Description
'[Knopper's] mix of interviews, analysis and insider gossip makes for a lively tale of corporate greed, egoism and panic'
Metro 11/6
'Knopper paints a damning picture of an arrogant business, completely out of step with technology and its consumers, trying everything from copy-protection to litigation to strangle the digital genie' Word magazine, July issue
[Knopper’s] conclusion that CDs sparked a boom time in the ‘80s and ‘90s that record men thought would never end might not be headline news, but his research is exhaustive (more than 200 interviews) and the result is an absorbing read peppered with amusing anecdotes illustrating how woefully complacent the major labels were, such as the meeting when one executive asked the residential digital music expert how to fix his cable TV connection. A funny and authoritative book’ Q magazine August issue
‘Appetite ForSelf-Destruction chronicles the corporate rivalries, technological hubris, myopic greed and lamentable customer relations that led to the recent plummet in profits from recorded music;
Guardian 1/8
‘Knopper’s excellent account of the record industry’s failure to adapt to the digital age is the best of a clutch of recent books that address the changing face of music’
Financial Times 8/8
‘Rolling Stone staffer Knopper’s account of the last 25 years of the record business is a cautionary tale of mind-bogglingly myopic blundering, told with a caustic appreciation of the giant eggs involved’
‘Books of the Year’, The Sunday Times 6/12
Présentation de l'éditeur
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.
