Major Labels: A History of Popular Music in Seven Genres

Today's nonfiction post is on Major Labels: A History of Popular Music in Seven Genres by Kelefa Sanneh. It is 496 pages long and is published by Penguin Press. The cover is yellow with the title in red. The intended reader is someone who is interested in the history of modern music. There is no foul language, no sex, and no violence in this book. There Be Spoilers Ahead.

From the dust jacket- An epic achievement and a huge delight, the entire history of popular music over the past fifty years refracted through the big genres that have defined and dominated it: rock, R&B, country, punk, hip-hop, dance music, and pop
Kelefa Sanneh, one of the essential voices of our time on music and culture, has made a deep study of how popular music unites and divides us, charting the way genres become communities. In Major Labels, Sanneh distills a career's worth of knowledge about music and musicians into a brilliant and omnivorous reckoning with popular music--as an art form (actually, a bunch of art forms), as a cultural and economic force, and as a tool that we use to build our identities. He explains the history of slow jams, the genius of Shania Twain, and why rappers are always getting in trouble.
Sanneh shows how these genres have been defined by the tension between mainstream and outsider, between authenticity and phoniness, between good and bad, right and wrong. Throughout, race is a powerful touchstone: just as there have always been Black audiences and white audiences, with more or less overlap depending on the moment, there has been Black music and white music, constantly mixing and separating. Sanneh debunks cherished myths, reappraises beloved heroes, and upends familiar ideas of musical greatness, arguing that sometimes, the best popular music isn't transcendent. Songs express our grudges as well as our hopes, and they are motivated by greed as well as idealism; music is a powerful tool for human connection, but also for human antagonism. This is a book about the music everyone loves, the music everyone hates, and the decades-long argument over which is which. The opposite of a modest proposal, Major Labels pays in full.

Review- A wonderful read about music, its history and its fans. Sanneh is a wonderful, engaging writer that loves his topic and is knowledgeable about it. He starts with the birth of his love of music then moves into the meat of the book. He breaks out trends, fads, and the difference between them. As the book moves forward, he doesn't forget about the music that was discuss earlier and links it into the current chapter topic. That gives the reader a very good sense of growth in music and in the world that the music was playing in. The reader truly feels that they are moving through time as they go through the book and learning about the past in a new way, through the music that was popular or hated. Sanneh also including himself in this journey, as he writes about what music he was listening too or discovering or writing about as a professional music critic. He gives the reader insight in himself, his thoughts, his life, and how the music affected him. I would love to read more by Sanneh, he was just a delight to read. I recommend this book. 

I give this book a Five out of Five stars. I get nothing for my review and I borrowed this book from my local library.