Major Labels: A History of Popular Music in Seven Genres
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One of Oprah Daily's 20 Favorite Books of 2021 • Selected as one of Pitchfork's Best Music Books of the Year “One of the best books of its kind in decades.” —The Wall Street Journal 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.
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On paper, Major Labels is a book about how seven different genres of music (rock, R&B, country, punk, hip-hop, dance and pop) have evolved over the past 50 years. In practice, it's a book about how music has an ability to define those who are fans of a particular type of it, how that tribalism plays a part in the way the art is created and what it means to criticize music as a whole. It's also an incredible book about how seven different genres of music have evolved over the past 50 years. I'm actually at a bit of a loss for words in terms of how to describe and review this book. So much of its quality is self-evident. Sanneh is a seasoned pro with an extensive background in music writing that he calls on frequently as he discusses various trends. This could be an extremely boring book, but Sanneh fills his writing with an appropriate amount of vivaciousness, allowing his anecdotes and stories to really come to life. I find that this book is at its best when it strays away from talking about music itself but rather the cultures and identities that music creates just by existing. Sanneh himself seems to know this, as there isn't a ton of music theory discussion throughout. What he does instead is focuses on the people surrounding the songs and albums that are ostensibly the centerpiece of the book. It's a smart choice and makes the book not only informative, but remarkably enjoyable as well. I learned a lot by reading this book but the main thing I'll take away from it is the joy in the writing. Sanneh clearly has a passion for music and writing about it, and that love elevates this book from good to truly great. Whether he's describing how heavy metal became commercialized or how Luther Vandross couldn't quite get a #1 hit or how puns were made based off of George Strait's name or talking about his own childhood punk experiences or extolling the virtues of dumber rap or celebrating the diversity that made disco special or questioning whether criticism as a whole is dying, Sanneh seems to have a gift for finding the right words to elicit a certain level of emotion. I'm genuinely in awe of this book and think it's a great achievement.
