iTunes boss: Hungry for more
Wednesday, 12 Dec 2007 12:28
iTunes Europe director talks to inthenews.co.uk about the online store's yearly charts
Since presiding over the launch of iTunes in Europe in 2003, Oliver Schusser has remained at the heart of Apple's operations on the continent.
Earlier this year he organised a month's worth of live concerts at London's Institute of Contemporary Arts (ICA) featuring artists such as Paul McCartney, Amy Winehouse and Kasabian.
And more recently he has led the launch of Apple's iPhone in Europe.
He spoke to
inthenews.co.uk to discuss his work with Apple in Europe, the ICA gigs and iTunes' best singles and albums of the year.
Those said charts show that in 2007, Mika's Grace Kelly outsold all other singles on iTunes, while Back to Black by Amy Winehouse did the same in the albums equivalent.
To read more on the charts
click here.
"It's been a fantastic year for digital music, we now have more than six million songs on iTunes and I think the charts represent different flavours from different genres," Schusser begins.
"It shows you how digital music has grown up."
On newcomer Mika's success he explains: "I think it just proves that Mika had a fantastic year, he's at number one, Rihanna's at number two with a worldwide super hit and then the Fray have done particularly well on iTunes with How to Save a Life."
And Schusser claims that the top-three ranking reflects their specific targeting of the worldwide download market.
"They've had a really good strategy in addressing people who are downloading; they brought a lot of people to the download market, in the USA and Europe."
But, surprisingly, none of the singles or albums on the top ten charts makes it into the iTunes Europe director's personal favourites for the year – Mark Ronson and Amy Winehouse's cover of Valerie and Overpowered by Roisin Murphy are his respective picks.
The ICA gigs saw top artists perform night after night in July, and Schusser claims the sets were an attempt to take iTunes concerts "on to another level".
"Rather than doing a concert every month we wanted to do one every day for a month."
And he singles out chart-toppers Amy Winehouse and Mika as the gigs' star performers.
"She played on July 25th, which was absolutely fantastic," the director said.
"Funnily, the number one single, Mika, he was the opener of the festival on July 1st and both of them were fantastic performances.
"We had some spectacular nights."
About 800,000 songs were made available for download on day one of iTunes in Europe, with that number now surpassing six million, but Schusser insists there is "a long way to go".
"There's a lot of music that still isn't available.
"There are a lot of people who don't download or pay for music, but technology will come again and redefine it and we're looking forward to it."
Matthew Champion
iTunes top singles chart 2007
1 Grace Kelly - Mika
2 Umbrella - Rihanna
3 How to Save a Life - The Fray
4 Ruby - Kaiser Chiefs
5 Hey There Delilah - Plain White T's
6 Stronger - Kanye West
7 Foundations - Kate Nash
8 Bleeding Love - Leona Lewis
9 About You Now - Sugababes
10 Shine - Take That
iTunes top albums chart 2007
1 Back to Black - Amy Winehouse
2 Life in Cartoon Motion - Mika
3 Favourite Worst Nightmare - Arctic Monkeys
4 Version - Mark Ronson
5 Hand Built by Robots - Newton Faulkner
6 Beautiful World - Take That
7 Echoes - Foo Fighters
8 Yours Truly Angry Mob - Kaiser Chiefs
9 Eyes Open - Snow Patrol
10 Timbaland Presents - Timbaland
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