Why Does Pop Music Suck?
“A lot of the popular music you hear out there, especially on the radio, is just crap,” says Hank Bordowitz, author of the provocatively-titled Dirty Little Secrets of the Record Business: Why So Much Music You Hear Sucks, “but there is probably more good music available than ever before. It’s just much harder to find.” The industry serves up lowest-common-denominator pap, but quality music survives. That’s a succinct summation of the book’s thesis, and of Bordowitz’s belief. The eminently readable book is a pleasing mix of anecdote and facts-and-figures, part investigative journalism, part love letter to good music. Industry veteran Bordowitz (he’s a former recording artist, a music industry consultant, an author with several books to his credit, and now a professor at Western Illinois University) lays out exactly what’s wrong with the record business, but he doesn’t stop there. Ultimately the book strikes a hopeful tone about the future of popular music. I spoke with him as he packed
