Steve Jobs Awarded Posthumous Grammy

An anonymous reader writes "Recognizing Steve Jobs's immense contribution to music, he was the recipient of the Grammy Trustees Award at the Grammy's this past Sunday. The award is handed out annually to 'individuals who, during their careers in music, have made significant contributions, other than performance, to the field of recording.'" Eddy Cue, head of iTunes, accepted the Grammy in place of Jobs.

Comments

Sigh

[Wolfling1]

What a crock. Did we expect any better from the music industry?

Re:Sigh

[Bill, Shooter of Bul]

Its really amazing that they actually gave it to him. The RIAA sort of hates him for making their product more reasonably priced. I pay less now for an album ( on amazon, but itunes if you like) than I did 20 years ago, not accounting for inflation.

Re:Sigh

[UnknowingFool]

Not only that but you can buy the song you want instead of the whole album in most cases. Twenty years ago you had to buy the whole album if a single was not released. Of course there are some songs that are restricted to the album but the vast majority can be purchased as singles. Also independent artists have a global distribution channel that they didn't have before.

Re:Sigh

[ackthpt]

What a crock. Did we expect any better from the music industry?

WTF are you talking about?!?!

They did give a Heavy Metal Grammy to my favorite metal act: Jethro Tull.

Yeah, nothing the Music Industry does through the Grammys surprises me. I gave up on those awards years ago because the awards are more about directing public attention in the direction the industry wants people to look, rather than giving awards based upon actual merit. At least the Oscars still is democratic enough to give awards to people who really do deserve them .. at least, more often than the Grammys do.

That said... who knows, maybe the Oscars will disappoint and hand Steve Jobs a special posthumous Oscar for giving the Computer Generated Animation segment of Cinema a higher watermark, though his support of Pixar.

Re:Sigh

[Karellen]

The award is not for "contributions to the recording industry", it's for "significant contributions, other than performance, to the field of recording."

Steve Jobs' contributions to the "recording industry" may well have been negative or damaging, but they have nothing to do with the field of recording. They were entirely to do with content distribution, which is totally different.

(IANA sound engineer, but I know a few...)

Re:Sigh

[gstoddart]

What a crock. Did we expect any better from the music industry?

Like Steve Jobs and Apple or not ... but if you can't see that iTunes totally changed how a huge number of people get and access their music, it's probably because you refuse to.

iTunes was the first widespread way that people could legally buy (or rip) digital music, and quickly managed to sell billions of songs. And the iPod radically changed how people accessed their music -- yes, there had been MP3 players, but in terms of making it widely usable by non-tech people. nothing else made quite the same impact. And, the iTunes software itself gives a nice, consistent way of dealing with this stuff. And, it also lets yo handle other media types through the exact same interface, and doesn't even require you to know what an MP3 is to use it.

Other than Napster (which got shut down because it was largely being used to pirate songs), name me one way you can get digital music that has had anywhere near the impact of iTunes?

And, yes, I will admit I've had iPods and iTunes since about 2001. But my mother-in-law is making noises about getting an iPod -- because even she understands what it is and what it's for. Do you think she'd know WTF a Zune is? I highly doubt it. And, at the time I chose to go the iPod/iTunes route, Windows Media Player was absolute crap -- I haven't touched it since, so I have no idea what it's like now.

Sure, there are players out there which have some features that a few hard-core geeks want ... but quite honestly, I have only ever known one person who needed Ogg Vorbis support and I can't think of any other features that might be missing from the iPod. (Well, I hear people whine you can't easily copy songs off the iPod, but that's because Apple didn't want to get sued by the music industry, and because iTunes keeps extra information about songs in its database)

I can see exactly why they gave him this award. I mean, if Paris Hilton could use an iPod, how hard could it be? Geeks don't like easy to use devices, but the rest of the consumer world does.

Re:Sigh

[ackthpt]

Today: "Yeah, Steve screwed us, but at least he didn't post the video on YouTube."

2050: "The MPAA and RIAA led the fight to make media cheaper and more accessible worldwide."

Come to think of it, the survivors of the Confederate States of America went through the same mental gymnastics.

iTunes really was a saviour for the music industry, stupidly they clung to the belief their old business model was the only way. Now that they're all rolling in bigger piles of money than before, they want to hold the Kill Switch on our internet because every single one of is is either a Pirate or Pirate in Potentia.

Re:Sigh

[jeffmeden]

Its really amazing that they actually gave it to him. The RIAA sort of hates him for making their product more reasonably priced. I pay less now for an album ( on amazon, but itunes if you like) than I did 20 years ago, not accounting for inflation.

The Planet Money radio show (also a podcast) has had a lot of content lately about where money comes/goes in the music industry. Did you know, for example, that in 2011 Katy Perry's content (her "Teenage Dream" cd and associated singles) netted the recording studio that holds the contract about $8 million (out of about $45 million in sales) and sales via iTunes netted Apple, Inc about $8 million (from about $25M in sales)... So yes, they love him and they hate him, he won just as much profit from the work, by having a glorified web site to sell it on, as the recording studio did that put the whole thing together. The bottom line is though, that without iTunes in place those downloads could have very well not profited the recording industry *at all*...

Re:Sigh

[msheekhah]

They cut out massive costs for manufacturing and wound up making more on iTunes than they margin they made on CD's. Of course they'd love him.

Re:Sigh

[jeffmeden]

Today: "Yeah, Steve screwed us, but at least he didn't post the video on YouTube."

2050: "The MPAA and RIAA led the fight to make media cheaper and more accessible worldwide."

Come to think of it, the survivors of the Confederate States of America went through the same mental gymnastics.

This is OT but one hilarious example is the town of Enterprise, AL which lauded the efforts of the Boll Weevil for providing the shift away from cotton (a troublesome and often low-value crop) toward more diverse crops including peanuts. Mind you, George Washington Carver is generally credited with the popularization of peanut farming across the south in the early 20th century. Oh, he's black? Nope, he had nothing to do with it, it was the pest that destroyed several years of cotton harvests that did it... Better thank that little bug!

Re:Sigh

[AngryDeuce]

I know, right?

Netflix ought to send some representatives down to the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences to make sure they get their honorary Oscar next year.

Re:Sigh

[ackthpt]

They cut out massive costs for manufacturing and wound up making more on iTunes than they margin they made on CD's. Of course they'd love him.

Manufacturing, distributions, logistics, returns, etc. A lot of cost removed, but the time to market is also greatly reduced. Cut an album, master it and publish it online.

Re:Sigh

[GaratNW]

This.

I am not particularly fond of Apple as a company. Their strong arm tactics drive me crazy, and the slavish fan base constantly going on about the innovation they supposedly do (with their devices). But...

The true innovation that Apple has done though had nothing to do with their devices, but the platforms they created when they figured out how to handle the iTunes store, the App store, and those annoying walled gardens we all love to love and love to hate. For all the bad, it really has changed how people think about software and media distribution, and opened up opportunities to a lot of people, when the old distribution channels were only open to the chosen few.

Their devices are not innovative, they are just the most polished and accessible devices pretty much available. No wonder they are so love/hate on Slashdot, but the rest of the world loves em. Combined with one of the most effective distribution channels ever made, it's a pretty remarkable combo for consumers.

Re:Sigh

[ackthpt]

Its really amazing that they actually gave it to him. The RIAA sort of hates him for making their product more reasonably priced. I pay less now for an album ( on amazon, but itunes if you like) than I did 20 years ago, not accounting for inflation.

The Planet Money radio show (also a podcast) has had a lot of content lately about where money comes/goes in the music industry. Did you know, for example, that in 2011 Katy Perry's content (her "Teenage Dream" cd and associated singles) netted the recording studio that holds the contract about $8 million (out of about $45 million in sales) and sales via iTunes netted Apple, Inc about $8 million (from about $25M in sales)... So yes, they love him and they hate him, he won just as much profit from the work, by having a glorified web site to sell it on, as the recording studio did that put the whole thing together. The bottom line is though, that without iTunes in place those downloads could have very well not profited the recording industry *at all*...

Someone is overlooking something, somewhere. The sale of physical recordings passes through distributors, transportation & logisitics and then to the retailer. All of them got a cut, so iTunes simply removed the physical and time to market aspects. One copy becomes n copies when downloaded .. no need to forcast and take a risk on how many pressings are needed, etc.

Re:Sigh

[ackthpt]

From indie music, yes, but then they're not involved in the Grammys. I don't understand what mindset you have to be in where you'll spend the time to watch the Grammys but not spend time discovering the truckloads of great music that the Grammy awards completely ignore (and thus show how stupid and useless the Grammys are).

Agree. The Grammys are a complete sham. It's about promoting the industry and trying to convice the kiddies the music they listen to is award winning stuff.

I'm finding World Music is very rich and there's no end to it. Thanks to the interwebs we now can find recordings of it, where once you had to be there.

Re:Sigh

[paimin]

Well, I AM a sound engineer, and not only are the "field of recording" and the "recording industry" completely interconnected, but particularly in the context of the Grammys the distinction you are making does not exist. To the Grammys, the "field of recording" IS the "recording industry". Perhaps that fact is objectionable, but that has nothing to do with anyone's feelings about Steve Jobs in particular. He fits the award just fine.

Re:Sigh

[19thNervousBreakdown]

It takes 2 hours to watch the Grammys. How much time do you think it takes to wade into an entire new super-genre of music?

Re:Sigh

[joh]

Their devices are not innovative, they are just the most polished and accessible devices pretty much available. No wonder they are so love/hate on Slashdot, but the rest of the world loves em. Combined with one of the most effective distribution channels ever made, it's a pretty remarkable combo for consumers.

I think that many people just confuse "invention" and "innovation":

Wikipedia: "Innovation is the creation of better or more effective products, processes, services, technologies, or ideas that are accepted by markets, governments, and society. Innovation differs from invention in that innovation refers to the use of a new idea or method, whereas invention refers more directly to the creation of the idea or method itself."

Apple might not have invented very much, but Apple surely has innovated a lot, also with devices.

Re:Sigh

[Phat_Tony]

Boll Weevil Monument

Re:Sigh

[gstoddart]

Changing the way a car showroom looks doesn't involve contributing to cars.

Being the first to come up with a wide spread model for having a car showroom, and having any commercial success with it, however, does. I don't believe there were any "car showrooms" before that.

I honestly can't name a single digital music store which existed before iTunes. And I doubt that anything which predated iTunes still exists. Apple also managed to get the big labels to sign up when everyone was trying to figure out how to shut down Napster et al.

As I said, before the iPod there were MP3 players ... but the overall impact of iPods and iTunes vastly outstrips any of those. Most of them aren't even in business any more.

I'll be the first to admit that Apple doesn't invent technology out of the blue that nobody has ever seen ... but what they do is to provide a much better integrated platform that non-technical people can use without fear. It just works, and doesn't do any of that weird technology stuff that people don't want to get involved with.

Name me a single player/software combination that has had nearly as much impact on the market. Because I can't think of any ... the Zune was, comparatively, a joke.

Other than the idiot who got the Zune logo tattooed on his arm and later regretted it, I honestly don't know a single person who has owned one of them. Creative products disappeared a long time ago as far as I know. My wife's old Sony player which used proprietary formats and software wasn't wide-spread. Sure, you can buy cheap ass USB players that you can drag files onto and play, but you're stuck with Media Player or whatever. It certainly doesn't offer you a store or a nice interface.

Apple has sold something like 300 million iPods to date ... who is in second place? The answer, nobody cares enough to find out.

Re:Sigh

[sunderland56]

The award is not for "contributions to the recording industry", it's for "significant contributions, other than performance, to the field of recording."

Steve Jobs and Apple were not in the field of recording, they were/are in the field of sales and marketing.

Did they give a grammy to the founder of Tower Records?

Re:Sigh

[sqldr]

I honestly can't name a single digital music store which existed before iTunes

I cannot name a single good song which got written because of itunes.

Re:Sigh

[mattack2]

I pay less now for an album ( on amazon, but itunes if you like) than I did 20 years ago

Then you were paying too much for your albums. While I couldn't get *EVERY* CD there, I got the vast vast majority of my music collection from BMG, averaging between $5-6 per CD, even including their ridiculous "shipping" charges. I just waited for the regularly occurring "sales", and bought CDs only then. (I got a much smaller proportion from Columbia House, but even they were cheaper than buying every CD at $18.99 or whatever... I only got the ones from them that I couldn't get through BMG.)

Uh, what?

[AngryDeuce]

Steve Jobs contribution to music? What the hell has he done that's relevant to the Grammy's at all?

When's the Vatican going to beatify him? Saint Steve, bringer of attractive electronic devices...it's a miracle!!!!! Quick, start busing cripples to Cupertino! Behold the power of STEVE!!!!

Did Napster get one too?

[VortexCortex]

What about Bit-Torrent, Napster, Limewire, etc? I've got no doubt they've done more to spread the joy of music, especially those who couldn't afford it...

Re:Did Napster get one too?

[squidflakes]

Hold on there Cowboy. The music industry just isn't interested in people who can't afford music. Sharing? That's communism. Setting up an online store where teenagers can run their parent's credit cards without any hassle? That friend, is capitalism, and that's what this award is celebrating.

Re:Did Napster get one too?

[halcyon1234]

What about Bit-Torrent, Napster, Limewire, etc? I've got no doubt they've done more to spread the joy of music, especially those who couldn't afford it...

They already had a copy of the award three days before the Grammys

Re:Oh goodie.

[Anonymous Coward]

iTunes may be a household name, but the award states "career in music" and "significant contributions, other than performance, to the field of recording." Steve Jobs fails on both of those requirements. He may deserve an award of some technical nature for the field of access to purchase music, but iTunes does not merit a Grammy for Steve.

Wrong.

[Picass0]

The istore may not have been the first digital music store but they have made the biggest impact in changing the business model. You can thank Apple for being able to buy the one decent song on a CD for an affordable price.

The iPod also has made it easier for people to have all of their favorites at their fingertips. Before that there were some crappy, poorly designed mp3 players by creative and that's about it. Your other option before ipod were walkman style cassette players.

It's easy to be cynical about the music business, but in this case recognition is deserved.

Re:Wrong.

[ciderbrew]

I wonder if they'll say TPB made the biggest impact in changing the business model? Back, so long ago when the ipod came out Archos were making much better spec units with ogg and other bits. But they just don't have the marketing or designer wank Apple can muster. I've just had a look at their website and apples stuff looks so much better. I'm sure Archos are all a bit better spec and cheaper - but who cares. Both still better than creative and that's about it.

Re:Wrong.

[Anonymous Coward]

You are dead wrong about the iPod and its predecessors. I despise the iPod and blame its popularity for the death of simple drag-and-drop, file/folder interfaces on mp3 players. Instead of just being able to scroll through my files like it's a hard disk, I have to contend with forced categories and mp3s getting lost because of mislabeling and on and on. Not all of us want to be treated like children by our music players.

Sosumi

[bughunter]

And to think, Apple (under Jobs' first stint as CEO) taunted record companies with just one note.

And for people who just don't get it... Grammys are awarded for contributions to the business of music as well as the art. Love it or hate it, iTunes was instrumental (lol) in forcing the record companies to adopt the digital downloads business model.

Re:Did I miss it?

[Sez Zero]

Did I miss the Steve Jobs Christmas album or something?

Yup, my favorite was Turtlenecks and Mistletoe but I really didn't care for Ye Old Yule Log of Personally-Identifiable Location.

This was a Grammy Trustees Award, not a Grammy Award. The Trustees Award goes out to “individuals who, during their careers in music, have made significant contributions, other than performance, to the field of recording.”

Apple Computers won the first technical Grammy too

[readandburn]

In 2002: http://www.apple.com/pr/library/2002/02/26Apple-Wins-2002-Technical-GRAMMY-Award.html

Re:Oh goodie.

[Reverberant]

iTunes may be a household name, but the award states "career in music" and "significant contributions, other than performance, to the field of recording." Steve Jobs fails on both of those requirements. He may deserve an award of some technical nature for the field of access to purchase music, but iTunes does not merit a Grammy for Steve.

It's not "career in music," it's "during their careers in music" which changes the context some. In any event, looking at the effect Jobs had on the music industry, I'd say he was at least as deserving of the award as Dick Clark, Don Cornelius, and Walt Disney (previous recipients).

And Obama got a Nobel Prize...

[sdguero]

These awards organizations are so politicized it no longer matters what their mission statements are. It's a popularity contest, namely in that they will give an award to whoever will make them the most popular, regardless of how much it tarnishes the organization.

Pathetic.

divx/xvid NOT more useful on airplanes

[SuperKendall]

Also, it doesn't/didn't play divx or xvid (not exactly obscure formats and very useful on airplanes)

I would argue that is not correct.

mp4 is a much more useful format for airplanes - not because of the size of the file (though it is also compact) but because there is general hardware support for decoding - which means MUCH longer battery life, the most important factor for using a device on a plane.

Seriously

[LoudNoiseElitist]

Can we let this asshole die already?

You are too hung up on word "recording"

[SuperKendall]

"significant contributions, other than performance, to the field of recording"

You are treating it as though it referred to the ENGINEERING of recording.

If you think about what the statement says, it plainly is using "field of recording" to mean the business of recording, i.e. music industry.

Then it makes sense, since Jobs helped the music industry actually make money from digital sale instead of fearing it.

Also supporting that assertion, is the point that the awards body that defined that term is taking it that was as well. That is a plain indication that it's not just about recording engineering.

You could also look at past recipients...