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.]
Having experienced the scenario JBJ describes, I have to agree it was magical. However, it was also unstable. The record companies ruined that experience long before Apple started the iTunes eco-system.
As I’ve been blethering all over the net today:
Apart from the rampant technology ignorance that is part of Bon Jovi’s rant, it is the music industry itself that is to blame for their own decay. If you abuse your customers and treat them by default as criminals, expect nothing back from them but equal disrespect. Nothing has promoted the piracy of media as much as DRM (digital rights management), the blatant attempt to destroy Internet ‘radio’, inflated pricing and vicious lawsuits against minor music downloaders by the media industry. Meanwhile, the music industry has treated their artists as factory units, providing them with as little payment for their work as possible. Abuse only incites reciprocal abuse. The media industry started the abuse. They can end the abuse by treating the customers and artists as what they are: The bosses. Customers and artists enable the entire industry, not the mean spirited executives, not brain addled artists who cannot comprehend the legitimate music download business, not the overall corporate oligarchy. The industry reaps what it sows, a very old behavioral system that flies over the heads of these parasites.
Sounds to me like a multi-millionairre is upset because he is continuing to make millions instead multi-millions to gas up his helicopter.
In the old days buying albums is a rip-off. It is no joke that one was forced to buy the same song numerous times found on different albums or compilations because that was how the music companies gorged on the consumer. Now with iTunes we only buy songs that we want and not forced to accept rubbish from the music companies.
Jon Bon clearly misses the point. Want to blame someone or some thing? Try the RIAA. Read books like Ripped or Appetite for Self-Destruction.
John – You’re giving Apple a bad name and looking foolish in the process.
I hadn’t been on this site for about a month ever since my MDN app quit working, but I see the attitude heavy douche factor is as high as ever. Well done MDN fans!
Who’s Jon Bon Jovi? Was she married to Woody Guthrie?
Don’t besmirch Woody Guthrie like that…
Jon Bon Jovi should just consider himself lucky that “girls” my age and older still support his anything. And… the only reason there’s a new generation of Bon Jovi listeners is because the aforementioned “girls” generally force their children to listen to and “like” Bon Jovi.
http://taketotask.wordpress.com/2011/03/15/you-give-music-a-bad-name/
I should clarify, thanks to English and its tricky interpretations, that “girls” my age meant girls that are the same age as I am (I’m a guy). 😛
yeah what do those silly erratic females know about music.. Said in the same thread as a bunch of idiots criticizing someone for sounding ‘old fashioned’.
Hello again, G.J. Nice to see you out here instead of just yelling at me on my blog.
You can argue with demographics all you want, but the term exists for a reason. Bon Jovi’s current demographics are women, generally 35+. This is accurate because of his type of music as well as it being the age of the females who grew up listening to Bon Jovi.
As for my comment on “forcing” their children to listen, I SEE it regularly. A good friend of mine still loves her Bon Jovi and, while she doesn’t force him to listen in the literal sense, she drives the point home that “Bon Jovi” is good. Except…. if you’re a 13 year-old boy and you go to school telling your friends that “Bon Jovi” is good, it’s likely to wreak havoc. 😛
And he caused the earthquake in Japan.
Album rock was once cool. Bands would create entire album sides that would flow beautifully. Some still do. Once we got used to buying albums, cynical music factories would crank out albums with one or two desirable songs, bundling a load of crap along with it.
I’m looking at you, Bonster.
Come to think of it, I’m also looking at you, Comcast.
As someone older even than Mr Jovi, I find it sad seeing older guys the passing of their age. What they really mean to say is “It was better then, because I was younger, and I mattered more.”
Whatever, Bon.
Take solace in the fact that even the most smug hipster d-bags of today will become as thoroughly retrograde as you are now, faster than they could ever believe possible. (They might not try to keep their hair-do’s, but all those aging tattoos will be problematic.)
Mr Jobs, when you’re feeling better, could you please do the same to the cable companies that you did to the recording industry?
Thanks so much.
I meant to say “seeing older guys LAMENT the passing of their age”
Sort of the way I lament my inability to type correctly.
I love the way MDN edits all posts now so nothing negative appears in the comments.
Apple has SAVED the music business, at least as far as us small acts are concerned. How else will we be able to reach as many people as an artist like Bon Jovi without having a huge corporation behind us? Now us nobodies can sell our art as well.
Thanks to your hero with his Anally-Inflicted-Death-Sentence get all the music I want for free to play on my shiny ipod.
No kid I know actually pays for music anymore.
No, Mr. B.J., the lack of musicians and greedy industry execs has killed the music industry. When Justin Bieber is one of the hottest acts around, there is a serious disconnect on real talent.
Jon Bon an idiot. Since itune I purchase more music both singles and full albums then I every did. I fine itune very positive in a lot ways less packing which I hate paying for and getting. The immediacy of hearing a song you like and buying it. I live in a small town with no really record store and would have to almost travel two hours to fine some really hard to get albums. ITunes is far from perfect, there are still certain artist missing and the quality could be much better, but at least I am buy my music more than ever.
Whatever. Thanks to a musical movement outta Seattle we were spared having to listen to more of his schlock-rock-pop.
Bon-Jon-Bovi your @$$ outta here and go manage one of your faux sports investments.
I have to say I find myself agreeing with some of the nostalgia Jon Bon Jovi speaks of. First though, yes of course it is amazing to be able to have my entire music collection in one small device and I do not have to tote a 300 disc case into and out of my car every day (I did in the late 90s).
That said, back in the late 90s when I had just 300 CD’s, I had pretty much every one of them memorized. Now I’ll hear a song by a band I like, and be like, what album is that on?
And yes, I felt the same way Jon did in the record store, using actual cash money saved up to by that next CD, and yes it was a bit of a crap shoot perhaps, but I actually LIKED that element of it.
Anyway, that time is long past. I do not see anything wrong with being nostalgic for it though, while at the same time appreciating the conveniences of the digital revolution.
I too am an “old man” Jon but you’re wrong, my friend. Steve Jobs didn’t kill the music business. PS–you’re too old to still be so vain. Take a chill pill and loosen up!
he’s right
music isn’t “cool” anymore which is sad
you can load 1000s of songs on an iPad and just click click click and never even hear a whole song let alone an entire album the way the artist intended
“rock n’ roll” means nothing really nowadays
But – it was NOT Steve Jobs that changed things. It was 4 OTHER things actually:
1. CDs – allow you to quickly skip songs and program track listings – bad for album sales and listening
2. Blank CDs – people could make perfect digital copies of music – forget the jackets and all – music becomes worthless and free for anyone – ask a college kid from the 1990s
3. MP3 – not created by Apple or Steve Jobs – a file format to save decent quality music in decent size files – bye bye CDs
4. Napster and the like – rampant copying of music, worthless music got even cheaper, free becomes less than free, all for the price of an internet connection
Steve Jobs and Apple have only made the best MP3 players in the world, they did not create MP3 players or the MP3 format. At least iTunes gets some money back to the musicians unlike Napster, etc.
Well said!
Never one to shy away from biting the hand that feeds her, Joni Mitchell is famous for rebelling against the biz, for artistic reasons.
“…as the radio blared so bland
Every disc, a poker chip
Every song just a one night stand
Formula music, girly guile
Genuine junkfood for juveniles
Up and down the dial
Mercenary style.”
Bon Jovi, personally responsible for killing the publics view on rockstars with that statement. The only magical experience going on back then was bon jovi’s bank account collecting people’s hard earned money while the music industry charged $15 – $20 for 15 songs when 2 were any good. If anything steve jobs saved us normal folk alot a wasted cash.
If people didn’t want to buy this way iTunes would have flopped before it started. The people have spoken.
I’d like to remind Jon of the lyrics of one of his own (most popular) tunes: