Tim Renner 
Death Is Not So Bad! 
On the Future of the Music and Media Industry

When Tim Renner applied to the German record company Polydor in 1986, he intended to write an exposé about the music industry. However, things went differently and he turned this exposé into a career. For eighteen years his biography has been intermeshed with the development of the music industry, he led bands like Element of Crime, Rammstein, Tocotronic and Philip Boa to sucess. He raised up higher and higher on the ladder, finally reaching the top of Universal Music Germany. He witnessed how musical development has been hampered by the pressure of the markets, how pop and commerce diffused, and importantly, he witnessed the rapid dissolution of old comercial structures through the forces of digitalzation and globalization. But the ponderous giant labels kept their eyes shut in front of these developments and Renner finally quit. After his leave from Universal in 2004 he described his point of view on what he found were wrong tracks and challenges of contemporary pop music.
‘Death is not bad!’ is a profound analysis of culture and music in times of digitalization, based on the vison that creativity, consumption and capital could find a way of coexistence.

Ten years after the German edition of this book was published some passages read like a history book about a long forgotten time. Some passages pointing to developments which are fully manifested today and look to evolve further in the future. The book shows the changes of a whole industry and the first steps of a society on it’s way into the digitalized future.

Table of Content

PART ONE: THE OLD TESTAMENT
PARADISE
Paradise – saved by Herbert von Karajan and Jan Timmer
Paradise – created by Emile Berliner and Fred Gaisberg
Paradise – defended by Ahmet and Nesuhi Ertegun
Paradise – humanized by Chris Blackwell and Alfred Hilsberg
Paradise – made possible by Element of Crime and John Cale
Paradise – broadcast by Klaus Wellershaus with the help of Karol Wojtyla
Paradise – filmed by Mike Leckebusch and presented by Ray Cokes
Paradise – described by Julie Burchill and Tony Parsons
Paradise – summed up

THE FALL
Poly Gram on the stock market – ‘Have a tense time’
Techno-boom and own label – at least we were all young then
The Poly Gram/Universal merger – ‘You shoot them, you shoot them, you shoot them’
Compilations and one-hit wonders – ‘There’s the tail wagging the dog’
The Fall – summed up

THE EXPULSION FROM PARADISE
The workshop of the future – ‘That’s communism’
The World Wide Web – Smells Like Teen Spirit
MP3 – ‘Do you know that you will destroy the music industry?’
Music on demand – ‘It will become far more expensive to buy music, but far less convenient too’
CD burners – the Rasta in the madhouse makes things better
Online sales – Bitches Brew and the need for sound advice
Jimmy & Doug’s Farmclub – orgies on Stage 42
Corporate e-business – we learn a lot and do little
Napster – two bottles of Phelps Insignia that could have saved the industry
i Tunes and Popfile – before the deluge
Talent quests – the search for the perfect son-in-law
Record stores – first Germany, then the world
The expulsion from Paradise – summed up

PART TWO: THE NEW TESTAMENT
CONTENT – CAPITAL – RESPONSIBILITY
Brands – having an attitude and selling it
TV – create, broadcast and improve your own rights
Radio – the way back into the foreground
Print – own content is worth far more than advertisements
Movies and photographs – better to be on the net with ideas than in the movie theater with night vision gear
Digital rights management – a good offer is the best protection
E-commerce – if you can’t beat them, join them
M-commerce – no network in LA and UMTS in Mali
World Wide Web – the net learns to talk

RESURRECTION
Management
Identity
Network
Depth
Luxury

About the author

Tim Renner, born 1964, was a musical writer when he started working for the German Record Company Polydor, part of the multinational trust Poly Gram. His intention was to write an exposé about the ‘EVIL’ major label. But he found the music industry provided him with the means to carry artists out of their niche into mainstream.
After an argument with the international top management about the future course of market leader Universal Music Renner resigned from his job as head of Universal Music Germany in early 2004.
He founded his own company Motor Entertainment providing management and label-services for independent artists.