Top 20 Record Industry Screw Ups

Music publication "Blender" compiles a list of the biggest mistakes ever made made by record industry over the years.

Each of us I'm sure has our own personal mental list compiling the record industry's greatest blunders over the years, but the music publication "Blender" has taken the time to come up with a hand dandy tally of the "20 Biggest Record Company Screw-Ups of All Time."

Most are pretty straightforward, but a few may be lost on younger readers like the whole "grunge" thing from the early 90's.

20. As grunge dawns, one label bets on hair metal

19. The industry kills the single—and begins its own slow demise

18. BMG dumps Clive Davis, begs him to return

17. Thomas Edison disses jazz, industry standards

16. Warner pays for Wilco record twice

15. MCA’s teen-pop calamity

14. Stax Records unintentionally gives away the store

13. One label’s big spending single-handedly ends “alt-rock” boom

12. Geffen pumps millions into (the nonexistent) Chinese Democracy

11. Geffen sues Neil Young for making “unrepresentative” music

10. Columbia Records loses Alicia Keys, drops 50 Cent

9. “Digital-rights management” backfires even more badly than usual

8. Warner junks Interscope

7. Music publisher gives away Bob Dylan

6. Casablanca rides strong sales straight to the poorhouse

5. The RIAA sues a struggling single mom for digital piracy

4. Indie promoters take the major labels to the cleaners

3. Motown sells for a pittance

2. Decca Records A&R exec tells Fab Four, “No, thanks”

1. Major labels squash Napster

Shawn Fanning’s file-sharing service attracted tens of millions of users, but instead of trying to find a way to capitalize on it, the Recording Industry Association of America rejected Napster’s billion-dollar settlement offer and sued it out of existence in 2001. Napster’s users didn’t just disappear. They scattered to hundreds of alternative systems—and new technology has stayed three steps ahead of the music business ever since. The labels’ campaign to stop their music from being acquired for free across the Internet has been like trying to cork a hurricane—upward of a billion files are swapped every month on peer-to-peer networks. Since Napster closed, “there’s been no decline in the rate of online piracy,” says Eric Garland of media analysts BigChampagne, who logged users of son-of-Napster peer-to-peer networks more than doubling between 2002 and 2007. And that figure doubles again if you count BitTorrent. Unintended consequence Your grandmother deciding to trade up from that dial-up connection

I think we can all agree that number 1 was by far the most egregious.