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Review
"[A] stark accounting of the mistakes major record labels have made since the end of the LP era and the arrival of digital music.... A wide-angled, morally complicated view of the current state of the music business.... [Knopper] suggests that with even a little foresight, record companies could have adapted to the Internet's brutish and quizzical new realities and thrived.... He paints a devastating picture of the industry's fumbling, corruption, greed and bad faith over the decades." -- The New York Times
"Knopper, a Rolling Stone music business writer, thoughtfully reports on the record racket's slow, painful march into financial ruin and irrelevance, starting with the near-catastrophic sales slump that began in 1979 after the demise of disco. Though the labels persevered, they finally lost control of their product when they chose to ignore the possibilities of the Internet.... Knopper piles on examples of incompetence, making a convincing case that the industry's collapse is a drawn-out suicide." -- Los Angeles Times
"[Knopper has a] nose for the story's human element.... The best parts of the book, such as Knopper's analysis of the late-'90s teen-pop bubble (and how it ultimately burst), move with the style and drama of a great legal thriller -- think Michael Clayton with headphones....This is gripping stuff. Crank it up." -- Time Out New York
"The music industry is toast, my friends. And congrats to Rolling Stone vet Steve Knopper, whose fantastic new book Appetite for Self-Destruction explains why" -- The Village Voice
"...Laced with anecdote, buttressed by detailed accounts of the most flagrant record-industry transgressions, Appetite (its title nicked from that of the Guns N' Roses debut disc) is an enthralling read, equal parts anger and regret. Knopper's writing is sharp, his approach sharper..." -- The Boston Globe
"Knopper, a Rolling Stone music business writer, thoughtfully reports on the record racket's slow, painful march into financial ruin and irrelevance, starting with the near-catastrophic sales slump that began in 1979 after the demise of disco. Though the labels persevered, they finally lost control of their product when they chose to ignore the possibilities of the Internet.... Knopper piles on examples of incompetence, making a convincing case that the industry's collapse is a drawn-out suicide." -- Los Angeles Times
"[Knopper has a] nose for the story's human element.... The best parts of the book, such as Knopper's analysis of the late-'90s teen-pop bubble (and how it ultimately burst), move with the style and drama of a great legal thriller -- think Michael Clayton with headphones....This is gripping stuff. Crank it up." -- Time Out New York
"The music industry is toast, my friends. And congrats to Rolling Stone vet Steve Knopper, whose fantastic new book Appetite for Self-Destruction explains why" -- The Village Voice
"...Laced with anecdote, buttressed by detailed accounts of the most flagrant record-industry transgressions, Appetite (its title nicked from that of the Guns N' Roses debut disc) is an enthralling read, equal parts anger and regret. Knopper's writing is sharp, his approach sharper..." -- The Boston Globe
Product Description
For the first time, Appetite for Self-Destruction recounts the epic story of the precipitous rise and fall of the recording industry over the past three decades, when the incredible success of the CD turned the music business into one of the most glamorous, high-profile industries in the world -- and the advent of file sharing brought it to its knees. 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.
Big Music has been asleep at the wheel ever since Napster revolutionized the way music was distributed in the 1990s. Now, because powerful people like Doug Morris and Tommy Mottola failed to recognize the incredible potential of file-sharing technology, the labels are in danger of becoming completely obsolete. Knopper, who has been writing about the industry for more than ten years, has unparalleled access to those intimately involved in the music world's highs and lows. Based on interviews with more than two hundred 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.
With unforgettable portraits of the music world's mighty and formerly mighty; detailed accounts of both brilliant and stupid ideas brought to fruition or left on the cutting-room floor; the dish on backroom schemes, negotiations, and brawls; and several previously unreported stories, Appetite for Self-Destruction is a riveting, informative, and highly entertaining read. It offers a broad perspective on the current state of Big Music, how it got into these dire straits, and where it's going from here -- and a cautionary tale for the digital age.
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Most Helpful Customer Reviews on Amazon.com (beta)
Amazon.com:
3.7 out of 5 stars (47 customer reviews)
20 of 23 people found the following review helpful
5.0 out of 5 stars
Must-read for anyone who cares about music culture, Jan 13 2009
By Patricia Romanowski Bashe "Patricia Romanowsk... - Published on Amazon.com
This review is from: Appetite for Self-Destruction: The Spectacular Crash of the Record Industry in the Digital Age (Hardcover)
In the sub-sub-genre of books about rock music and the industry, I rank this right up there with classics like "Hit Men" and "The Death of Rhythm and Blues." We think in terms of "industry," but through his deftly drawn portraits of industry leaders, Knopper helps us see clearly how we got to here from there: simple bad decision making and a blatant refusal to consider, first, that the world had changed and then a stunning lack of curiosity about how it had changed. Highly recommended. Enjoy!
12 of 13 people found the following review helpful
4.0 out of 5 stars
Excellent Book about the Free Fall of the American Music Industry, April 13 2009
By T. B. Vick "T.B.V." - Published on Amazon.com
Amazon Verified Purchase(What's this?)
This review is from: Appetite for Self-Destruction: The Spectacular Crash of the Record Industry in the Digital Age (Hardcover)
This is an excellent book. Steve Knopper, contributing editor for Rolling Stone magazine, and who has also written for such publications as Wired, Esquire, Entertainment Weekly and the Chicago Tribune, has written this book detailing the trends from the near death of the music industry in the late 70s to early 80s to the life-saving entities such as MTV and Michael Jackson's "Thriller" album. Knopper provides meticulous detail about the negative and positive trends of the music industry over the past 20 years to the newly developed digital age of downloading music via iTunes. Knopper mentions names of major labor leaders; details the decisions these major labels have made that have been effective and those decisions that have been fairly detrimental.Moreover, Knopper describes how the rise of Napster ultimately lead to severe bleeding within the music industry due to the consumer now having the knowledge to easily pirate music. The reaction of the music industry to Napster and its smaller subsequent file-sharing groups eventually lead to the now slow death of major labels. Knopper details how and why this happened. Additionally, Knopper details how Steve Jobs (of Apple computers) strong-armed the five major music labels into deals that lead to iTunes and huge sales of the iPod. This trend ultimately changed the music industry and pushed it into a direction to which it has not adjusted very well.
In fact, according to Knopper, it has taken the major music labels nearly ten years to realize how technology can actually help the industry, but now its probably too late. Moreover, many bands and artists are actually turning to their own independent methods of releasing their new albums and songs. These bands and artists (such as NIN, Radiohead, the Eagles, etc.) are realizing that this new avenue is actually more appealing to their listeners and making them a larger profit than they ever had signing contracts with the major labels.
This, and much more is described in great detail in this work. This is a very telling book about how greed and ignorance has actually cost the music industry in the long run. And, according to Knopper, if the major labels do not make massive changes very quickly, the music industry as we have known it for the last several decades will no longer exist.
14 of 16 people found the following review helpful
4.0 out of 5 stars
The Music Industry Missteps At A Glance, Feb 5 2009
By H. D. Espinosa "The Onlooker" - Published on Amazon.com
This book is a nice recollection over the most catastrophic moments of the music industry since the late 70s to date. If you follow the news on music and technology regularly, you might not be too surprised to read something that you probably already know, but this material is just great for somebody who have developed sudden interest in this subject.It covers the supposed disco and boy band obsession which record labels dived in and hoped that it would last forever, the "pay-to-play" practices that made the Top 40 a place where only paid music - not necessarily good music - deserved to be, lousy contracts which exploited artists to the bone, skepticism over new technologies and business models and disrespectful practices toward consumers (the infamous Sony BMG CDs infected with root kits, the inflated Album CD prices, the killing of CD singles and the RIAA lawsuits), showing that the music industry had made one mistake after another that ended up leading it to the situation it is today.
The only thing I disagree about the author's thoughts is the notion that the CD is deemed to die completely. I don't really think this is going to happen, because CDs still caters to a great number of people who cares about a better sound quality (which is far better then MP3, as a matter of fact) and likes to hold a physical, collectible product. It is correct to assume that less and less CDs will be sold over time and that shelf space devoted to them is getting thinner, but it is not going to disappear completely.
Entertaining and easy to read book, go for it.
Listmania!
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