SONIC BOOM: NAPSTER, MP3, AND THE NEW PIONEERS OF MUSIC (2008)

The Internet has altered the music industry forever. If this comes as a surprise to you, then Sonic Boom will serve as an unfettered introduction to the emergence of digital music. But for anyone who's gabbed about the moral implications of downloading free tunes from Napster, freelance Wired reporter Alderman's book will read like a tired argument backed up by a pastiche of news clippings. Instead of riding the forward-looking edge of an evolving story, he wades into the shallow end of recent history and just barely brings the cavalier personalities who inhabit it to life.