In an article by Anmar Frangoul for The Sunday Times, Jon Bon Jovi states:
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. 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.
Full article, subscription required, here.
MacDailyNews Take: Johnny Bongiovi misses the time when children were cajoled into parting with their allowance money for wildly overpriced, forced bundles of sight unseen, or rather, sound unheard, crapshoots; 99.9% of which were packed to the gills with filler. Ah, “the good old days.”
Johnny’s also probably upset that in order for him to sell a full album nowadays, he’d have to come up with 10-12 good songs, a feat he hasn’t accomplished during his entire lifetime. Yes, the magical, magical times certainly are over for Johnny.
Today, thanks to Steve Jobs, a good portion of music consumers still actually pay for music and also actually have – *gasp* – consumer choice! Music consumers can now buy exactly what they want while not paying for things they don’t. Imagine that! Consumers can also still buy a full album via Apple’s iTunes Store, complete with artwork and more, if they so desire. Nobody’s stopping them. And, oh by the way, artists are still getting rich. All of this is thanks to Steve Jobs.
Steve Jobs is personally responsible for saving the music business, you vapid twit.
[Attribution: WENN. Thanks to MacDailyNews Readers “Brawndo Drinker,” “Manny S.,” and “Dan K.” for the heads up.]
He makes a good point in so far as the impulse buy that turns out to be amazing. I remember my first Pixies record was like that. However, he forgets the other 9 out of 10 times where there was like one good song and a bunch of junk. I mean, for every “Appetite for Destruction” there were a million “New Jerseys.”
I remember the days of buying cassette tapes (usually around $10 – $12) and having to save all my allowance money or get them as birthday or Christmas gifts. I hated having to rewind, turn the tape over, etc. just to get to the 2 or 3 good songs. Later, I joined BMG and other CD clubs to get big discounts on CDs. I now have probably around 200 CDs and a majority have the same 2 to 3 good songs (and some only have the one-hit-wonder that got people to buy the rest of the crap). The days Bon Jovi are referring to are the ones that artists could release a bunch of garbage and only have to put any effort into one song and make the cover look appealing. Now if you want to make money, you have to put effort into all your songs.
If anyone should be blamed, blame Napster and LimeWire and all other file sharing services that made people feel entitled to music for free. I was once one of those and downloaded almost anything because I could. However, now with iTunes, I pay for almost everything (there are a few obscure albums almost impossible to find that I didn’t pay for) – what I have on my computer now is over 90% legal. iTunes (and Steve Jobs) got me to pay for my music rather than downloading it and the artist receiving nothing from me.
Certainly it had nothing to do with creating over 3 decades of crappy music.
He is a donkey.
Buzzy, I know you. You’re a jack ass. Far worse.
I all-too-well remember the days when I would buy an expensive (to a kid) album based on hearing one song on the radio, and finding that I only liked that one song.
I remember buying albums based on their cover art, and finding that I didn’t like any of the songs -> Goodbye Summer Job money!
I remember when the only music available was whatever the radio stations decided we should hear (and buy), and migod, most of it was crap, but we had no chance to hear anything else (saved now, by the internet!), and I remember buying that crap while feeling that I was settling for much less than I deserved.
I stopped buying music and I didn’t purchase any music for a couple of decades.
Then, Steve Jobs’ company allowed me to buy only the music that I liked and knew I wanted. Plus, I could sample other music, buying it if I so desired.
I began to buy music again.
Steve Jobs’ company has saved the real music industry, while hopefully killing off the filler-and-crap industry.
Jon Bon Jovi has neither my scorn, nor my pity.
I’m just thankful that people like him no longer have control over what the public gets to hear and purchase, and that it no longer matters what he, and others of his now-irrelevant breed, think or say.
Thank you, Steve Jobs.
Well said!
Well said…but misguided. I like Bon Jovi as do a million or so other people. He can speak his mind if he wants to. FYI…my sons are in the music business and vinyl is the cool “new thing”. So, if consumers want it, it will happen.
you mean your spoiled faux-cool hipster kids that think vinyl is so “retro”…
He’s full of himself. Does he not remember “singles”. If anything Steve has made it more profitable for everyone. Singles were $1-2 bucks for kind-of two songs (b-side usually always sucked except for maybe Jack & Diane from John Melencamp) and now you pay $1+ for one song.
He needs to go back to his time machine of the 80’s, let him figure out how to market and distribute his own crap without any help from others. He’s a tool that doesn’t understand the first thing about the what it would take to actually sale his own product.
Mr. Bon Jovi, go ahead and don’t let the door hit you in the ass on the way out.
Steve Jobs killed the music business that was openly gouging it’s customers, whilst giving practically nothing to the artist. Poor music execs, unable to buy a new super-yacht…
Thanks Steve!
I remember my “Columbia House” tape and CD club times. Getting discs and tapes with many songs on them I didn’t want because singles weren’t an option. I guess I wouldn’t want a single on a tape or CD but that’s what “mix” tapes were for – aggregating those single. Seems we wanted individual songs even before Napster and MP3 players existed. Sure, Dark Side of the Moon and The Wall were complete albums I wanted but the rest, not so much. By the way, I prefer Jon-Bovi.
Haha! I love Jon-Bovi! Nice reference.
Jon Bon Voyagi.
I’m 42 years old, and have attended concerts since I was 15 and to this day the Bon Jovi concert I saw in 1989 was by far THE WORST concert I’ve ever been to.
I suggest you try seeing Bon Jovi again. Back in 1989 they were rundown and exhausted from one of the biggest tours in history. They almost broke up afterwards. Nowadays they put on the best show I’ve ever seen. And I’m not a blind Bon Jovi fan… Jon is wrong about this issue. But his concerts now are amazing.
You can’t blame exhaustion for putting on a crappy show. That just shows they didn’t give a crap about their fans. Nowadays, U2 puts on twice as many shows as Bon Jovi did in 1989 and they bring their “A game” every night.
He’s gotcha there, Tony. I haven’t liked U2’s music in a long time, but they still put on a pretty amazing production. And they’re still better than BJ ever was.
hmmm.. slightly inappropriate timing considering that Jobs is on sick leave.
Let’s face it – Jobs will be remembered in 100 years for being a visionary technologist, where as Bon jovi will be long forgotten
Nah. At least in my experience, Bon Jovi will always survive on college campuses. “Living on a Prayer,” and “Shot Through the Heart,” ring out eternally in college bars across the country.
There’s probably a bunch of Bing Crosby and Al Jolson fans out there that would agree with you 🙂 !
The last record I ever bought was CSNYs Four-way Street. A double album that ate up the better part of a twenty-dollar bill. That was 1968 and the album is MIA.
2nd to the last was Iron Butterfly’s Inagadadavida, 3.50 at Tower Records. I would spend an entire day there sitting on the floor tripping my ass off and then hit up McDs for 21-cent burgers.
Now that’s how longing works Bon Bon! We long for the things we miss, not for things we never had.
When I was a kid I only every bought albums when a number of singles had been released from it that I still liked months later because I couldn’t afford to buy stuff I wasn’t going to want to listen to. Now I buy individual songs even if I might get bored of them later and that I would never have bought the album for at any time.
iTunes has certainly changed the music industry, and I can see that certain albums will find it harder to be heard because people won’t take the plunge and listen to them, and learn them, and discover the quality, but MDN has a more valid point that so much of the music churned out now is just crap. There are far too many people given record deals. The rise of “talent” shows has flooded the market with a litany of crappy karaoke artists who have five minutes of fame then disappear. Talent shows give people a change, but so does sending talent spotters to small gigs, so does actually taking a gamble and maturing talent rather than just constantly finding a new supply of cookie cutter teen pablum. Another thing to try would be to not play songs on the radio and tv for months before they’re released so that by the time they are people are sick of them and A won’t buy them as singles, but B definitely won’t bother even trying the album.
If anyone could shoulder the mantle of “Artist Bitching about Technology” passed down by Lars Ulrich, it’s Jon Bon Jovi.
One, too many drugs.
Two, too many drugs.
Three, refer back to one or two.
Shot through the heart and you’re to blame, you give…
Johnny Bongiovi credentials:
Uncle owned top recording Studio (Power Station in NY).
Uncle hires Aldo Caporuscio a top session guitartist, writer, producer, jingle writer to help his nephew become a rockstar. (Aldo Caporuscio wrote a lot of the McDonald commercials in the 90’s, discovered Celine Dionne and had his own hit using the name of Aldo Nova).
His band auditioned after the first single was released. They were hired to fit an image, not necessarily by talent. It is very hypocritical of Jon Bonjovi to condemn Steve Jobs. These fake rockstars created way more damage. iTunes is levelling the playing field. Not everyone has a rich influential uncle to help them.
lol what a load of bullshit. did you see what his band looked like? the band he had connections with since the late 70s when he was playing bars? People who refuse to give Bon Jovi props never cease to sound ridiculous.
The music business was already in a death spiral when Steve Jobs dreamt of how to save it.
$18 for a cd with one or two decent cuts was not the good old days. With the advent of digital files, music lovers were incentivized to steal instead of being robbed. Steve Jobs found a fair way of securing cash flow for the labels while giving users an affordable method to get much more music. Personally I started spend more on music after iTunes was introduced than before. And yet the labels and no-talent acts like Bon Jovi decide to hate Steve Jobs (who saved them) instead of facing the reality the world has changed.
Um….. although I think Jovi’s completely wrong about Jobs, the MDN take is ridiculous. Many of us who grew up going to record stores miss the experience that Jovi describes. That is from a different era, but there was a little more to the record store experience than getting stuck with a “crap shoot”.
As far as abum art and linear notes, seems to me the iPad can take care of that. I don’t have one yet but it’s the perfect size to bring that back, I know iTunes had some interactive album art a while ago but I see a scenario where you listen to your album on iTunes or your iPod, maybe play it through the iPad and the big color artwork pops up, with interactive booklet. That already happens for all I know, looking forward to actually buying an iPad.
My prayers to the Jon Bon Jovi family.
Senility is a terrible affliction.
Steve Jobs saved music.
Blame the napster guy.
“Oh, she’s a little runaway”
At least Apple still has a model where people BUY their music. I can’t believe artists get much of anything from Rhapsody and all the other subscription models. Jobs ensured that people buy and own their music, instead of renting or stealing it.
Yeah, pesky Steve Jobs eh? Making sure that even crappy artists like Bon Jovi get royalties for having their music downloaded, not like the old days. oh, man! how we used to love hangin’ out with fhose great guys at Napster, Limewire and iMesh!
“God, it was a magical, magical time.” That “magic” he speaks of was the money flowing into his and the record labels’ pockets. I’m saying this as a musician.
I sympathize with Bon Jovi, but I think he has it wrong. Yeah, it was great having real album covers. I still miss them.
But they really went out with the CD, and while Jobs simplified (and legalized if you don’t take me too literally) the digital music revolution, the mp3 thing had already happened and by the time iTunes hit the street, it was inevitable whether Apple was involved or not.