Bon Jovi: Steve Jobs 'Killed' The Music Business

jiminator said:
music industry has been dead for 90 years with the introduction of the record. Used to be you could actually have a career as a musician and entertaining people. Every city had their singers, bands, symphonies, etc. Now music makes money only for the stars, or rather whoever owns their songs. It is a sad state of affairs but not for the reasons he gives.
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The problem with the music industry is the record companies. They have to power to take something stupid, and polish it like a turd.
I was watching a secret video earlier today that someone took in north korea. There actually was a lady singing on the bus as entertainment for the ride. You would never see that here. That is what has been lost.
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There's a reason we don't have that here. Someone would have kicked her ass. Cause you know, everyone has the same taste in music. Better yet, everyone wants to hear her sing, on a bus ride home from work.

Not everything works for everyone.
 
this one is funny.

so he's basically stating that because people can now sample an entire album before they purchase it....that is killing the music business.

I read that as, we can't be lazy and put 1 well written (by someone else probably) song on a 12 song album and manage to sell it either via radio exposure or alternately by having good artwork on it.

even before i could try music before i buy i rarely if ever bought via cover art...and if I DID purchase via the artwork it was already in a used cd store in the 2.50 or less section.

i find it much preferred to used the recommended random band option some internet radio has or alternately use something like emusic's "artist similar to *band*"

it gives more options and allows more bands to be properly discovered. What it doesn't do is allow old hat artists to live in the past and be lazy shits about creating.
 
Q-BZ said:
Good music is an endangered species and has been for some time.

IMO at least.
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There is plenty of good music still being made but if you are going to go by what is force fed to you by the media instead of searching out good music then that is your fault. Back when Bon Jovi was popular I worked in a record store so knew a lot about the music scene of the day. People who listened to good music thought Bon Jovi's music sucked, and it did.
 
He wants your money without you getting a preview of the product. He basically wants to put out junk and get away with it by making people ignorant until they open up the case and play the disc. Those days are over. No one likes garbage.
 
TechLarry said:
Last time I checked, CD's don't have a 30 second sample button on them.

Now I can understand how that is a problem for crappy music. Instead of buying a shrink-wrap album and hoping for the best, you can weed out the crap these days and avoid it.

Power to the consumer :)
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This is exactly the way I feel about it, and I think any business model which encourages the consumer to make an informed decision and gives the tools necessary to do so (read: not buying an album based on the cover) is to be praised, not criticized.
 
Q-BZ said:
Bad music that's woefully overpriced is what's killed the industry.
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This, and the suppression of creativity and originality in favor of the "easy sell". Music is supposed to be an artistic creation, but the recording industry wanted something repeatable and more dependable for sales. Enter rap, pop, hillbilly rock (modern country), and Nickelback. By taking the creativity out of the picture they made music into a mass-produced commodity. Just follow the "formula", create an image, push it on the top 40 stations, and flood the market. Wash, rinse, repeat.

I think what Bon Jovi is talking about is the experience of discovering new music has changed completely, and I can understand to a point. I don't listen to radio hardly at all anymore, but a few years back I was scanning the stations and I heard some music I liked. I found the name of the band, and found a video of the song on YouTube so I could confirm it was the same group. I bought the album and I was impressed with what I heard. I then found more albums from said band. That's pretty much how it used to work. You heard a song, found out what album it was on, bought it, and either loved it or hated it. If you loved it, you found a band you liked and bought more of their stuff. If you hated it, you ditched it or sold it at a Disc-Go-Round (or whatever) and got a few dollars back.

Still... the recording industry NEEDED a good kick in its complacency. The INDUSTRY part can die. I'm fine with that, and if Steve Jobs killed it well good riddance. The RIAA can follow suit. Hell, if Jobs got credit for killing the RIAA I'd consider him a hero - and I hate Apple, but I digress... If artists can do their own thing, sell their own music, and not have to fight through record labels to try to get exposure, I think that's an improvement. I think artists may have more freedom in the future as a result of all of this. Let the artists create their own experiences for the fans without having to rely on a company to stamp it on a disk and put it in a package. Times change, and this is just one more thing that's evolving as technology continues to improve.
 
Shambler said:
Just last night I YouTube'd a Sevendust video, followed by a He Is Legend search and finally browsed on over to an Oh, Sleeper track. Along the side of suggested videos was band called To speak of Wolves. Two videos later and I had purchased one of their CD's from Amazon.

Had it not been for YouTube and Amazon I would have never seen/heard that band, and they would have never received any cash from me. I plan on checking out their other CD tonight with a large possibility of buying it.
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I saw them live, pretty good band.
Going to concerts is a good way of learning new bands..

I have to agree that today's generation doesn't give a shit about music, and I think that the whole concept of not buying/listening to the whole album is a major culprit.
 
Personally I buy a lot more music now than I did back in the day of CD only distribution. I can preview more music, find bands that I like easier, etc.

Perheps Bon Jovi could release their next album only on CD and not allow it for digital distribution. :rolleyes:
 
the vast majority of you are missing his point...

He is saying that artists should focus on albums more, that companies like apple have caused artists to not care about their full albums and that we as consumers no longer care about albums.
Personally, I normally listen to albums, mp3 albums that is, but it is still the album.
If a band can't come out with a good album, then I can't call them a good band, they are just another one (or two) hit wonder.

If only he said it in a better way as to not insult people, but he probably meant for this to be publicized, and it was.
 
I'm still missing the point then. Why doe he think it's so important to focus on albums? Obviously the buying public doesn't give two shits about albums and that's all that matters.

So he should then blame the audience for changing and not Jobs(who just gave what they wanted), which goes back to him being old as shit.
 
Taco said:
I'm still missing the point then. Why doe he think it's so important to focus on albums? Obviously the buying public doesn't give two shits about albums and that's all that matters.

So he should then blame the audience for changing and not Jobs(who just gave what they wanted), which goes back to him being old as shit.
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Which is why I said "If only he said it in a better way as to not insult people, but he probably meant for this to be publicized, and it was."

He should not be putting blame on people.

Artists from his generation tended to care a lot more about all of the song on an album, how well they went together, and the album art. Today that is not the case, and he is mad about that, and he is ranting about it.

What Apple did though was make it extremely easy to purchase just single songs instead of the whole album, and that is most likely what he is mad about. It just creates a downward spiral of artists not caring about their albums and consumers not wanting to buy albums.
 
ripken204 said:
the vast majority of you are missing his point...

He is saying that artists should focus on albums more, that companies like apple have caused artists to not care about their full albums and that we as consumers no longer care about albums.
Personally, I normally listen to albums, mp3 albums that is, but it is still the album.
If a band can't come out with a good album, then I can't call them a good band, they are just another one (or two) hit wonder.

If only he said it in a better way as to not insult people, but he probably meant for this to be publicized, and it was.
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You're giving Jovi way too much intellectual credit. When I was a young kid who rushed to a record store eager to spend my allowance on an album without knowing its contents, nothing was more disappointing, sometimes infuriating, than to discover I wasted my money on a CD or LP with just 2 or 3 good songs. Now, anyone can create albums full of his/her favorite artist's best songs and save a lot of money in the process.
 
Try listening to Pink Floyd. Wish you were here and The Wall. The "album" is a story, a complete experience.

Back to the point, music industry is not dead. Sucky music "kills" the artist. If the music is good, the CD or mp3 download or whatever will sell.
 
Allos said:
Try listening to Pink Floyd. Wish you were here and The Wall. The "album" is a story, a complete experience.
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exactly... :)
I was one of the fortunate people to go to the recent DSOTM and The Wall tours by Roger Waters.
 
eh hes just pissed that since they only have like 2 halfway decent songs (and thats me being VERY generous) people can now just buy them for $1 each rather than burn $10 on the entire crappy album. Never though I'd say it, but 100% on Job's side in this situation. ....now I feel really dirty:eek:.
 
I'd like to read full article before comment but I think by "killed" he doesn't mean financially - as we all know they still make hundreds of millions, he seems to be talking about something else.
 
"Kids today have missed the whole experience of putting the headphones on, turning it up to 10, closing their eyes and getting lost in an album,"
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How? Kids do all of those things even better now.
There weren't even portable CD players until the end of the 90s.
These days, you can have the same experience with a tiny iPod.

"And the beauty of taking your allowance money and making a decision based on the jacket, not knowing what the record sounded like, holding the jacket (case), and looking at a couple of still pictures and imagining it..
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I agree. We have lost the beauty of going out and buying Music, Games, Movies today, as well as taking it home, opening it and cherishing the artwork on the box.

But you can't do that today. An album with good artwork NO LONGER stands for quality.

If anything, people are HAPPIER or just as happy with their purchases afterwards.
And the fun of looking at the cover.. you can go online and it will pale in comparison.

'What happened?' Steve Jobs is personally responsible for killing the music business."
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No, he killed the 90's music EXPERIENCE.

And no he didn't. It died in the 90's, and the only way to revive the music BUSINESS is through iTunes, which is what he did.

Jon Bon Jovi is being as emotional and blind as always. Nothing to see here.
 
metallicafan said:
Personally I buy a lot more music now than I did back in the day of CD only distribution. I can preview more music, find bands that I like easier, etc.

Perheps Bon Jovi could release their next album only on CD and not allow it for digital distribution. :rolleyes:
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And that's the problem. You've some how got it into your head that you should go and find music you like rather than just buying the mega bands latest CD. How is that way of thinking any good at all to bands that people basically just forgot to stop buying?
 
I actually liked some of his music growing up, but I bought it after listening to a sample at the wall on their computers in 90's. I remember getting lots of CD through BMG because it was cheap and I had heard tapes from friends or heard them on the radio. Now I can listen to samples to see if I like the style from home when I have time. Their are some bands out there I would never have heard of growing up because payola and other issues. Now if a band is just starting out they can put samples up on myspace and facebook to get people to come out to concerts which is where most signed bands make 90% of their money.

As far as buying a cd based on an album cover I did it once because it was unique and I wanted something different. It turned out to be a really cool album but it could have been crap. Would I have ever bought a bon jovi album because of the cover art has he looked at what his cover art looks like? Greatest hits has a sword through a heart, maybe but on of his best is slippery when wet which is a bunch of words that look like tire tracks. I have hundreds of cd I need to burn to my computer from growing up but for the most part the only new cds of late where collectors editions of bands I knew where going to be good ahead of time. Most of my music is through amazon or itunes in aac or mp3 because often enough it is good enough.

As far as creative goes they design the ipod went to apple to get help marketing it and apple took it for six months then told them they were not interested and put it out as the original ipod, I know it is true because creative took them to court and won, it by the time they had won everyone associated it with apple, and itunes which creative had not come up with. So creative, diamond multimedia, and few others designed the original mp3 players but only apple was able to spin it so millions bought it. I don't have a mp3 player never got around to it, now my phone is one. Give it a few years and no one will have stand alone music players, but there will be plenty of phone/smart devices that play music, and plenty of stores that sell digital copies.
 
I'am not a huge music lover, i buy most my music from Itunes and use my Android phone or my computer at home. But i discovered some group with the Genius option in Itunes, groups that i wouldn't haven't hear on radio because they don't play. Also i'am a big Techno/Electro fan and those album before were mostly only available in europe (the good stuff) or by very expensive imports..
 
The words of a fuddy-duddy. "Kids these days, they don't do things like we did in the old days."

I swear, the music industry is retarded. "Back in the day," (as Bon Jovi would likely say), "we took your damn albums and copied... sorry, recorded one maaaaayyyybe two songs off it onto a mix tape." Some albums were good start to finish, but a lot of them weren't. Guess what? That hasn't changed. Only now, we can buy one song off your otherwise terrible album, and spend the rest of the 15 bucks (or more) we would have originally spent on the rest of the album we'd listen to once before realizing it was all terrible on 15 songs from a bunch of other otherwise terrible albums! I've just made my dollar go much further, compared to the way they wished we bought stuff. Power to the people.

"omg the artists lose!" The artists wouldn't lose if they wrote more better music. That's right, more better music!! It's basic product development: if you build a crappy product, you probably don't make any money. A crappy author won't sell any books, either.
 
sulfur_lad said:
"omg the artists lose!" The artists wouldn't lose if they wrote more better music. That's right, more better music!! It's basic product development: if you build a crappy product, you probably don't make any money. A crappy author won't sell any books, either.
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They only lose because they sign deals with the devil hoping to get rich. I respect bands like Stemm because they put out their own stuff. I will actually buy their CDs because they do all the work themselves and the money goes to them, not some fat guy in a suit. Bands that sell their MP3's directly from their website I will buy from (if the music is good obviously).
 
LOL at everyone in there saying that today's music sucks. Getting old will do that to you. Every generation for the last 100 years has put up the same argument. The music you cling to now...guess what, your elders said the same thing. Music doesn't suck but rather moved on and left you behind.

Bon Jovi is batshit insane if he believes that. If anything Apple helped the music industry turn the corner (rather slowly) into the digital age. Music's problem now is two fold IMO. The internet makes spreading music much easier, not just for pirates but everyone else. When I was a kid if there was a great song you had to camp in front of the radio/MTV to listed to it and the only way to circumvent that was to buy the album. Now a simple Google search yields plenty of opportunities to listen to it whenever you want. The second problem they are dealing with is that they're competing with everyone's attention. There used to be a time when popped in their physical media and listed to music for entertainment. The 80's comes to mind when people hung out together just to listen to music. Now music isn't as relevant as it once was....we have 200 TV channels to choose from, endless content on the internet, social media, video games, cell phones, text messages, etc, etc. America is a nation of consumers and we have many more opportunities to entertain ourselves now that we did during the music boom. The simple fact is that music is losing out. Once upon a time you had the choice of reading a book, watching one of 5 TV stations, or listening to music.....look around your house now and look at your options.

Times are changing and the music industry was too stubborn to change with it and as a result they're no longer people's top choice for entertainment. It's their own damn fault, not Steve Job's
 
Gnasher said:
There is plenty of good music still being made but if you are going to go by what is force fed to you by the media instead of searching out good music then that is your fault. Back when Bon Jovi was popular I worked in a record store so knew a lot about the music scene of the day. People who listened to good music thought Bon Jovi's music sucked, and it did.
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^This. Music has always sucked if you chose to judge it by the horrific fads of the day. There is some brilliant music being made right now in all genres. People can't see it because they're too wrapped up in the geriatric hater-aide. I'm no spring chicken these days but at least I can recognize that history repeats itself and just because my dad said that the music in my day sucked doesn't mean that I need to repeat his mistakes.
 
yeah, id' say steve jobs along with itunes, amazon, etc... have really helped me find good music I like, and my money is going to more artists today then ever before. Maybe the money isn't reaching them, but that's another problem, I'm a fan today of more artists then ever, and have been to more live shows in the past three years then in all my life, and that should be what artists strive for, right?

yeah, the comments about music being dead, well i understand that will all the trash you got to sift through
 
OldSchool said:
That's because everything Trent touches turns to gold ;)
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Yet Sascha without Watts is too influened by Lucia. I do think Steve White does one hell of a job, but they need to relegate Lucia to backup vocals most of the time. I've had enough dance/trance, hit me with some breaks and Virus style grinds.

Anyway, Trent has little to nothing to do with KMFDM.
 
I'm going to have to say that in a way, he's right.

Sure...crappy music and a stupid pricing model helped. And yes, there's no stopping the forward march of progress.

But the essence of what he said is pretty much dead on. That whole process of saving your money, going down to Tower Records or whatever your local music shop was, taking that chance on the album and later the cd by the artist that it contained something you were going to dig, and then just losing yourself in the whole thing as you listened to it end to end is gone. And Steve Jobs is the guy pretty much responsible for popularizing the means for its demise.

And that's not necessarily a totally bad thing because it did open up music in a whole new way, as has been mentioned. People are trying music and buying it, or buying more of it because they aren't wasting money on songs they don't like by being forced to buy and entire cd worth of songs from an artist, and therefor have more to spend on buying more individual songs they do like.

But I think that type of buying, and not taking the chance on the other songs is limiting people to listening to the singles with the big hook, and missing some of the less popular, but really good songs that made up the meat of an album back in the day. I know my kids aren't interested in the old B sides of popular artists today. They want the singles and the stuff played on the radio(satellite or over the air) or on one of the music channels. They don't want to take the time to listen to the other more personal, but less hook driven songs and discover something new that the radio isn't playing.

Sure...there will always be audiophiles who explore the nooks and crannies to find the real gems. But the crowd is doing that far less now than they did back in the day.

So I guess that makes me an old man too. ;)
 
Aielman said:
I'm going to have to say that in a way, he's right.

Sure...crappy music and a stupid pricing model helped. And yes, there's no stopping the forward march of progress.

But the essence of what he said is pretty much dead on. That whole process of saving your money, going down to Tower Records or whatever your local music shop was, taking that chance on the album and later the cd by the artist that it contained something you were going to dig, and then just losing yourself in the whole thing as you listened to it end to end is gone. And Steve Jobs is the guy pretty much responsible for popularizing the means for its demise.

And that's not necessarily a totally bad thing because it did open up music in a whole new way, as has been mentioned. People are trying music and buying it, or buying more of it because they aren't wasting money on songs they don't like by being forced to buy and entire cd worth of songs from an artist, and therefor have more to spend on buying more individual songs they do like.

But I think that type of buying, and not taking the chance on the other songs is limiting people to listening to the singles with the big hook, and missing some of the less popular, but really good songs that made up the meat of an album back in the day. I know my kids aren't interested in the old B sides of popular artists today. They want the singles and the stuff played on the radio(satellite or over the air) or on one of the music channels. They don't want to take the time to listen to the other more personal, but less hook driven songs and discover something new that the radio isn't playing.

Sure...there will always be audiophiles who explore the nooks and crannies to find the real gems. But the crowd is doing that far less now than they did back in the day.

So I guess that makes me an old man too. ;)
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interesting take. I tend to not think of the "mainstream" when posting my comments seeing as many of us if we found our way to a tech site don't really fit mainstream. I tend to not realize that people actually only download one or two songs from an artist and not an entire album. I will scout out bands i like. But i will buy an entire album from them and yes...listen to it from start to finish. I just like being able to sample a bit of each song before i make a purchase.

I hope that as distribution hits more digital outlets, we can get the prices down (amazon largely does this, though lossless would be nice) to the point that it's more attractive to just get the whole album instead of 2 songs or so.
 
as he is right, the fact is also there that newer music is lacking what old music has, i'm not saying all music is bad, i do listen to newer once now and then, but compare to old music, my newer music library is pathetically small.
 
IMHO... The Artists killed the music industry, NOT Apple, and NOT the consumers.

ARTISTS and LABELS realized they could put out one great song at a time and pull in 20 million iTunes purchases. Do you REALLY think in this day and age, if an artist DID put out an awesome album, nobody would buy it because we all want "hit singles"? Lol. Really?

I'd buy the fuck out of an album comparable with DSOTM, and I know millions would as well. Just because the artists have become lazy, putting out shitty albums with a few good songs, and the consumer base has shifted to purchase only these good songs... Well, derp you all get where I'm going with this.

Make an album full of GOOD SONGS and we'll buy them all. Nothing's changed, in that today we only buy what we really like. That is NOT a bad thing.

Bon Jovi, you're a fucking idiot brah.
 
Manaknight said:
interesting take. I tend to not think of the "mainstream" when posting my comments seeing as many of us if we found our way to a tech site don't really fit mainstream. I tend to not realize that people actually only download one or two songs from an artist and not an entire album. I will scout out bands i like. But i will buy an entire album from them and yes...listen to it from start to finish. I just like being able to sample a bit of each song before i make a purchase.

I hope that as distribution hits more digital outlets, we can get the prices down (amazon largely does this, though lossless would be nice) to the point that it's more attractive to just get the whole album instead of 2 songs or so.
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I'd say that's pretty dead on. We are not the norm. It just seems to me that the sheople make up the majority of consumers are missing out with the new paradigm.

ARTISTS and LABELS realized they could put out one great song at a time and pull in 20 million iTunes purchases. Do you REALLY think in this day and age, if an artist DID put out an awesome album, nobody would buy it because we all want "hit singles"? Lol. Really?
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Uh...yeah. It happens all the time. It happened all the time when they sold 45s fifty years ago, and it happens all the time with mp3s now.

How many people today do you think would buy and listen to The Wall if it was brand new today? Or Tommy? Or any one of the old rock operas for that matter other than die hard fans and audiophiles? Hell, I remember when The Wall came out. People listened "We Don't Need No Education" and "Another Brick in the Wall (Part II)," which came out as a single, and never heard any of the rest of what is arguably one of Pink Floyd's best albums, and considered by quite a few to be one of the best rock albums of all time.

You think today's short attention span teens or even young adults would consider buying the rest of the works on that 2 album set?

I don't.
 
Aielman said:
How many people today do you think would buy and listen to The Wall if it was brand new today? Or Tommy? Or any one of the old rock operas for that matter other than die hard fans and audiophiles? Hell, I remember when The Wall came out. People listened "We Don't Need No Education" and "Another Brick in the Wall (Part II)," which came out as a single, and never heard any of the rest of what is arguably one of Pink Floyd's best albums, and considered by quite a few to be one of the best rock albums of all time.

You think today's short attention span teens or even young adults would consider buying the rest of the works on that 2 album set?

I don't.
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Elbow's Build a Rocket Boy is currently No2 in the UK album charts, it's first track is 8 minutes and in listening to it I honestly couldn't pick out something I would say sounded like 'the single'.

People still love great works and buy them from artists who create them. Bon Jovi aren't that band.
 
Aielman said:
How many people today do you think would buy and listen to The Wall if it was brand new today? Or Tommy? Or any one of the old rock operas for that matter other than die hard fans and audiophiles? Hell, I remember when The Wall came out. People listened "We Don't Need No Education" and "Another Brick in the Wall (Part II)," which came out as a single, and never heard any of the rest of what is arguably one of Pink Floyd's best albums, and considered by quite a few to be one of the best rock albums of all time.
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One hit wonders have been coming out for decades now and the customers finally got sick of it. The people complaining that today's artists can't put out a complete album have selective memory. I have a Hendrix album or two that only has one or two good songs so this isn't a new thing.
 
Aielman said:
You think today's short attention span teens or even young adults would consider buying the rest of the works on that 2 album set?
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Oh, well you're absolutely right then. Apple DID kill the music industry.

You may be right, but even so, BJ (hah) is still wrong here.
 
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