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Stt00S gn August 1991 the Polygram group–one of the world's largest recorded music producers and publishers–issued an interim report to shareholders in which president Alain Levy set out the corporation's strategy; emphasising that the key to future growth lay in the company's ability to find and successfully develop new recording artists. Levy added that although new acts do not usually make a significant contribution to the company until the second or third album,'it is the initial discovery and subsequent nurturing of the artist which is the critical phase'.

In this book I am taking the'critical phase" which Levy identifies–the discovery and development of recording artists–as my central theme, and using it as an organising principle to provide a more general account of the recording industry and production of pop music. My focus is on personnel within the music business, rather than the artists or audiences, and my …