‘Jack and Diane’ singer John Cougar Mellencamp has criticised the iPod for making music sound ‘unrecognisable’. In an unashamedly technophobic speech at a Grammy seminar in the US he also claimed that the internet was “the most dangerous thing invented since the atomic bomb” and had already destroyed the music industry, with the film industry next.
Using The Beatles as an example, he explained “You could tell it was those guys singing, but the warmth and quality of what the artist intended for us to hear was so vastly different”.
But even he admitted his fears for the film and music industries were somewhat misleading, because “some smart people, the China-Russians or something” would have already conquered America by hacking its power grid and financial system.
Despite that, he will still be giving his new album ‘No Better Than This’ a digital release, confirming the fact that in the music business, everyone has their price.
