Did Steve Jobs Kill Music?


Napster and illegal downloading may have killed the music business, but Steve Jobs may be the one who is personally responsible for "killing" music (at least according to Bon Jovi).  I tend to agree with Bon Jovi in that itunes has virtually destroyed the whole concept of the album.  I can't tell you how many college students of mine that I've spoken with that genuinely love hip hop music and quality acts like ATCQ, Rakim, Gang Starr, etc..., but have never heard any of their albums.  To me, that's like watching only a few scenes of a classic movie.  It just doesn't make any sense.  You can read the article here.

3 comments:

Eric Nord said...

Prior to the 1970s, most recorded music was delivered via radio, 45s, and jukeboxes. The rise of the long player as the dominant format didn't really happen until the late 1960s. While I too lament the decline of the album format/concept, plenty of great music can happen in a singles format. Also, think of all the albums we bought for a few good songs. In the 90s, albums were became more about how to make more money by packaging quality singles along with a bunch of inferior singles. Very few artists ever achieved solidly executed "concept albums".

Personally, I think the rise of peer-distributed music will limit how popular crappy music can get. The budgets for promoting crappy music are much lower now. And it is much easier to spread good music. And Pipomixes is a great example ;-)

Anonymous said...

There really is People that love ATCQ that never heard an album from them? What the hell?

Anonymous said...

Did Steve Jobs invent Serato too?