Recommend a book about he decline of the music industry

Looking for a well-researched (even scholarly) book about the death of the music industry - why people aren't buying CDs, who's responsible (I'm thinking about the dinosaurs who scoffed at Napster, failed to adapt to a business model that was obvious to any fourth grader and are now suffering the consequences), etc. I bet there are reams by now but has anyone read one they thought was especially good?

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Haven't yet read "Appetite for Self-Destruction: The Spectacular Crash of the Record Industry in the Digital Age," by Steve Knopper.

Wait, what is this obvious-to-fourth-graders business model you speak of?

1.Give music away for free
2.????
3.????
4Profit(?)

I've read the Knopper book. It's pretty good. I'm planning on reading Fred Goodman's Fortune's Fool: Edgar Bronfman Jr., Warner Music, and an Industry in Crisis next.

http://www.antonraubenweiss.com/gibson/gallery/idoru/idoru-2.jpg

Nate OTM haha

I had to think about it for a minute. I knew there was a good SF example ;)

I need to re-read that whole Gibson trilogy (Idoru, Virtual Light and All Tomorrow's Parties). Can't wait for his new one in September, even if every one of his books does have the exact same plot.

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Come prepared for this book with a large box of tissues; those who find they don't need them while reading this book aren't really human. Spider and his wife Jeanne have created something here that is quite rare in the realms of science fiction, a true mating of music and dance with a story that could only be told within the non-confines of this field.

Charlie Armstead, former premier dancer who now makes his living as an audio-visual man for dance companies, meets Sharon Drummond, a young lady who has dedicated her life to being the best dancer possible. But Sharon, though incredibly excellent at her craft, can't get accepted by any dance company because she is physically too big. Charlie, seeing her dance, and knowing the problem she faces, tries to help by going independent with her, helping her define her own type of dance and properly filming it, but nothing works.

Here in this early section of the book, however, we are treated to the impossible: a description in words of music and dance that actually makes you see and hear the dance. This may be one of the most difficult feats of writing that I have ever read, to translate art forms from the totally different realm of the audio-visual into such a readable, coherent, mental painting that puts you right in the dance studio. And along the way, the Robinson's characters come to life, to where you can feel the triumphs and disappointments, the sweat and exhaustion, the exhilaration and despair of this pair.

Up to here, the story could have been told as normal fiction, but now comes the first of the elements that transform this from the world of everyday to the world of the future, as Sharon conceives the idea of doing her unique form of dance in free-fall at an orbiting space station. We watch as she adapts to the new environment, and modifies her dance to take advantage of its properties, and slowly we begin to see her creations as message, as a unique channel of communication.

This channel of communication forms one of the lynch-pins of the plot, and the Robinsons do an excellent job of melding their characters with both this item and the very plausible impediments that Sharon and Charlie must overcome. The conclusion to the first section of this book will shatter you; most of your tissue box will be depleted here. But there's much more, a logical yet surprising continuation that allows for a good exposition of the book's theme of the community of not just man, but a community of mind.

http://www.amazon.co.uk/Where-Have-Good-Times-Gone/dp/1843540673/ref=sr_1_2?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1279165477&sr=1-2

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thanks dudes, this was helpful. Gonna try four of these (err, not the sci fi ones).

http://www.lastshopstanding.co.uk/index.html?_ret_=return

R. Fripp's working on a blistering tirade that should be interesting to people who haven't been following along with his diary the last dozen years.

Yes that Fripp book/what-will-it-be figures to be a definitive denunciation of the shameful standard industry practices he has witnessed as a composer, recording artist, performer and so on. It's gonna be good. That said, those practices did not, in themselves, build the dead end we are seeing now.

That Barfe looks really good—thank you, sir! Just ordered one. I wonder how much of it recapitulates Reebee Garofalo and Steve Chapple's ESSENTIAL Rock 'N' Roll Is Here to Pay (1975)...

Garofalo/Chapple is essential indeed (though dated by some new-left rhetoric)

if i may hype here's my slender contribution

I read Fripp's diary as well and I'm very much looking forward to Dear Andrew. I do wonder, however, about the extent to which Fripp has really been sinned against. Very few if any other artists at a comparable level of success can be heard complaining about their treatment at the hands of the majors, fans, promoters &c. Only Fripp. So either (a) he has been uniquely traduced (unlikely); (b) others have been similarly traduced but choose not to talk about it (also unlikely); or (c) he's a pompous prig who needs to get a life (umm...)

Margana - I think it's B, frankly. Fripp is uniquely situated, by virtue of his standing, his intelligence and his native doggedness, to speak openly about the standard operating procedures in the "music industry." Seriously. Many other prominent artists have been "sinned against" in a similar fashion—you see lawsuits regarding creative accounting, overdue payments &c. all the time in the press; take the Eagles, for instance. There are plenty more if you look around...

http://www.audiobooksonline.com/media/Decline-and-Fall-of-the-Roman-Empire-Volume-2-Edward-Gibbon-unabridged-library-mp3-compact-discs-Blackstone-Audio-books.jpg

Many other prominent artists have been "sinned against" in a similar fashion—you see lawsuits regarding creative accounting, overdue payments &c. all the time in the press

^^^this. Willie Nelson, Leonard Cohen, the Beatles, etc. the list is practically endless

Recently started to reread Fredric Dannen's Hit Men: Power Brokers and Fast Money Inside the Music Business after all these years and it seems better than ever. I noticed that a few current books rely on and refer to it, such as Appetite For Self Destruction and Tommy James's Me, The Mob And The Music. The original is still the greatest, although the Tommy James book is well worth reading for a white-knuckled firsthand account of the primal scene between artist and record company mogul and Appetite seems pretty good from what I've read of it so far.

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Yeah, that's on my list too. unperson mentioned it upthread. Cover looks spiffy.

Sorry, I missed that. I just read this over the weekend, it is pretty good.

I read the first 50 pages on google books and found it stupefying - why this guy? mansion on the hill is still great, tho

Nicole does Goodman make any kind of case for Edgar Bronfman as an effective - or interestingly failed - executive?

Sorry Nicole wasn't trying to give you a hard time. I mean, you have actually read the book. There should be a shorthand for "Poster X posted something related to something Poster Y posted but I'm not trying to hassle anybody by pointing this out, I'm just trying to create some connective tissue."

Read Kott's book in three sittings. The first 56 pages are indispensable, and exactly what I was looking for. But unless you wanna read about the rise and fall of Danger Mouse, Wilco, Prince, and every other story anyone with an even passing interest in contemporary music already knows, I'd quit reading after about the fourth chapter.

Also - I can abide (seemingly irrelevant) chapters about Death Cab and Bright Eyes, but an entire chapter about Girl Talk and Dan Deacon? Gag me with a fucking spoon.

Death Cab & Bright Eyes wound up on major labels, right? some revolution.

an entire chapter about Girl Talk and Dan Deacon

haaaa

Bright Eyes did not wind up on a major label in the U.S. as far as I know - they may license to majors overseas tho

they did wind up majorly sucking!!

eleven years on, any new recomendations for this thread?

or recommendations even

how music got free maybe? i have been meaning to read it for ages but never got around to it, tho i enjoyed the excerpt i read

following

Hit Men is really good, would love to read something about the Napster era

gotta check that Knopper book out