I read this quote in a recent edition of Bloomberg Businessweek, and then I stumbled upon this nice blog on Endgadget before finally landing at NYMag.com. Here’s the Bon Jovi quote:
“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,” he told the Sunday Times. “God, it was a magical, magical time. 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.”
Everything Bon Jovi says about “the experience” is exactly true. I was an avid vinyl collector even before I graduated from high school. I spent hours sorting and cataloging my collection of 45s and albums, and I spent many $$$ putting everything in Discwasher sleeves. It was a hobby, a labor of love, and a personal passion. What joy it was to head out on a Saturday morning to the used record shops and flip through piles of vinyl for rare Duane Eddy records, great Blue Note releases, and classic rock gems. I subscribed to Goldmine magazine (the mag for vinyl collectors), and through Goldmine I corresponded – before the days of word processing and the Internet – with other avid collectors all over the world. I still have all of those letters. I remember working every hour of overtime available so I could pay for my records. I would bring them home and savor the jackets for their artwork, and I had a nice little side business painting those album covers onto the back of Levi jackets for cash.
I think Bon Jovi is right on until he gets to the last couple of sentences. In spite of the restrictions on digital music, the wonderful world of digital downloads allows artists to bypass the gatekeepers who historically controlled access to radio and recording. These gatekeepers had the power to control what we, the consumers, were able to discover. The politics of radio airplay and recording contracts left so many talented artists in the dustbin of obscurity. Instead, the wonderful world of Apple brings us gobs of music, podcasts, TV shows, movies, books, Internet radio, and iTunes University lectures. Some of this content (podcasts, radio, iTunes U) is free to the consumer, put together by people who have a passion to digitize and expose their ideas to as many people as possible.
And best of all, the online digital world is open to any and all comers. I discover new artists through the iTunes web of customer iMixes, staff picks, celebrity playlists, and iTunes Essentials. I search for my favorite songs and come up with cover versions I never knew existed. In the “old world” of recorded music, with all of the contract politics and Big Music’s grip on content, the gatekeepers controlled most of the output, and we, the consumers, had to dig deep to come up with new experiences because the technology to explore the world of music was not on our desktop or phone. I remember a time when classic rock seemed to have been stuck in a rut, and the response from hardcore music fans was, “Thank goodness for Iggy Pop!”
The online/digital experience is certainly not the same as my vinyl experience growing up, but I do not consider it to be an inferior. The experience is just different, and in fact, in many ways it is far superior. The world of digital music can be just as delightful and personal as the hold-and-touch vinyl experience. No longer do I spend 3 hours carefully planning and recording a 90-minute cassette – I click-and-drag songs into playlists from my 120 gigs of music in iTunes. I can re-mix my lists and randomize the playback in minutes.
What Steve Jobs has done is innovate and set standards for excellence in the world of digital music, and Apple’s success keeps the competition hot on his heels, giving consumers even more options for varied products and services.
