Goldberg, Danny

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GOLDBERG, Danny

PERSONAL:

Son of Victor Goldberg; married Rosemary Carroll (an attorney); children: Katie, Max. Education: Attended University of California at Berkeley. Religion: Jewish.

ADDRESSES:

Home—New York, NY. Office—Artemis Records, 130 5th Ave., 7th Floor, New York, NY 10011. E-mail—[email protected].

CAREER:

Involved in politics, New York, NY, and worked for Billboard magazine; vice president of Swan Song Records and founder and co-owner of Modern Records; owner and president of Gold Mountain Entertainment (personal management firm), 1983-92; Atlantic Records, Los Angeles, CA, senior vice president, 1992, president, 1993-94; Warner Bros. Records, chair and chief executive officer, 1995; Mercury Records, president, 1996-97, chair and chief executive officer, 1998; Tikkun magazine, co-publisher, 1997-2001; Artemis Records, chair and chief executive officer, 1998—; president and chief executive officer of Sheridan Square Entertainment. Also worked as a television commercial and film producer in the 1980s, co-producing and directing No Nukes (documentary), 1980, co-producing voter registration commercials for MTV, 1984, and producing "Rock against Drugs" commercials, 1986. President, American Civil Liberties Union Foundation of Southern California; member of board of directors, New York Civil Liberties Union executive committee, Rock the Vote, Creative Coalition, Nation Institute, Jewish Television Network, and the Abraham Fund; served on the board for the Hollywood Policy Center and the Show Coalition.

WRITINGS:

(Editor, with father, Victor Goldberg, and Robert Greenwald) It's a Free Country: Personal Freedom in America after September 11, RDV Books (New York, NY), 2002.

Dispatches from the Culture Wars: How the Left Lost Teen Spirit, Miramax (New York, NY), 2003.

SIDELIGHTS:

Music company executive and political activist Danny Goldberg has long-held, strong beliefs about the importance of free speech and a free American culture, and his books reflect these beliefs. His first publication, It's a Free Country: Personal Freedom in America after September 11, was edited with Robert Greenwald and Goldberg's father, Victor, with whom he at one time published the Jewish political magazine Tikkun. A collection of essays by political pundits, mostly from the political Left, the book warns of the dangerous consequences to America's political freedoms brought about by the passage of the Patriot Act after terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001. Although Library Journal writer Thomas J. Baldino complained that the essay collection does not offer a balanced perspective on this issue, the critic still felt "this lively book should be added to the collections of larger public libraries."

Goldberg authored his first book, Dispatches from the Culture Wars: How the Left Lost Teen Spirit, in 2003. Drawing on his vast experience in the music industry, the author combines his political and cultural views to examine his notion that the Democrats have damaged their political prospects because they have distanced themselves from America's youth culture. Meanwhile, the Republicans have become savvier in appealing to young voters; Goldberg feels the consequences will be that liberal views will lose ground in American politics. This evolution, says Goldberg, began in the 1980s with President Ronald Reagan's charismatic Hollywood appeal, and the situation became worse when Democrats such as Al Gore's wife, Tipper, began actively attacking America's popular culture by organizing the Parents Music Resource Center. "Tipper," writes Goldberg, "legitimized to many liberal baby boomers the snobbish, indeed arrogant, notion that their children were being exposed to music far less moral than the songs they'd grown up with." When Gore ran for president in 2000, Goldberg continues, he further alienated young voters by selecting the "stuffy" Joe Lieberman as a running mate. With the Gore-Lieberman ticket as their only other choice, young voters found the George W. Bush-Dick Cheney campaign much more appealing than they might otherwise have.

Dispatches from the Culture Wars "leaves the reader feeling like they've just finished a class taught by an exhipp[i]e college professor with cool music tastes and a fiery passion for liberal politics," said Wes Orshoski in his Billboard assessment. Some critics found this unique perspective on American politics particularly refreshing. As one Publishers Weekly contributor asserted, "Here is that rare breed of book that can de-construct gangsta rap as effectively as it analyzes the 1988 presidential election." However, David Weigel, writing in Reason, felt that Goldberg was off the mark in using the musical tastes of politicians as a barometer for how well Washington is connected to the country's voters. "Goldberg's thesis is more fun than a prescription drug plan," commented Weigel. "And it definitely comes from the gut. But in the end, Dispatches from the Culture Wars fundamentally misunderstands politics, pop culture, and the connections between them. By equating aesthetics with ideology, Goldberg makes a common but serious mistake: He thinks you can tell a person's politics from the music she listens to." Library Journal reviewer Thomas A. Karel similarly felt that Goldberg's views are "unrealistic," but he asserted that "the great value of [Goldberg's] book is as an insider's tour of American cultural life from the Sixties to the present."

BIOGRAPHICAL AND CRITICAL SOURCES:

PERIODICALS

Billboard, July 26, 2003, Wes Orshoski, "Goldberg: Checking the Left," p. 59.

Economist, September 7, 2002, "Easy to Lose; Civil Liberties."

Kirkus Reviews, May 1, 2003, review of Dispatches from the Culture Wars: How the Left Lost Teen Spirit, p. 655.

Library Journal, October 1, 2002, Thomas J. Baldino, review of It's a Free Country: Personal Freedom in America after September 11, p. 116; May 15, 2003, Thomas A. Karel, review of Dispatches from the Culture Wars, p. 105.

Publishers Weekly, August 26, 2002, "September 11: Before and After," p. 53; April 7, 2003, review of Dispatches from the Culture Wars, p. 54.

Reason, March, 2004, David Weigel, "Talkin' 'Bout Regeneration."

Rolling Stone, July 10, 2003, Lewis Macadams, review of Dispatches from the Culture Wars.

Washington Post, August 26, 2003, Ann Hornaday, review of Dispatches from the Culture Wars, p. C01.