In an interview with Rolling Stone magazine, Tom Petty recently said, "iTunes is a great idea." Mr. Petty likened iTunes to the early days of pop and Rock-n-Roll when singles were a prime vehicle for selling albums, though he tempered that praise by saying iTunes did not promote the album as an art form.

The comments came in response to a question from interviewer Neil Strauss after Mr. Petty blamed the recording industry for hurting itself by perpetually raising LP and CD prices during the 1980s and 1990s.

Mr. Petty had a then-famous battle with his own record label in 1982 when he refused to turn over his master tapes for Hard Promises until the label agreed to hold the price of the album at US$8.99, instead of raising it to $9.99.

"I know I held the prices down for a long time," said Mr. Petty in the interview, "but I also knew that eventually I was losing the battle. It's interesting that that's what sank the ship, in a way."

He added, "I think that if they kept the CDs really affordable, there wouldn't have been the tragic impact from the computers that there was. And that's a blow that I don't think [the record labels] are ever going to recover from."

When the interviewer asked him if the iTunes Music Store was helping to restore the balance in the industry, Mr. Petty said that it reminded him of the days when singles helped sell full albums.

On the other hand, he said that iTunes itself was not a good vehicle for introducing people to the concept of albums as a full body of work. "It's not as good for selling or even acclimating people to the album as an art form," he said.

"I was up until the middle of the night sequencing this thing," he said. "And I am starting to think, 'Who cares? 'Cause they're just a bunch of button pushers.'"

The interview was published in the July 13-27 edition of Rolling Stone, and covers Tom Petty's upcoming solo album (Highway Companion), unfinished work with his band The Heartbreakers, and many other aspects of his career. His fans may also be interested in the fact that he said that this interview might be his last.