Appetite for Self-Destruction: The Spectacular Crash of the Record Industry
in the Digital Age by Steve Knopper

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.

Download File Size:447.79 MB

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