This book is an abridgment of the third volume of American Popular Music and Its Business--The First Four Hundred Years by Russell Sanjek, my late father. It covers the years 1900 to 1984, a rich and provocative period in the history of American entertainment, one marked by persistent technological innovation, an expansion of markets, the refinement of techniques of commercial exploitation, and the ongoing democratization of American culture.

This volume focuses on developments in the music business in the twentieth century, including vaudeville, music boxes, the relationship of Hollywood to the music business, the "fall and rise" of the record business in the 1930s, new technology (TV, FM, and the LP record) after World War II, the dominance of rock-and-roll and the huge increase in the music business during the 1950s and 1960s, and finally the changing music business scene from 1967 to the present, especially regarding government regulations, music licensing, and the record business.

This text provides an overview of the four major areas of American contemporary music: jazz, rock, country, and musical theater. Each genre is approached chronologically with the emphasis on the socio-cultural aspects of the music. Readers will appreciate Joyner's engaging writing style and come away with the fundamental skills needed to listen critically to a variety of popular music styles.

Volume three of this work focuses on developments in the music business in the twentieth century, from its earliest days to the present era.

As the long awaited sequel to American Popular Music and Its Business: the First 400 Years, this book offers a detailed and objective history of the evolution and effect of digital technology from 1985 through 2020 on all segments of the popular music business from CDs and stadium tours to TikTok and the effects of the COVID-19 pandemic, with particular emphasis on the relationship between the creators, the consumers, and the business professionals who form the three major axes of the industry. Author Rick Sanjek, a 50-year industry veteran, combines the knowledge acquired during his decades of experience with scholarly research to create a compelling narrative of the events, economics, and innerworkings of the modern music business.

From the first Tin Pan Alley tunes to today’s million-view streaming hits, pop songs have been supported and influenced by an increasingly complex industry that feeds audience demand for its ever-evolving supply of hits. Harvey Rachlin investigates how music entered American homes and established a cultural institution that would expand throughout the decades to become a multibillion dollar industry, weaving a history of the evolution of pop music in tandem with the music business. Exploding in the 1950s and ’60s with pop stars like Elvis and the Beatles, the music industry used new technologies like television to promote live shows and record releases. More recently, the development of online streaming services has forced the music industry to cultivate new promotion, distribution, copyright, and profit strategies. Pop music and its business have defined our shared cultural history. Song and System: The Making of American Pop Music not only charts the music that we all know and love but also reveals our active participation in its development throughout generations.

From Tin Pan Alley to grand opera, player-pianos to phonograph records, David Suisman’s Selling Sounds explores the rise of music as big business and the creation of a radically new musical culture. Around the turn of the twentieth century, music entrepreneurs laid the foundation for today’s vast industry, with new products, technologies, and commercial strategies to incorporate music into the daily rhythm of modern life. Popular songs filled the air with a new kind of musical pleasure, phonographs brought opera into the parlor, and celebrity performers like Enrico Caruso captivated the imagination of consumers from coast to coast. Selling Sounds uncovers the origins of the culture industry in music and chronicles how music ignited an auditory explosion that penetrated all aspects of society. It maps the growth of the music business across the social landscape—in homes, theaters, department stores, schools—and analyzes the effect of this development on everything from copyright law to the sensory environment. While music came to resemble other consumer goods, its distinct properties as sound ensured that its commercial growth and social impact would remain unique. Today, the music that surrounds us—from iPods to ring tones to Muzak—accompanies us everywhere from airports to grocery stores. The roots of this modern culture lie in the business of popular song, player-pianos, and phonographs of a century ago. Provocative, original, and lucidly written, Selling Sounds reveals the commercial architecture of America’s musical life.

Appell (jazz studies, Diablo Valley College) and Hemphill (graduate studies, research, and development, San Francisco State University) offer a textbook for popular music, humanities, or cultural studies courses, organized by the musical influences of particular cultural groups--African American, European American, Latin, Native American and Asian--rather than a strict chronological approach. This is followed by a section tracing modern jazz to hip hop. They survey a broad range of styles, from minstrelsy, blues, hymns, and wind bands to Chicano music, Afro-Caribbean music, bebop, acid jazz, girl groups, folk-rock, the British invasion, R&B, and rock.