Customer Reviews

Hit Men

5 star:		(17)
4 star:		(9)
3 star:		(3)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

Dannen hit such a home run with this thoroughly researched book that he was honored from within the music industry (Ralph J. Gleason award) and without (national bestseller list). The topic here is unwholesome practices within the music industry, but the most passionate subtopic of Dannen's research is the system of independent promotion through which singles are "added" to radio station playlists and then moved through the charts. I almost think HIT MEN should be considered a must read for anyone in the music industry: artist, manager, songwriter or publisher. Since Dannen reports his quotes exactly as they come down, you will not find the dialog exactly suitable for Sunday School. The second edition covers events up to and including 1991 and contains a follow-up chapter not in the original 1990 hardback edition. Now, some years after its original introduction, HIT MEN is still gripping and relevant. Aspects of the described litigation still tend to resurface from time to time, and many of the key players identified and profiled by Dannen are still suited up and swinging on the music-business diamond. Ron Simpson, School of Music, Brigham Young University. Author of MASTERING THE MUSIC BUSINESS.

As an experienced music industry professional with over 15 years of experience, I can tell you that this is the unofficial history book of the music industry that can be used to expose and introduce the truth about the origins and operations of the music business.

It's insightful, relevant, and shocking.

Buy it today.

Wow. If only you knew how treacherous the music business is. Read this and you'll know.

"Hit Men" confirms what many music lovers saddened by the boring state of commercial rock radio already suspected: hit records are bought and paid for by the promoters, not made by the fans. Don't allow yourself for one second to believe ever again that radio stations are pushing songs into heavy rotation because they are responding to what their listeners want. They are doing so because someone is paying a LOT of money to cram those songs down your throat. As bad as this was in decades past, I dare say it is even worse now (in 2010).

"Hit Men" pulls back the curtain on the major players and activities in the record business over a period of several decades and reveals some extremely ugly and disheartening truths about how that business operates. I doubt anyone reading this book will regard the music business or the radio business with anything other than contempt from now on.

Want to know why certain songs become hits? It's because someone paid for it to happen. It has nothing at all to do with consumer preference. Well, at least not primarily.

Are you a fan of The Who? Want to know the REAL reason their 1981 album "Face Dances" tanked? Read this book.

Want to know the REAL reason artists on certain labels get massive amounts of airplay while artists on other labels struggle to get heard? Read this book. But here's a hint -- it has nothing to do with the quality of the music.

Educated readers will probably make the logical assumption that there are a great many industries that operate as the music business has and does. Welcome to the real world, folks. It's all about the money. In any battle between commerce and art, commerce has the advantage. Get used to it.

Fascinating, fascinating reading. Just as relevant today as it was when it was published in 1990.

This is an extremely well-researched and well-documented look into the popular music business from the days of Alan Freed to the end of Walter Yentikoff's reign at Sony/Columbia. It helps that the subject is so darn entertaining and seedier than you probably would have guessed...otherwise this might have been sluggish reading, but it actually moves rather quickly. Of course the end result is to frighten anyone who might actually believe that pop hits on the radio have much to do with the actual songs themselves. The narrative ends in the early 90's and if I could rate this book 4.5 stars instead of five, I would...because it could use an update chapter in its next edition. Other than that, I'd recommend it heartily to anyone who cares about why their favorite new song never gets played on the radio.

I enjoyed this book for its witty stories and quips. I'm a musician and I'm almost convinced that the music business is thoroughly hopeless in a madcap way after reading the book. I mean hopeless because it is impossible not to get ripped off as an artist and that you have to deal with this den of snakes to sell your music successfully. I used to have an innocent joy of listening to pop records but now I know how they are promoted and my innocence is dead. I'm also suspicious of artists who moralize in their songs, but will do anything to get their songs on the air. But I suppose that is the only way one can have a career. The book also shows how hard it is to obtain justice, fairness, and decency through personal effort or the judicial system. It also revealed how ego-driven the music and entertainment business is; the ones with the biggest egos and worst ethics often rise to the top. I doubt I would, as a musician, would want to live through any of these sordid, sardonic tales though.

A frightening and enthralling look at the history of the modern music business. Dannen creates a mosaic of life in the industry by tracing the histories and careers of some of its most colorful characters. He looks at the rise and fall of Walter Yetnikoff, the education of Dick Asher, David Geffen's success with Asylum Records-- to name just a few of the people and issues _Hit Men_ tackles.

This is really a warts and all treatment with wickedly funny asides and adult language quotations from the people involved. It made me laugh out loud on more than one occasion and I still came away feeling as though I understood a whole lot more about how this industry really functions.

High Recommend.

Maybe the best book ever written about the music business. It's a fast-paced and factually accurate account of the radio and record businesses from their entrepeneurial roots through their emergences as big businesses. You'll never listen to the radio or look at the charts the same way again.

The book centers around very few people. Mostly indie promoters that were, oh surprise, taking bribes (the infamous payola) to arrange selected records & singles to play on commercial radio & therefore, help to 'create' platinum successes that we now relate to as 'classic' records.

Such selected artists included Prince, Madonna, Michael Jackson & many other huge 80's greats from which we would have possibly never heard of if it wasn't for that terribly lucrative & very illegal biz. These 'indie' promoters relationships with record's biggest moguls made them rich but also criminals & the book stops a bit short at telling how these people & businesses (which still exist in 2010) turned out today. It certainly could need some refreshing, as the story stops around the end of the 80's, & as the biz hasn't change many of its unscrupulous ways. It basically just went darker.

After a few hundred pages, you start to get it. Unmistakeably, you learn from the following 300 pages that if you're a producer, an artist, or anyone trying to make it in this (cutthroat) business, you will need money, or at least know someone who has some, & I mean a lot.

I was not expecting to read so much about the payola (& its rather boring mafia-actors) & the story tends to get tedious around the middle-end of the book. Ultimately, the skilled writer was smart enough to sprinkle its story with juicy little tales about the record execs, the artists, & the producers who have made some of the best music of this century & especially how they 'artificially' made it so popular.

This book shook the music world when it was first released, which was when I first read it. I just recently picked it up and read it again, and it was still an equally mind-blowing experience.
What was with those guys? Why did they feel the need to rip off every artist to the maximum possible extent? Couldn't they still have been just as powerful, just as legendary, and very nearly as wealthy, if they'd paid the artists the few pennies per record or airplay that would have been their rightful compensation for creating the music that rocked the world and brought billions of international dollars into American coffers?
Whatever happened to Dennis Waitley and his "win-win" scenarios? You don't hear much about him any more. Perhaps his concepts were too anathematic to the American mindset. Whatever happened to the concepts of "noblesse oblige," and "from those who have received much, much is expected"? Whatever happened to "a rising tide lifts all boats"? Whatever happened to the Magna Carta, the Renaissance, the American Revolution, the French Revolution, and all the other movements that raised the world to the dizzying heights it once achieved?
I guess they've been replaced by that all-American concept, "whoever dies with the most toys wins."
As we watch the rich get richer and the poor get poorer, and rising fuel prices cause the American dream to recede into the sunset while our beloved representative republic slips back toward medieval fuedalism; as we watch American corporations, once looted from without by corporate raiders, now being looted from within by greedy and/or incompetent executives with golden parachutes while their stockholders, employees and retirees have their lives decimated, we can at least hope that what we do here will stand forever as an example to the rest of the world of how NOT to live.
Osama bin Laden, in his famous "letter to America," called us the worst civilization the world has ever seen, wallowing in decadence and depravity and calling it the height of individual freedom. Could he have been right?
This book gives the reader a valuable opportunity to take a close-up look at one of the foundation pillars of our economy and our culture, and witness the process by which America is rotting from within.

OK, here's the deal... Are you thinking of getting into the music business? Trying to get your band signed? Becoming a songwriter? This book will discourage you beyond description, so read at you own risk. However it will allow you to go into the business of music with your eyes wide open. A good history lesson of the deal makers that launched rock and roll, R & B, pop, disco, etc. All happening before the digital age. Do you have a kid that wants to be the next American Idol? Want to discourage them? Get them this book!

I read it a while ago and have used the knowledge to my benefit. Though I haven't made a fortune writing music, I have managed to keep my songs mine and make vacation money.