Hit Men: Power Brokers and Fast Money Inside the Music Business

Fredric Dannen and his loyal staff did a bang up job covering the various label bosses and their excesses....The research in this book is outstanding, and is a must read for all music lovers....

Wow. If only you knew how treacherous the music business is. Read this and you'll know."Hit Men" confirms what many music lovers saddened by the boring state of commercial rock radio already suspected: hit records are bought and paid for by the promoters, not made by the fans. Don't allow yourself for one second to believe ever again that radio stations are pushing songs into heavy rotation because they are responding to what their listeners want. They are doing so because someone is paying a LOT of money to cram those songs down your throat. As bad as this was in decades past, I dare say it is even worse now (in 2010)."Hit Men" pulls back the curtain on the major players and activities in the record business over a period of several decades and reveals some extremely ugly and disheartening truths about how that business operates. I doubt anyone reading this book will regard the music business or the radio business with anything other than contempt from now on.Want to know why certain songs become hits? It's because someone paid for it to happen. It has nothing at all to do with consumer preference. Well, at least not primarily.Are you a fan of The Who? Want to know the REAL reason their 1981 album "Face Dances" tanked? Read this book.Want to know the REAL reason artists on certain labels get massive amounts of airplay while artists on other labels struggle to get heard? Read this book. But here's a hint -- it has nothing to do with the quality of the music.Educated readers will probably make the logical assumption that there are a great many industries that operate as the music business has and does. Welcome to the real world, folks. It's all about the money. In any battle between commerce and art, commerce has the advantage. Get used to it.Fascinating, fascinating reading. Just as relevant today as it was when it was published in 1990.

This was a long and depressing read for a guy who grew up loving recorded music and who naively transferred his love of records, cassettes and CDs into love for the whole industry that provided these things.. I loved to watch the Grammy's every year and I loved weekly trips to the music aisle or to the record store at the mall. In short, by buying and re-buying the music of the artists I loved, I supported these monsters who ran it all! And they are all despicable people. Every man character in the book from Clive Davis to David Geffen to Irving Azoff to especially Walter Yetnikoff were cut throat capitalists with a capital C. That is their right but it is hard to read about their greed without getting a little upset about it.The main thrust of the book is the mob connection and I think that case is made pretty clear here though the government never managed to win the case and all the names mentioned still deny it or dismiss it to this day. As you get to the end of the book, you start to be really happy that Napster happened and that this industry slipped a great deal. Capitalists like Davis and Azoff managed to find a new place in the new business model. Others, like Yetnikoff, went other directions.It is probably the definitive book on the subject and still stunning. Nice updated epilogue from 2012. Glad I read it but I am done with this particular subject.

This is a well written book - that and my interest in the subject kept me going even though I started to loath some of the characters. You can't blame the author for that in non-fiction :) But what started as a light and interesting read on the plane became fairly dark. Maybe because I can relate it too much to some of other business politics I've seen? As a silver lining - I now don't mind at all the current changes in the industry, challenging though they are. I appreciated the updated chapter on the business (2010) and would like to see a 2018 update chapter.Its especially interesting (and balancing) to read this book after you've read other opposing points of view, as say Tommy Mottola's own book on his career as President of Sony Records. Its also interesting to see how SMALL the record business was even at its peak - the number of employees and income were tiny compared to size of companies you routinely deal with in other industries, especially one spending as the record companies did!

Having grown up during the period this book covers and being a huge music fan, I thought I knew a little something about the music industry. Wrong again!This book is a fascinating read into the inner workings of the business - particularly "independent promotion". I always suspected there was a fair amount of shady characters but not quite to the extent that there really were (and perhaps still are?). The author's research appears to be thorough and solid. This is not an easy read - there are a lot of names to keep track of and that I often had to go back and reread some sections but it was worth it.If you are a music fan, particularly of the 60's - 90's you will probably find this book extremely captivating. Don't expect to read about artists (to these guys they were "product to sell" - this book focuses on the people behind the music - and does it very well.

This was recommended to me by a friend. We are both in the music business. Lots of familiar names in it for me and a pretty fair telling of what goes on. My criticism is that it focus too much on just a few players in the game and often softens their actual persona. I guess that might have been a way to stay off a hit list. But for those of you that think the business is fair and you can go as far as your talent lets you, it should show you is as corrupt as most other things that involve lots of money. If someone is famous and you know who they are, they are victims, not victors. This is the Mickey Mouse version. The Truth has yet to be told.

Great comprehensive study of the music industry and the corporate cannibalism that killed the creativity and variety of styles that used to be so mainstream just fifty years ago. Wish there was a follow-up through 2020.

A very interesting subject and a good informative read - if perhaps just a little dry and sometimes academic.It is not always a page turner or unputdownable. (Were there Libel issues?) Having said that do buy it -I will reread it later. How would this book read if rewritten today? With all the media changes?I am not sure why being Jewish from a poor background is so interesting to the author. This is not a WASP industry or the Army. Even more interesting anecdotes and in depth examples of personality issues and successes would be appreciated. Upwardly mobile people are entrepreneurs and take chances.My next read will be The OPERATOR by Tom KIng. (about David Geffen)

This is a really good Who's Really Who guide to the American music business of the 80s and 90s; some excellent stories here, especially those covering Payola and how the main perpetrators managed to keep it all legal. All students of the music business should read this, at least once.

That flash in the pan nonsense called disco made a lot of Mafia people more money than they had before.

Excellent,straight to it pulling no punches.

A really captivating book about the egos and posturers in the 20th Century music industry. A must-read for anyone with a broad interest in how the industry got to where it was before the digital era.