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jasonfurman's review
5.0
No one else could have written a book with this range. Rockonomics draws on economic theory, standard government surveys, proprietary administrative data, a unique survey fielded by the author, and interviews with a range of people in the music industry. It covers just about every aspect of the music industry. The book focuses on the economics of the music industry, including a number of familiar themes like how streaming revenue is rising but recorded music primarily drives touring revenue, how live ticket prices are set, how merchandise is marketed, how streaming is changing the makeup of songs, and more. Relatively little of this was revelatory, as someone who only casually follows these issues I knew most of it, but all of it was definitive and authoritative. A secondary purpose of the book (and it is secondary, notwithstanding the subtitle) is to use the music industry to illustrate a number of economic concepts, like superstars and inequality, the behavioral economics that leads stars to underprice their tickets for fear of sending the wrong signal, the economics of incomplete contracts, the endogenaity of preferences, and even simple demand curves--but in advertising revenue.
It is hard not to linger over the references in the book to artists that died prematurely, including some sympathetic references to them dying at their own hands. This, plus the broad range of Rockonomics, makes it all the harder to accept the fact that Alan Krueger will not write another book.
It is hard not to linger over the references in the book to artists that died prematurely, including some sympathetic references to them dying at their own hands. This, plus the broad range of Rockonomics, makes it all the harder to accept the fact that Alan Krueger will not write another book.
wayfaring_book_nerd's review against another edition
4.0
Rockonomics was an interesting read and I would recommend it to anyone interested in popular music revenue models. As a musicologist and an economic nerd this piece delivered new information and it also challenged and added to the old thinking models that I have.
Analysis on musicians earnings and the industry's turbulences were the major narratives of this book. It was easy to read and statistics were digestible, on top of that Krueger compares how common economic troubles are present in music. The subtitle What the Music Industry Can Teach Us About Economics (and Our Future) falls flat because the comparisons are quite general and they can be applied to several other fields than music. Nonetheless it was an interesting addition to the book.
One of these comparisons was the superstar phenomenon (eg. Elon Musk on the larger economic scale, Lady Gaga on musical scale). I dabbled a bit in the superstar research while studying musicology and Kruegers view on the phenomenon was really fresh. There was the traditional view of how people and their networks drive the phenomenon, but academia has more defining aspects on superstardom. I remember that at least authenticity and equivalent terms are applied to superstars in popular music. (Different genres and their communities also set their own definitions and they vary through time and communities.) Krueger brings luck in the mix. Talent and drive are hardly ever enough in popular music and luck, chance and being at the right place at the right time are factors in breaking to the popular music scene let alone to stardom. The idea of luck might not be new, but this was the first time it really was explored on my radar. But how can one research and quantify luck?
The book is centered around American popular music. I was hoping for a broader scope but then again it’s the biggest market for music compared to the national GDP. The book has an entire chapter on China and its possibility to develop a new buzzing market for music. This chapter was a glimpse on how a culture was adjusting to popular music, but it was viewed through westerners eyes and how local characteristics of the music industry are trying to fit to the western habits. Rockonomics also shed some light on interesting quirks of the music industry in the US. It also addresses how the biggest companies in music are relatively minor compared to the platforms that stream music (excluding Spotify and the likes). And those mammoth companies (Google, Apple, Amazon) can influence how music will be consumed and artists are compensated.
Majority of popular music artists and bands derive their biggest income from touring and other performances. It would be interesting to see analysis on how Covid has impacted these revenues as performances are canceled or moved to live streams. How the virus will affect popular music in the future is still unknown, but the implications derived from this book and the current news aren’t promising. But then again the music industry is always changing and it might grow to unexpected avenues as a result.
Analysis on musicians earnings and the industry's turbulences were the major narratives of this book. It was easy to read and statistics were digestible, on top of that Krueger compares how common economic troubles are present in music. The subtitle What the Music Industry Can Teach Us About Economics (and Our Future) falls flat because the comparisons are quite general and they can be applied to several other fields than music. Nonetheless it was an interesting addition to the book.
One of these comparisons was the superstar phenomenon (eg. Elon Musk on the larger economic scale, Lady Gaga on musical scale). I dabbled a bit in the superstar research while studying musicology and Kruegers view on the phenomenon was really fresh. There was the traditional view of how people and their networks drive the phenomenon, but academia has more defining aspects on superstardom. I remember that at least authenticity and equivalent terms are applied to superstars in popular music. (Different genres and their communities also set their own definitions and they vary through time and communities.) Krueger brings luck in the mix. Talent and drive are hardly ever enough in popular music and luck, chance and being at the right place at the right time are factors in breaking to the popular music scene let alone to stardom. The idea of luck might not be new, but this was the first time it really was explored on my radar. But how can one research and quantify luck?
The book is centered around American popular music. I was hoping for a broader scope but then again it’s the biggest market for music compared to the national GDP. The book has an entire chapter on China and its possibility to develop a new buzzing market for music. This chapter was a glimpse on how a culture was adjusting to popular music, but it was viewed through westerners eyes and how local characteristics of the music industry are trying to fit to the western habits. Rockonomics also shed some light on interesting quirks of the music industry in the US. It also addresses how the biggest companies in music are relatively minor compared to the platforms that stream music (excluding Spotify and the likes). And those mammoth companies (Google, Apple, Amazon) can influence how music will be consumed and artists are compensated.
Majority of popular music artists and bands derive their biggest income from touring and other performances. It would be interesting to see analysis on how Covid has impacted these revenues as performances are canceled or moved to live streams. How the virus will affect popular music in the future is still unknown, but the implications derived from this book and the current news aren’t promising. But then again the music industry is always changing and it might grow to unexpected avenues as a result.
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