Beyond the Charts: MP3 and the Digital Music Revolution
by Bruce Haring
By the mid 1990s, the record industry that traditionally compensated musicians with fleeting fame and loans euphemistically termed "advances" was under attack. Digital distribution had arrived, allowing popular songs to be easily sent anywhere in the world at the click of a mouse. No longer was music held captive by warehouses, radio promotion, and retail marketing money. The Internet&’s mainstream acceptance created a level
playing field where anyone, anywhere, at any time, could share music with like-minded friends.
Bruce Haring&’s "Beyond The Charts," the sequel to the award-winning music industry expose "Off The Charts," take a look at the shocking war being waged over your CD collection, a struggle that will determine who controls popular music -- and, to a large extent, popular culture -- in the coming years.
It&’s a battle of multinational corporate giants versus Internet entrepreneurs working out of their bedrooms, challenging the fat cats who have built their fortunes on the bones of underpaid musicians. It&’s also a war for the hearts and minds of a new generation and a culture that doesn&’t feel the need to hold a plastic disc in its hands to enjoy music. And it&’s a fight that pits progressive musicians like The Beastie Boys,
Alanis Morissette, tom Petty and Bill Idol against their own record companies, who attacked MP3 as a tool of pirates and attempted to squelch the digital future.
"What MP3 has done for the music industry is give the devil a name," said musician Thomas Dolby Robertson, one of the artists who wasn&’t buying
the record company party line.
"Beyond The Charts" takes a look at the hype and examines what&’s really at stake in the struggle for your computer, profiling the hot new Internet
companies that will forever change the way you listen to music. The result is a disturbing but immensely fascinating look at the world of popular entertainment.
