The Rise & Fall Of EMI Records
by Brian Southall

From gramophones to Grammys

EMI has a special place in the hearts and minds of many, making The Rise & Fall a document of one of the music business’ true monoliths. The label’s forcible presence and domineering reach within the nuts-and-bolts industry of music hardware and software manufacturing eventually led to their predominance over the record label landscape. As author Brian Southall notes in the foreword, their existence resembled less of a company and more that of an institution, such was the scale of their foothold.

Steeped in the tales of managers, executives and financial analysts, the reward here is almost strictly for those with a predilection for financials, rather than any debauched rock’n’roll tales of artists that emerged from EMI’s superstar assembly line. The narrative is a glutton of economics, touching upon the innate fragility of applying a stringent business model to a part of the commercial sector driven by the doggedly unpredictable and speculative nature of mainstream musical preferences. Laced with facts and figures, The Rise & Fall reinforces what you knew all along: that whatever the industry, the game is the same, and mastery of markets makes that game invariably about numbers.

3 stars 3 stars 3 stars

ISBN 9781847722447, 259 pages

Reviewed by Matt Kendall
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