In 2002, Dan Kennedy landed what he thought was a dream job in the freewheeling world of rock 'n' roll: Director of Creative Development at Atlantic Records. As it turned out, the post offered him a bizarre (and sometimes banal) look at a business that had long since gone corporate — and was in the throes of a financial struggle.
"The sobering reality," as Kennedy puts it on the book's Web site, is that the record business had become "a nine-to-five world that's equal parts Spinal Tap and The Office — and he's just in time for mass layoffs, artists being cut from contracts, and sales hitting an all-time low."
Rock on: An Office Power Ballad is Kennedy's ironic memoir of his time at Atlantic. He's also the author of Loser Goes First: My Thirty-Something Years of Dumb Luck and Minor Humiliation and a regular contributor to McSweeney's.
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