This is a chronology of the most famous songs from the years before rock 'n' roll. The top hits for each year are described, including vital information such as song origin, artist(s), and chart information. For many songs, the author includes any web or library holdings of sheet music covers, musical scores, and free audio files. An extensive collection of biographical sketches follows, providing performing credits, relevant professional awards, and brief biographies for hundreds of the era's most popular performers, lyricists, and composers. Includes an alphabetical song index and bibliography.

Profiles more than five hundred noteworthy rock songs, all of which appeared high on the charts, but not all of them number one hits, and describes their biographical, social, and esthetic significance

The political control of music in the Third Reich has been analysed from several perspectives, and with ever increasing sophistication. However, music in Germany after 1945 has not received anything like the same treatment. Rather, there is an assumption that two separate musical cultures emerged in East and West alongside the division of Germany into two states with differing economic and political systems. There is a widely accepted view of music in West Germany as 'free', and in the East subject to party control. Toby Thacker challenges these assumptions, asking how and why music was controlled in Germany under Allied Occupation from 1945-1949, and in the early years of 'semi-sovereignty' between 1949 and 1955. The 're-education' of Germany after the Hitler years was a unique historical experiment and the place of music within this is explored here for the first time. While emphasizing political, economic and broader social structures that influenced the production and reception of different musical forms, the book is informed by a sense of human agency, and explores the role of salient individuals in the reconstruction of music in post-war Germany. The focus is not restricted to any one kind of music, but concentrates on those aspects of music, professional and amateur, live and recorded, which appeared to be the mostly highly charged politically to contemporaries. Particular attention is given to 'denazification' and to the introduction of international music. Thacker traces the development of a divide between Communist and liberal-democratic understandings of the place of music in society. The contested celebrations of the Bach Year in 1950 are used to highlight the role of music in the broader cultural confrontation between East and West. Thacker examines the ways in which central governments in East and West Germany sought to control and influence music through mechanisms of censorship and positive support. The book will therefore be of interest not only

First Published in 2002. A Century of American Popular Music is an annotated index to over 2,000 of the most popular, best remembered, historically important and otherwise influential and interesting popular music, from the landmark publication of Scott Joplin's Maple Leaf Rag to the latest rap hit. It provides information all in one place that is available no where else: song title, composer, lyricist, publisher, date of copyright and genre. The annotations include, where possible, a discussion of the history of the song, how it was written, who popularized it, notable recordings with their original issue numbers, as well as covers and other versions that helped keep the song in public attention. Also included are indices by composer, publisher and year of publication.

From John Philip Sousa to Green Day, from Scott Joplin to Kanye West, from Stephen Foster to Coldplay, The Encyclopedia of Great Popular Song Recordings, Volumes 1 and 2 covers the vast scope of its subject with virtually unprecedented breadth and depth. Approximately 1,000 key song recordings from 1889 to the present are explored in full, unveiling the stories behind the songs, the recordings, the performers, and the songwriters. Beginning the journey in the era of Victorian parlor balladry, brass bands, and ragtime with the advent of the record industry, readers witness the birth of the blues and the dawn of jazz in the 1910s and the emergence of country music on record and the shift from acoustic to electrical recording in the 1920s. The odyssey continues through the Swing Era of the 1930s; rhythm & blues, bluegrass, and bebop in the 1940s; the rock & roll revolution of the 1950s; modern soul, the British invasion, and the folk-rock movement of the 1960s; and finally into the modern era through the musical streams of disco, punk, grunge, hip-hop, and contemporary dance-pop. Sullivan, however, also takes critical detours by extending the coverage to genres neglected in pop music histories, from ethnic and world music, the gospel recording of both black and white artists, and lesser-known traditional folk tunes that reach back hundreds of years. This book is ideal for anyone who truly loves popular music in all of its glorious variety, and anyone wishing to learn more about the roots of virtually all the music we hear today. Popular music fans, as well as scholars of recording history and technology and students of the intersections between music and cultural history will all find this book to be informative and interesting.

Popular music studies is a rapidly expanding field with changing emphases and agenda. This is a multi-volume resource for this area of study