Digital Music: “The mind has been tricked but the heart is sad.”

Just finished up skimming through APPETITE FOR SELF-DESTRUCTION: The Spectacular Crash of the Record Industry in the Digital Age by Steve Knopper. The book covers the music industry's demise in the digital age and the painful lessons that have been learned.

Neil Young's aversion to digital, CD's and MP3's on headphones is well known and documented. The book contains some Neil references such as this one cited in a review in The New York Times "When Labels Fought the Digital, and the Digital Won" By DWIGHT GARNER:

"The labels worried about digital piracy and about refitting the factories that made vinyl LPs. Record stores didn’t want to buy new sales racks. Producers worried about the effects on recording sessions, now that every footstep and door click would be audible. A group called MAD (Musicians Against Digital) quickly formed, and artists like Neil Young declared that CDs were soulless.

“The mind has been tricked,” Mr. Young said at the time, sounding a bit like Yoda, “but the heart is sad.”

The labels came around because they could jack up prices. (LPs at the time sold for about $9; most CDs went for almost twice that. ) Labels could also renegotiate contracts with artists and force customers to buy entire new album collections. According to Mr. Knopper, executives also thought it was cool watching “that little drawer open and close” on CD players."

A good read for anyone interested in the future of music in the digital age. More on Appetite for Self-Destruction: The Spectacular Crash of the Record Industry in the Digital Age. (Your purchase helps support Thrasher's Wheat by offsetting bandwidth fees and keep this site corporate advertising free. Thanks!)

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