Jon Bon Jovi is being a little bitch

[CorporalClegg]

Mind you, I realize that the vast majority of people aren't like me, and treat music like McDonalds. They don't care about quality or quantity, they just care about what's easy and requires no thought, and like their music spoon fed to them instead of seeking out quality music on their own, and don't take music seriously. But not my problem, right? They don't know what they're missing out on by just listening to one song over and over.

And that's the real point to JBJ's argument: the itunes atmosphere only further promotes that ignorance. Most people don't even give the "other stuff" a second thought. They just click on the songs they know and move on. You can really experience (and by proxy, appreciate) an artists until you've listen to a good portion of the library. It's sort of like seeing a photo of The Night Watch in a magazine, going out and buying a print, and then calling yourself a Rembrandt expert. And that sort of ignorance has already severally damaged the industry.

It has taken the "Single, single, single! Sell, sell, sell!" mentality to a whole level. It's impact over the last decade is painfully obvious. The mission statement has become all about trying to compact "music" into increasingly smaller, prettier (and sterile) packages--ironically, a lot like Apple.

Even as J.T.B. said about the record trading is only half true. Even then, people at least gave an album a full listen and often found one or two other songs they liked. That doesn't happen anymore.

What happens when this starts to trickle down into concerts. The jam is already dead, but pretty soon bands are just going to come on stage, play five songs and pack up. When that happens, people are going to stop going to concerts.

Suppose this phenomenon was to start happening with film. People will just go on the Qucktime page, watch a few trailer, and not even bother going to the movies any more.

I also can't help notice that the problem most seem to have is not JBJ's argument in itself, but that he pointed the finger at Jobs.

 

[Pingfah]

I also can't help notice that the problem most seem to have is not JBJ's argument in itself, but that he pointed the finger at Jobs.

So, what is the problem with that?

Blaming one person for the inevitable march of progress is patently silly, what's wrong with pointing that out?

 

[Spaceman Spiff]

All I know is that I bought an mp3 of one of Bon Jovi's songs from Amazon the other day.

So for all Jon's ranting, he's still prepared to use the new technology to sell his own material. Not that I criticise him for doing so, but you'd think he'd take a more measured view on it all.

To be fair, I doubt he was ranting. Shitty journalism uses words like "rant" and "slam," but I'd bet the interview was little more than a five-minute phone call.

 

[Pingfah]

^ I believe they have harvested the comments from an interview he conducted with the Sunday Times.

It's behind a paywall unfortunately, but listed as a major feature, so I imagine it's fairly extensive in it's original form.

 

[Balrog]

The recording industry has been broken far longer than when iTunes came on the scene. If anything, I'd say Steve Jobs has done the industry a great service - weeding out the crap people would normally have to buy.

Hey Jon - People will start buying whole albums when whole albums are actually worth buying again - something that hasn't happened since probably the 70's or early 80's. BTW - 'Silppery When Wet' wasn't one of them.

 

[PKTrekGirl]

I'm on the fence. I can see what he's saying (and no, contrary to the cynics in the thread, it is NOT about money, I don't believe) because many kids today don't even own a single ENTIRE album. They cherry-pick singles off of iTunes..and don't even ever hear some of the songs on an album - they only hear the Top 40 hits or whatever. And the Top 40 hits are what the record companies THINK they should be. Not necessarily even the best songs on an album. I can think of several albums I own where my favorite song or songs are not the singles that played on the radio, but something I'd have never heard if I'd just downloaded the singles.

I agree with Jon about that piece of the equation. And I also think that the whole purpose of progress, to give us more 'free time' to 'enjoy life' has been obliterated by technology. I would say people are even more 'busy' today than they were 20 years ago, despite all of this 'time saving technology'. The pace of life itself has just quickened to match what technology can do...and as a result, it is sometimes alot more exhausting, just to LIVE than it used to be, because we have so much more coming at us every day in this massive blur of information. And certainly, many experiences we used to have, just to 'enjoy life' - everything from listening to music to hanging out with friends in REAL LIFE, are now abbreviated and sandwiched between other things in a frantic schedule of never-ending activity. So where is all this 'time savings' we were promised? Where is all this 'free time' to 'stop and smell the roses' that we were assured by the purveyors of progress?

I mean, I'm pretty tech-savvy and love all my little toys...but if I compare basic quality of life to what it was 20+ years ago, I'd have to say that I had a lot more time to simply enjoy life back then, despite all of our so-called 'advances'.

Cool toys, after all, are not the things that make one happy in life - that provide meaning. And I think that's what Jon is on about.

However - I also don't think that Steve Jobs is 'to blame' - or solely to blame, anyway. Progress is progress, and if it hadn't been Apple, it would have been someone else.

I do, however, wish that society would stop to consider the idea that not all 'progress' is necessarily good for us, from a quality of life standpoint.

Sadly, we are all too busy texting and emailing and websurfing and GPSing, and filling our lives with all kinds of tech-activity to stop and actually think about it for more than a nano-second. What are we really accomplishing here? Especially in light of the originally stated 'benefits' of all this technology?

 

[Mr. Laser Beam]

The answer seems obvious: If JBJ wants to do his part to make sure people buy more complete albums (instead of singles), he should just MAKE BETTER ALBUMS.

 

[PKTrekGirl]

The recording industry has been broken far longer than when iTunes came on the scene. If anything, I'd say Steve Jobs has done the industry a great service - weeding out the crap people would normally have to buy.

Hey Jon - People will start buying whole albums when whole albums are actually worth buying again - something that hasn't happened since probably the 70's or early 80's. BTW - 'Silppery When Wet' wasn't one of them.

Oh...come on.

I think I can name about 5-6 albums TOTAL, in the history of my entire music-consuming career of 35 years, where every single song was wonderful. So either you have very low standards for 'an album where the whole thing is worth buying' or you have about 10 albums total in your collection.

That 'listening through' thing? For many of us it is part of the experience - to see the whole picture of what a band is about. Not just want the record company wants to force down our throats as the 'hot single'. I don't want to be TOLD what the best songs are, thanks very much. I'd like the opportunity to find that out for myself. Which is why I still buy CDs - even though I use them to populate my iPods.

As for your snide remark about Slippery When Wet, that certainly isn't the point, is it? I mean, in my view, it's an okay album...but certainly not one of the half dozen or so albums I consider to be 'perfect'. However (and this is a very important 'however') it could be for SOMEONE out there, you know? And who are you to say it should be otherwise? That album, after all, was a huge success, so clearly SOMEBODY loved it.

Attacking the guy's work instead of his argument is pretty weak. Especially given that when it comes to art (including music), beauty is in the eye of the beholder.

 

[PKTrekGirl]

The answer seems obvious: If JBJ wants to do his part to make sure people buy more complete albums (instead of singles), he should just MAKE BETTER ALBUMS.

ALSO not the point.

He is not talking about Bon Jovi albums here - he is talking about the entire music business and the whole music listening/appreciating experience.

Look, at this point, Jon Bon Jovi has more money than God. So this is NOT about his pocketbook. I think he is genuinely concerned about the McDonalds mentality state of society..and expressed that concern more specifically with regard to an issue he knows a lot about - the music industry. Now, maybe the shot at Jobs was off-base, but I don't think the overall argument he was making is out of line AT ALL. It's an interesting POV, actually - one worth considering.

Maybe if you stopped trying to make cute remarks for 10 seconds and actually address the larger issue, this could be an interesting conversation, rather than a bunch of silly posturing.

But I guess that is pretty much impossible on this board anymore.

 

[Sector 7]

^A few of us agree with you, PKTrekGirl. I do think Jon Bon Jovi makes a good point about how people listen to music today versus getting the complete album experience.

As for Slippery When Wet, it was one of the few albums where everyone I knew could sing along with every song on the album. Many a road trip was made enjoyable while rockin' to Slippery When Wet. Then again, I was always part of the cool crowd in the 80s... maybe it was different for nerds?

 

[kitkat]

It's a good thing kids of the 80s like myself didn't make copies of store bought cassette tapes or record songs off the radio. Imagine if we did, we'd be no better than kids today!

Didn't you hate it when the DJ wouldn't STFU?

 

[Mr. Laser Beam]

This is not Steve Jobs' fault. The customer always wants convenience, and whichever company gets there first, will make the money from fulfilling that need. Simple as that.

Now, it may be tempting for some of the old guard to rant against the immediate gratification culture (usually while reminding us that back in their day, kids walked to school uphill both ways during a snowstorm and they got through an entire year on just six squares of toilet paper AND BY GOLLY, THEY LIKED IT ), but that can't be blamed on any one entrepreneur. It's simply progress.

 

[Pingfah]

The answer seems obvious: If JBJ wants to do his part to make sure people buy more complete albums (instead of singles), he should just MAKE BETTER ALBUMS.

ALSO not the point.

He is not talking about Bon Jovi albums here - he is talking about the entire music business and the whole music listening/appreciating experience.

Look, at this point, Jon Bon Jovi has more money than God. So this is NOT about his pocketbook. I think he is genuinely concerned about the McDonalds mentality state of society..and expressed that concern more specifically with regard to an issue he knows a lot about - the music industry. Now, maybe the shot at Jobs was off-base, but I don't think the overall argument he was making is out of line AT ALL. It's an interesting POV, actually - one worth considering.

I do agree he's right about the big picture, but I don't think it's anything we haven't heard from numerous musicians, critics and consumers over the years, and I think it's a fairly obvious conclusion to draw. Further i'm not sure it is fair to level the Mcdonalds culture argument here, because what has happened is a natural progression of technology that has brought the singles buyers and less serious customers to the forefront of the market, but as noted by others, they already existed.

The Steve Jobs comment caught my eye because it was the only particularly original point he made, albeit somewhat ridiculous

I really like Slippery When Wet though, and New Jersey & Keep the Faith. I think it is unfair for people to accuse them of making throwaway album with a few good tracks, IMO there is very little filler on those albums.

 

[FPAlpha]

Mind you, I realize that the vast majority of people aren't like me, and treat music like McDonalds. They don't care about quality or quantity, they just care about what's easy and requires no thought, and like their music spoon fed to them instead of seeking out quality music on their own, and don't take music seriously. But not my problem, right? They don't know what they're missing out on by just listening to one song over and over.

And that's the real point to JBJ's argument: the itunes atmosphere only further promotes that ignorance. Most people don't even give the "other stuff" a second thought. They just click on the songs they know and move on. You can really experience (and by proxy, appreciate) an artists until you've listen to a good portion of the library. It's sort of like seeing a photo of The Night Watch in a magazine, going out and buying a print, and then calling yourself a Rembrandt expert. And that sort of ignorance has already severally damaged the industry.

It has taken the "Single, single, single! Sell, sell, sell!" mentality to a whole level. It's impact over the last decade is painfully obvious. The mission statement has become all about trying to compact "music" into increasingly smaller, prettier (and sterile) packages--ironically, a lot like Apple.

Even as J.T.B. said about the record trading is only half true. Even then, people at least gave an album a full listen and often found one or two other songs they liked. That doesn't happen anymore.

What happens when this starts to trickle down into concerts. The jam is already dead, but pretty soon bands are just going to come on stage, play five songs and pack up. When that happens, people are going to stop going to concerts.

Suppose this phenomenon was to start happening with film. People will just go on the Qucktime page, watch a few trailer, and not even bother going to the movies any more.

I also can't help notice that the problem most seem to have is not JBJ's argument in itself, but that he pointed the finger at Jobs.

"The Sky is Falling" type arguments are as old as humanity itself.. every older generation has complained about the younger one and claimed they would ruin civilization as soon as they get to run it.

Nothing has changed in the thousands of years of civilization and never was it true. Times will always change and new people bring in new ideas and sometimes those are very good and sometimes they aren't.

With music downloading it's like this.. most of them are teenagers and the "old fart" in me (i'm 35) says arrogantly that they haven't developed their musical taste fully and are going the junk food way with music that further encouraged by American Idol and all these other casting shows where they hype up a few candidates and then drop them after a year because of non-existant sales (sometimes even faster).

Now i was like that in the 80s and early 90s.. listening to all kinds of shit as well as some really good music but as the years passed by i abandoned the shit and developed my musical taste and stuck with it.

The same will happen for the current teenagers when they outgrow Justin Bieber, Miley Cyrus etc and turn to real music with lasting value.
However currently they are driving the sales in iTunes because of their large number and it will stay that way. Music always was business first and so the industry will manipulate its customers as long as they can.. most of us escape that to a degree when we grow up, some never do.

So Jon can stuff his rant where it doesn't shine and start making good music again.. most of JBJ´'s songs in the 00s sucked anyway when they hopped in the ballad-sugar train and almost only made romantic love songs (much like Aerosmith).

 

[J.T.B.]

Even as J.T.B. said about the record trading is only half true. Even then, people at least gave an album a full listen and often found one or two other songs they liked. That doesn't happen anymore.

People gave full albums a listen because they had the full album in hand. If they had better options for singles, many would have purchased them that way. The CD single was a perfectly viable format, why didn't it catch on? Because the recorded music industry actively discouraged it, because it wasn't as profitable as the higher priced album-length CD.

I also can't help notice that the problem most seem to have is not JBJ's argument in itself, but that he pointed the finger at Jobs.

I am not particularly a fan of Jobs and I have real issues with iTunes and won't use it, so I don't care if he's criticized. I just don't think it fits the situation.

I am an album-oriented listener, even to the point of dviding my album audio files into sides and listening to them that way. I have an average of 23.6 tracks per artist in my music library, which is probably 95% ripped from CD. But the vast majority of music consumers are not like me, and never were. Most want one song they heard on the radio, or in a movie or on TV, or at a club, and couldn't care less about the arc of the full album or analyzing the artist's development form earlier work. But so what? Their money is worth the same as mine. I can look down my nose and say that they don't really appreciate music, but, in that sense, they never did anyway. The overwhelming majority of music purchasers have always been casual listeners. Sales were tilted toward album-length recording because of format constraints as mentioned above, not because of consumer demand. Let's not let our nostalgia for the old days make them into something they were not.

Consumers make purchases that work for them and the way they consume. A lot of people consume differently from me, but I can't really see a downside in more consumer choice.

Gone are the days of bringing the new LP home form the store, slitting the cellophane, gingerly sliding the disc out of the sleeve and carefully placing it on the spindle, and then sitting in the darkened family room and soaking it all in over an hour or two. I enjoyed that experience as much as anybody, but times change. You might as well blame the Walkman 30 years ago for making music so personally portable that it could become background rather than the primary focus of attention. Or you could blame cassette auto-reverse for eliminating the distinction between Side A and Side B, when you could take a breather and think about the last track before launching into the lead-in on the next side. But technology changes, people make it work for their uses, and somebody finds out how to make money from it. Life goes on.

--Justin

 

[barnaclelapse]

I can kinda understand the frustration of music being driven by single tracks instead of the album. Because there really is nothing quite like an album that is amazing from start to finish. However times change. The ability to listen to an entire album and enjoy that album as several brilliant songs creating an extraordinary singular narrative hasn't gone anyway. Anyone can do that anytime they want. There's just more options now. I don't have a problem with that, and Bon Jovi should be grateful he even has a career.

There is also the simple fact that Bon Jovi was never a band that did albums as narrative. They were, and are, a singles band.

You could almost excuse his fellow Jersey resident Springsteen making this complaint, insofar as Bruce gave us album length narratives like "Born to Run," and "Nebraska." But Bon Jovi of all people to make this complaint just seems silly.

Agreed. That's an excellent point.

Basically I think we can all agree that Jon Bon Jovi should quit whining and thank the Lord he still has a career.

 

[Pingfah]

Gone are the days of bringing the new LP home form the store, slitting the cellophane, gingerly sliding the disc out of the sleeve and carefully placing it on the spindle, and then sitting in the darkened family room and soaking it all in over an hour or two.

Not for me, I do that all the time.

Except now I have to order them off Amazon because the shops don't sell them.

 

[Robert Maxwell]

I do so love the entitlement mentality of musicians like Bon Jovi.

If you want people to buy a whole album, make a whole album that's worth buying. I'm certainly not against buying an entire album if I like the songs--I do it pretty regularly. But if only one or two songs are any good, then I'll just buy those and save myself the money.

And if you really don't want to sell your music track-by-track, don't put it on services like iTunes and Amazon. Sell only full albums. It's not like anyone is forced to sell their songs individually for 99 cents each. You agreed to that when you signed the fucking contract.

Just sounds like he's upset the music industry doesn't run things the way he'd like. Well, tough shit, bro.

 

[J.T.B.]

Gone are the days of bringing the new LP home form the store, slitting the cellophane, gingerly sliding the disc out of the sleeve and carefully placing it on the spindle, and then sitting in the darkened family room and soaking it all in over an hour or two.

Not for me, I do that all the time.

Except now I have to order them off Amazon because the shops don't sell them.

That's basically the way I listen to something new, too, but not vinyl. I never was one who found the merits of vinyl were enough to outweigh its limitations and inconveniences.

--Justin

 

[Pingfah]

^ It's not so much about the sound quality for me either, I don't have audiophile ears, just regular ones.

I just love the whole package you get with a record, the smell, the ritual you have to go through to play them. And people spend huge amounts of money on getting supremely talented artists to create wonderful artworks for them, and then shrink them down to a 5" square or dispense with them entirely, thats such a shame IMO.