The Day that the Music Died?

Bon Jovi has stated his opinion that Steve Jobs aka Apple aka iTunes has killed the music industry.  To give him his fair due, I've copied what I'd assume to be a direct quote that states his position.

"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, and looking at a couple of still pictures and imagining it. God, it was a magical, magical time."

There is an awful lot of truth in what Bon Jovi claims.  It's not unlike a conversation that I had with a friend at lunch the other day where the assertion is that book-reading has likewise been affected.  For a true book-reader - or for some of them, there is nothing like the hard-cover book in hand, the sounds of the pages being flipped instead of the buttons being clicked to go from page to page.

That having been said, I would contend that in a lot of ways, the ability to publish and purchase music in a lot of ways has revolutionized the art.  My argument being that it is given independant artists a whole new avenue to get their work out there - that the artists that can't afford the big studio time...well, let's just say that it has evened the playing field a bit.

I don't really mean to contradict Bon Jovi - after all, he is much more qualified than I to speak on the impact of technology on music, but I can't help thinking that his opinion is totall one-sided.  Sure, there are probably areas where music has been hurt, but like so much else, there is good and bad - it's usually a matter of finding that balance - or if seeing which is greater.

I know that personally, I am nuts for discovering new artists on iTunes, without having this immediacy of being able to listen, ponder and purchase, I would have not bought half of my library and I have a big library of music (9,000+ songs at present).

On a side-note, I'm going to cajole my nephew to see if he can offer his professional opinion on this matter.  As he is a lawyer in the music industry, and a musician, I'd love to hear his comments.  However, given that his wife will be having their first child anyday now...this can - and will wait.