Jon Bon Jovi had this to say about Steve Jobs, in an interview with The Sunday Times:
“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,” he said. “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… 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.”
In other news, Bon Jovi is currently on tour, with 42 venues lasting until this Summer, throughout North America (Vancouver x 2, Ottawa, Montreal) and Europe. Maybe Jon Bon Jovi is smarter than we’re giving him credit for. Making an ignorant statement about Steve Jobs will get you unprecedented coverage from blogs and media. Well done, lad.
It’s also interesting to note that he serves on the White House Council for Community Solutions with Jobs’ wife, Laurene Powell. Maybe Jon needs to watch his back during the next council meeting?
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That’s a whole lot of garbage. I’m old enough to remember buying music from an actual store. Y’know what the worst part was? When you got that album home, you hear that awesome song you bought it for but then you have 15 filler tracks that no one cares about.
If anything, the iTunes model saved music. Napster sort of killed it but at the same time, it made the consumer realize they’ve been dumping money into something that just wasn’t worth it when they were purchasing entire albums.
iTunes also made it possible for smaller acts to get their material out there, especially all those talented kids on YouTube these days.
Bon Jovi, I enjoy their music but this is just a monumentally stupid thing to say.
I remember Toto’s Africa album. Africa was played to the hilt on radio, so I bought the album. The rest of it was garbage!
What a moron. Though given his really terrible music, I’m not surprised a 30second preview is hurting his song sales.
While I am certainly not the exalted master of economics and social trends that Mr. Bon Jovi so clearly is (cough cough) I have to agree with him. What could be better than buying an album not for how the band sounds, or the style, or on a recommendation of your friend, but simply looking at the album cover? Yes, you’re absolutely right; Steve Jobs killed the music industry by forcing all us poor kids to get to buy individual songs we like, or previewing new songs, instead of wasting those hard-earned allowance dollars on albums that looked cool, but sounded like crap.
Ah, but for the glory days of old…
What total bullshit! ‘Cause everyone knows we jumped right from the 70’s experience of consuming music to the iPod!
Next thing you know he’s going to complain that people don’t line up to see Star Wars in the theatre 10 times over.
I hate to break it to you…but Africa was total shit too, and if you bought Toto’s album hoping for more songs like it…then you deserve to have lost your 15 dollars.
I can’t believe this is news on all of the blog sites…
I respect Jon Bon Jovi for his music and his longevity in the music business, but blaming a single person for the digital revolution is a bit much. I’d have thought he was smarter than that.
I do not agree with Jon. Perhaps he is finding it too hard to make a whole album’s worth of great songs. The new model of buying music forces musicians to be better than their commercial driving labels. No longer do you get an album with a couple of hits and a pile of crap made to fulfill contractual obligation. Hopefully this has put more care into making music. It certainly has widened the availability of music, thus also bashing down the commercial monopolies of the past.
I think Apple had/has a fortunate spot to be able to take something inevitable and make it mainstream. Funny thing is, could digital music become a monopoly with too much choice? Perhaps there is something to be said for only carrying specific choices. Then again – sheep or shepherd? Hopefully this widened arena of choice gives freedom to choose from the best.
Jon Bon Jovi’s statement is stupid but so is yours. There both based on personal feelings not facts. Steve Jobs isn’t personally responsible for killing the music business and Bon Joni’s sales are not hurting.
Bon Jovi is just upset that they can’t sell and entire album full of shit with one good song anymore. All iTunes did was show us how much money we used to spend on crap music we didn’t need.
Some could argue his band and that era of hairspray rock ruined the music business. Just sayin…
haha
This is just one big marketing ploy to stir sh!t up to gain more album and ticket sales. I didn’t even know this dude was still alive until now.
I agree with most of the comments here…now there is some responsibility to produce a good album…not just one killer song. I remember buying cassette tapes and cds as a teen, and there was nothing worse then paying 15 or 20 bucks for an album and getting it home only to discover it had two good songs and the rest was filler.
Exactly. So he’s completely correct in saying that Apple killed the music “business,” which is actually a good thing. Music shouldn’t be about business, it should be about art.
Steve killed the music industry by letting people know what they are buying? makes sense 😛
I didn’t and still do not really know anyone that bought music, when I was in high school like grade 9 or 2002 . it was around this time Kaaza, napster, Morpheus, LimeWire wtv P2P really became popular…. our generation onward pretty much didnt have to buy music, i dont really know that many ppl that buys cd’s, or music unless they are big fans or into making music and supporting the industry or rich or born before 1985. i probably would have went my whole life with out buying music if it wasnt for STEVE JOBS AND APPLE, HE/THEY (long term)SAVED(or EVOLVED) THE INDUSTRY(i kno the industry still made billions,concerts and other stuff…the whole industry). P2P would have probably grown more over time, you can even get frost wire(similar to lime wire p2p) on android smart phones now.
i’ll admit that im not the biggest fan of music, of course I like music, just I can live without it more than others can. never had a discman/walkman/ mp3 player… till i got the iphone3g in 2008, but to use it as an ipod didnt really occur to me as anything, and now i’ll buy some tracks now and then.
U R right it should b about the ART
and what most other stated is tru too.
Ya that’s exactly what we boomers did buy the album hoping all the cuts (songs) were as good as the one that we bought the album for only to be dispelled by the other 10 or twelve cuts and then kicking ourselves in the ass for having waisted the allowance on a trashy album. I would rather hear the snippets then complete my own album an dream bugger thoughts. You defiantly grew up in the gen x group dislusionary
Play Freebird!!!
I also remember the albums that were worth buying front to back. Use your illusions 1&2. Nirvana nevermind. Rage against the machine killing in the name of. Pearl jam ten, shit what happened to that great early 90’s music