Yael Naim helps land Apple at the top of the charts

As a family, we try to sit down together every night for dinner. It's a small thing, but it's the only time all day that the seven of us can both talk and listen. I walk in from work listening to my iPod and the kids ask me, "Whattya listening to?". The answer, I explained, is Yael Naim, recent holder of a top single New Soul.

Turns out that Apple (NASDAQ: AAPL)'s Steve Jobs personally picked her tune to launch the new MacBook Air, which seemed to have launched her status. Almost overnight, New Soul became the top selling song on Apple's music download site/software, iTunes. It turns out that this stint at the top was short lived as Apple, it seems, enjoyed its own form of New Years present as users rushed to redeem iTunes gift certificates. Nevertheless, while Apple has contributed to Yael Naim's success, she has also contributed to Apple's as well.

And with this surge of continuing sales for Apple's music division, Apple has recently ousted big-boy Wal-Mart (NYSE: WMT) as the #1 music retailer in the U.S. Ars Technica breaks out the numbers: 30% of retail music is now purchased online, and Apple has the largest share of retail sales including Wal-Mart and walmart.com sales.

Pretty impressive, eh?

"I'm a new soul, I came to this strange world hoping I could learn a bit bout how to give and take..."

Zack Miller is the managing editor of IsraelNewsletter.com and a former equity analyst for a leading multinational hedge fund.