What are the best music-based iPhone apps of 2009?

One things for sure the iPhone has opened up new channels for the music industry, which began cautious experiments with the device last year - now music-related apps for iPhone/iPod touch emerge each and every day.

Apple’s store now has over 100,000 apps, with music labels and artists offering hundreds of branded apps of their own, with Smule’s I Am T Pain and Tapulous’ series of TapTap titles being among the most well-known, but there’s many other gems of apps secreted inside the App Store - but how do you find out more about them?

Music industry analysis firm, MusicAlly, has tethered together a short list of the top 40 best branded iPhone music apps of the year, leading (naturally) with the widely-downloaded I Am T-Pain App. The list also includes apps detailing work from Little Boots, Daniel Johnston, Metallica, Sonifi and many more.

nin: access was the official iPhone app for Nine Inch Nails – one of the more tech-savvy artists in the industry right now. It gives fans access to the community and multimedia sections of the band’s website, as well as letting them chat and upload photos from their iPhone.

Even the Kiss Virtual Concert Lighter (what an idea, illustrated) makes the cut. Take a look at the rest of the list here.