Another of iTunes’ famous hold outs has finally woken up to the reality of the music business: singer-songwriter Bob Seger has finally given a thumbs up to Apple to start selling his songs.
Although Seger hasn’t hit iTunes yet, he should be live on iTunes Tuesday with his two multiplatinum concert albums, Live Bullet and Nine Tonight. They will be simultaneously available on Amazon MP3.
Even better news for Seger fans, the songwriter promises to use iTunes in the future to release existing works, as well as unveil songs from his backlog of unreleased material in “drips and drabs.”
What caused Seger to finally shift to iTunes? Reality, according to his manager, Ed “Punch” Andrews.
“[iTunes] is probably the best delivery system ever invented, but the industry gave up a lot of quality to have that system,” Andrews said. “At some point, if this is what everybody is accepting, we know we have to keep current. But if we were going to do this, we needed to make sure it was as great as we could make it.”
Seger does have a point: iTunes’ emphasis on the single as the unit of measurement of an artist’s work, not an album, can “erode the artistic integrity of albums,” as he says.
“This delivery system is about singles,” said Andrews. “Something like ‘Turn the Page’ would never have occurred if this had been the way of the world back then.”
He’s right in his own way, of course. If Apple suddenly decided iBooks would only sell books by the chapter, you’d suddenly see novels fade in popularity compared to short story collections. But I think what Seger misses is that tracks already were the dominant unit of musical measurement for more casual listeners… and it’s radio that is responsible for that, not iTunes.
If you want to release an album is the post-iTunes age, well, that’s something you can still do, as you always could. You just need to accept that unlike the “golden” years, you can no longer force everyone who wants to hear just a couple tracks to buy the full album at full price.
[via Detroit Free Press]
John Brownlee is a writer for Fast Company, and a contributing writer here at CoM. He has also written for Wired, Playboy, Boing Boing, Popular Mechanics, VentureBeat, and Gizmodo. He lives in Boston with his wife and two parakeets. You can follow him here on Twitter.
35 responses to “Bob Seger Finally Caves, Comes To iTunes Starting Tomorrow”
*crickets*
I bought Seger on iTunes years ago…
Wouldn’t make much of a difference to me because I never bought his Albums, CD’s and don’t imagine I’ll be download any of his tunes. So for both of us, it’s a win/win situation.
who? lmao,,, no seriously the music dinosaurs need to wake up,, or else they are gonna drown in mud!
uh-hu… “but the industry gave up a lot of quality to have that system”… yeah, that explains why Bob never came out with a greatest hits album… oh, wait…Â
Finally some hip new music for seniors.Â
Bob Seger’s anti-iTunes stance always baffled me. He sold “Like a Rock” to Ford a million years ago, and was an arena-rock artist for decades. He never made a Lou Reed “album as novel” record. Seriously, does he really think fans paid attention to his novel-like set list while passing a joint at the Springfield Civic Center?
Over the years, Apple has made subtle changes to iTunes to improve the baseline audio quality and better promote albums versus singles:
– Industry standard .m4a (AAC) file compression always has provided far better audio quality than comparable MP3 files.
– iTunes Plus songs (lower compression/higher quality) are now standard.
– The built-in iTunes Wish List tool now only allows you to save albums (not individual songs) to the list, which is stored in “the cloud.” Customers used to be able create their own Playlist “wish list” which stored sample songs on our own, local copy of iTunes. No more. Once an album is placed on your Wish List, you still can choose to purchase songs individually, but this subtle change gives listeners a second opportunity to consider entire albums. This is a positive that benefits both customers and artists.
Slowly, Apple is making changes that refine what long has been a terrific, consumer-centric music service.
I’ve noticed that just about every artist that refuses to
sell their songs digitally in the name of the “artistic integrity”  had no problem letting their songs be broken
out for radio play in the 70’s and 80’s (radio play which in turn led to the
purchase of full albums because that’s all that was available at the time).   The
thing about integrity is you either have it or you don’t.  You don’t
get to have it when faced with the prospect of lower profits off of single
sales and suddenly find your integrity when you stand to make tons of money off
of complete albums.
Â
I continue to buy complete albums because the artists I love
still make great albums… even in the age of file sharing and iTunes. The fact that I could just buy one or two songs
has not stopped these artists from continuing to believe in the art of the
album.  But I also think a la carte purchases have
been a godsend for casual listeners and I suspect that what really has the Bob Segars
and AC/DC’s of the world panties in a wad is that digital music has given power
to the fans and taken it away from the record companies and artists.  You can’t
force people to buy your overpriced bundles anymore.  One day the cable companies will find
themselves in the same situation.
So why complain about iTunes and the single when I’m sure this baffoon was alive when the single as a vinyl album was out? Remember the 38? Or am I showing my age here?
One of my old time faves — but, sorry Bob — due to you refusing to go on iTunes I found other places to ‘acquire’ the songs I wanted. Would have happily paid for them like I did 612 other songs I bought.
Artists can moan all they want about albums being the measuring stick of their work but I can’t tell you how many CD albums (remember those?) I bought that had nothing but filler songs. I personally am glad I can vote with my dollars as to which songs I would like to buy a la carte if the album doesn’t offer what I feel it should for the price. There is the break over price where you can purchase the album cheaper than the number of songs you like individually, but the artist adding something special for the album purchase as an incentive is a plus in my book. I have no problem buying songs, I just want it to be easy,affordable, and digital.
Unfortunately, these days “Night Moves” is a reference to nocturnal urinary incontinence.
“Like a Rock” – enlarged prostate.
you mean the pistols?
I remember the 45, and if that’s what you mean, you are showing your age: too young to remember.
Another dinosaur. Â What is he like 75 years old now? Â
Bob Seger was both old hat and deliberately old-fashioned in the 1980’s already. Â I doubt there is anyone left alive who both likes Bob Seger and purchases digital music. Â He missed the sweet spot for those kind of sales by about fifteen years.
Our long national nightmare is over! Â Next to relent: Ray Stevens (finally, a high quality digital version of Gitarzan).
Seger apparently is referencing the album rock format where radio station DJ’s deliberately played songs that the record companies were NOT issuing as commercial singles. I assume he forgot that before DJ’s tore through vinyl albums looking for songs that they preferred to play on the air, in the ’70s, that the norm was the 45 single. Music buyers in general looked for the song and not the album…then album sales began to overtake everything and the single became obsolete…but then at some point during the last 10 years or so the on-line single became almost like the 45 single of a previous time. Now that casual listeners can pick and choose which songs they want to purchase from a digital album I can understand why some artist’s feel it takes away from potential success of the complete album but the reality is the ever increasing music purchasing technology is a blessing or a curse depending on one’s viewpoint. I personally buy full albums of the artists that I’m a fan of but if a song comes along by someone I’m not necessarily a die hard fan of I’ll purchase the single.Â
All i can say is, thank you ITunes