Exploding The Highs, Hits, Hype, Heroes, and Hustlers of the Warner Music Group

Exploding: The Highs. Hype, Heroes, and Hustlers of the Warner Music Group by Stan Cornyn with Paul Scanlon. Hardback, 2002, stated first edition, first print, published by Harper Entertainment, x + 470 pp. Flat-signed by Cornyn to title page.Carl Stanley Cornyn (July 8, 1933 – May 11, 2015) was an American record label executive. Cornyn began working for Warner Bros. Records in 1958. He left the Warner Music Group in 1990 to live an office-free life. During his Warner years, he advanced to Executive VP of Warner Bros. Records; then to Senior VP of the Warner Music Group; and finally Founder and CEO of Warner New Media within Time-Warner. He is widely remembered for his years heading up Warner-Reprise's Creative Services department, writing innovative ads, and other marketing approaches, including the storied Warner/Reprise Loss Leaders series.He was awarded the Grammy Award for Best Album Notes in 1966 for Frank Sinatra's Strangers in the Night and again in 1967 for Sinatra at the Sands. He was nominated again in 1968 and 1969 for his work on Sinatra and Duke Ellington's Francis A. & Edward K. and Sinatra and Antônio Carlos Jobim's Francis Albert Sinatra & Antonio Carlos Jobim recordings, beaten both times by Johnny Cash. His work gained one additional nomination in 1974 for Sinatra's Ol' Blue Eyes Is Back. [Citation: Wikipedia]In very good condition. Some scuffing to dust jacket, a little fading to spin section but very clean, very slight edge-wear, with a protective clearsleeve dust jacket protector. Label to front cover section of jacket stating where the book was signed. Black paper binding, silver lettering to spine, slight marking but quite clean and firm, small signs of shelf-wear. A little marking to page edges but quite clean. Page surfaces generally clean, no inscriptions, marginalia, underlining, etc. See pictures for more information. More about the book/author: That's how Vanity Fair described the record business turmoil of the 1990s, which moved the Warner Music Group -- the world's number one record company -- from the entertainment pages to the front pages. Suddenly, decades of riotous fun and booming business went splat. Top music executives got evicted from their offices, some escorted by company guards. Why? The answers are in Exploding -- the most insightful and delightful book about the record business ever written.In the rock explosion of the Sixties and Seventies, Warner Bros., Atlantic, and Elektra Records dominated the business as the Warner Music Group. But by the Nineties, the success of WMG was shaken by egos and corporate politics that left the company struggling for identity in a dramatically changing industry. This is the story of that long, strange trip.Your host is the ultimate insider: Stan Cornyn, a key creative force behind the Warner Music Group's stunning rise. During more than thirty years at the company, Cornyn went through what the news media could never uncover. In a freewheeling, vastly entertaining narrative, Cornyn takes us behind the scenes, seats us in the conference rooms, and shows us the interactions between the stars and the suits -- using the same irreverent wit that produced the marketing campaigns that helped put Warner on the map.Exploding is populated by music stars like Frank Sinatra, Ray Charles, the Doors, Jimi Hendrix, Lil' Kim, Dr. Dre, the Grateful Dead, Queen, Madonna, Ice-T, Joni Mitchell, Frank Zappa, Neil Young, Alice Cooper, and dozens more, even the legendary supergroup Scorpio. (Never heard of Scorpio? You'll find out why.) And it introduces you to the most colorful businesspeople ever: hyperintense record sellers who shave their heads; throw doves off a roof; send pig heads through the mail; provide the money, meds, and mammaries -- anything -- to get their records on the air. Here is the music business as you've never seen it: at its wildest, in its wackiest fifty years, bursting with hits and cash.…