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AC/DC Guitarist Slams Apple's iTunes: 'We Don't Make Singles, We Make Albums'

September 25, 2008

Telegraph.co.uk reports that Australian hard rockers AC/DC refuse to allow their work to be sold on iTunes because they argue that their albums are complete pieces of work that represent them at a certain time and place in their musical career and are not just a bunch of individual downloads to be cherry-picked by fans.

Because iTunes steadfastly refuses to "lock" any album (the vast majority of songs on the site can be downloaded as individual tracks),AC/DC don't just boycott the online store, but are now active anti-iTunes evangelists.

"We don't make singles, we make albums," guitarist Angus Young tells Telegraph.co.uk. "Way back in the Seventies, we drew these figures on the back of an envelope for our record company.

"We showed them how much they earned from us if we sold one million singles and how much they earned if we sold one million albums. The difference was staggering.

"That was to get them off our back because we only very grudgingly release singles. Our real reason is that we honestly believe the songs on any of our albums belong together.

"If we were on iTunes, we know a certain percentage of people would only download two or three songs from the album — and we don't think that represents us musically."

Young adds that despite pressure from industry figures to make AC/DC's songs available on iTunes, he doesn't believe that being part of the site was crucial to success.

"Since iTunes came into existence, we've actually increased our back catalogue sales without being on the site," he says. "We were sternly warned by our management team and our record label that the complete opposite would be the case."

Read the entire report from Telegraph.co.uk.

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