Breaking Records: 100 Years of Hits

by Ruhlmann,William

• ISBN13: 9780415943055
• ISBN10: 0415943051
• Edition: 1st
• Format: Hardcover
• Copyright: 2004-03-16
• Publisher: Routledge

Summary

The music industry is in crisis. Sales are down, artists restless with long-term contracts, and consumers angry at escalating CD prices. New technologies are rapidly changing the way music is recorded, sold, and enjoyed. Although these challenges appear to be unprecedented, a look back at the last 100 years shows that the recording industry has always initially feared - but eventually profited from - rapid shifts in the way music is recorded, distributed, and performed. Breaking Recordsgives a narrative history of American popular music and the pop music industry. Organized by decade, each chapter gives an overview of the major developments, technologically, commercially, and musically, for all types of popular music making. Technological developments, from the irth of radio and the phonograph to downloading, file sharing, the burning CDs, are described in relation to how they affected musicians and the industry itself. Key performers and their major hits are profiled by decade. BreakingRecordstells us the compelling story of how business and art have interacted, and soemtimes clashed, through a century of new musical developments. Students of pop culture and music history, music-business historians, and general fans of American music will enjoy this account of the growth, maturation, and world of American musical culture.

Table of Contents

Introduction	ix
1 The 1900's
The Birth of the Recording Industry	1	(18)
2 The 1910's
Stage, Sheet Music, and Disc: A New Synergy	19	(20)
3 The 1920's
The Jazz Age	39	(20)
4 The 1930's
Brother, Can You Spare a Dime?	59	(24)
5 The 1940's
War at Home, War Abroad	83	(24)
6 The 1950's
All Shook Up	107	(20)
7 The 1960's
The Rock Invasion	127	(22)
8 The 1970's
The Balkanization of Popular Music	149	(24)
9 The 1980's
The Rise of the Music Video Star	173	(22)
10 The 1990's
The Digital Revolution Begins	195	(18)
Bibliography	213	(4)
Index	217