Jon Bon Jovi Blames Steve Jobs, Apple on Music Downfall
Bon Jovi calls out Apple CEO Steve Jobs as being the thorn on music’s rose
In the eyes of Bon Jovi, Apple is giving music a bad name.
Gone are the days when consumers purchased their music from record shops and retail stores. Instead, they travel to their computers for a quick download without cover art, liner notes and record sleeves. And Jon Bon Jovi, frontman for rock band Bon Jovi, single handedly blames it on Steve Jobs, CEO of Apple Inc. and its popular online music library iTunes.
In an interview with the London-based Sunday Times Magazine, Bon Jovi stated that today’s generation doesn’t konw about “the 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, and looking at a couple of still pictures and imagining it.”
Further in the interview, Bon Jovi singled out Steve Jobs for causing the Roman Empire to fall in the music industry.
‘Entertainment Weekly’ columnist Keith Statskiewicz argues with Bon Jovi’s theory, stating one of the problems behind Bon Jovi’s assessment is that “Jobs is really pretty much the only guy who has managed to successfully monetize online music consumption.”
Statskiewicz added:
“Old media die, new media are born, it’s the circle of iLife: YouTube killed the video star, video killed the radio star, radio killed the traveling minstrel, and minstrelsy killed banging rocks on other rocks to some sort of rhythm. No doubt in fifty years, Justin Bieber will complain in his Rock and Roll Hall of Fame induction speech about how kids no longer know the joy of flipping through an iPod library now that music is just beamed directly into their frontal lobes.”
Some media journalists are calling Bon Jovi an old fart that doesn’t understand the digital age. Bon Jovi, in the same interview, already knew his statements would cause youngsters to revel at his words. “I hate to sound like an old man now, but I am,” he says, “and you mark my words, in a generation from now people are going to say: ‘What happened?”
So what do you think?
Do you think Bon Jovi is living on a prayer or running on a rant?
See anything true about his statements?
Is he unfair with pointing the finger at Jobs?
What’s your take?