BOOKS: RIPPED: HOW THE WIRED GENERATION REVOLUTIONIZED MUSIC ~ Greg Kot / ROCK ON: AN OFFICE POWER BALLAD ~ Dan Kennedy
While Greg Kot is one of my favorite current rock critics, his new book RIPPED: HOW THE WIRED GENERATION REVOLUTIONIZED MUSIC is mildly disappointing. Instead of examining in-depth about the mp3/file sharing/future of digital music distribution, it provides a weak overview of selected events over the past ten years. There’s discussion of the original Napster and other file sharing services, the RIAA file sharing lawsuits, and how major labels bungled the handling of digital distribution. Kot spends most of the book with “case studies” on how selected musicians, small labels, and journalists took advantage of digital distribution of their music. There are chapters about Conor Oberst and Saddle Creek Records; the rise of Death Cab for Cutie thanks to many mentions on The O.C.; Prince breaking free from the major labels and becoming his own label; and the requisite chapter on Wilco (Kot has also written a book on Wilco). The Pitchfork Media effect is mentioned in a chapter about MP3 blogs. Somewhat awkwardly jammed into the book is a discussion of sampling, mashups, and remixes (the Girl Talk project, “George Bush Doesn’t Care About White People” by the Legendary K.O., Danger Mouse’s The Grey Album etc.). In the end, RIPPED is more of a sampler CD of topics in digital music/distribution rather than a deep study of one issue. For any music listener who has been paying attention to events such as the RIAA lawsuits, failed major label attempts to control file sharing, and the more groundbreaking distribution methods of individual artists and smaller labels, RIPPED offers nothing new.
There are also glaring errors and oversights in RIPPED. Some of these were probably unavoidable given how fast things change in a digital society. For example, Fluxblog now carries advertising, and U2 no longer shills for Apple but for Blackberry (RIM). However, the one error that should have never passed editorial review is the opening line of chapter three. It will make anyone with even a passing knowledge of Internet history cringe:
“The Internet was conceived as a utopial ideal, designed by nonprofit researchers in 1990 as an undiscriminating conduit for information.”
No, Mr. Kot. You might has well have said “Al Gore created the Internet” - it would have been just about as accurate.
Other omissions and missteps in RIPPED include no mention of eMusic, the digital music service that pre-dated the iTunes Music Store by three years, always offered 100% DRM-free files, and included hundreds of small labels. (To be fair, there’s little deep examination of the iPod effect, either.) The Sony BMG “rootkit” debacle, which installed spyware and other nasty buggers on computers under the guise of “copy protection”, is given exactly one sentence in the book.
The ideal audience for RIPPED just might be older music executives who still don’t understand why their sales have tanked over the past ten years, or less tech-savvy parents who don’t understand where their kids are getting all the music to fill up their iPods. Kot also doesn’t offer any insights where digital music distribution is heading next, such as streaming, personalized radio stations like Pandora, nor does he offer suggestions to labels left ten years behind.
The ideal reader of RIPPED just might be the major label executives Dan Kennedy, author of ROCK ON: AN OFFICE POWER BALLAD, worked with if there was a viable time machine available. Kennedy was a marketing grunt for Warner Brothers in the early part of the decade, in the years before the company was absorbed by Seagrams to form the massive Universal Music Group and laid off thousands (including him). ROCK ON is a sharp compendium of everything that is wrong with the major labels, from insane management salaries, shitty music, and out-of-touch executives. For example, their “groundbreaking” idea of how to take advantage of the digital marketplace is to charge users a monthly fee so they can stream the company’s catalog on their computers, and only their computers and no digital devices. Note that this idea was presented in approximately 2004, when online radio stations were streaming for free. Is it any surprise that major label music sales are in the crapper? ROCK ON is a quick read, one that will hopefully encourage you to start a record label in your basement, spare bedroom, or even hall closet as opposed to dreaming about working for the majors.
