SPeak Performance

Chapter 1

Is This the Last Race?

Movin’ down the back streets

Pass the speed of light

Sparks burn inside me

Gas and air adjusted right

Layin’ down some rubber

Needle’s in the red

—(Street Lethal, Racer X, 1986)

For a long time, things had been going well with the business. As record labels go, it had pretty much hit the top of the charts and stayed there. However, in recent months it looked as if it had begun a slide that could prove difficult to recover from. As the CEO, Jason should have seen what was happening. But for some reason he missed all the signals. Sony had recently closed a plant and laid off 300 workers in New Jersey due to what they called, “the challenge facing the physical media industry.” They were referring to the introduction ...