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Appetite for Self-Destruction
Steve Knopper
The Spectacular Crash of the Record Industry in the Digital Age
Free Press
January 2009
On Sale: January 6, 2009
332 pages
ISBN: 1416552154
EAN: 9781416552154
Hardcover
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Non-Fiction
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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