A Whig History of Pop Music

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Published on: August 18, 2014

Reviews

A Whig History of Pop Music J. Arthur Bloom

Rock journalist and musician Bob Stanley attempts a full-throated defense of “poptimism” and an encyclopedic account of the American music industry’s rise and fall. Both miss the mark.

Yeah! Yeah! Yeah! The Story of Pop Music from Bill Haley to Beyoncé by Bob Stanley W.W. Norton, 2014, 624 pp., $29.95

If you’ve ever seen the Jim Jarmusch film Mystery Train (1989), you’ve witnessed the whole of pop music criticism in microcosm, in the form of two Japanese tourists spending a night in Memphis while on a pilgrimage devoted to the King of Rock ’n’ Roll. Mitsuko shows her boyfriend the “important discoveries” in her notebook, pictures of the Statue of Liberty and Madonna; like a parody of the stuffy, tenured Americanist and his archetypes, they all...

J. Arthur Bloom is opinion editor of the Daily Caller, and editor of The Mitrailleuse.

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