Appetite for Self-Destruction

Veteran Rolling Stone editor/reporter Steve Knopper, author of the just published Appetite for Self-Destruction: The Spectacular Crash of the Record Industry in the Digital Age, seems to agree with our assessment of the movie and music business parallels outlined in our last post. In a Village Voice interview he foresees this future for the major label business:

“Probably, you're going to wind up with a couple hit machines: Universal, maybe Sony-BMG. You still are going to need those kinds of companies, that expertise, to find the proverbial Toni Braxton singing in the gas station, discovered by some label talent scout. But those companies are going to make less and less money, and get smaller and smaller, and get less and less influential, and I think that maybe Live Nation or Ticketmaster or my mythical Apple-EMI is going to pop up and change the model and be more nimble. Another point I want to make is that these labels will always own some really incredible assets. EMI owns the Beatles catalog, so they're always going to be a player. You or I could own the Beatles catalog and make money. Just not make enough money to have hookers and blow.”