Narrator: In 1894, a young songwriter from Milwaukee named Charles K. Harris received a royalty check from a major New York publisher for one of his songs. The amount was a paltry 85 cents. Furious, Harris decided he would never let a publisher control his work again. He wrote a tearjerker ballad called "After the Ball," published it himself, and devised a brilliant marketing plan. He paid a famous baritone to feature the song and put the singer's photo on the sheet music. He then ensured it was played constantly at the 1893 Chicago World Fair. By the end of the year, "After the Ball" had sold over two million copies, making Harris a fortune. This single act of defiance and entrepreneurial genius didn't just make one man rich; it revolutionized an industry. It's a story that captures the central, often-overlooked truth of popular music: it has always been a business, driven by hustlers, innovators, and the relentless desire to turn a melody into money. In his book, Ta-ra-ra-boom-de-ay: The Business of Popular Music, Simon Napier-Bell unpacks this complex history, revealing how the entire industry was built, not just on talent, but on shrewd, and sometimes ruthless, commercial ambition.

Narrator: The popular music business didn't begin with an artist, but with a law. The British Statute of Anne in 1710 was the first to protect an author's rights in a written work, which included musical scores. For the first time, a song could be owned, bought, and sold like any other commodity. This legal framework gave rise to the first music publishers, who initially focused on classical works. But the real money, they soon discovered, was in popular music. In both Britain and America, a new industry emerged, centered around selling sheet music. This wasn't a gentle, artistic pursuit; it was a cutthroat business. In America, it was dominated by Jewish immigrants, often excluded from other industries, who brought their salesmanship to the world of entertainment. They established a hub in New York that would later be dubbed Tin Pan Alley, a noisy, chaotic factory for hit songs. Publishers employed "pluggers" to sing new tunes in department stores and bars, bribed vaudeville stars to perform their songs, and used any means necessary to get a song "drummed into the ears of the public." The story of Charles K. Harris and "After the Ball" became the industry's founding myth. His decision to self-publish and aggressively market his song, leading to unprecedented sales, proved that the real power, and the real money, lay not just in writing the song, but in controlling its distribution.

Narrator: The invention of the phonograph by Thomas Edison in 1877 was a novelty, a machine that could capture a voice and play it back. Early demonstrations, where people paid to hear themselves speak or sing, were lucrative, with some machines earning $1,800 a week. But the technology was crude. It was Emile Berliner's invention of the flat disc gramophone that truly commercialized recorded music, allowing for mass duplication. Companies like Columbia and Victor in the US, and HMV in Britain, sprang up to capitalize on this new market. However, the rise of radio in the 1920s presented an existential threat. Why would anyone buy a record when they could hear music for free on the wireless? Sheet music sales plummeted from 200,000 per hit to just 20,000. The record industry was in crisis. Ironically, the technology that threatened to kill the record business also provided its salvation. Research from radio technology led to the development of electrical recording, which used microphones instead of acoustic horns. This new method produced vastly superior sound quality and revitalized the industry. A London-based company, Columbia UK, shrewdly acquired the rights to this new technology, briefly overtaking Victor as the world's leading record company and proving that in the music business, technological adaptation is key to survival.

Narrator: As the industry grew, so did the need to control and monetize every aspect of it. On Broadway, producers like Florenz Ziegfeld and the Shubert brothers became powerful gatekeepers, and their extravagant shows were the primary vehicle for launching hit songs. Publishers like Max Dreyfus of T.B. Harms made exclusive deals with these producers, ensuring their writers' songs were featured. But the biggest power grab came with the creation of performing rights organizations. In the early 1900s, composer Victor Herbert was dining in a New York restaurant when the house orchestra played one of his songs. Realizing he wasn't being paid for this public performance, he sued. The court's ruling in his favor established a landmark precedent: any venue using music for commercial gain had to pay for it. This led to the formation of ASCAP in America and PRS in Britain, societies created to collect these license fees. However, these organizations quickly became exclusive clubs, dominated by the most successful publishers and writers, who created a system that favored the established elite and often excluded new or niche artists, particularly those in the burgeoning genres of jazz, blues, and country.

Narrator: While the business was largely run by white, often Jewish, entrepreneurs, its creative fuel was increasingly drawn from black culture. From the early "coon songs" and ragtime that influenced Irving Berlin, to the birth of jazz in the multicultural melting pot of New Orleans, black music provided the innovation and energy that drove popular taste. The Great Migration brought jazz musicians north to cities like Chicago and New York, where their sound captivated a new generation. Independent labels like Atlantic Records, founded by Turkish immigrants Ahmet and Nesuhi Ertegun, and Chess Records, started by the Chess brothers, recognized the power of this music. They began recording rhythm & blues artists, creating what was then called "race records." However, this success was fraught with exploitation. Major labels would often have white artists "cover" the hits of black musicians, sanitizing the sound for a white audience and reaping the financial rewards. It wasn't until DJs like Alan Freed began playing the original R&B versions on mainstream radio, coining the term "rock 'n' roll," that black artists began to break through the racial barriers of the industry.

Narrator: The arrival of rock 'n' roll, and later rock music, fundamentally changed the industry's power structure. The rise of stadium tours in the 1970s shifted control from local promoters to the artists and, more importantly, their managers. Figures like Peter Grant, who managed Led Zeppelin, became titans of the industry, negotiating massive deals and fiercely protecting their artists. This era was defined by unprecedented excess. Bands like Led Zeppelin became notorious for their destructive behavior on tour, fueled by drugs, boredom, and a sense of invincibility. The lifestyle became part of the product. This new model was a far cry from the controlled world of Tin Pan Alley. The chaos culminated in events like the Altamont Free Concert in 1969, where the Rolling Stones' attempt at a free festival descended into violence, ending the idealistic dream of Woodstock and exposing the dark underbelly of the rock 'n' roll circus.

Narrator: By the 1980s and 90s, the music industry had become a global corporate machine. Major labels were bought and sold by multinational conglomerates, and "numbers guys"—accountants and lawyers—replaced the old music men. This led to a focus on blockbuster artists like Michael Jackson and Madonna, who mastered the new medium of MTV, but also to exploitative contracts and bitter legal battles, like George Michael's fight with Sony. The industry was then blindsided by the digital revolution. Having profited immensely from the switch to CDs, record companies failed to anticipate the rise of the internet and file-sharing. They resisted change, suing services like Napster and even their own customers, which only damaged their public image. It was an outsider, Steve Jobs, who provided the solution with the iPod and the iTunes Store, forcing the labels to finally embrace the digital age. This disruption led to the downfall of giants like EMI, which was acquired and mismanaged into oblivion, proving that even the biggest players are not immune to the relentless march of technology and the consequences of failing to adapt.

Narrator: Simon Napier-Bell's exhaustive history reveals that the business of popular music has never been just about the songs. It's a relentless story of commerce, a battle between art and profit, and a stage for hustlers, visionaries, and exploiters. The single most important takeaway is that the industry's evolution has been driven by a constant, often ruthless, adaptation to new laws, technologies, and cultural shifts. From the first copyright law to the rise of streaming, the core challenge has remained the same: how to turn a melody into money.

The story of music is a cycle of innovation and exploitation. New sounds emerge from the margins, are commercialized by savvy entrepreneurs, and eventually become the establishment, only to be disrupted by the next wave. As we navigate a world of streaming algorithms and global connectivity, the question remains: will this new landscape finally create a more equitable system for artists, or will the "men in suits," in whatever new form they take, always find a way to take the biggest cut?