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Highway To Sell: AC/DC iTunes Snub Finally Over
Hugh Pickens "The LA Times reports that after years of stubbornly arguing that iTunes was, in the words of singer Brian Johnson, 'going to kill music if they're not careful,' AC/DC has reached a deal with Apple to sell its entire catalog — 16 studio albums, four live albums and three compilations — through the service. AC/DC was one of the last high-profile holdouts from the digital music marketplace, outlasting the Beatles, Led Zeppelin, and Pink Floyd, all of which jumped into the realm long after much of the population had accepted the downloading future. Angus Young, AC/DC's lead guitarist (known for wearing a schoolboy's uniform when performing), had long argued against hawking the band's music because he didn't like the idea of allowing for individual song downloads — submitting that the group's albums were designed to be listened to from beginning to end. 'It's like an artist who does a painting,' he said in 2008. 'If he thinks it's a great piece of work, he protects it. It's the same thing: This is our work.'"
He's against it because all AC/DC songs sound exactly the same. Download one and you've got them all.
It follows this pattern:
NAME OF THE SONG!!!!
you got me singing
NAME OF THE SONG!!!!
now you're listening to
NAME OF THE SONG!!!!
If that were truly the case (must be played in order), AC/DC would have never had singles, music videos or radio play.
Morans.
...submitting that the group's albums were designed to be listened to from beginning to end
So, where was all the outrage when radio stations were playing one song at a time? You know, the one or two good songs that people actually wanted to listen to?
HOKEY POKEY!
This looks like a Hokey Pppokey crowd!
Bazinga.
Hey guys, it's cool that you held out for so long and were all principled, but I've already got copies of most of your work.
I paid somewhat less than what iTunes is suggesting. I guess you win.
---
ECHELON is a government program to find words like bomb, jihad, plutonium, assassinate, and anarchy.
I really don't think The Beatles' situation would be called a "hold out" lol.
The only thing that's ruined music is the boring croonings of these severely overrated hacks.
I don't know if AC/DC was just before my time (I'm 30 FFS) but AC/DC is seriously some of the most boring and bland "Metal" I've ever encountered. Maybe it was edgy back in the day, whatever. I don't know.
Them and KISS. Well, they have a fun shock/brand thing going but that just puts them on the same level as Gwar. And I'd much rather go to a Gwar concert. Being fed to the giant foam rubber world maggot in an early 90's concert is one of the highlights of my life.
Easy there, Brian... Back in Black is a good CD, but it isn't exactly Dark Side of The Moon.
Seriously lets get on with solving some real problems...
Once old (and wise) man said to me: "people are not getting better with age". Now, old man myself, the wisdom of this saying is getting to me more and more.
With age we do not get wiser, we do not get better, we do not get stronger, we do not get more moral.
Instead of wisdom we get inability to learn, so we only can teach. Instead of getting more moral, we just get more nostalgic of the non-existent times.
I do not believe in karma. "Funny"=-6. Do good and forbid evil. Yours, Oft-Offtopic Flamebaiting Troll.
Vinyl records have index marks where the grooves are more widely spaced. CDs have index marks in the table of contents. If you want to make your album a unit, make it one continuous mix like a Mike Oldfield album.
Beings stubborn cost them a lot of money
Attention artistic narcissists:
In short, your right to swing your art ends at my nose. That is all.
It was a fast machine, she kept her buffers clean
Was the biggest damn kernel that I ever seen
It wasn't crap from Fry's or a Rasberry Pi
Knocking me out with those solid state drives
Bootin up from the share, fast as a mac book air
Looked for the root folder but I was already there
The case started shaking, doom started quaking
My mind was aching, we were making it
And you shook me all night long
Yeah, you shook me all night long
Sorry guys, your work was good 20-30 years ago, but most of us don't care anymore.
And the few of us who do care already have your stuff on CD and can rip it ourselves, or buy a used CD and rip that.
1) ACDC is a real band. As in its all about the music. Its not like they ever went around suing people for downloading etc. To be frank, I don't think they really care. They have plenty of money, they sell consistently well. Live shows sell out in minutes, memorabilia sales are star wars big. They even still put out new albums.
2) People who are fans of ACDC will gladly listen to their music in any format and will still buy records or CD's or tapes.I guess bikies have Ipods now?
3) I too find the idea of a great acdc song blasting out of some gen z tiny earphones right next to some gawdaful pop track by my chemical romance sick that I wouldn't want to see it on itunes either.
4) Itunes killed the record store. Which sucks.
Oh and the original article. Big balls is awesome. They don't want mass market pop appeal. They want fans who appreciate big balls for what it is. Whats next, you don't like Rosey? TNT, back in black, razors edge? You don't like dirty deeds?! Im sorry, you don't deserve to listen to acdc. Unless you can kick over a table in a pub out the back of rural Australia, jump up and sing a very gutteral version of dirty deeds (the entire album) then you can't be an Australian citizen.
Obviously the citizenship requirements for the USA are a lot less demanding.
in the words of singer Brian Johnson, 'going to kill our obsolete business model if they're not careful,'
FTFY
When I have a show of my paintings I don't insist someone buy all of them or none of them. I want people to buy the one work that speaks directly to them. Some works never sell and they are taken out of their frames and put away for posterity. I care very deeply what happens to my art work but I certainly don't worry about how people view it. That they do view it is what matters to me.
— submitting that the group's albums were designed to be listened to from beginning to end.
I could easily see that argument for a Pink Floyd album, but AC/DC? Really?
I mean, seriously. This is from a fan. I've probably listened to the Back in Black album straight through cover to cover more than all but two or three people walking this earth, band members included. I'd agree that the song ordering on there is probably better than a random one would be (note: the "Title track" leads off side 2 rather than 1, which is interesting, but it works).
But would I ever sit down and argue with someone that its a travesty to listen to "Shake a Leg" without following it up immediately with "Rock and Roll Ain't Noise Pollution"? Hell no! Just listen to it and enjoy.
Come on come on, lovin' for the money
Come on, come on, listen to the money talk
it from view?
Thirty-year-old rock group with fifty-year-old members:
"I'm on the sidewalk to heck"
XKCD:Xeric Knowledge Comically Dispen
Yeah, because you really can't appreciate the subtle nuances of "Sink the Pink" unless you hear it after "Danger" as originally intended in 1985. Or, um, after "D.T." in 1986. Right. Anyway...
I love their music, but seriously, he's full of shit.
Dear Slashdot: next time you want to mess with the site, add a rich-text editor for comments.
I think the point behind the "not breaking it up into single songs" was meant more for people being able to BUY a single song at a time...playing a song on the radio or making a video is promotion for the album so it's different.
Oh, and AC/DC is STILL one of the best rock bands ever! Never changed their sound or style and you get what you get every damn time...so suck it! Lol!!
The pinball game came out with mix of music from there albums and you get the pick songs as well.
DSOTM is best played in the car when it's foggy.
(Try it sometime, it's surreal)
... has already converted their DVD's or downloaded flac's (or mp3's) of them already.
Be seeing you...
Funny because I got a huge billboard sign next to me saying "AC/DC Now on iTunes!"
The long form factor where anyone listens to an entire album has been dead for years. Dead Dead Dead. No one even listens to whole tunes either. And why bother, it's all shit.
There's one thing I can always count on Slashdot for, be it quantum physics, obscure linux distros, a complex mathematical proof, or AC/DC music - there's always a hardcore expert that provides needed insight. LOL
Better known as 318230.
Let me paraphrase:
Musicians are artists who are trying to protect their art. That's like an artist who's trying to protect their art.
This analogy is similar to using a word in the definition of itself.
Why does everyone seem to think that Pink Floyd is the end-all-be-all when it comes to conceptual albums? Aside from The Wall and Momentary Lapse of Reason I can't think of an album The Floyd has done that the track order really matters. Not all concept albums demand that you play them in order, only that you understand that they all have a common theme.
Pink Floyd's concept albums are just accessable. Nothing more, nothing less. They're not the best, they're not the worst. They're not rare strokes of genius that is limited to the format.
"Come on, come on, listen to the money talk"
Who was waiting for this? Are people still excited about music getting downgraded to compressed formats? You people really don't listen to albums and CDs? You really listen to MP3s and compressed AAC using devices with DACs as poor as those found on RealTek chips and built into iPods? Really? This story and almost all of the comments have me baffled. I thought Slashdot was for nerds.
Cloudiot: A person who does not see offsite storage as a way to lose control over access to his or her own data.
Really? You'd reorder the tracks on "Wish You Were" Here willy nilly? The album that is bookended with a continuation of the same song, and several of the tracks actually smothly transition into each other? You're cut up and reorder that?
That's it AC! I've had it. I've put up with your sillyness for over a decade with no complaint, but you are now officially dead to me.
Apples model .. where apple makes all the money is NOT helping artists make more music.
So the Jimi Hendrix estate must still be holding out... or is Jimi's catalogue only not available in iTunes Australia?
This happens on many albums. Some time ago I read the reason for that, but I forgot what it was. It's not only on vinyl; even on CD the title track is often around track 6-7.
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I torrented them all years ago because of it.
Um, me? I got better things to do than go to Wal-Mart, buy the CD, rip it to iTunes just so I can listen to music two, maybe three times a month. I've waited for AC/DC to join iTunes so I can just click a mouse a couple of times and have the songs I want, and only those songs. If your perspective is different, sit back and marvel at the fact that we're all unique "works of art" in the tapestry that is humanity. Holy crap - what's in that caffeine pill I just took...
Producing art doesn't automatically give you control over the preferences of others. Insisting that you should be able to force people to listen to entire albums end-to-end, when your clients want to listen to them differently, will do nothing but alienate you from your source of income.
If you want to be famous, let THEM tell YOU what they want. And then deliver that.
What's Wal-Mart?
Cloudiot: A person who does not see offsite storage as a way to lose control over access to his or her own data.
...eventually, muthafukas wanna get paid!
[...] submitting that the group's albums were designed to be listened to from beginning to end. 'It's like an artist who does a painting,' he said in 2008. 'If he thinks it's a great piece of work, he protects it. It's the same thing: This is our work [...]
Apparently their work is worth protecting, until the pricetag is high enough.
Love AC/DC hope they get paid. Hate Apple, hope they don't. Apple is a communist outfit, where the totalitarian rules and the captive populace are the prison guards. Just like Russia lol. Slow stupid powerful and dangerous, enemies of freedom, both Apple and Russia.
AC/DC being apostles of freedom had multiple reasons for waiting lol.
AC/DC were so smart, never to release their songs on the radio, as singles, or in movie soundtracks. By demanding "whole album or nothing" they really proved their point on this whole issue.
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"I'm sick and tired of people saying that we put out 11 albums that sound exactly the same. In fact, we've put out 12 albums that sound exactly the same."
I quit purchasing IP from clueless labels (read members of RIIA) long ago. I take nothing from them, I give nothing to them. If I didn't already own a CD from that artist so I could legally rip the music, I went without. I'd switch them off if I was listening to the radio. At worst, I'd buy a used copy for gifts, but even that made my teeth hurt.
Necessity is the plea for every infringement of human freedom. It is the argument of tyrants; it is the creed of slaves.
Wish You Were Here, Animals, the final cut (yeah I know, arguably a Waters solo album), Dark Side of the Moon. Pretty much everything from DSotM forward.
The Christian Right is Neither (Christian nor right). See: Matthew 23, Matthew 25, Ezekiel 16:48-50
...Which points to another sillyness about this supposed qualm of theirs.
Lead-off album tracks are sort of your intro into the work. They set a tone. Now with vinly LP's you have two such tracks, because you have to stop and flip the LP to listen to the other side. So putting your title track as the lead-off to side two still makes a statement. It mostly works fine on cassette too. Even if your player auto-switches, there's a delay there (sometimes sizeable if side 2 is longer than side 1).
But CD's don't have sides. So what was previously your opening tone-setting statement for side two is now just another song in the middle of the album somewhere.
So where was AC/DC's outrage about CD's? Why didn't they hold out for years against this horrible perversion of the artistic statement of their song ordering? It couldn't have had anything to do with the fact that CD's ended up being more lucrative than vinyl, could it?
Seriously guys. I luv' ya, but STFU and take your money.
So where was AC/DC's outrage about CD's? Why didn't they hold out for years against this horrible perversion of the artistic statement of their song ordering? It couldn't have had anything to do with the fact that CD's ended up being more lucrative than vinyl, could it?
I don't suppose anyone's performed an examination of their CDs to find out if they left a long gap to emulate the vinyl flip :)
"You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
I laughed out loud. No, really.
On the other hand, some people really do just calcify.
"You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
Heh. Well, if by "examination" you mean putting it in a car CD player and listening to it over and over, the answer is "yes", I have certianly done that, and "no", they did not do that.
Heh. Well, if by "examination" you mean putting it in a car CD player and listening to it over and over, the answer is "yes", I have certianly done that, and "no", they did not do that.
That'll do. That seems to me to prove conclusively that they are full of shit; they didn't even use the means available to them to preserve the experience.
"You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
I bought a used copy of the CD and ripped it years and years ago. I'm lazy enough I would have just bought it had it been available on iTunes. Net revenue for you $0.