3 New Music Biz Books for Winter 2010
6th July, 2010
Because of the hotly anticipated book "Fortune's Fool" on Edgar Bronfman by the great music business author Fred Goodman coming out next week, we are advance ordering copies for our regular readers as well as adding two other new titles - "The Rise and Fall of EMI Records" and "When I Stop Talking, You'll Know I'm Dead" which is impresario Jerry Weintraub's biography.
You'll see info on these titles below which we will be shipping to pre-orders next week and we have a special package for all three for $110 (inc GST + Postage) for winter reading. You can order off the IMMEDIA! books site at http://www.immedia.com.au/books or you can order by phone with Justine on (02) 9557 7766 or email justine@immedia.com.au with your choice of books.
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Fortune's Fool: Edgar Bronfman, Jr., Warner Music, and an Industry in Crisis
By Fred Goodman - $35
A 336 page hardcover book by Fred Goodman, author of one of our biggest selling music business books "Mansion on the Hill", it's being released next week in the US and we are advance ordering copies for those who want to get it fast.
"Fortune's Fool" probes further into the record business after conducting three years of interviews with Seagram's Edgar Bronf-man Jr., CEO of Warner Music Group since 2004. The 1960s glory days of WMG (the Atlantic, Elektra, and Warner Bros. labels) are only a memory. Bronfman, who lost billions in failed deals, has a great passion for the entertainment industry, yet he faces huge difficulties because WMG has been "blown off its foundation" by "the gale force of cyberspace." What does the future hold if free digital copies are available of any recording? Beginning with Bronfman's birth, Goodman covers his "dynastic destiny" from rebellious teen and anointed Seagram's heir to his move into the film industry and Broadway, gaining full access to a trust worth millions on his 25th birthday. Covering the transitions from LP to CD, the rap controversies, musicians, mergers and acquisitions, hustlers and heavyweights, this hefty, well-researched book traces the trajectories of such companies as Apple, MCA, and Vivendi as CD sales plummeted, and the music business became a world of iTunes, MP3s, and online marketing.
You can read a preview review just published in the New York Times at http://www.nytimes.com/2010/07/04/business/media/04shelf.html?src=busln
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The Rise & Fall of EMI Records
By Brian Southall - $37.50
278 Pages hardcover Written by an EMI Music veteran of 15 years, Brian Southall also wrote the history of Abbey Road and Northern Songs. Electric and Music Industries Ltd (EMI) first saw the light of day in the UK in 1931. In a visionary move for the gramophone age, it manufactured both hardware (recording and playback equipment) and software (the records and tapes its machines would play). For over half a century, EMI dominated both sectors, its music division eventually becoming the most successful in the world with a roster that at various times included The Beatles, Maria Callas, Frank Sinatra, Cliff Richard, Pink Floyd, The Beach Boys, Queen, Robbie Williams, The Spice Girls, Kate Bush and Kylie Minogue. Then in the 1990s, things started to go wrong.This title explores and investigates EMI's extraordinary decline from the greatness over two decades of rejected takeovers, unsuccessful mergers, executive changes, profit warnings, artist and staff cuts, press criticism and never-ending speculation. It includes interviews with many key players including former EMI Group/EMI Music executives Sir Colin Southgate, Jim Fifield, Eric Nicoli, Tony Wadsworth, David Munns, Rupert Perry, Ray Cooper and Jon Webster. He has also interviewed many managers, music journalists, financial analysts and rival record company executives. The result is the definitive account of a major international company's travails. It is also an eye-opening expose of the speed at which the music industry has changed-------------------------------
When I Stop Talking, You'll Know I'm Dead: Useful Stories from a Persuasive Man
By Jerry Weintraub - $32.50
304 page hardcover just published in April. Hollywood power player Weintraub, now 72, is always in control and goes to great lengths to prove it: besides having managed musical legends like Presley, Sinatra and John Denver ("I cooked him from scratch"), Weintraub once closed a deal by faking a heart attack, and won the respect of one of Chicago's most powerful men, Arthur Wirtz, when he cursed Wirtz out for making him wait (Wirtz would go on to become one of Weintraub's mentors). Weintraub's also produced plays, TV shows, movies (from Nashville to the Ocean's 11 franchise), and more, summing up his talent simply: "When I believe in something, it's going to get done." Edgy and honest but refreshingly spare in his criticism of stars, colleagues and family, Weintraub can be forgiven for glossing over speed bumps in his career (one failed business lost $30 million before it closed in the mid-'80s) and occasionally showing his age with wandering rumination. As Weintraub repeatedly states, he is not a star, which perhaps that explains the disappointing omission of photos. Still, with a bold voice, a storied career, and a cast of superstars, his memoir makes a rousing insider tour of some five decades in the entertainment industry.
In the words of Weintraub: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/jerry-weintraub/when-i-stop-talking-youll_b_539088.html.
So if you want to order these books to be shipped hot off the place to you, call us on (02) 9557 7766, go to our secure online store at http://www.immedia.com.au/books.