{"product_id":"how-the-beatles-destroyed-rock-n-roll-an-alternative-history-of-american-popular-music-9780195341546","title":"How the Beatles Destroyed Rock 'n' Roll: An Alternative History of American Popular Music","description":"\u003cp\u003e\"There are no definitive histories \" writes Elijah Wald  in this provocative reassessment of American popular music  \"because the past keeps looking different as the present changes.\" Earlier musical styles sound different to us today because we hear them through the musical filter of other styles that came after them  all the way through funk and hip hop.  As its blasphemous title suggests  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. Wald revisits original sources--recordings  period articles  memoirs  and interviews--to highlight how music was actually heard and experienced over the years. And in a refreshing departure from more typical histories  he focuses on the world of working musicians and ordinary listeners rather than stars and specialists. He looks for example at the evolution of jazz as dance music  and rock n roll through the eyes of the screaming  twisting teenage girls who made up the bulk of its early audience. Duke Ellington  Benny Goodman  Frank Sinatra  Elvis Presley  Chuck Berry  and the Beatles are all here  but Wald also discusses less familiar names like Paul Whiteman  Guy Lombardo  Mitch Miller  Jo Stafford  Frankie Avalon  and the Shirelles  who in some cases were far more popular than those bright stars we all know today  and who more accurately represent the mainstream of their times.  Written with verve and style  How the Beatles Destroyed Rock n Roll shakes up our staid notions of music history and helps us hear American popular music with new ears.\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"My Store","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":45647079243829,"sku":"ByrdShop_0195341546","price":22.63,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0627\/8139\/0901\/files\/9780195341546.jpg?v=1781688017","url":"https:\/\/atxbooks.com\/products\/how-the-beatles-destroyed-rock-n-roll-an-alternative-history-of-american-popular-music-9780195341546","provider":"ATX Books","version":"1.0","type":"link"}