The Kids Are Alright

Steve Jobs killed the music business, according to Jon Bon Jovi:

“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.”

Easy there Jon, it’s sounding like the grumpy-old-man-phase is starting with you. I find Jovi’s choice of words interesting. He didn’t say Jobs killed music, he said he killed the music business.
By the looks of the comments on that article, it looks as though the kids are alright, Jon.
If we can leave ComplainerVille for a moment and visit CanDoVille, we find Jack White setting up mobile record store at South By Southwest:

Third Man Records’ latest innovation is not another new-fangled type of vinyl like the Triple Decker Record. Instead, it’s the Third Man Rolling Record Store, a mobile record shop which can travel around the country, equipped with for-sale vinyl, a turntable, microphone, and a state-of-the-art sound system for a live music experience at shows and festival. The fully converted delivery ‘record truck’ intends to resemble the look and feel of the label’s Nashville location, and is set to roll into this year’s SXSW on March 16th. Among its offerings are a full menu of Third Man merchandise along with performances, guest DJs, giveaways and ultra-limited records, entirely exclusive to the Rolling Record Store.

I’m the first to admit we’ve lost some things in the world of digital media – fidelity, physicality, album art – but I wouldn’t say the situation is dire. Are kids still discovering music? Absolutely. Is it how Bon Jovi discovered it? No.

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