Why should Apple be like a traditional music label?

This week The Who guitarist Pete Townshend branded Apple a ‘digital vampire’ akin to ‘Nothern Rock’ in the banking industry. His reasoning by that Apple should act like a traditional music label rather than a music distributor. Amid some amusing quotes, quite possibly taken out of context by the newspapers, such as “...just because iTunes exists in the wild west internet land of Facebook and Twitter..” which made Mr Townshend appear a little behind on youth culture and technology I feel that the musician still rather missed the point if iTunes and Apple.

iTunes isn’t a music label. The iTunes Store is just that, a store. It distributes music in a digital format to play through iTunes on a PC or Mac, or on one of Apple’s portable music devices (iPod, iPhone, iPad...). When Townshend said that iTunes was a "fantastic piece of software" but offered only distribution and royalties to the singers and bands whose work it sold he kinda hit the nail on the head. iTunes is a music distributor – not a music label. Apple sells digital products, including music, and such radical diversification into managing artists.... well it may dilute Apple’s core values and product offering.

But, I do like the idea of Apple setting up some sort of music foundation with support and grants and advice for ‘undiscovered talent’ and who knows maybe that’s in their business plan, After all, Steve Jobs kinda understood about developing and support talent and knew that music was something that brings us together in community.

Let’s not forget though all the smaller artists who have benefitted by having their music used in Apple ads or featured in keynote addresses. What about @songadaymann Jonathan Mann who’s ‘iPhone4’ song opened the antenna-gate press conference and propelled him to internet stardom? You don’t have to turn yourself into a ‘traditional’ music label to support new talent.

It’ll be interesting to see how iTunes develops over the next few years with Tim Cook now at the helm of the good ship Apple. There’s loads of avenues they could go down but I kinda like it just as the place I can buy all sorts of music without complications.