I firmly believe the idea of genres as we know them has expired, and as this book journey began Sanneh spoke to how the idea of genres developed and the tribism that came with it. I began reading this book believing the author and I were going to have to agree to disagree. The opposite of a modest proposal, Major Labels pays in full.
This is a book about the music everyone loves, the music everyone hates, and the decades-long argument over which is which. 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. Sanneh debunks cherished myths, reappraises beloved heroes, and upends familiar ideas of musical greatness, arguing that sometimes, the best popular music isn't transcendent. 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 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. He explains the history of slow jams, the genius of Shania Twain, and why rappers are always getting in trouble. 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. 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. One of Oprah Daily's 20 Favorite Books of 2021 - Selected as one of Pitchfork's Best Music Books of the YearĪn 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
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