Product Description

How do major labels manage different genres, artists and staff? How do takeovers affect the treatment of artists? Why and how did EMI Records attempt to change their corporate culture?
Music Genres and Corporate Cultures reveals how the creation, circulation and consumption of popular music are shaped by record companies and corporate business styles. Negus examines the tension between rap's public image as the "spontaneous music of the streets" and the practicalities of the market, and asks why country labels and radio stations promote top-selling acts like Garth Brooks over hard-to-classify artists like Mary Chapin Carpenter, and how the lack of soundscan systems in Puerto Rican record shops affects salsa music's position on the US Billboard chart.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #1184032 in Books
• Published on: 1999-08-04
• Original language: English
• Number of items: 1
• Binding: Paperback
• 224 pages

Review
"...fascinating and thorough...." -- Choice

'Painstakingly researched and impeccably theorized.' - European Journal of Communication, 15(4), 2000

'Worthwhile book which is well written and well presented.' - Work, Employment & Society, 14(3), 2000

Painstakingly researched and impeccably theorized. - European Journal of Communication, 15(4), 2000

Worthwhile book which is well written and well presented. - Work, Employment & Society, 14(3), 2000

About the Author
Keith Negus is Lecturer in the Department of Media and Communications, Goldsmiths College, University of London.

Customer Reviews

VERY INTERESTING
This book will introduce you to the political side of the music industry while exposing you to the formulas for success that many major record labels use. It is NOT an easy read. The author's writing style is very clinical and at times, not very reader friendly. But if you are starting a label that you want to compete with the most successful ones, this book will provide you with some eye opening information about the processes used.

Excellent insider's view of the music industry
Negus, a culutral studies-oriented scholar wrote an excellent book called Popular Music In Theory: An Introduction in 1996. He continues his thorough, informed approached in this fascinating sociological, economic and ethnographic look at the recording industry.

He clearly explains the intricacies of portfolio management, marketing and targeting, resource distribution and cultural attitudes regarding the way music is created and distributed. He uses specific examples from his own primary research regarding genres like rap, country and salsa.

I am working on my Ph.D and I found the book challenging and accessible. I would recommend this to anyone who wants insights into music marketing.