Changes

My generation has lived through some pretty terrific technological breakthroughs. The rise of personal cell phones, affordable laptops, iPods, and now into tablets.  I consider my generation one of the luckiest, because we got to grow up exploring these new technologies as they were happening. Having said that, my generation has also experienced and grown up with the introduction of digital music. From casset to cd now to instant downloads.

Growing up with a music industry that was always shifting was really awesome. For those just a few years older than myself, you remember your first album. The first real music that you owned. I also, remember these milestones for each type of media.
          1st Cassette: Now! That's What I Call Music 5
          1st CD: Backstreet Boys (self titled)
          1st Digital Download: Newsboys Shine: The Hits

Many of us know that the change from records, to cassette, to CD, to digital has been an interesting road to say the least. The following article describes how Apple has changed our lives with the iPod and iTunes. This article describes the iPod/iTunes rise and what it used to be like before them. My favorite thing from this was this, "The evolution of the iPod and iTunes is a microcosm of many of the sweeping changes – in entertainment, business, and culture – of the last decade." And because of these wonderful changes, iTunes sold its 10 billionth song in February of this year.
     http://ipod.about.com/od/glossary/a/how-apple-changed-music.htm

On the other hand, iTunes does present some problems to the digital age. Earlier this year in an interview, Bon Jovi slammed Steve Jobs for taking away he experience of purchasing a record (or CD) in this day. He said, "The beauty of taking your allowance money and making a decision based on the jacket, not knowing what the record sounded like, and looking at a couple of still pictures and imagining it," is gone.
Along with not being able to run up the the record store and have the tangible object, iTunes has created some struggles with the major labels. Earlier this year, Universal created a lawsuit and asked Sony & Warner to get in on it. The issue was about how much the labels can market their products within iTunes. Out of a $0.99 download Apple automatically takes $0.29 off the top and the labels thought that was too much. Universal ultimately dropped their contract with Apple and resigned a month-to-month basis.
     http://www.businessweek.com/magazine/content/07_43/b4055048.htm

iTunes has done a lot for the digital age, but it has also burned a lot of bridges along the way.