Exploding: The Highs, Hits, Hype, Heroes, and Hustlers of the Warner Music Group [Hardcover]

Stan Cornyn (Author), Paul Scanlon (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: February 5, 2002

That's how Vanity Fair described the record business turmoil of the 1990s, which moved the Warner Music Group -- the world's number one record company -- from the entertainment pages to the front pages. Suddenly, decades of riotous fun and booming business went splat. Top music executives got evicted from their offices, some escorted by company guards. Why? The answers are in Exploding -- the most insightful and delightful book about the record business ever written.

In the rock explosion of the Sixties and Seventies, Warner Bros., Atlantic, and Elektra Records dominated the business as the Warner Music Group. But by the Nineties, the success of WMG was shaken by egos and corporate politics that left the company struggling for identity in a dramatically changing industry. This is the story of that long, strange trip.

Your host is the ultimate insider: Stan Cornyn, a key creative force behind the Warner Music Group's stunning rise. During more than thirty years at the company, Cornyn went through what the news media could never uncover. In a freewheeling, vastly entertaining narrative, Cornyn takes us behind the scenes, seats us in the conference rooms, and shows us the interactions between the stars and the suits -- using the same irreverent wit that produced the marketing campaigns that helped put Warner on the map.

Exploding is populated by music stars like Frank Sinatra, Ray Charles, the Doors, Jimi Hendrix, Lil' Kim, Dr. Dre, the Grateful Dead, Queen, Madonna, Ice-T, Joni Mitchell, Frank Zappa, Neil Young, Alice Cooper, and dozens more, even the legendary supergroup Scorpio. (Never heard of Scorpio? You'll find out why.) And it introduces you to the most colorful businesspeople ever: hyperintense record sellers who shave their heads; throw doves off a roof; send pig heads through the mail; provide the money, meds, and mammaries -- anything -- to get their records on the air. Here is the music business as you've never seen it: at its wildest, in its wackiest fifty years, bursting with hits and cash, until, by the end, it's just plain Exploding.

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

When did the money become more important than the music? Cornyn, a veteran of Warner Bros. Records from its birth in the late 1950s, fondly recalls when it was about the music (and the dames and drunken fun didn't hurt), a time before such terms as "units," "product," "industry" entered the vernacular. He's frank about the people and circumstances that have forever changed the business. Also realistic, he knows changes will continue (which is why he urges readers to turn this into a "living book" by contributing their own observations online). Having spent 34 years with the company in its many incarnations, Cornyn could've chosen the route of raunchy expose, but instead he delivers good gossip with high humor and class. He describes the unknowns who stepped in and rescued Warner during down times, like Bob Newhart with his comedy album in 1962, and later Madonna. Snappy stories of artists itching to break contracts Sinatra did so with "laryngitis," the Sex Pistols with urine, Jackson Browne with tears. But even juicier, as the company history unfolds, are the insider takes on the men (and the occasional women) behind the music, the boardroom brawls, midnight calls, hush-hush deals, and talks with Teamsters. Endearingly, he freeze-frames the grander moments, when someone makes the perfect quip or sings a line just right. This music narrative has all the elements drama, mystery, comedy, a course in business (royalties, payola, severance pay), debauchery (Queen's outrageous party in New Orleans) and history.

Copyright 2001 Cahners Business Information, Inc.

From Library Journal

A creative executive at Warner Bros. Records for 30 years, Cornyn presents a provocative, witty, and engrossing insider's story of that label and the cutthroat machinations of the record industry. Beginning with the takeover of Warner Bros. Pictures by the despicable Jack Warner, he charts the rise of Warner Records in the late 1950s with Mike Maitland, who first brought success to the label. He then moves to the merger of Warner Bros. Records with Frank Sinatra's Reprise label, its absorption of successful independents Atlantic and Elektra, and the buyout of Warner by Steve Ross of Kinney National, who created Warner Communications. Cornyn continues with Warner's assimilation of Asylum Records, its merger with Time, and its eventual union with Ted Turner's communications empire. Giving little emphasis to the artists except as fleeting commodities, the author graphically reveals the transition of Warner from a fledgling record company dedicated to unearthing the newest music trends to a corporate conglomerate obsessed with greater market share and escalating profits. Fans of record mogul tell-alls will enjoy this. Highly recommended for popular music collections. Dave Szatmary, Univ. of Washington, Seattle

Copyright 2002 Cahners Business Information, Inc.

See all Editorial Reviews

Product Details

• Hardcover: 512 pages
• Publisher: HarperEntertainment; First Edition edition (February 5, 2002)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0380978520
• ISBN-13: 978-0380978526
• Product Dimensions: 9.2 x 6.6 x 1.2 inches
• Shipping Weight: 2.2 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 3.7 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (12 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,504,162 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Most Helpful Customer Reviews

10 of 12 people found the following review helpful:

2.0 out of 5 stars Are we talking about the same book?, June 26, 2004

By 

Terry Saundry (Keysborough, Vic, Australia) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: Exploding: The Highs, Hits, Hype, Heroes, and Hustlers of the Warner Music Group (Hardcover)

"Exploding is populated by music stars like Frank Sinatra, Ray Charles, the Doors, Jimi Hendrix, Lil' Kim, Dr. Dre, the Grateful Dead, Queen, Madonna, Ice-T, Joni Mitchell, Frank Zappa, Neil Young, Alice Cooper, and dozens more".

Yeah? Where?

The artists are merely footnotes in this saga; weirdos to be tolerated (barely) and joked about. I spent a lot of money on this tome hoping to read about some of them. Instead I got 450 pages of business talk with about 4500 witticisms to amuse and confuse.

At least I found out why their awesome back catalogue has shamefully been left to earn whatever dollars it can in crappy 80's CD output (in the main) while other labels remaster properly and expand on their reissues - Warners just don't give a damn.

Won't be reading it again, I assure you.

8 of 11 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars On living for the music, memories and more...., February 9, 2002

By A Customer

This review is from: Exploding: The Highs, Hits, Hype, Heroes, and Hustlers of the Warner Music Group (Hardcover)

"Exploding" not only gives a very thorough and complete historical structure of how Warner Bros. became a film and music leader, but gives outsiders the intense understanding of what the "insiders" were dealing with, when the company and the music industry went through the myriad changes of the 20th century.It's a time-line saga and sensory experience of all that the Warner Music business was and later became. The book gives readers both funny, poignant and enlightening glimpses into the key players and other personalities of the Warner Music Group, and describes how the rock industry's stars rose and fel. After working in the music industry for many years, I learned even more than I ever previously knew about how WB began and evolved. From mostly behind the scenes and through mainly a mere few "big-wigs" the cards were dealt or held for many future careers at the WB family of labels. Musicians, songwriters, radio and record neophytes could learn alot from reading this book. Industry veterans will enjoy the trips down memory lane, and ultimately, be carried along it's emotional currents. Coryn's writing is witty and he gets to his well-crafted points with style and substance. After dozens of years working deep in the creative trenches as the changes occured, he is well-suited to tell the tales, both bitter and sweet.

5 of 7 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars if you are fascinated by the business of music. . ., March 25, 2002

By 

Clark Benson (Los Angeles, CA United States) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Exploding: The Highs, Hits, Hype, Heroes, and Hustlers of the Warner Music Group (Hardcover)

then you will definitely find this worth your time.

I've been in the record biz for the last ten years and got an awful lot out of reading this - it tells the business story in an entertaining manner - it's about the personalities behind the music, but not as much about the hype (as much as it's possible to take hype out of anything about the entertainment industry).

now with the record biz in a rough spell is a particularly timely point to put your book out - the perspective of this book (which covers about 40 years quite well) is well needed.

I especially liked the focus on the business end, all the numbers, the annual growth, etc. This is the rare (only?) record biz tale that really gets to the bottom of how records get out there and in the public's hands - the nuts and bolts like NARM conventions and less emphasis on A&R stories than in most books about the biz (yet it's still a great tale of personalities).

It's up there with Hit Men, definitely.