“Rock bands The Red Hot Chili Peppers and Metallica are refusing to make their music available as individual downloads on Apple Computer Inc’s iTunes online music store, a representative for the bands, said on Wednesday. That move comes in response to Apple’s decision to allow users to buy single tracks and is intended to protect the future of the long-playing album, the format that has dominated the music industry for decades, an agent for the bands said,” Reuters reports.
MacDailyNews Take: We were with these bands when they opposed Napster theft. We are agin them now. Preserving an outmoded “album” concept that didn’t even exist at the birth of rock ‘n’ roll is nothing but sheer idiocy. Nobody ever confused the average rock band with a team of rocket scientists, but you’d expect them to have enough smarts to realize they’re getting paid this time. We will not purchase The Red Hot Chili Peppers’ or Metallica’s music until they wise up. The future of the long-playing album is safe as long as bands make albums full of good songs. If not, good riddance.
UPDATE: April 04, 2006: The Red Hot Chili Peppers music is now available via Apple’s iTunes Music Store and individual songs can be purchased. We can now recommend the purchase of RHCP music. Hopefully, Metallica won’t be far behind.
UPDATE: July 25, 2006: Metallica is now offering individual songs for purchase via Apple’s iTunes Music Store. We can now recommend the purchase of music from Metallica.
Related articles:
Embargo lifted: Metallica begins offering music on Apple’s iTunes Music Store – July 25, 2006
Red Hot Chili Peppers ‘Stadium Arcadium’ available for digital pre-order exclusively at Apple iTunes – April 04, 2006
If you make good songs, we will buy them, if they suck you can keep them. This is just another example of “bundling”, you know buy these 3 things that are sh*t to get this one thing you want, kind of like variety packs at the grocery store. The recording industry has been doing it to us for years and the “artists” have gotten fat and lazy because of it. I don’t listen to Metallica and can live w/o the RHCP. Someone said once that you can be a musician or be in the music business, but not both. I guess we know where these guys come down on the issue.
…and so begun the fall of Metallica and RHCP. Wanna be self-righteaous pigs. Hmmm, I think I will strike up Limewire and get to work extending my “long play”!! Sheeeesh!!
Who cares?
All i can say is “Amen”.
These mental midgets are living in the past. If they don’t wake up and smell the coffee sooner or later, the world is going to quickly pass them by. They’ve obviously got a problem with any kind of technological advances (just like most of the music and movie industries)…
We don’t have iTunes Music Store in Australia yet, but even if we did I’d buy the full albums because bands like the Chili Peppers can actually make an album with more than one good song on it. They – and other good bands – have nothing to be worried about provided they write good, complete albums, rather than just bundling in the two Mutt Lange/Andersson/etc-produced hit with a whole heap of crap filler tracks.
The only artists at risk are the rotten one-hit wonder pop groups, and good ridance, frankly. Bless you Steve, you’re doing the world a fine community service.
I know that Radiohead too are supposedly boycotting iTMS, which is silly cuz the average Radiohead fan will special order any limited release album pack they can get their hands on.
Artists have to release that the power of iTMS is about random, whimsical buying of a track or two, which then leads to more tracks being purchased. Remember back in 1998 when every said that MP3s were just to “test” music out for 24 hours, after that time you had to delete them or buy the real thing? Yeah, we all laughed at that, but I bought PJ Harvey’s entire back catalog after downloading and listening to one song – “Missed”. I’d say having an ‘illegally’ copied MP3 of her work on a Hotline server worked out very well to her and her record company’s advantage, no?
Artists and record labels have to stop being so paranoid. Embrace the technology or the pirates will ruin you – it’s your choice.
Being an artist, I do not mind if someone likes one of my works and not another. I would RATHER that the listener have a small collection of their favorites of mine, than be forced to buy something they don’t want. I think it is VERY cool that the listener can make their own album of my music to fit their desires.
Force-feeding someone a butt load of songs they don’t want at $14.95 just to get one good one is simply greed, and has NOTHING to do with artistry. If I could live on just air, I’d give away my music, but alas, I must support my pizza and Pepsi habit to survive, and I am VERY grateful to every single person that thought of me, liked my words and melodies, and decided to plop down 99 cents of their hard-earned money to get it.
One single sale of one single track fills this artist’s soul with pride and worth. Thank You!
This is ABSURD!
These artists are trying to shove their music down our throats by saying “If you don’t buy an entire album (ALL our songs), then you can’t have ANY of our music.”
Pardon my French, but these guys are nothing but b�tards.
What they should do is release the stuff they would normally relase as a single as available as an individual download. If you want the rest, you but the album.
I don’t see a problem with that.
A band like Metallica do craft albums. They’re not exactly concept albums, but they are whole works, so I understand where they’re coming from.
The chilli peppers I don’t quite get. I have a bunch of their albums but they’re all disappointing. The seem to have three songs. They have under The Bridge, then they have stupid novelty songs (Pea) and everything else just sounds pretty much the same.
And so people will download them for free instead. Idiots. If a band/artist release an LP I want, I’ll get the entire LP on the understanding that it’s all killer no filler.
Seems that what we have here are two artists unable to have confidence that all their tracks are decent and fear people cherry-picking tracks and ignoring dumb filler tracks.
I have purchased an album by each of these bands – there is a reason they feel the way they do. Only 2-4 songs on the albums I bought were worth it. If they ever want money from me they had better offer per song sales.
You know what the funny thing is about this issue, it’s not about the Mac. Everyone who responded to the post is a MUSIC fan, not just an Apple supporter.
Just thought I’d bring that to light in case someone decides to pop in here and say the Apple crowd is whining again.
I won’t be purchasing the RHCP or Metallica albums now. I was GOING to buy the new RHCP but this just pisses me off beyond belief. Greed is the motivation friends, that’s all.
As far as Metallica is concerned: They just want complete control over their music and how it’s distributed. They bitched about Napster and cried when there were no real legal alternatives to Kazaa. Now they have one in the iTMS and they continue to bitch. YOU GUYS SUCK!!! You’re newest album SUCKED!!! You’re an old metal band on the way out. The least you can do it lighten the F%$K up!
Why is it whenever there is an opposing view, everyone has to personally berate the person. It’s THERE music, let them do what they want to do with it. It’s the idiots who STEAL the music who are the problem.
And of course it’s your right to not buy it either. But don’t go attacking them on something that is totally unrelated to this issue.
if either band was getting better instead of worse with age, then we would have a real argument. Not to mention, they must release singles… whats the difference between a single and an album? Enough filler tracks to make it cost 3 times as much. Let them rot…
Yes, it is their (not THERE, but THEIR) music.
However, the major point of this whole thread is that the music industry, up until now, has had the power to force us to buy that which we didn’t want in order to get that which we do.
The iTMS breaks that absolute power, permitting us to (a) buy only what we want, and (b) SAMPLE that which we’re not sure of. I for one will not buy an album unless there are at least three songs on it which I enjoy; I long ago got into the habit of ripping every new album I buy and putting the CD in a storage box – then I listen only to the tracks I enjoy, unless I’m in an experimental-and-masochistic mood.
I’m not in that mood very often.
RHCP has been recommended to me by many of my friends. However, music tends to reflect the philosophy of the artist; when I don’t like the philosophy, I generally don’t like the music, and vice versa. No RHCP for me.
I guess you are gonna see a lot of metalica and RHCP stuff on Kazza and other p2p channels then.
I say who cares. I say they are losers. I say that dinosaurs will all die off. These are the kinds of people that would say that the printing press is evil.
Cinque
This breaks my heart. Flea (RHCP bass player) is the whole reason I started playing bass in the first place. I agree that they can do what they want, but this stance they’ve taken seems like a very backwards approach for a historically forwards-looking group of musicians.
As for Metallica… Napster aside, they haven’t done anything worth listening to since “…And Justice For All”. F#@& ’em.
Chomper, regarding “there” vs. “their,” you Wintel Sufferer:
“Those who surf the Web using a Mac tend to be better educated and make more money than their PC-using counterparts, according to a report from Nielsen/NetRatings.”
http://news.com.com/2100-1040-943519.html
Apple already has some ‘album only’ artists. Plus they have some other more unusual licensing arrangements. Check out the Dirty Vegas single ‘Without You’ from the Mitsubishi commercial. You can’t buy that as a single even though you can the whole rest of the album!
I would expect this sort of paranoia from those pu$$y a$$holes in Metallica
Anyway, this whole thing just seems so unRHCP! Fsck!!! Who got to them???
(sidenote: who thinks Chomper is actually that cry-baby-a$$-muncher Lars Ulrich?)
I think the bands are being disingenuous here. iTMS definitely has the ability to sell only albums, and has used that ability to bar the sale of certain individual songs (I’ve seen several songs that are available only with an album purchase). In fairness, I think that such a restriction has been mechanically applied to bar sales of songs over seven minutes long, although it’s not consistent in that regard. So I don’t think it’s a matter of “album only”; I think their stated reason is not their real reason, which I suspect is that they do not want online distribution of their albums.
I can respect that choice, if in fact that is what it is. But I’d rather they just admit that than try some bogus argument based on “album format” that, as many have pointed out, reflects poorly on the quality of the bands’ music.
Its all about the money. I rarely find any album that I love all the songs on. I have been wanting a way for years to buy high quality singles for less then $3-$5. Plus, the best part is iTMS also offers clean versions of explicit albums and songs. That I love.
Right on MDN! Fsck ’em! Don’t give the greedy bastards another penny.
maybe these bands could record their album with no space between the songs…in essense, making one song that’s 40 minutes long. No option but to buy the whole thing. Heck, in the old days Metallica would make songs that were at least 7 minutes long..why not 40. (of-course, it would be sold for only $.99…but then again, it’s not about the money…..right??)