Rock On

So Dan Kennedy has written a truly funny (and witty, which isn't the same) book about working for the now failing record industry.  Which of course I devoured, as I am a former record store employee who moved on to greener library pastures just in the nick of time.

I tell ya: the corporate cluelessness and greed he presents is totally real, from my limited insider view as a record store manager and buyer in the 1990s.  (His recounting of a label meeting about the band The Darkness  is fall on the floor funny, if you're familiar with the band.)  Of course in the age of rampant illegal downloading, it isn't hard to convince people that the record labels are protecting their own backsides, frankly at the expense of both artists and the artistic expression formerly known as a record album.  But only Dan Kennedy can do so in such a gloriously self-deprecating and humorous way.  The fact that he is affiliated with McSweeney's and Dave Eggers comes as no surprise.

A warning: The cover art is horrid!  Don't let it dissuade you.