Wired

The Year The Music Dies


Record labels are under attack from all sides - file sharers and performers, even equipment manufacturers and good old-fashioned customers - and it's killing them. A moment of silence, please. Not long before his sudden death from a heart attack, I saw Timothy White at a party in Boston, standing by the bar in his usual bow tie and white bucks. When he waved me over, I was delighted: Timothy was not only the editor of Billboard but a respected music critic and biographer. Even the executives he often took to task conceded, with a wince, that he understood the secretive, confusing business better than almost anyone. "How much you want to bet that the entire music industry collapses?" he asked me. "And I mean soon - like five, ten years. Kaboom!"