
Appetite for Self-Destruction
The Spectacular Crash of the Record Industry in the Digital Age
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Narrated by:
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Dan John Miller
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By:
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Steve Knopper
About this listen
In a comprehensive, fast-paced account full of larger-than-life personalities, Rolling Stone contributing editor Steve Knopper shows that, after the incredible wealth and excess of the '80s and '90s, Sony, Warner, and the other big players brought about their own downfall through years of denial and bad decisions in the face of dramatic advances in technology.
Based on interviews with more than 200 music industry sources - from Warner Music chairman Edgar Bronfman Jr. to renegade Napster creator Shawn Fanning - Knopper is the first to offer such a detailed and sweeping contemporary history of the industry's wild ride through the past three decades.
From the birth of the compact disc, through the explosion of CD sales in the '80s and '90s, the emergence of Napster, and the secret talks that led to iTunes, to the current collapse of the industry as CD sales plummet, Knopper takes us inside the boardrooms, recording studios, private estates, garage computer labs, company jets, corporate infighting, and secret deals of the big names and behind-the-scenes players who made it all happen.
©2009 Steve Knopper (P)2009 Brilliance Audio, Inc.Listeners also enjoyed...
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TV is Doom
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such a great book that covered a lot!
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It was ok.
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I could envision people I know in the industry throughout this listen. Even, unfortunately, the ones who have lost their jobs as a result of the digital revolution.
Accurate
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Awesome Book
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Very cool listen!
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The writing style is a little strange. It's almost like a column in Spin or Rolling Stone where the author injects his own opinions instead of always quoting others. The familiarity was a little jarring but I got used to it.
This will cure any lingering sympathy for RIAA
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Knopper, a reporter for Rolling Stone, traces the excesses of the rise of the music industry and its subsequent fall as we all started to get our music from Napster and later one song at a time from iTunes and Amazon. While the book has way too much (for me irrelevant) detail about the personalities of music industry executives, the basic story of Shakespearean egos and unmatched executive stupidity makes for an enjoyable diversion. Imagine if the record industry had figured out how to license a subscription music service early on during the rise of digital music and Internet distribution?
The technology could have brought new markets and new customers, and billions of dollars to artists. But by fighting the technology (and suing it's customers) the record industry insured its irrelevancy and demise. What can we learn from this story for us in the "educational industrial complex?".
What We Can Learn from the Record Industry
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Tedious
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Interesting but too many details...
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