MAJOR LABELS tells the story of popular music over the past fifty years. Actually, it tells seven stories about seven genres that have defined and dominated popular music: rock, R&B, country, punk, hip-hop, dance music, and pop. It explains the history of slow jams, the meaning of heavy metal, the genius of Shania Twain, and why rappers are always getting in trouble. It’s a book about the music everyone loves, the music everyone hates, and the decades-long argument over which is which.
NOW AVAILABLE IN PAPERBACK!
The Wall Street Journal: “One of the best books of its kind in decades.”
New York magazine: “An essential document from an inimitable critic.”
Publishers Weekly (starred): “[A] thrilling debut . . . Sanneh surveys the past 50 years of popular music through the dominant genres that shaped it: rock, R&B, country, punk, hip-hop, dance music, and pop. . . . This remarkable achievement will be a joy to music lovers, no matter what they prefer to listen to.”
The San Francisco Chronicle (15 Best Books of the Year): “An examination of the ways we create a personal identity through our musical choices…. An intriguing argument in favor of opposing viewpoints.”
David Letterman: “Kelefa Sanneh has achieved the impossible. MAJOR LABELS somehow manages to unspool everything you need to know about 50 years of music, but more impressively, he makes you care about all of it. Even the stuff you don’t care about. It’s funny, it’s personal and as a piece of writing, the book borders on poetry.”
Stereogum: “A beautifully observed history of the last 50 years of music. It fucking rules.”
The New York Times: “MAJOR LABELS [is] ecumenical and all-embracing. . . . [Sanneh] has a subtle and flexible style, and great powers of distillation. . . . he subtly makes you question your beliefs.”
Alex Ross, music critic of The New Yorker and author of The Rest Is Noise and Wagnerism: “MAJOR LABELS is the most elegant history of popular music ever written. That may sound like faint praise to those who want their pop criticism to channel raw passion, yet passion comes in many forms. Sanneh not only delivers a coolly dazzling overview of the battlefields of genre but also revels open-heartedly in the music itself, his taste unbound by dogma or prejudice. The operative word is keen: zealous in spirit, exact in execution, ferociously acute from the first sentence to the last.”
Library Journal (starred): “This is quite simply a perfect book for any music lover… Sanneh has crafted a uniquely open-minded appreciation of a swath of popular music. It’s written not in the voice of a music critic but that of a deeply engaged and passionate listener.”
Chuck Klosterman: “There have been many attempts at explaining the modern trajectory of pop music, but MAJOR LABELS is quite possibly the best version I’ve ever read. Kelefa Sanneh is pure talent: an engaging, efficient writer with insightful observations and an openness of mind other critics only pretend to possess. I’m sure other people will attempt to publish books like this in the future, but they probably don’t need to. They should just read this one.”
Kirkus (starred): “A lively, heartfelt exploration of the many worlds of popular music. . . . Throughout, the author shows himself to be a master of the mot juste . . . but it’s clear that he’s listened to just about everything with ears and mind wide open. A pleasure—and an education—for any music fan.”
Ira Glass, host of This American Life: “Kelefa Sanneh is somehow able to stand back and give the most clearheaded thoughts about the Big Picture while also diving in for the entertaining, memorable detail. MAJOR LABELS is a completely enjoyable history that told me a thousand things I didn’t know and—one of the book’s great pleasures—made me see lots of musicians I thought I knew, or half-knew, in a whole new light.”
MAJOR LABELS on CBS Sunday Morning