Jon Bon Jovi is speaking out about Apple’s Steve Jobs – blaming him for killing the music industry in a new interview with The Sunday Times magazine. He says:
“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.”
Do you agree or disagree???
{ 10 comments… read them below or add one }
Couldn’t agree more –but its a new age, hard to say where its going and what new greater experiences are yet to be discovered..allota artists are scared of letting go the past rather making moves now to better the future of music…although as an artist myself, i cant help but be worried. I worry that in this new age where listeners have easy access to so much music at a cheap rate, in the end, will take away from enjoying any piece of music to its FULL potential.
Hova touched on this a bit too in “decoded”:
“The problem isnt in the rap or the rapper or the culture. The problem is that so many people dont even know how to LISTEN to the music anymore”
Thanks to things like iTunes kids today are more well versed in music history then any other generation, they have more access to music then any other generation and they are more open to new sound then any other generation. What percentage of kids in the 1970′s(the time when Jon Bon Jovi was a teenager) were listen to bands that were around 20 or 30 years before they were born compared to today. The Rolling Stones, The Who, The New York Dolls, Van Morrison, The Velvet Underground etc all still live in the iPods of todays youth because of things like iTunes. If music were the same as it was when Jon was a kid the youth of today would be much less open to older bands like Bon Jovi. Another thing he doesn’t seem to understand is the great thing about music on the internet is the financial barrier on both ends(meaning for the artist and consumer) for music(and art in general) is completely democratized. Music is much cheaper to produce and artist now have many more independent sources of distribution. Which means we get to hear great music from people record labels wouldn’t normally take a chance on, the power has shifted from the corporations to the people.
What a lot of people from Jon Bon Jovi’s generation fail to understand is just because music is consumed in a very different manner then it was 30 years ago doesn’t mean that the way you listened to music when you were a teenager was the perfect system. You may think that because your life was more simple and those memories of “closing your eyes and getting lost in an album” bring you back to that place and time but I assure you that kids today still spend there allowance money purchasing albums from artist like Arcade Fire, Esperanza Spalding and Kanye West, they just do it through iTunes. And guess what, they are just as connected and enthralled with that music as Jon was with the music he loved as a kid.
And by the way if you think iTunes destroyed things so badly how about issuing a refund for any of the millions of people that re-purchased your albums through iTunes over the past decade. And for the record aside from “Wanted” your music has always sucked a big dick….and I’m from New Jersey!
Thank You. Said what I was thinking.
very good points my man.
it wasn’t steve jobs, napster kicked this whole mp3 download-one-song-at-a-time thingy.
i think that because the internet has made it so easy for anyone to post their own music, consumers are being exposed to a lot of mediocre music..
Good points! I still think people can ‘experience’ what Bon Jovi did as a kid…just like you said, people have different ways of doing it….he acts like people still don’t throw on headphones, pump up the volume and ‘get lost’ in the music -although now days, its via an iPod in which a good amount of the songs have been downloaded for free : )
I still buy CDs though (Of artists i support/grew up liking) Just bought the new Raek..but still, gotta love the ‘free music’ age!!
And i agree, Bon Jovi blows aside from Wanted
A new day, a new way.
maybe now you hastily greedy rappin and singin’ muthafuckas will start making REAL music again, ALL EIGHTEEN TRACKS… for the LOVE of the art of music and creativity, and stop tryna just SELL US BULLSHIT albums with ONE lukewarm single on it… IF THAT.
JBJ has a point… but he got it in reverse… I am 100% not missing the days when I spent 30 minutes tryna decide on which CD to buy based solely off the single on the radio, only to finally decide on some FUCKIN TRASH ass cd!!! Yea I held on to the CD jacket alright… right before I flung that shit out the window onto the pavement like set it off.
Welcome to the world of instant accountability in music via the free mixtape, and the muthaphuckin PREVIEW button on i-tunes. Make some hot shit and you don’t have to worry about whether or not Steve Jobs gives a fuck about your craft.
***calms down***
R.I.P. Nate Dog… “HOLD UP…. WAAAAAAAAAAAAAAIIIT, To da niccas dat be actin too soft, TAKE A… SEEEEEEEEEEEEAAAT, just get ready for the next episode… HEY, HEY, HEY, HEY…. SMOKE WEED EVERYDAY!!!!!!!!!”
Before auto-tune and rap met… there was Nate Dog. R.I.P.
he mad cause he can’t sell a album out of Best Buy….
His anger is mis-directed…..
Music will never be the same and selling records will be extinct soon. People today will never get it because things are not the same. The way music is made is worse, the way people get it is dumber. But no one will care until there is no more new music to be the soundtracks to our lives…
-uuummm how about the industry charging $20-$30 an album in Canada back in the mid 90′s?
-ummmm how about only 2 good songs on a full album?
-uuuummm napster and downloading was avail before ipod was invented?
-ummmm how about ur concerts were now uninspiring where in order for the industry to make money they have amazing visual concerts now forcing artists & labels to actually WORK for their hundreds of millions?
Wouldnt blame Steve, it’s progress, a good thing.
But doesn’t change the fact that it WAS magical. and it’s not coming back.
like having phones and texting is great. but how awesome was throwing rocks on the window?