As we all know, the most informed opinions regarding how the internet has influenced music in recent years often come from bands whose career’s began prior to 1987. Truth.
Now, Anthrax’s drummer Charlie Benante has shared his very own hot take on what sector of the digital world is responsible for music’s demise, taking aim at technology and cultural conglomerate, Apple.
In an interview with The Metal Command, the trash metal muso has opened up about the state of the industry, saying that music becoming freely accessible was a “stupid” idea with the industry now scrambling to pick up the pieces.
“What happened with the music business is the ground kind of fell out from beneath all of us, and everybody kind of scrambled to think of ways of compensating for what had just happened or what had taken place.”
“And I think some bands who thought they were maybe smarter than other bands started to do things where, ‘We’ll give the music for free,’ and, ‘You tell us what you wanna pay for it,’ and I thought that was really stupid to do.”
He also that the advent of downloads and streaming “de-valued” music, comparing it to eating at a restaurant for free.
“Maybe they thought that was a great thing at the time, but I felt it was just devaluing music and what we were doing. I mean, why… why would you do that? Does that mean that all these chefs from around the world are saying, ‘Just come to my restaurant. If you like the food, just pay what you want or don’t even pay at all. Don’t worry about it. I’ll survive.’ I just thought that was a real ignorant thing to do.”
Benante also added that Apple was one of the biggest hands what helped “destroy music”, saying “as much as everybody loves Apple, I also think Apple had a big hand in destroying music, and nobody really says that; everybody’s still on the side of Apple. But I believe Apple was one of the big hands in this that helped destroy music.”
“The record companies had a big hand in it, because they got greedy. The artists got greedy when they felt, ‘Oh, I can get a three-album deal for $75 million,’ but at the end of the day, if they’re taking all that money, what happens to the lesser-known bands who are striving to become something? Where does that money come from? I mean, it was just such a mess, and it really dug a hole for itself. And now who is paying for it? Everybody.”
