Industry FAIL: Four Musical Mistakes Of The Decade

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Schadenfreude never seems as sweet as it does when it’s directed at the music industry. We fans understand, of course, that the vast majority of those employed by said industry are passionate about what they do. Which makes it all the more fun to see the boneheads among us flounder in the public embarrassment of their worst decisions.

The chief failure of the recording industry this decade, some have written, was its initial decision to treat digital music as an enemy. Rather than find a way to embrace Napster and its 26 million users, the Recording Industry Association of America took legal action against the company, thus only diffusing and intensifying the methods and rate of piracy. With the genie freed from the bottle, the music business is still reeling.

In the shadow of said genie, many attempts have been made to stuff him back in or deal with his power. Some have changed the way we listen, while others have changed employment situations at record labels. With apologies to Perez Hilton Presents, Carly Hennessey (who?) and dropping the ball on Yankee Hotel Foxtrot, here are four of the top music-industry FAILs of the ’00s. Please send us more in the comments below….