Brooks on Books: "Ripped: How the Wired Generation Revolutionized Music" by Greg Kot

This is a fun read, with Kot's research and interviews elevating book from just another rant about how stupid the major record labels are into something much more enlightening. Don't get me wrong; I love reading about how stupid the music industry has been, is, and probably will be, but by now, you need something else to turn it into a worthwhile full-length book.

Kot's "something else" is his analysis and reporting of not just how traditional recorded music declined as an industry, but how artists responded to it. He devotes individual chapters to the stories of how particular artists adapted to technological change. This does not include just dealing with file sharing and fighting Napster, though that is a huge part of it, but also various other strategies in recording and performing music as well as distributing it. Preceding each chapter is a snapshot of a fan and that fan's attitude towards something like file sharing.

The approach allows for a wide range of topics and musicians, though there is a heavy emphasis on indie/alternative rock. Even if you are not particularly interested in the work of an Arcade Fire or a Death Cab for Cutie, you can enjoy reading about their strategies and approaches to functioning as working artists in a digital age. There are also profiles of bigger names like Prince and Wilco.

While the basics of events such as Radiohead's experiment with a "pay what you feel it is worth" approach to releasing an album may seem familiar, Kot's reporting provides detail and perspective. Then there are chapters that shed light on less-covered topics. For example, I was familiar with the music news/reviews site Pitchfork, but I knew little about its origins, and Kot makes it a compelling story in and of itself but also the basis for a broader exploration of Internet music blogs in general.

"Ripped" merits an easy thumbs up for music fans, both those who are familiar with how technology is changing the industry and those who have tried their best to avoid those details so they can just focus on the tunes and not the iTunes.