Yael Naim & David Donatien - Yael Naim (Warner)

What precisely is the value of having one of your songs featured in an Apple commercial? Well, like a certain Calgary girl who cleaned up at this year’s Junos, young Israeli singer Yael Naim is finding out. Her decidedly Feist-y song “New Soul” was featured in the TV ad for the MacBook Air, which started running in January. And then, as all things digital do these days, the incredibly infectious ditty went viral. In February, with a grand total of three plays on reporting radio in the US, the song entered the top ten on the Billboard Hot 100 and had topped the iTunes sales list. As I type, in mid-May, the video of “New Soul” has had more than 8 million views on YouTube and is closing in fast on “1 2 3 4”. All of which leaves me wondering: with the MacBook Air starting at $1900 and “New Soul” available for download to my iPod for $0.99 from iTunes, just which revenue stream is flowing faster for Apple these days? I guess it doesn’t really matter, because they’ve got us coming and going – literally. Making Steve Jobs the most powerful A&R man on the planet.