I recently finished up Moses Avalon's Confessions Of A Record Producer not too long ago. I would highly recommend this book to any one who wants to enter into the shark tank known as the music industry. Enough so that I made it one of my essentials.
Not quite as detailed as Passman's book, the writing style is very approachable and informal. Both Confessions and All You Need To Know focus on how things are supposed to be and both the legal and financial sides to that, with All You Need To Know not going quite so far in depth. Confessions, however, drills more into the human side of the business, with all the delight and detrius that implies.
Avalon spends a great bit of time detailing the various scams and myths that are ran in the industry, some of which are:
- Clears and Cleans (ways to scam record sales)
- Copyright Protection (not many cases actually make it to court, and the ones that do rarely win)
- A&R Myths (the promo kit doesn't really matter, and the quality of the recording is secondary to the quality of the music)
All in all, it's a good perspective on some of the less savory segments of the music industry, pitched with enough humour and good graces to make you want to stick with it.
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