Bon Jovi claims Steve Jobs 'killed' the music business

Bon Jovi claims Steve Jobs 'killed' the music business
Bon Jovi claims Steve Jobs 'killed' the music business | iPodNN

times change, Bon Jovi.

I blame piracy for the death of the music industry, not Apple, who seem to be one of the only ones that are actually keeping it going.

I dislike the view that the music business was 'killed'.

I look at it more as a 'correction'.

There was just too much absolute crap out there and this correction was well overdue.

Regarding Apple's involvement, they're the only ones trying to make lemonade out of lemons! The file sharing tsunami that overtook the business would have been that much more devastating if Apple hadn't adapted to the market and put together a way for people to get paid for their music.
Apple didn't invent or popularize file sharing. They just created a way for people to get paid for it.

The music industry should be thanking their lucky stars for the 1 ray of hope left in their business (paid downloads).

what itunes needs to sort out is bitrates. i hate buying off itunes because of the 128kbps rate most of the songs are on there.

bump it up to 256 or 320, like Amazon, and you have a deal.

EDIT: itunes have changed this, but alot of music is still not high bitrate. 320 is still not an option.

When I read this today, I was like... really... REALLY?!

To me, it sounds like he's distraught that we can preview songs in an album and judge every song before we buy an album. Unlike, when one use to waste money on a whole entire album to only have one song, or buy an album and risk wasting money on something you don't like. I just don't see how this all adds up to Jobs killing the music business. It doesn't seem fair. The music industry was trending this way without Jobs, anyways.

Chris1111 said:

I dislike the view that the music business was 'killed'.

I look at it more as a 'correction'.

There was just too much absolute crap out there and this correction was well overdue.

Regarding Apple's involvement, they're the only ones trying to make lemonade out of lemons! The file sharing tsunami that overtook the business would have been that much more devastating if Apple hadn't adapted to the market and put together a way for people to get paid for their music.
Apple didn't invent or popularize file sharing. They just created a way for people to get paid for it.

The music industry should be thanking their lucky stars for the 1 ray of hope left in their business (paid downloads).

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That sir, was very well said. Your position is one of extreme logic. Here's a little more logic for you: Long before P2P file sharing became well known or popular, record stores were already beginning to falter in terms of sales. People were getting sick of the rising costs, while finding little to no value in the products they were buying. What "killed" the music "business" ? Business as usual, that's what.

The only thing that file sharing has done, is speed up and expedite the inevitable. Of course, I'm talking about changing the 'business" model. And who was there at the right time and the right place ? Steve Jobs and Apple. It could have been any other company, but thankfully, it was Apple.. who are not only innovative, but amazingly business savvy. Enough so, to start a whirlwind of trends for the rest of the industry to follow.

True, Apple wasn't the first to have an online music store, and all that goes along with it, but somehow, they managed to combine just the right components in the formula, and have emerged as a freegin' beast! Heck, I don't like iTunes, or the iPod etc.. but even I can recognize all of this, and that says a lot to me.

So, poor Ol' Bon Jovi has finally realized how irrelevant he is and doesn't like it much ? Awwwe. Poor baby. If he still had millions of fans, it wouldn't matter to them where his music was sold, they'd buy it regardless. Plus, he's full of crap. Musicians typically make their real money from merchandise and concert ticket sales. After recouping from the advances they get to make the albums they signed on for in their contracts. So, Mr. Jovi.. it's not Apple, it's not iTunes... it's the stupidity of musicians who want to live the high life and choose to sign their souls away without a second thought... only to realize years later, that the record execs have raised prices so much, that people don't want to buy anything anymore.

Which then, Mr. Jovi, forces "aritsts" to tour until they're physically sick just to try and make the money back to pay their contracts. Oh a vicious cycle it is indeed. What I'm hoping, is that the iTunes store will eventually become a place for independent musicians to showcase their music, and create followings from. Cut the darned middlemen suits and kick those pieces of crud to the curb. They know NOTHING about music, and nor do they care about it. All they care about is inflation and squeezing out every last dime they can from anywhere they can.

Ok, I'm gonna stop ranting now. Sorry, I just get a bit heated when this subject comes up. Lawyers (re:the entire music industry) are just awful peop... er... creatures.

Doug

robduckyworth said:

what itunes needs to sort out is bitrates. i hate buying off itunes because of the 128kbps rate most of the songs are on there.

bump it up to 256 or 320, like Amazon, and you have a deal.

EDIT: itunes have changed this, but alot of music is still not high bitrate. 320 is still not an option.

Click to expand...

I'm with you BUT... there's a somewhat valid reason for this. iTunes doesn't cater to "us". It caters to "them". And there's a LOT more of them than us. Most people carry on with their iPods and stock white ear buds, and you and I both know, that 320kbps is a waste as such. That's pretty much the bottom line. Most people don't do critical listening. They listen while in transit, while working out, jogging, biking etc etc...

And to be quite frank with you, when I'm in those very same situations, I don't need 320kbps, or even 192kbps for that matter (though that's usually the lowest I'd go, or I'd use Ogg at Q8). And when I do need such bitrates, I'm not even using an inferior iPod, because that its self is a bottle neck in the chain. I don't mean to speak for you and say that it shouldn't be that big of a deal, but ... you know what I'm saying.

Doug

yeah i know what your saying. but i mean, when you buy a CD, you have the choice of what to encode it as. audiophiles can go for their beloved LAME encoded 320kbps MP3, or WAV/AIFF if they have the disk space, because they have that lovely sounding uncompressed version on the CD.

general listeners can encode it at 128, or 192, or whatever they like. but itunes doesn't give us a choice. it just says "here this is what you get, now pay for it." and its usually a 128 (though itunes blames the record labels for not supplying them with a higher quality version.)

this is my main issue with itunes. its not catering for all the customers needs.

P.S i agree with you on 320 being a waste as such, but its generally in my mind that the least compression is the best, and most natural.

robduckyworth said:

yeah i know what your saying. but i mean, when you buy a CD, you have the choice of what to encode it as. audiophiles can go for their beloved LAME encoded 320kbps MP3, or WAV/AIFF if they have the disk space, because they have that lovely sounding uncompressed version on the CD.

general listeners can encode it at 128, or 192, or whatever they like. but itunes doesn't give us a choice. it just says "here this is what you get, now pay for it." and its usually a 128 (though itunes blames the record labels for not supplying them with a higher quality version.)

this is my main issue with itunes. its not catering for all the customers needs.

P.S i agree with you on 320 being a waste as such, but its generally in my mind that the least compression is the best, and most natural.

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Of course less compression is better, but unless you're up sampling with an external DAC, out to a nice little amp and then to a nice pair of cans (pardon my French ladies), it's really not going to make a difference. In fact, it would be worse, because once you have all that set up, you're going to hear every little imperfection of that compressed file, despite its higher bit rate.

But then the irony here is that iTunes isn't even capable of up sampling its self. It's not a high fidelity player. It doesn't even take advantage of OS X's audio filters or EQ. It's really quite a rudimentary media player in terms of output. I think you're just psyching yourself out dude....

Doug

Doug b said:

Of course less compression is better, but unless you're up sampling with an external DAC, out to a nice little amp and then to a nice pair of cans...

Doug

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thats what i do lol nothing wrong with striving for quality.. "if thats psyching myself out" then oh well.

there shouldn't really be any need for any of the OSX filters / plugs if you have a good quality version of the song.

of course there always other factors to the fidelity of a song while you are listening (weren't me and you having this discussion the other day? ) but when it comes down to it, you cant polish a turd, so dont have turd to begin with!

i was trying to think of a better word....

robduckyworth said:

there shouldn't really be any need for any of the OSX filters / plugs if you have a good quality version of the song.

o

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See, but that's where you've strayed from the path my friend. High res, 24bit lossless files would take glorious advantage of the filters ! So now we're talking about output to studio monitors, possibly the use of a NAS with dedicated balanced outputs to an analog source with a nice ADC etc etc..

Hey man, if you wanna get froggy, ya gotta be willing to freegin' leap! ;D

But see, I won't go that far. That's where my two channel stereo comes in, and my vinyl. If I'm going to go to those lengths to set up a streaming server, all bells and whistles, then man, it's gonna be done right, and probably going to cost a pretty penny. But at that point, you have to kind of engage yourself in a discussion, and do a bit of soul searching if you will. It's a fairly big commitment, so if you're gonna go, you have to go all the way, and it's at that point where I make the decision to go one way or the other. I don't want to spread myself too much.. I prefer to stick to one discipline and continue mastering it.

Though of course, I can still take the other road fairly far along the way. Enough to satisfy me, at least. Hope that wasn't all too metaphorical for ya.

Doug

Ok, and I JUST read the Bon Jovi article. Amazing, pretty much everything I said, you can find in the opposing view points of it, as well as the comments. It's nice to be right.

Doug

iWhat said:

When I read this today, I was like... really... REALLY?!

To me, it sounds like he's distraught that we can preview songs in an album and judge every song before we buy an album. Unlike, when one use to waste money on a whole entire album to only have one song, or buy an album and risk wasting money on something you don't like. I just don't see how this all adds up to Jobs killing the music business. It doesn't seem fair. The music industry was trending this way without Jobs, anyways.

Click to expand...

I think you hit the nail on the head! Most musicians plan their whole album off one hit song, which used to be the reason why people would buy the whole cd. Now, people know the hit song, and won't bother to download/buy all the, hmm...useless songs that they put in. Yes, "useless," is the correct word to use, especially when it comes to music released now-a-days!

Doug b said:

See, but that's where you've strayed from the path my friend. High res, 24bit lossless files would take glorious advantage of the filters ! So now we're talking about output to studio monitors, possibly the use of a NAS with dedicated balanced outputs to an analog source with a nice ADC etc etc..

Hey man, if you wanna get froggy, ya gotta be willing to freegin' leap! ;D

But see, I won't go that far. That's where my two channel stereo comes in, and my vinyl. If I'm going to go to those lengths to set up a streaming server, all bells and whistles, then man, it's gonna be done right, and probably going to cost a pretty penny. But at that point, you have to kind of engage yourself in a discussion, and do a bit of soul searching if you will. It's a fairly big commitment, so if you're gonna go, you have to go all the way, and it's at that point where I make the decision to go one way or the other. I don't want to spread myself too much.. I prefer to stick to one discipline and continue mastering it.

Though of course, I can still take the other road fairly far along the way. Enough to satisfy me, at least. Hope that wasn't all too metaphorical for ya.

Doug

Click to expand...

lets go back to the path: i cant get 24 bit lossless of my favourite songs!

that pretty penny fell out of my pocket a long time ago, and as such i have to make do with what i have; and that means 320 MP3. unfortunately. as long as we satisfy our own listening needs, then alls a good un. its up to you, iTunes.

Dear Mr. Jovi,

I was born during your hey day in the music industry. I like your music. I obtain it through a method that is far easier and convenient than you ever had, much less imagine. And I pay for it. Would you rather I steal it via bit torrent? No? That's what I thought.

Chris H.

Chris H. said:

Would you rather I steal it via bit torrent?

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And that's the whole point. People are not going into physical music stores as much as they used to. And Apple just got people to pay for what they were getting previously for free "music from the internet".

So Jon Bon Jovi you are an idiot. You should thank Apple for his fact.

the8thark said:

And that's the whole point. People are not going into physical music stores as much as they used to. And Apple just got people to pay for what they were getting previously for free "music from the internet".
fact.

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True and false. True that people aren't going to physical music stores as much, but that's only because not as many of them exist anymore. I remember back in the day when Sam Goody was still a viable source for music, then came Tower Records, HMV, FYI etc... and now, only a couple of those are scattered about, if not completely wiped.

But it's a false premise to state that these stores don't exist much anymore, or that people stopped going to them because of pirated music from the internet. Yes. The internet and P2P file sharing sites DID open up a whole other avenue that wasn't there before. But this was only an extension and means of a way for a person to actually preview an album before they spent their hard earned money on it.

This is also when people started figuring out that there were only a couple of songs that they thought were worthy of purchase (probably real top 40 crap mind you) and only the most loyal of media consumers still went out and bought a physical copy. So really, file sharing and sites as such, were and still are, a catalyst.

The iTunes store, provides a legal way in which people can explore music (amongst the myriad other ways) and then pay per song, rather than a whole album. There are of course still ways to purchase a physical copy of an album, if you like it enough of course, so it's really a win-win situation.

I'll admit, I do miss being able to go into a record store, have a chat with the hot chick next to me who is listening to god knows what -but I don't care because she's smokin'.... situation.

Man I feel old.

Doug

I hate mp3's.

I don't at all claim to be an audiophile or anything. I don't have any expensive stereo equipment, just my ipod and my car stereo. But I can ALWAYS tell the difference between an mp3 and a cd or radio station on my car stereo and it annoys the holy crap outta me.
I had my girlfriend do a side by side test of mp3 vs. a radio station on my car stereo and she could immediately tell the difference in sound quality, though she said she'd never really noticed before.

I understand that the mp3 is supposed to be a compromise between sound quality and size, but I also am kinda frustrated that there hasn't been any progress to my knowledge in terms of getting them to sound better. Isn't technology supposed to raise the bar on what was recently impossible? Gimme some good sounding mp3s for cripes sake, sound engineering nerds!

I think it's fair to say that Jobs injected nitro into the evolution of the music industry, and did it in a unique way; he (or Apple) made a device the world lusted after, and then changed the way we get music to play on said device.

Imagine if the whole music industry had rapidly changed when Sony introduced the Walkman. But it didn't; we still went to the store to buy albums on cassette, just like before.

I think the iTunes store and the internet/digital music model is a much better experience really.

I can't speak to the file format issue, as I'm not a sound buff at all. I'd say I listen to as much or more podcast/streaming news/talk type content as I do music.

I think one positive result of MP3s and iTunes and digital music distribution is that it's brought the price of CDs down. I remember when you couldn't get a CD for less than $15, if you were lucky!
Now, I can get a CD from Best Buy or Target for $10-$12 (sometimes less), copy it to my computer via iTunes, sync it with my iPhone and iPad, turn around and sell that same CD for $2 or $3 at a garage sale or used record store (yes, we have them here - Zia Records), and come out ahead.

Not to mention sometimes there's exclusive content on a CD that you can't get through iTunes purchases.
I do realize sometimes that works the other way too, but I'm just saying...