The Who frontman Roger Daltrey recently spoke to The Coda Collection and shared his thoughts on the internet and its effects on the music industry, mainly in a negative way.
Whether the digital age helps the circulation of music or makes things more difficult for young musicians has been a heated topic of discussion. KISS’ Gene Simmons reflected his ideas on this issue several times over the years. In 2014, Simmons famously said that ‘Rock is dead’ because record labels do not sufficiently support the new bands and musicians.
He recently repeated his claims by addressing the fans and said they are also guilty because they download the songs for free and enable file-sharing, which also harm the new bands. Gene believes that during the ’60s, ’70s, and ’80s, the musicians had more opportunities to move their careers forward, but now the young musicians have limited chance to stand out although they have the talent.
It seems like Roger Daltrey is also another complainer of a similar issue, as he revealed during the conversation with The Coda Collection. Daltrey was asked about how The Who would be affected by the digital age if they were a new band today. He started to criticize the internet severely and asserted that he never believed it would bring anything good. Roger went on to say that the internet has the potential to destroy everything, and it may even cause the end of humanity.
Here are his harsh statements on the internet when asked about how it would affect The Who:
“I’ve got no idea. You’re talking to the No. 1 hater of the internet. I loathe it. When it started to come forward as this platform it’s become, I never ever thought any good would come of it, and I really still don’t think any good has come of it. I think if we’re not careful, it’s probably the end of our civilization.
Yes, it’s very convenient. But it’s destroying our planet in more ways than one. It’s destroying our brains in more ways than one. It’s destroying our society in more ways than one. So all in all, the sooner it f*cking collapses, the better. And we get back to talking to people face to face, making real music, making things, and putting out products.
Because this streaming shit with musicians – they can’t earn a living making music. Songwriters can’t earn a living on writing songs, and composers can’t earn a living composing music. That can’t go on. That’s got to stop. It’s the biggest fraud – or robbery, whatever you want to call it – in history, what’s happened to the music business.”
Roger Daltrey prefers face-to-face interaction, and he clearly wants to listen to real music. Daltrey seems to agree with Gene Simmons on the issue that streaming harms the music industry because the musicians don’t earn the money they deserve. Under these conditions, it is almost impossible for them to maintain their lives by making music.
You can watch the interview below.
