How the Beatles destroyed rock 'n' roll : an alternative history of American popular music Cover Image

Book

How the Beatles destroyed rock 'n' roll : an alternative history of American popular music / Elijah Wald.

Summary:

How the Beatles Destroyed Rock 'n' Roll rejects the conventional pieties of mainstream jazz and rock history. Rather than concentrating on those traditionally favored styles, the book traces the evolution of popular music through developing tastes, trends and technologies--including the role of records, radio, jukeboxes and television--to give a fuller, more balanced account of the broad variety of music that captivated listeners over the course of the twentieth century.--From publisher description.

Record details

ISBN: 9780195341546 (hardcover : alk. paper)
ISBN: 0195341546 (hardcover : alk. paper)
Physical Description: x, 323 p., [16] p. of plates : ill. ; 24 cm.
Publisher: Oxford ; Oxford University Press, 2009.

Content descriptions

Bibliography, etc. Note:

Includes bibliographical references (p. [281]-289) and index.

Formatted Contents Note:

Amateurs and executants -- The ragtime life -- Everybody's doin' it -- Alexander's got a jazz band now -- Cake eaters and hooch drinkers -- The king of jazz -- The record, the song, and the radio -- Sons of Whiteman -- Swing that music -- Technology and its discontents -- Walking floors and jumpin' jive -- Selling the American ballad -- Rock the joint -- Big records for adults -- Teen idyll -- Twisting girls change the world -- Say you want a revolution-- -- Epilogue: the rock blot and the disco diagram.