Booklist
Veteran pop music observers won't be surprised that Melody Maker's history of most of a century of pop music is significantly smaller than Rolling Stone's history of just the rock era. MM, like its homegrown rival, the New Music Express (NME--get it?), covers pop music in a quick-hitting style that sometimes suggests Walter Winchell as a Billboard columnist. MM emphasizes the popular in popular music. Thus, bits about the Rolling Stones, Bob Marley, ABBA, Marc Bolan, the Carpenters, and the Bay City Rollers are absolutely free of any taxonomical concerns about form or style. MM gives record buyers a little background about, a little peek behind the scenes with, perhaps a little dishing of their purchases' perpetrators. Johnstone's coverage extends from 1926 to now. Why '26? Because MM was launched that year as "the `house organ' of a London music publisher." Johnstone quotes generously from MM stories, which helps make the thoroughly readable, admirably indexed book refreshingly terse. Mike Tribby
Book Description
Since its launch in 1926, Britain's Melody Maker has encouraged the progression and evolution of musical styles, genres, and artists; it has also been a pioneer in the fight for racial and sexual equality within the industry. In doing so, it has played a seminal role in the history of music. Melody Maker History of 20th-Century Popular Music traces that history through the paper's pages. It relates the story of music as it was told at the time, without benefit of hindsight, rather than as it was remembered. Covering the entire range of musical styles that has emerged this century, it offers a cultural, racial, and social portrait of a constantly evolving society. Among Melody Maker's rich store of archive material, Nick Johnstone has uncovered and excerpted a wealth of rare and "lost" interviews with nearly every major artist this century, making this a must for anyone with an interest in popular music.
