hit their first billion in 2006 when a Michigan man, Alex Ostrovsky, purchased Coldplay’s “Speed of Sound” (he got a call from Steve Jobs, 10 iPods, a new iMac, and $10,000 in iTunes credit for his troubles). According to a press release, iTunes sells 15,000 downloads every minute.
Though there are other ways to legally download music, iTunes remains dominant (they control nearly 90% of that market), and for most people iTunes represents the gateway into all music buying.
I can remember purchasing my first iTunes download as vividly as I can remember buying my first cassette: I was working at another magazine and needed to check a lyric on a song from 13th Floor Elevators’ Easter Everywhere, and the quickest way to do that was to buy it through iTunes. (For a long time, it was the only album I had on that particular computer thanks to a faulty disc drive.) To this day, I can’t hear “Slip Inside This House” without thinking about the Apple logo.
So we ask you, dear readers: What was your first music purchase on iTunes? And how many do you reckon you’ve contributed to the 25 billion (and counting)? Let us know in the comments.
Read More on EW.com:
Beyonce, Destiny’s Child get big post-Super Bowl bumps on iTunes
iTunes reveals top-selling music, movies, TV, books, and apps of 2012
What songs did you listen to the most this year? EW’s music staff weighs in
