4 Ways Steve Jobs and Apple Changed the Music Industry


During this decade of uncertainty and instability for the music industry, Apple has remained one of few companies that has managed to nail it. Apple has conquered nearly every musical endeavor that it attempted (the only exceptions being its social networking efforts with Ping and its decision to shutter Lala upon acquisition).

Over the past decade-plus, Apple has succeeded in redefining and reinventing certain aspects of the music industry. In particular, Steve Jobs helped create music products and services that impacted four particular areas.

1. Musical Consumption Patterns

It’s hard to imagine life without the iPod today. Although it wasn’t the first portable MP3 player released, the iPod extracted the best elements from its early competitors, and morphed them into a product that defined portable technology and changed the way listeners experience music.

People everywhere began to analyze the device’s impact on consumption patterns. For starters, the iPod meant that a listener could hear any song in his library at any time. This allowed users to create their own personal soundtracks, instead of being constrained by a particular time, place or media.

“I remember the first day I got an iPod,” The Postelles’ David Dargahi recalls. “I was on the crosstown bus in Manhattan during a snow storm and had a sudden urge to listen to some Bob Marley. Needless to stay it brightened up my mood and showed me the power of the iPod.”

In addition, iPods impacted the format of the musical experience. The user could now purchase individual songs and subsequently shuffle through a several-thousand song library. We could hear any given song at any given time with the click of a button. Therefore, records in their classic sense were deconstructed. No longer was the album a mandated listening requirement – playing the duration of a full-length release became an option, not a necessity. As a result, the iPod empowered the single track more than ever before, simultaneously diminishing the impact of the full-length album.

2. Accessibility of Recording and Production Tools

To put it simply, Apple leveled the playing field. The barrier between writing songs, recording and production lessened with the advent of affordable, easy-to-use software programs like Logic and GarageBand. The former became an industry standard for professional audio engineers, while the latter offered an entry into the recording and production world for amateurs. As these programs became available, the lines blurred between professional recording artists and bedroom musicians.

Dave Yang, singer and guitarist of the New York indie-rock group Extra Arms, is a testament to Apple’s impact on emerging musicians. “I've now recorded hundreds of songs on Apple computers, and GarageBand taught me basic recording engineering that got me started,” he explains. “Steve Jobs leveled the playing field for who could make music or art, and allowed me to get my voice out."

Without Apple’s innovations, Warm Ghost’s Paul Duncan doubts his music would sound the same. “I'm not sure I would be making the same music if I hadn't started using Macs to record,” he says. “It can be a cheap way to make a record, which has not just changed the artist's relationship to music, but music's relationship to the world and vice versa (for better or worse).”

3. Online Retail and Distribution Models

While many of Steve Jobs and Apple’s services revolutionized the music industry over the past decade, few have made as profound an impact as now eight-year-old iTunes.

In 2003, Apple launched iTunes and sold single MP3s for $0.99 each. From that point forward, Apple grew the platform into a widely successful and profitable effort, eventually becoming the number one music retailer in the United States.

iTunes stood out among the early online music retailers and has continued to serve as a model for all other Internet media distributors. By being the first online distributor to secure deals with all four major corporate record labels (Universal, Sony, Warner Music Group and EMI), iTunes effectively legitimized digital music sales following the proliferation of illegal sharing sites like Napster.

Since then, iTunes has continued to exist as one of the most stable entities in the far-from-certain territory of online music sales.

4. Live Electronic Performance Becomes Reliable

Before Apple, reliable processing for live electronics was a crapshoot. Granted, PCs have long been used to process effects, sample instrumentation and help electronic artists perform their music live. However, Apple computers like the PowerBook and MacBook became staples at shows, garnering a reputation for their reliability.

Brooklyn electronic musician J. Viewz heavily relies on Apple to craft his works. “Live, I use a MacBook Pro with Ableton,” he says. “In the studio on a Mac pro, Cubase & After Effects.” Viewz is one of countless musicians now dependent on Apple products to manufacture and refine his sound.

Image courtesy of Flickr, Abdulrahman Bin Slmah  www.abdulz.com