10 Billionth iTunes Download is Cash's Last Laugh

On Febuary 25th, Louie Sulcer of Woodstock, Georgia downloaded Johnny Cash's "Guess Things Happen That Way" from Apple's iTune Store to put on the iPod Nano he got for his 71st birthday. It just so happened that Louie's purchase of the Man in Black's 1958 single was the 10 billionth song downloaded from iTunes.

Sulcer received a $10,000 iTunes gift card and a call from Steve Jobs. He also got a call from Cash's daughter, Roseanne.

The download is symbolic of a lot of things. First of all, it shows that people older than Generation Y download music. And it's ironic that Cash's song was the download, because it's a giant symbolic flipping of the bird from the grave to the music industry that turned on Cash as he got older.

On Febuary 26th, Cash's final album, American VI: Ain't No Grave, was released by Lost Highway label of American Recordings, which picked him up after the major labels had cut him. It's on iTunes now, and is currently #3 on iTunes' best-selling albums chart.

Part of the reason that Cash's 1958 single is such an appropriate, symbolic song for iTunes' milestone is that it was a single first—and iTunes, much to the distress of the recording industry, has made the single the format of choice again in music.  Since the iTunes store was introduced in 2003, the recording industry's sales have dropped from $14.6 billion to $6.3 billion,largely because of fan's preference for the single format.

Bands make most of their money these days off touring.  Some of them even give downloads of their songs away for free on services like iLike—a music-finding site that offers connections to music through Facebook, MySpace and iTunes. The social networks (and "if you like this" services like iLike, Last.fm, and Pandora) are increasingly taking the record companies out of the loop between artists and fans.

The record companies are now shadows of their former selves. But I guess things happen that way.