Napster, the pioneer of digital music, today announced the winners of the "2006 Napster Awards," the first awards to honor artists and songs for accomplishments in digital music.

Most-Played R&B Song Unfaithful by Rihanna
Most-Played Reggae Artist Sean Paul
Most-Played Reggae Song Temperature by Sean Paul

Sean Paul In contrast to other music industry awards, the Napster Awards are determined by the actual listening behavior of music fans that subscribe to Napster's industry-leading subscription service and play over one billion songs each year. Presented to the artists and songs that enjoyed the highest number of plays in the service between Thursday, December 1, 2005 and Thursday, November 30, 2006, the Napster Awards illustrate that there is a significant difference between the music that sells the most and the music that's played the most when fans are in an unlimited access music subscription environment.
clickhere.jpg

Napster subscribers have on-demand, unlimited access to over 3 million full-length songs for one monthly fee without paying a dollar a track, so their listening activities are a measure of the songs and artists they actively Rihannachose to play most over the past year. Napster calculated the total number of plays of each song and artist in its vast catalog over the past year in each of the five countries where it offers its PC-based service to determine the recipients of the 2006 Napster Awards. Napster also created categories that go beyond the mainstream in order to reflect the diversity of music that fans chose when they had the freedom to discover, explore and enjoy without limits.

"The Napster Awards provide insight into how music fans behave when they can listen to an enormous variety of music away from restrictive radio playlists, limited retail shelf space and 30-second clip, buck a track digital stores," said Chris Gorog, chairman and CEO of Napster. "When consumers are given unlimited access to music and are freed from having to pay for each individual song in order to hear it, it's interesting to see how this freedom changes what they want to actually listen to. We congratulate all of the 2006 Napster Award winners, and look forward to continuing to honor the music Napster subscribers enjoy playing the most."

Each Napster Award recipient will receive an impressive trophy featuring the infamous Napster Kitty® acknowledging their accomplishment. In celebration of the inaugural year of the Napster Awards, Napster is currently featuring a playlist which showcases many of the award-winning artists and songs on its Web site that U.S. music fans can stream for free at http://www.napster.com/free. As always, Napster subscribers in all territories can enjoy the playlist in CD-quality sound and on-demand through the Napster application.