Dirty Little Secrets of the Record Business: Why So Much Music You Hear Sucks [Hardcover]

Hank Bordowitz (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: January 1, 2007

For disgruntled music fans wondering why music played on the radio is not only worse now than in the past but also not nearly as revelatory as it once was, this book presents a detailed discussion of how the record business fouled its own livelihood. This insightful dissection covers numerous aspects of the industry's failures and shortcomings, including why stockholders play an important role, how radio went from an art to a science and what was lost in that change, how the record companies alienated their core audience, why file sharing might not be the bogeyman that the record industry would have people think, technology’s effects on what and how music is heard, and dozens of other reasons that add up to the record industry’s current financial and artistic woes. With eye-opening observations culled from extensive interviews, this exposé offers insights into how this multi-billion-dollar industry is run and why it’s losing so much money.

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

Music journalist Bordowitz (Turning Points in Rock and Roll) delivers a concise summary of the current state of the record business, with fascinating details delivered in a no-frills style ("The RIAA has compared the practice of downloading songs 'without permission' to shoplifting, but whose permission do the downloaders need?"). Unless you are a Britney Spears fan, Bordowitz presents a fairly convincing argument that current music "sucks" by looking at "how the system that turned music into a commodity ultimately failed, trivializing its product and the user of that product." He presents an inside look at how the music business works, from artist management to production and distribution, as well as current music technology. And a section on "The Messy Suicide of Commercial Radio" is an excellent overview of the change over the last three decades from the free-form radio formats of the 1960s to the homogenized niche corporate radio stations of the '90s and today. In the end, this is an eye-opening look at why, as Bordowitz quotes music mogul David Geffen, "If Joni Mitchell were just starting out today,... she'd have trouble getting radio air play." (Jan.)
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

Review

"An accurate and well-researched exposé of the surreptitious, undisclosed, and covert activities of the music industry."   —Tony Bongiovi, producer

"To understand how recorded and broadcast music arrived at their sorry state, this is the book to read."  —Larry Fast, keyboardist for Peter Gabriel and Foreigner

"Brilliantly written, insightful, a good history, and a great read."  —Jack Ponti, songwriter, producer, manager, and record company president

"This is the book that any one who once did time in the music business wish we had written."  —Hugo Burnham, drummer for Gang of Four, former manager and major-label A&R executive

"Engaging and enlightening . . . a solid primer to today’s Byzantine music industry."  —Billboard

See all Editorial Reviews

Product Details

• Hardcover: 352 pages
• Publisher: Chicago Review Press (January 1, 2007)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1556526431
• ISBN-13: 978-1556526435
• Product Dimensions: 9.3 x 6.1 x 1 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.4 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 4.5 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (6 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,020,563 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

9 of 11 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A Must Read for Music Fans & Musicians, June 5, 2007

By 

dwood78 (Long Beach, CA USA) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Dirty Little Secrets of the Record Business: Why So Much Music You Hear Sucks (Hardcover)

I came across this book at my local library. After looking through it, I decided to check it out. This book, written by someone who works in the music biz is a must read for not only musicians but music lovers as well.

The author, a veteran of the music biz shows why music sales are down & why blame for that goes to the music biz itself. From forcing VERY bad music down our throats to briding radio stations to play this music. Also forcusing only on the youth despite the fact that they make up only a small % of those who actually buy music (fact is most music buyers are older folks & 60% of all music sales are back-log catalog or reissues). It's not surprising that people have either stopped buying music altogether or go online to look for the music they want.

Broadacst radio is also in the same boat as we see more & fewer stations
being owned by fewer and fewer owners, there's a decrease in musical diversity on-air. Thus causing an exdous of people towards satelle & internet radio.

Then there's the record companies screwing over their artists. One artist in the book went from going Gold (selling half a million copies) to flipping burgers.

I can keep going, but you're find out more in the book. Also "The label: the story of Columbia Records" by Gary Marmorstein is also worth reading.

3 of 3 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars WHAT COMES AROUND, COMES AROUND, March 19, 2010

By 

NeuroSplicer (Freeside, in geosynchronous orbit) - See all my reviews
(TOP 500 REVIEWER)   

This review is from: Dirty Little Secrets of the Record Business: Why So Much Music You Hear Sucks (Hardcover)

For more than two generations the music industry behaved as if they had us all by the short and curly. They controlled the source, the prices and the demand. Then all hell broke loose - and they are still running.

It had been always easier and more profitable to promote untalented signers or groups bootstrapped together with a lot of image and little else than having to deal with really talented artists. Real artists last long enough to start making demands and if they are not met they can always take their talent elsewhere. In contrast, untalented posers are a dime a dozen. And are all willing to waste their lives for fame, maybe some drugs and some short-lived adoration (p.237).

Promoting far lesser talents was never a problem as the music industry has always been hand-in-hand with most radio producers. Payola-and-plugola scandals never seem to go out of fashion, from the 1960's in California to some years ago with SONY-BMG in New York. Ever wondered why most radio stations play the same drivel over and over and ignore both indie groups and older songs? And how exactly did you think "hits" are made? Not ..."listeners' requests" I hope! (p.105)
It was like the Cola Company controlling both our taste-buds and our thirst center - and then going on selling watered-down soft drinks for the price of a four-course meal.

So, the geniuses running the music industry kept picking stars-to-be from the lazy-yet-ambitious crowd and paid them close to nothing ("sure, you bring in millions son, but all that money goes to production and promotion expenses, see. I hardly break even myself"). When their shooting stardom faded, they simply discarded them and moved on to the next star-system victim. It was a well-oiled machine. It made billions - just not for the people we thought it did (p.259).

Then, in the early-90's a group of inventive Germans came up with the mp3 sound-compression and the sky fell in. Even with the first slow internet connections, downloading a song of quality comparable to that of a CD took about 10minutes. Sure, it was not exactly kosher but what was worse: downloading a song you could hear on the radio for free or asking half a day's wages for a CD that was not only half empty but it also contained only a single good song - the rest was known as filler? NAPSTER, GROKSTER, KAZAA and then torrents - there was simply no closing the flood-gates once they had burst open.

So what did the music industry do? First thing they came up with was the "let's make our customers pay for the same music again and again" policy. They lobbied for (and, being a wealthy industry, of course got) draconian "intellectual property rights" that make any form of sharing or reselling illegal. The long arm of RIAA in effect, is run just like a shakedown (p.277).
Now, try to imagine Chrysler getting second-hand car sales to be illegal only to enhance its own sales - would that make any (legal or moral) sense?

They also discovered TV talent Shows. Enter the clowns - and make them run faster. Talent shows not only equate "success" with slave-labor contracts but they also provide the music industry with numerous fresh pools of semi-trained singers. No more need for the Milli-Vanillis of the world to lip-sing. Their new boys and girls may still be ephemeral but they can more or less sing by themselves.
But it's a battle already lost. When an industry makes more money from suing its former customers than from selling its product (that becomes more irrelevant every day), you just know they are way past the point of no return.

Intrigued? Well, this book tells the whole story with far more details and far juicer tidbits. The writer is a music industry insider and has no qualms backing his claims with a lot of inside information. It is an easy read and it even has a chapter on Amazon.

A MUST READ FOR ANY MUSIC BUYER!
(and any PC Gamer I am afraid, as the Gaming industry is following in exactly the same footsteps)

5.0 out of 5 stars Start with this book if you want to get into the music business, January 6, 2012

By 

T. Foulke "Movie Fan" (Alexandria, VA United States) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Dirty Little Secrets of the Record Business: Why So Much Music You Hear Sucks (Hardcover)

This interesting little tome blows off the cover of all of the dirty little secrets of the music business, and boy, are there a lot of them. The recording industry is quite possibly one of the scuzziest industries out there, especially for wide-eyed young people who want to be the next big pop or rock star. This book lays out the recording industry in all its naked glory (or ugliness depending on what your point of view is) and how we have arrived where we are today with popular music. For those of you who think the last 20 years or so have been a vast cultural wasteland for the most part, this book explains how we got there and the fairly gloomy outlook there is on the horizon. Here you will see why a triple platinum artist ends up owning his own company money as they companies systematically ripped off early artists. You will also see how in the 60s-80s, companies tended to develop artists over extended periods of time to bring true masters, instead of the quick buck that has manufactured (and I mean manufactured-there is nothing original about them) such cultural travesties today as Justin Bieber, Britney Spears, LMFAO, Katy Perry and yes, even to a small extent, Lady Gaga. Originality left the music industry a long time ago, and this book explains the whole sordid story. But it also points out that there is a glimmer of hope that real talent can come back to the radio. Let's hope he's right.