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Have records, compact discs, and other sound reproduction equipment merely provided American listeners with pleasant diversions, or have more important historical and cultural influences flowed through them? Do recording machines simply capture what's already out there, or is the music somehow ...

Have records, compact discs, and other sound reproduction equipment merely provided American listeners with pleasant diversions, or have more important historical and cultural influences flowed through them? Do recording machines simply capture what's already out there, or is the music somehow transformed in the dual process of documentation and dissemination? How would our lives be different without these machines? Such are the questions that arise when we stop taking for granted the phenomenon of recorded music and the phonograph itself. Now comes an in-depth cultural history of the phonograph in the United States from 1890 to 1945. William Howland Kenney offers a full account of what he calls "the 78 r.p.m. era"--from the formative early decades in which the giants of the record industry reigned supreme in the absence of radio, to the postwar proliferation of independent labels, disk jockeys, and changes in popular taste and opinion. By examining the interplay between recorded music and the key social, political, and economic forces in America during the phonograph's rise and fall as the dominant medium of popular recorded sound, he addresses such vital issues as the place of multiculturalism in the phonograph's history, the roles of women as record-player listeners and performers, the belated commercial legitimacy of rhythm-and-blues recordings, the "hit record" phenomenon in the wake of the Great Depression, the origins of the rock-and-roll revolution, and the shifting place of popular recorded music in America's personal and cultural memories. Throughout the book, Kenney argues that the phonograph and the recording industry served neither to impose a preference for high culture nor a degraded popular taste, but rather expressed a diverse set of sensibilities in which various sorts of people found a new kind of pleasure. To this end, Recorded Music in American Life effectively illustrates how recorded music provided the focus for active recorded sound cultures, in which listeners shared what they heard, and expressed crucial dimensions of their private lives, by way of their involvement with records and record-players. Students and scholars of American music, culture, commerce, and history--as well as fans and collectors interested in this phase of our rich artistic past--will find a great deal of thorough research and fresh scholarship to enjoy in these pages.

Music Genres and Corporate Cultures explores the seemingly haphazard workings of the music industry, tracing the uneasy relationship between economics and culture; 'entertainment corporations' and the artists they sign. Keith Negus examines the contrasting strategies of major labels like Sony and ...

Music Genres and Corporate Cultures explores the seemingly haphazard workings of the music industry, tracing the uneasy relationship between economics and culture; 'entertainment corporations' and the artists they sign. Keith Negus examines the contrasting strategies of major labels like Sony and Polygram in managing different genres, artists and staff. How do takeovers affect the treatment of artists? Why has Polygram been perceived as too European to attract US artists? And how did Warner's wooden floors help them sign Green Day? Through in-depth case studies of three major genres; rap, country, and salsa, Negus explores the way in which the music industry recognises and rewards certain sounds, and how this influences both the creativity of musicians, and their audiences. He examines the tension between raps public image as the spontaneous 'music of the streets' and the practicalities of the market, and asks why country labels and radio stations promote top-selling acts like Garth Brooks over hard-to-classify artists like Mary Chapin-Carpenter, and how the lack of soundscan systems in Puerto Rican record shops affects salsa music's position on the US Billboard chart. Drawing on over seventy interviews with music industry personnel in Britain and the United States, Music Genres and Corporate Cultures shows how the creation, circulation and consumption of popular music is shaped by record companies and corporate business styles while stressing that music production takes within a broader culture, not totally within the control of large corporations.

New technologies are rapidly changing the way music is recorded, sold, and enjoyed. Although these challenges appear to be unprecedented, Breaking Records offers a look back at the last 100 years that reveals that the recording industry has always initially feared--but eventually profited ...

New technologies are rapidly changing the way music is recorded, sold, and enjoyed. Although these challenges appear to be unprecedented, Breaking Records offers a look back at the last 100 years that reveals that the recording industry has always initially feared--but eventually profited from--rapid shifts in the way music is recorded, distributed, and performed.

The Directory provides an indepth examination of the growth of the American record industry from the introduction of Berliner's disc Gramophone through the Petrillo recording ban. It examines the histories of more than 330 labels and their manufacturers, chronicaling the growth of the disc record ...

The Directory provides an indepth examination of the growth of the American record industry from the introduction of Berliner's disc Gramophone through the Petrillo recording ban. It examines the histories of more than 330 labels and their manufacturers, chronicaling the growth of the disc record from a crude toy in the 1890s to a multi-million dollar industry in the early 1940s.