iTunes Preps for 10 Billionth Download With Contest, Comp

In January 2009 at a MacWorld conference, Apple revealed that six billion songs had been downloaded on iTunes. In July 2009, that figure reached eight billion, and as Apple's industry-leading digital music service nears another major milestone, iTunes is holding a "Countdown to 10 Billion Songs" contest, with the customer who downloads that 10 billionth track set to receive a $10,000 iTunes gift card. Apple also offered up a $10,000 iTunes gift card to the winner in the race to one billion songs; Coldplay's "Speed of Sound" was the track that brought iTunes to ten-digit downloads.

In anticipation of their ten-billionth download, Apple has put together a special download called the "Most Downloaded iTunes Songs of All Time," which as the name suggests compiles the 25 most downloaded tracks in its seven-year history. The Black Eyed Peas own both the Number One and Three most downloaded tracks with "I Gotta Feeling" and "Boom Boom Pow," and Lady Gaga's "Poker Face" comes in Number Two. The most recent entry on the list is Ke$ha's "TiK ToK" at 10, while the oldest most downloaded song — by about 30 years — is Journey's "Don't Stop Believin' " at Number 21, the lone song on the Top 25 that predates the 2000s.

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Song Stories

“Smells Like Teen Spirit”

Nirvana | 1991

"Smells Like Teen Spirit," named after a brand of deodorant marketed to girls, was Kurt Cobain's attempt to "write the ultimate pop song," he said, using the soft-loud dynamic of his favorite band, the Pixies. Cobain "had that dichotomy of punk rage and alienation," the song’s producer, Butch Vig, told Rolling Stone, "but also this vulnerable pop sensibility. In 'Teen Spirit,' a lot of that vulnerability is in the tone of his voice." Sadly, by the time of Nirvana's last U.S. tour, in late '93, Cobain was tortured by the obligation to play "Teen Spirit" every night. "There are many other songs that I have written that are as good, if not better," he claimed.

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