Steve Knopper

Appetite for Self-Destruction

The Spectacular Crash of the Record Industry in the Digital Age

(Free Press)

Book Review by Adam McKibbin

Well before the entire U.S. economy plunged into uncertainty and despair, the music industry was getting a head start.  In Appetite for Self-Destruction, Rolling Stone contributing editor Steve Knopper takes an insightful stab at answering the question “So what the hell went wrong?”

Far from being the unfortunate victims of technology that pounced on them, the business that Knopper depicts is a monolith that has proven historically slow – and hostile – to change.  They bungle most of the major decisions over the course of the decades, always banking on their waves of success to last forever, and consistently demonizing various innovators and antagonists like Apple’s Steve Jobs and Napster’s Shaun Fanning – not to mention the countless fans jonesing for free music and advance music.

Appetite for Self-Destruction is most notable for its study of very modern history, which it seems to acknowledge by the Digital Age in its title.  But historical context is needed, and the ‘80s are explored in fairly extensive detail, relying heavily  on sources like Fredric Dannen’s Hit Men to get an all-access pass behind the closed doors.  There are some revealing passages about how the business repeatedly made the wrong moves, from their strange push-and-pull with independent radio promoters to sheer head-slappers like the original CD boxes that were made as a half-assed appeasement for record stores that didn’t want to get rid of the racks they used for vinyl.  The writing isn’t particularly flavorful here, so for entertainment value – or a comprehensive view of that era that doesn’t worry about digital on the horizon – readers are better served by going directly to a source like Hit Men, or individual memoirs like Walter Yetnikoff’s outrageous Howling at the Moon.

The salad days were granted a temporary stay of execution by the rise of boy bands and bubblegum pop.  Knopper seems incredulous as he notes label execs talking themselves into thinking the trends were permanent and gravy trains were never going to derail.  Despite the bubble and burst of New Kids on the Block, some people in important positions seemed to think that Backstreet would always be back (alright!).  He saves the most disturbing detail for last, reminding us of how portly boy band manager Lou Pearlman was alleged to have wrestled naked with some of his precious minions –  “[creating] a culture where sex with the boss was expected, almost inevitable.”  Justin, say it ain’t so!  Knopper then notes that Pearlman has denied the charges, while ‘NSyncer Lance Bass simply said “Karma’s a bitch.”  Pearlman is currently serving a prison sentence after a fraud conviction; he may have never been a visionary when it came to music, but he was ahead of his time when it came to the rejuvenation of the Ponzi scheme, bigger and nastier than ever before. 

The stars of the very interesting second half of Appetite are Apple’s Jobs and Napster’s Fanning.  Jobs has been and will continue to be the subject of much mythologizing, and it’s disappointing if understandable that Knopper wasn’t able to score some face time (or phone time… or IM time) with the man himself.  The Napster chapter leans heavily at times on Joseph Menn’s All the Rave for substantiation, but the twin chapters paint a very interesting picture of two very different tech companies – one a barely functional combination of slacker hackers and corporate sharks, the other a revived giant following one man’s ambitious vision.  Jobs confounds the label execs, then proceeds to rewrite the rules of their industry; among them, that the single rebounds as a very viable product.  Again, Knopper shows a talent for distilling involved sequences of events into readily digestible takeaway points.

The industry gets a bit hysterical in reaction to Napster, and Knopper skewers them for their response – and the games of “Whac-A-Pirate” and the cautionary lawsuits that followed.  While the beginning chapters of the book read like a history lesson extracted from external sources, here Knopper is squarely on the frontlines, and he’s armed with cogent critiques of where the suits went wrong.

Can they get it right again?  After his withering accounts of their mismanagement, Knopper finishes them off in his final chapter with a frank “It sure looks like the end is near.”  That may sound doom and gloomy, but Knopper asks you to consider whether it isn’t such a bad thing after all.  “It looks like the record business is doomed,” he writes.  “The music business, however, has a bright future.”  And that’s the tone he strikes in the end, citing positive examples of artists taking ownership over their own work, from Radiohead to Nine Inch Nails.  What comes next, of course, no one really knows.  But Appetite for Self-Destruction gives the reader some keen insights into how we wound up here.