Where Have All the Good Times Gone? : The Rise and Fall of the Record Industry

by Louis Barfe

Louis Barfe's elegantly written, authoritative and highly entertaining history charts the meteoric rise and slow decline of the popular recording industry. Barfe shows how the 1920s and 1930s saw the departure of Edison from the phonograph business he created and the birth of EMI and CBS. the arrival of Elvis Presley changed popular music (and sales of popular music) overnight. After Presley came the Beatles, when the recording industry became global and record sales reached all time highs. But the 1990s ushered in a period of profound crisis and uncertainty in the industry, encapsulated in one word: Napster. Barfe shows how the almost infinite amounts of free music available online have traumatic and disastrous consequences for an industry that has become cautious and undynamic.

Genres: Music, Nonfiction

402 pages, Paperback

First published April 8, 2004

Reviews

[Nic Margett · Rating 3 out of 5]

There's no denying that this is a thoroughly well researched and written book. There are plenty of amusing anecdotes and Barfe's knowledge of the music industry is unparalleled. I picked this up last year because i'm interested in the demise of the music business as I have come to understand it. I work for a *ahem* well known high-street music retailer and I was looking for answers as to the direction the music business might take in the future. I don't really feel this was what I was looking for. This book is heavily weighted towards the “rise” or earlier years of the music business, and while I do like classical music, I feel this book would be more suited to somebody looking for a history of recorded classical music. Basically, I felt like what I really wanted to read about was only covered in the last 3 chapters. It's only as I was nearing the end that I noticed it was first published in 2004, so while he does have some interesting things to say about illegal downloading, this book really misses out on the current state of the music business. I'll definitely be looking into something on a similar topic, but first i'll be making sure it's been written recently and that it covers more about downloading in general.

In conclusion, a good book, and one that I would recommend to anyone with more that a passing interest in the history of classical music.

[David Klompas · Rating 4 out of 5]

Louis Barffe manages to write an adrenaline pumping survey of the recording industry's meteoric rise and rapid, dramatic fall.

From Edison to Ertigun, Sony to Warners, this magnificent book covers it all, touching on all the necessary tidbits and funky details within the beast that is the recording industry.