Rock Bottom: The Music Industry In Trouble

WHEN ROLLING STONES manager Andrew Loog Oldham founded his own company, Immediate Records, in the 1960s, the paper sleeve of each and every single bore the slogan 'Happy to be a part of the industry of human happiness.' Those words, echoing down the decades from a more innocent and ingenuous era, currently ring somewhat hollow: there has been precious little happiness in the music business of late.