Put on your party hats and don’t forget to yell “Surprise!” when it walks in the room because the iTunes Music Store turns 10-years-old today.
It’s hard to believe it has only been a decade since Apple went into the music business because it’s difficult to remember a time when it wasn’t there, beckoning to you to drop 99 cents on a song you would be embarrassed to tell your friends you bought. (“Baby” by Justin Bieber? I have no clue how that ended up in there!”) Say what you will about the service, but it definitely had an impact on the music industry and the way we purchase music.
When the store launched on April 28, 2003, it had a whopping 200,000 songs up for sale, but that didn’t stop consumers from purchasing approximately 275,000 tracks in the first 18 hours and over 1 million in the first 5 days. By Dec. 15 of that year 25 million songs had been sold. On Feb. 6 of this year, Apple announced that “Monkey Drums” (Goksel Vancin Remix) by Chase Buch was the 25 billionth track purchased from the store. An amazing feat when you think about the fact that the 10 billionth song was sold on Feb. 24, 2010.
So, here’s to you iTunes Music Store. We’re sure there are many brick and mortar music stores that closed over the years that won’t be saluting you, but we’re glad you came around.