Ta-Ra-Ra-Boom-De-Ay: The Dodgy Business of Popular Music

Let legendary rock manager Simon Napier-Bell take you inside not just a creative industry, but a business that has made people wildly rich. This book describes the evolution of the industry from 1713, the year parliament granted writers ownership over what they wrote, to today, when a global industry is controlled by just three major players: Sony, Universal and Warner. Inside you will uncover little-known industry facts, including how a formula for writing hit songs in the 1900s helped create 50,000 of the best-known songs of all time; how infighting in the American pre-war music industry shut down traditional radio and created an opening for country music, race records and rock'n'roll; how Jewish immigrants and black jazz musicians dancing cheek-to-cheek created a template for all popular music that followed; and how rock tours became the biggest, quickest, sleaziest and most profitable ventures the music industry has ever seen.