1999: The Year The Record Industry Lost Control is out now via Omnibus Press (it is published in the US on 28 May). You can buy it direct from Omnibus here or from Hive (which supports local book shops) here.
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The Guardian has run an extract from my book 1999: The Year The Record Industry Lost Control. It is on David Bowie releasing an album as a paid download two weeks before the CD version came out (and causing chaos at both record labels and high-street music retailers). You can read it here.
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My book Leaving The Building: The Lucrative Afterlife Of Music Estates has been published in Spanish with the amazing title of Royalties de Ultratumba. Details of how to order it here.
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My new book, 1999: The Year The Record Industry Lost Control, will be published in March 2024.
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My latest book is called Leaving The Building: The Lucrative Afterlife Of Music Estates. It was published by Omnibus Press on 19th August 2021.
You can buy it here (via Hive in the UK).
Teaser extracts from Leaving The Building: The Lucrative Afterlife Of Musical Estates
The Guardian has an extract from the book looking at the complex (and initially fraught) issues between Jeff Buckley’s estate and Sony Music.
Music Business Worldwide also has an extract from the book looking at how estates try to make deceased artists relevant for new audiences.
Synchtank has run an extract focusing on how Ray Charles’ children fought to reclaim the rights to their father’s works.
Interviews about the book
Please Kill Me allowed me to talk (at length) about the book and estate management.
Reviews of Leaving The Building: The Lucrative Afterlife Of Musical Estates
Record Collector
4/5
“The author employs the same forensic research and attention to detail he brought to his previous book, 2019’s Selling The Pig, about the collapse of EMI, and writes with the attractive flair of a seasoned detective novelist.” / “Given the convoluted red tape inevitably attached to the rights and ownership of any ‘product’ that still commands a healthy price tag, it would be easy to bamboozle the reader with legalese, but Forde leads us through it without ever losing sight of the people and the glorious music they left behind.”
“Eamonn Forde’s fascinating and comprehensive non-fiction book”
“Forde assembles an extraordinary cast of music industry figures and family members of musicians, many of whom are as vivid as the super-stars they have outlived. For a book ostensibly about death, Leaving the Building teems with life” / “The breadth of Forde’s research is impressive: he leaves no gravestone unturned, from labyrinthine copyright battles and stage musicals to commemorative coins sent into space and the possibilities of artificial intelligence. Here lies comedy and tragedy: all human life is here.”
4/5
Sections of the book concerning holograms are referenced in a piece on ABBA’s virtual return.
Uncut
8/10
“Pop-biz fetishist Eamonn Forde’s bracing exploration of musical life after death” / “An occasionally vulgar picture, but painted vividly”
“the essential guide to ensuring a lucrative pop afterlife”, “a 500-page doorstopper “/ “[the book is the first to analyse the entertainment afterlife industry in detail”
“informative”
“… this entertaining and wide-ranging exploration of the subject…” / “At the book’s core are the many perceptive interviews Forde has conducted with musicians’ relatives…” / “Famous living musicians with an eye on their own legacies would be well advised to pay close attention to these stories, both good and bad.”
“… it’s a compelling, utterly readable, bordering on academic, forensic study of the subject…” / “The book is exhaustive and every possible angle you could probably imagine is covered…” / “Leaving The Building is so rich in its content, anything I highlight couldn’t even be considered to be the tip of the iceberg.”
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The Final Days Of EMI: Selling The Pig was published by Omnibus Press in February 2019. The paperback edition was published on 17th June 2021.
You can buy it here (via Hive in the UK).
Reviews of The Final Days Of EMI: Selling The Pig:
“Over the past 15 years, Eamonn Forde has built a reputation as one of the music industry’s most authoritative commentators. The Final Days of EMI, his first book, is an unsparing, follow-the-money inquest into the label’s ill-starred encounter with Hands. It’s primarily a business tale, but it says so much about 21st-century Britain and how we arrived where we are now.” – The Observer
“an addictive blend of tragedy, comedy and insight” – The Guardian
Shortlisted as one of the best music books of 2019 – Financial Times
“A sometimes devastating account of mismanagement on a grand scale, it’s also an uncomfortable reminder of how art, and artists, can suffer when money and power are the main concerns.” – Hot Press
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The Bluffer’s Guide To Rock (originally published in 2013 and updated in 2020).
