Ta-Ra-Ra-Boom-De-Ay: The Dodgy Business of Popular Music (2014)

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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
• how rock tours became the biggest, quickest, sleaziest and most profitable ventures the music industry has ever seen