Comments on: AC/DC's iTunes boycott is on Highway to Hell

Band members say iTunes is just about the money and that they want to protect the album format. Hey Angus, what about protecting consumers?

[sandonet]

Fletch04,

I stopped buying music for a time, right up until I bought an iPod. If you're trying to suggest that I pirate music, you're mistaken.

[ducttape36]

heres the thing:
acdc consider themselves as artists. artists make art. an album is their art. individual songs are like brush strokes on a canvas. or to put it a better way, songs are chapters in a book. sure you can have you favorite parts of a book, but its the whole story that makes it brilliant. and it doesnt need to be a concept album like pink floyds the wall or anything, sonic youth's daydream nation is an incredible piece of work but its not a concept album. its still about the album as a completed piece of work. this can be seen in band evolution too. take the song just off radiohead's the bends and stick it on amnesiac, its still a great song, but it would disrupt the experience of listening to amnesiac.
so from that perspective, yes i understand why ac/dc would want to sell their album as a whole rather than chunks. this theory probably wouldnt hold up when applied to pop and club records, but i think its still a viable reason to buy albums rather than songs. on the other hand, not everyone cares about music as an art form so i guess if they want to break it up then they have a right to do so. but take this idea from the book high fidelity: For a good mix tape, order is everything. think about the last time you made a mix tape and how much effort went into it. now with cds, people can jsut skip through the order you put the songs and completely disregard your work. maybe thats how ac/dc feels. cds killed mixtapes, i think individual songs are killing albums.

[TonyArtiga88]

And yet Black Ice had the second biggest debut of 2008 and the subsequent tour has been selling out. They're obviously doing something right!