5th
Back in 2002 Newsweek put Steve Jobs with one of the first iPods onto their front cover with the words “iPod Therefore iAm”. Back then CD’s were king and nobody except SJ thought that that would change any time soon. There had been several other MP3 Players but none had made a dent in traditional music distribution and indie artists still struggled to be heard. Now, almost 6 years later Steve Jobs (love him or hate him) has taken the music world by storm, changed the way people listen to music, and along the way changed the way artists interact with their audience. In the digital world artists don’t need arrogant record company’s to find an audience any more. With the news this week that iTunes has now overtaken WalMart to become the largest retailer of music in the US (read: biggest in the world) I figured it was time to put a crown on that cover picture of Steve and his iPod. Back then almost no one would have predicted that an electronic device could change culture and that one day a blog would say the iPod is King. Long live the King!