Books
Robert Christgau, Grown Up All Wrong: 75 Great Rock and Pop Artists from Vaudeville to Techno (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2000) An encyclopedia of popular music personalities of the past 50 years, from the senior music critic of The Village Voice.
Walter Yetnikoff and David Ritz Howling at the Moon: The Odyssey of a Monstrous Mogul in an Age of Excess (New York: Broadway/Random House, 2004) This is a rare, often funny look inside the recording industry of the 1970s and 1980s. Rising from a working class background in Brooklyn, and being tone deaf, it might have seemed unlikely that Walter Yetnikoff would become a recording industry executive. But he rose from the legal department at CBS Records, to become the head of the label, and make the most successful label of the era. Yetnikoff was well known for his ability to foster talent (he worked with Michael Jackson, Billy Joel, Bob Dylan, and the Rolling Stones, among many others) his ability to intimidate his business rivals, and his outrageous, appalling behavior, often fueled by his use of cocaine and alcohol. His downfall came not through these habits however, but through a corporate coup.
Fredric Dannen, Hit Men (New York: Vintage, 1991) An inside look at the recording promotions business, especially the role of the independent promoter. Dannen portrays the industry as a corrupt, misogynistic, double-dealing big business run by temperamental crooks, an industry in which cash, as much as listeners' choices, rules the Top 40.
Fred Goodman, The Mansion on the Hill: Dylan, Young, Geffen, Springsteen and the Head-on Collision of Rock and Commerce (paperback) (New York: Vintage, 1998) As the subtitle suggests, this is a social and cultural history of the rock music business, focusing on some larger than life personalities.
Films, Videos, and DVDs
The Buddy Holly Story (1978, rated PG) Gary Busey is a convincing Buddy Holly, from his beginnings to the day the music died.
High Fidelity (2000, rated R) John Cusack as a record store manager who is a walking data bank of pop-music lore, a man so obsessed with pop culture that he gives the most important events in his life hit-parade rankings, as in the list that fuels this plot: his all-time top-five break-ups.
This is Spinal Tap (1984, rated R) This parody of a rock documentary is considered by many to be a precise portrait of the business. Directed by Rob Reiner.
That Thing You Do (1996, rated PG) A good representation of the way the business was conducted in the 1950s. Directed by Tom Hanks, featuring Liv Tyler, it chronicles the adventures of a garage band that soars to success and crashes just as quickly.
Grace of My Heart (2000 rated R) A dramatic homage to the Brill building era of pop music (from the late 1950s to the early 1970s) and a look at the trends of the recording industry of the time. Ileana Douglas' character is loosely modeled on songwriter turned recording artist Carole King. Other characters represent producer Phil Spector and musical artist Brian Wilson.
