Okay, it's now been a solid week since Apple announced that its iTunes Music Store had racked up sales of a million songs in its first week of operation, and we admit it: we're starting to get a little creeped out, here. Apple's stock is still edging upwards at its highest levels since last July, and word of the service is still plastered all over the media-- with the overall content of such stories chock full of praisey goodness. We could be wrong, here, but we don't recall any other Apple announcement yielding so much positive mainstream attention since... well, since the original iMac. And the skepticism factor in the iMac coverage was much higher, too.

"Yeah, yeah, yeah," you say, "the iTMS is a colossal success blah blah blah, revolutionizes the way we buy music blah blah blah, might get Steve Jobs canonized as the Patron Saint of Boogieing Down blah blah blah. But it's U.S.-only and I hail from [one of several non-U.S. nations including but not at all limited to Australia, Thailand, Ecuador, Denmark, Germany, Kyrgyzstan, Uganda, and Azerbaijan]-- so when am I going to get a taste of all this legitimately-downloadable aural bliss?" Well, hang in there, Short Round; MacRumors hints that Apple's plans to take its music service global may already be hurtling along behind the scenes. One of their sources expects that the Canadian version of iTMS-- presumably identical to the U.S. one, except it's cleaner. has better health care, and calls ham "bacon"-- is due to surface "on the order of weeks." Something to cheer aboot, eh?

As for countries flung a bit farther afield, don't fret; iTMS is coming... just not as quickly. A MacWorld UK article refers to a piece in Music Week which quotes Apple Europe veep Pascal Cagni as saying that "as head of Europe, I have only one interest, which is to launch [iTMS] in Europe." Wow, that just shows you how out of touch we are when it comes to world politics-- we had no idea that the head of all of Europe was an Apple employee! With that kind of power, he should gave no trouble hammering out licensing deals with the record companies; talks that are "set to begin in earnest." So, Europeans, be patient and put your faith in your sovereign King Cagni; you'll be downloading songs by the Euro in no time.

So, Canada first, then Europe, and then... who knows? But we think it's a pretty safe bet that now that Apple has the U.S. service's remarkable success as a carrot on a stick, overseas record companies will be happy to license their stuff for Apple's international customers. To keep revenues at reasonable levels during the expansion, we're guessing that Apple will probably aim to roll out the service earliest in countries with the highest concentrations of tech-savvy, music-loving party animals packed within their borders. That means you, Pitcairn Island! Wooo-hooooooo!! Party down!