Townshend slates "heartless" downloading

Pete Townshend has said downloading music from the internet is "heartless".

The Who guitarist admired Apple's business model for iTunes, but said he considers buying music in traditional physical formats more satisfying.

He wrote on his personal blog: "iTunes simply doesn't have heart. It is software attached to a bank, nothing more, nothing less. Brilliant, but heartless."

Responding to a newspaper article claiming that live performances were more important than recorded music, Townshend said playing a song to a crowd would not always better the record.

"Would you seriously prefer to see me, a thinning-haired old rocker in my 60s, singing songs I wrote when I was in my late 20s about experiences I observed in my audience when we were all in our late teens?" he queried.