In an engaging, fast-paced, up-close-and-personal narrative, Appetite for Self-Destruction recounts the music industry's wild 30-year ride through the digital age. Based on interviews with over 200 music industry sources-from Warner Music chairman Edgar Bronfman Jr. to renegade Napster creator Shawn Fanning-as well as assiduous research in legal documents, unpublished memoirs, Billboard reports, and so on, Steve Knopper, a regular contributor to Rolling Stone, offers a contemporary history of big music that is more comprehensive and entertaining than any other book out there. From the birth of the compact disk, 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 board rooms, 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.

About the Author

Steve Knopper is a writer and journalist who is currently Contributing Editor at Rolling Stone. He has also written for publications such as Wired, Esquire, Entertainment Weekly, Chicago, New York, the Chicago Tribune, Newsday, Details, Spin and Continental and has written or edited four books, including The Complete Idiot's Guide to Starting a Band and Moon Colorado. He lives in Denver, Colorado.

Reviews

Verdict: A highly entertaining, no-holds-barred account of the 30-year saga of digital recording, this covers the development of the compact disc, MP3 formatting, the rise and fall of renegade file sharing sites such as Napster, and iTunes and the era of legal digital downloads. A valuable historical and cultural document. Background: Knopper (contributing editor, Rolling Stone) paints vivid and often unflattering portraits of industry movers and shakers and documents their egregious excesses during the era of big money and their frantic and often Luddite-like reactions to technological advancements. He includes detailed character studies of the major players who revolutionized the business (e.g., Napster's Shawn and John Fanning, and Apple's Steve Jobs).-Larry Lipkis, Moravian Coll., Bethlehem, PA Copyright 2008 Reed Business Information.

In this ambitious look at the music industry's digital revolution, freelance music writer Knopper admirably attempts to make sense of more than three decades of fitful technological innovation and ego clashes. The story begins with the antidisco rallies of the late 1970s, spends a great deal of time on the excesses of the CD era (with an unnecessary detour into the nefarious business dealings of boy band manager Lou Pearlman), then chronicles the reign of Napster and its eventual usurpation by Apple's legal iTunes service. Knopper is at his best giving life to the tales of technological innovation and diligent salesmanship that fueled these shifts in consumer trends, as in the story of the CD's invention and the subsequent difficulty of persuading label executives to adopt the new format. The later tales of backroom deals featuring Steve Jobs and various label heads have the spark of real drama, but this is undermined by Knopper not having access to Jobs and by the historical proximity of the events. (Jan.) Copyright 2008 Reed Business Information.