Jon Bon Jovi slams iTunes for 'killing' music

[Smokey]

Jon Bon Jovi has taken aim at Apple co-founder Steve Jobs, accusing him of "killing" the music industry with iTunes. The rocker is saddened that the "magical" experience of buying records in a store is disappearing, brick-and-mortars stores being eroded in part due to iTunes' success.

Bon Jovi tells The Sunday Times Magazine, "Kids today have missed the whole experience of putting the headphones on, turning it up to 10, holding the jacket, closing their eyes and getting lost in an album; and the beauty of taking your allowance money and making a decision based on the jacket, not knowing what the record sounded like, and looking at a couple of still pictures and imagining it."

"God, it was a magical, magical time," he continues, "I hate to sound like an old man now, but I am, and you mark my words, in a generation from now people are going to say: 'What happened?' Steve Jobs is personally responsible for killing the music business."

http://music.msn.com/music/article.a...0&affid=100055

[ForeverAutumn]

I'm not sure that I would blame Jobs personally, but I totally agree with Jon.

The days of lining up at the record stores for boxing day sales, or running to the store every Tuesday to get the newest releases is over. Even more recently, hanging out and moving from listening station to listening station to hear what's new are gone.

My niece is as much a music lover as I am and as her father is, but her experiences are so much different than ours. They aren't necessarily worse, just different. And although I've been exposed to more new music lately thanks to the internet and satellite radio, I do miss that magical time of which Bon Jovi speaks.

[Smokey]

I hear what you are saying FA. Those magical times are definitely gone.

I never ownd iTunes, so can't speak from experience. But IMO the magical times start eroding with digitalization of music, starting with CD and moving from brick-and-mortars record stores to big box stores.

I remember fondly going to my local record store in 80's and going thru rows and rows of vinyl albums with beautiful art cover, while listening to owner's selection of LP on his store system. The big box store pretty much killed that experience.

[TheHills44060]

Great article. I don't own an Ipod or any other digital file player thingy and never will.

[ForeverAutumn]

I think that it goes further than the big box stores that killed the magic and right to the internet. With the exception of one indie used record store (that is now closed) I stopped going into CD stores shortly after discovering that I could shop on-line. Amazon was cheaper than most of the CD stores in the city, and had a way more diverse selection. Since a lot of the music that I listen to often had to be special ordered anyway, it was so much more convenient to be able to just order it myself on-line. But I realize that the special order thing doesn't apply to most people.

The availability of on-line shopping significantly reduced the amount of time that I spent in record stores, but I still enjoyed going in and browsing and, of course, instant access to the Tuesday releases. The addition of iTunes and other MP3 shopping sites added to the decline of the record store, especially with younger people, but I really believe that the internet is the real killer. There is no iTunes or on-line shopping without the internet.

[atomicAdam]

Bon Jovi likes to blame people - remember he did sue that one band for sort of like not really sounding like on of their refrains. Oh Baby You Know What Its Worth, Oh Heaven Is A Place On Earth. God that Orbital mix of the two was a great song.

And I think the death of the music store is much more complex than iTunes hand in it.

[Woochifer]

Well, Bon Jovi's view is rather simplistic if he lays the industry's woes at the feet of Steve Jobs. The music industry has been impacted by a whole variety of different factors, most of which were very well documented in Frontline's 2004 The Way The Music Died documentary.

http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/shows/music/

The trends described in that documentary (i.e., the shift in retailing towards big box, the consolidation in the radio industry, the lack of new exciting music, the end of the CD gravy train, illegal downloading, etc.) have all continued unabated, and that has affected the music industry and the retail side is collateral damage. The shift towards digital distribution is just the veritable straw that broke the camel's back -- music stores were already in big trouble well before the iTunes Music Store came along.

Another trend to look at is just how the music industry was artificially propped up by CD profits for years. Some would argue that the time in which the music industry created large profits was actually more of an anomaly. This chart shows that the CD's introduction indeed created an industry way larger than the historical trends.

[ForeverAutumn]

Well, Bon Jovi's view is rather simplistic if he lays the industry's woes at the feet of Steve Jobs. The music industry has been impacted by a whole variety of different factors, ...the lack of new exciting music

So basically, Bon Jovi is responsible for his own demise.

[Woochifer]

So basically, Bon Jovi is responsible for his own demise.

Yep! If you look at that chart, the 90s represented the zenith of several upward trends that were creating huge gains for the music industry.

- consumers, largely baby boomers, repurchasing their music libraries in the CD format. This created a huge cash flow from double dipping.
- the rise of hip-hop and alternative, two new musical trends that were brewing under the radar during the 80s, but went mainstream during the 90s, generating huge sales in the process. There has been no equivalent trend that has caught on over the past decade.

[pixelthis]

Browsing record stores was a special kind of experience, but so was waiting on SANTA.
There are certain things called "historical inevitable s", these thing are going to happen,
no use crying about whats past.
FOR INSTANCE, Davinci drew pictures of flying machines, but it wasn't until the
invention of the internal combustion engine that they could be built.
But after that, if the Wright bros didn't do it, someone else would have.
SAME WITH the atomic bomb. As soon as the first computer was built, analog recording
was doomed. There might be a few FREMMERS out there, holding on with their fingernails,
but gramophones are gone, so are eight tracks, and soon, CD's.
And in a few decades , if anybody bothers to think about it, no one will understand what
the fuss was about.
Buying records during the fifties/seventies was a special thing, and I will never forget it.
But, like experiences that other generations loved that are fading, its about over.
BON jOVI IS BEING both greedy and childish. FOR a long time the industry sold
discs that cost a few bucks to make for ten times the cost, sometimes.
This fueled an extravagant lifestyle. Recording artists, and their hangers on, lived
like kings while teachers starved. Losing all of the hooker/drug money might be
a main reason for Jovies rant.
IN ANY EVENT, the day of recorded media is passing, JOB'S was just smart enough,
with enough capital, to take advantage. Good for him.
BUT THE POINT is that if he didn't do it, somebody else would have.
He didnt even speed up the process, you can blame that on CD's that were
way overpriced for what they delivered.

[Smokey]

Browsing record stores was a special kind of experience, but so was waiting on SANTA. There are certain things called "historical inevitable s", these thing are going to happen, no use crying about whats past.

FOR INSTANCE, Davinci drew pictures of flying machines, but it wasn't until the invention of the internal combustion engine that they could be built. But after that, if the Wright bros didn't do it, someone else would have. SAME WITH the atomic bomb. As soon as the first computer was built, analog recording was doomed. There might be a few FREMMERS out there, holding on with their fingernails, but gramophones are gone, so are eight tracks, and soon, CD's.

And in a few decades , if anybody bothers to think about it, no one will understand what the fuss was about. Buying records during the fifties/seventies was a special thing, and I will never forget it. But, like experiences that other generations loved that are fading, its about over. BON jOVI IS BEING both greedy and childish. FOR a long time the industry sold discs that cost a few bucks to make for ten times the cost, sometimes.

This fueled an extravagant lifestyle. Recording artists, and their hangers on, lived like kings while teachers starved. Losing all of the hooker/drug money might be a main reason for Jovies rant. IN ANY EVENT, the day of recorded media is passing, JOB'S was just smart enough, with enough capital, to take advantage. Good for him.

BUT THE POINT is that if he didn't do it, somebody else would have. He didnt even speed up the process, you can blame that on CD's that were way overpriced for what they delivered.

This might be your best post yet...after I fix the hard Returns

Also thanks FA, Wooch, AA and TheHills for added comments.

[eisforelectronic]

One of my favorite things about going to Japan (although I won't be going back for a bit I think) is they still have music stores. Tower Records, HMV, and Tsutaya are all huge music stores. I did go to one Vinyl store there, but it was mostly DJ club stuff. There was some Jazz there as well I think. Anyway, I really miss that music buying experience, but I get to to relive it a little bit whenever I visit that country.

[kexodusc]

Although I did spend a lot of time in music stores, I never even came close experiencing the almost ritualistic experience of holding a sacred record that Bon Jovi speaks of. I was in too much of a rush to get home and listen to the damn music.

[GMichael]

Bon makes a lot of good points. I do remember spending a lot of time at our local record store. I even made a life long friend with they guy who worked there. As FA said, when the bigger CD stores started opening in the malls, some of the magic was already heading south. I never made friends with any of the workers there. They were teens that never lasted long and often were a bit rude. Some would even laugh (with their friends on their cell phones) if you picked out a CD that they didn't think was any good.
But....
Times always change. Things come and go all the time. You can either try to hang on to the past and get left behind, or roll with the punches and learn to embrace what's new. I choose to embrace what's new and just remember the past fondly.

[harley .guy07]

Bon makes a lot of good points. I do remember spending a lot of time at our local record store. I even made a life long friend with they guy who worked there. As FA said, when the bigger CD stores started opening in the malls, some of the magic was already heading south. I never made friends with any of the workers there. They were teens that never lasted long and often were a bit rude. Some would even laugh (with their friends on their cell phones) if you picked out a CD that they didn't think was any good.
But....
Times always change. Things come and go all the time. You can either try to hang on to the past and get left behind, or roll with the punches and learn to embrace what's new. I choose to embrace what's new and just remember the past fondly.

I was going to write something in here but this pretty much sums up the way I feel. I did love my childhood of going to the record stores and buying albums whether on vinyl,cassette, or cd and the experience out of it but I also enjoy the Digital storage way of saving music on Flac which to me sounds excellent and saves a lot of cabinet space.

[pixelthis]

Well, Bon Jovi and others can at least take heart that they will probably get into clubs ahead of everybody else. Maybe that will salve his enormous ego.
BECAUSE , AT THE END OF THE DAY, that is what this is really all about, that and
the gravy train going off of the tracks.

[bobsticks]

So basically, Bon Jovi is responsible for his own demise.

Exactly. **** Bon Jovi.

Here's an idea Jon, why don't you make something that's relevent. [ISed fugit interea fugit irreparabile tempus, singula dum capti circumvectamur amore][/I], mother****er. You've got a lot of freetime...read some of the classics.

Whew...sorry crew...that rant just had to come out.

It gets tiresome, in these times of technological enlightenment, reading about how some inactive dullard pines for past days of glory and lays blame on anyone with both vision and willingness for application. I don't have any use for Steve Jobs but blaming him for seeing a need and filling it is idiotic. The market did what the market does...what it's supposed to do...recognized that many are aesthetically challenged and that most, particularly Americans, wish for nothing greater than what is cheapest and easiest...it's neither right nor wrong, good nor bad...it is nature and there are perceived rewards and always consequences.

Besides, the article Wooch referenced was correct...why hasn't the music industry cultivated anymore transcendent supergroups? Because it's not in their best interests given the current, outdated business model...

[Sir Terrence the Terrible]

Besides, the article Wooch referenced was correct...why hasn't the music industry cultivated anymore transcendent supergroups? Because it's not in their best interests given the current, outdated business model...

Sticks, I don't think it is the business model that is the problem. Its who running the business. When music lovers ran the music business, the old business model would have worked fine in this new age. You would have albums of good music rather than a few songs being good on the album. Folks would still be buying albums instead of single songs off Itunes. Recording quality would still be important, and folks still would be sitting down listening to their tunes. The problem now is "bean counters" are running the business, and that is what has killed the music industry.

Bean counters don't believe in artist development, they believe in instant ROI to the shareholders. The shareholders are more important than the music itself - the artists are just vehicles to get dollars to shareholders. If a artist does not produce a hit the first go around, they are kicked to the curb, and we are on to the next flash in the pan. Back in the day, it would take an artist several albums before a hit was made, but that gave the artist time to develop into a long term investment for a record company. Your musical career had time to "ramp up" to success, not produce it instantly. It took the Temptations 15 years before they were producing hits, Britney Spears does not have that kind of time.

Bon Jovi didn't destroy himself, the record companies destroyed the music business. Until music lovers are back in power(if there is anything left to run), the music industry will continue to sink. Consolidation and corporate takeover of the music industry is the problem. When one corporation owns 1,000 stations, and the rights to manage most of the concert venues, you have a problem. When you have only 5 large music corporations running the show instead of the hundreds of small record companies that used to run the business, you have problems.

Bon Jovi has the right message, but he is directing it in the wrong place.

[bobsticks]

Sticks, I don't think it is the business model that is the problem. Its who running the business. When music lovers ran the music business, the old business model would have worked fine in this new age. You would have albums of good music rather than a few songs being good on the album. Folks would still be buying albums instead of single songs off Itunes. Recording quality would still be important, and folks still would be sitting down listening to their tunes. The problem now is "bean counters" are running the business, and that is what has killed the music industry.

I'll agree in theory but in practice that's not what happened. I'll concede that the industry places an undue amount of business pressure and time constraints on artistic endeavor but, that said, it's been a long time since I've heard an album that wasn't loaded with filler...especially from a major label act and especially on subsequent-to-debut endeavors.

Bean counters don't believe in artist development, they believe in instant ROI to the shareholders. The shareholders are more important than the music itself - the artists are just vehicles to get dollars to shareholders. If a artist does not produce a hit the first go around, they are kicked to the curb, and we are on to the next flash in the pan. Back in the day, it would take an artist several albums before a hit was made, but that gave the artist time to develop into a long term investment for a record company. Your musical career had time to "ramp up" to success, not produce it instantly. It took the Temptations 15 years before they were producing hits, Britney Spears does not have that kind of time.

I agree.

Bon Jovi didn't destroy himself, the record companies destroyed the music business. Until music lovers are back in power(if there is anything left to run), the music industry will continue to sink. Consolidation and corporate takeover of the music industry is the problem. When one corporation owns 1,000 stations, and the rights to manage most of the concert venues, you have a problem. When you have only 5 large music corporations running the show instead of the hundreds of small record companies that used to run the business, you have problems..

Here's were we disagree. Bon Jovi plays at least a coequal part in his own demise. Instead of evolving from an artistic and marketing standpoint he chose to stagnate. So they flattened their hair and tried to get deep...hot damn, so did dozens of other pop/rock/metal acts of that era.

Bon Jovi has the right message, but he is directing it in the wrong place.

Exactly my point. Blaming Steve Jobs for the entire demise of an industry doesn't take into account the unwillingness and inability to adapt to changing market demands.

Also it merits saying that it's not just a supply-side problem. It wasn't Steve Jobs' responsibility to remind the American public that fat, drunk, and stupid is no way to go through life...

Good to see ya around...cheers...

---M

[Sir Terrence the Terrible]

I'll agree in theory but in practice that's not what happened. I'll concede that the industry places an undue amount of business pressure and time constraints on artistic endeavor but, that said, it's been a long time since I've heard an album that wasn't loaded with filler...especially from a major label act and especially on subsequent-to-debut endeavors.

This is because the bean counters place more emphasis on the business side, and pay far less attention to the long term development of the artist - hence why artists today have a far shorter life span than older artists do. Coming from a audio engineering/musician/artist point of view, it takes time to create a long term career, and a long term investment for a record company. If record conglomerations would pay more attention to the development of artists, you would not have albums with two hits and nine fillers.

I agree.

Phew, I feared if we didn't, you would come at me with that Latin stuff.......

Here's were we disagree. Bon Jovi plays at least a coequal part in his own demise. Instead of evolving from an artistic and marketing standpoint he chose to stagnate. So they flattened their hair and tried to get deep...hot damn, so did dozens of other pop/rock/metal acts of that era.

Let me add this tidbit. He may not have had a choice in the matter, like many other groups didn't. Their manager(like many other mangers of groups during the period) may have leaned their marketing decisions from the record companies profit margins. 15% of $500,000 dollars is far less than 15% of $5,000,000 dollars, and a lot of mangers did not mind selling out their acts for a larger piece of the pie. The pressure to change your image based on a studio mandate is is far more powerful than artistic integrity. As an engineer, I have recorded many a great song only to be ruled by the record company as not mainstream enough. A record company has far more say on what you put on a record, than what you put on tape in the studio.

Exactly my point. Blaming Steve Jobs for the entire demise of an industry doesn't take into account the unwillingness and inability to adapt to changing market demands.

Agreed. But I would add that it would not be necessary to respond to a changing market demand if you put out a great "WHOLE" product instead of a piecemeal low quality based one. The public acted out of frustration to the current "state of the art" from the industry(lack of quality in whole albums, and the price of the product). If the music industry did what the movie studio's did(pass on the savings of duplication and licencing over to the consumer), they would not be where they are now. Poor inconsistent quality and high prices lead to MP3, and the demise of the older model of business. MP3 led to the downloading of individual songs, rather than whole albums.

Also it merits saying that it's not just a supply-side problem. It wasn't Steve Jobs' responsibility to remind the American public that fat, drunk, and stupid is no way to go through life...

Good to see ya around...cheers...

---M

Thanks for the welcome. It seems on so many levels the American public is fat, drunk and stupid. At least we are consistent.......

[Ajani]

Some very interesting points made in this thread so far... In fact persons I normally strongly disagree with on the state of the music industry, are making points I 100% agree with here.

Bon Jovi is directing his annoyance with the state of the industry at the wrong person(s).

Steve Jobs didn't cause people to reject Vinyl/CDs... We (the general public) rejected those formats over time for various reasons.

3 main factors have led to the rise of downloaded music:

1) The quality of albums is pretty much crap - very few artists still create what I'd call an album... now it's 1 hit song and 11 or so fillers... So why would anyone want to buy an album with only decent song , if you can just purchase the single on iTunes?

2) CDs were clearly overpriced... the attempt to squeeze every last cent out of the public made it easy for persons to justify not paying for music in the first place...

3) Convenience - an iPod full of tunes is just so much more convenient than a portable cassette, CD or Vinyl player...



Probably I'm just not old enough to get the nostalgia of wishing things were still how they were when I grew up, but my memories of the record shop are far different from Bon Jovi's.

An experience my brothers and I have never forgotten was when I bought a rap album from MC Lyte in the early 90's. Her hit song 'Cold Rock a Party' was all over the TV and radio at the time, so I purchased the cassette and hoped to get a few more good tracks on it... What I got was pure filler... Which was bad enough, but to add insult to injury, the hit song was a actually a remix of the album version... So what I had on the album sounded nothing like the single playing on TV or radio... It sounded like dog&*^%, So I basically just threw away my money on that album...

Considering how many albums I've bought that never had more than 1 or 2 good tracks, I'd have saved hundreds of dollars buying singles on iTunes (had it been around back then)...

[Ajani]

I rather like this article in response to Bon Jovi; it covers the major point some of us have raised, very nicely:

http://www.techradar.com/news/audio/...ency-is-935699

Also this response from PC World is good too:

http://www.pcworld.com/article/22262...html#tk.hp_pop

[SlumpBuster]

Since we are giving long responses, here is mine.

25 years from now some artist will be blaming somebody else for destroying "iTunes culture." He will be complaining about the loss of "sharing playlists" and the loss of "magical pairings of songs created by shuffling. I never thought of combining Three 6 Mafia with Keb Mo'" He will talk about how he relished "the hours spent crafting playlists and browsing iTunes for undiscovered gems." He will speak with nostalgia for the "genius feature" that recommended unknown artists.

While I too have warm feelings about vinyl and have nostalgia for a bygone era, I don't want to fall into the same trap that Bon Jovi does. Bon Jovi should be less worried about sounding like an old man and more worried about sounding arrogant. He exhibits the "arrogance of the present" for lack of a better term. Or, the idea that what you lived through is the best incarnation of something. It is the root of nostalgia. If music is as old as human culture, then what great fortune that Bon Jovi lived during its apex! In reality, recorded music has been a blip on history of music. In all likelihood, none of us have ever heard the "greatest song ever written" or the "greatest singer, pianist, guitarist, drummer, ect." Over 6000 years of musical history, but only 100 years of recorded music. It is statistically unlikely that Hendrix playing the Star Spangled Banner is the end all be all. All things are relative. Fifty year old Bon Jovi is railing against something that a 12 year old kid is falling in love with. Just as Bon Jovi's father didn't initially understand what he was doing (I heard him tell Terry Gross that story), Bon Jovi is not understanding what the kids today are doing.

He is also myopic insofar as he seems focused on pop music. Are the Bon Jovis, Mariahs, Journeys, and other diamond selling artists dinosaurs? They sure are, but as a Zydeco fan, the Internet and digital music has been a boon for me. If first discovered Zydeco in about 1986, or when I was 11. It was hard to find stuff in Michigan back then. Pretty much confined to Buckwheat and Queen Ida. The 1990s were better with Rounder's subsidiary Blacktop releasing lots of good Zydeco. But, the last decade? I have found and, and more importantly, bought more new and old Zydeco in the last 5 years then I have been able to find the 20 that preceded it. And I've still never been to Louisiana.

And a final caveat about Bon Jovi: I like him alot. He gave a really great interview to Terry Gross and seemed like a genuinely nice guy. Also, he earns alot of good will for me because one of my earliest encounters with a true audiophile system involved Lay Your Hands on Me. I grew up around recording studios and it honestly hadn't occurred to me that the sound from the control booth could be duplicated in your home or car. It was my first introduction to subwoofers and it was awesome. Lay Your Hands on Me will not be denied, submit to it...

[RoyY51]

What's an "itunes"?

[bobsticks]

God bless you, sir...and your sagacious perspective...