Song and System

December 1, 2019

Rachlin (music business, Manhattanville Coll.; The Encyclopedia of the Music Business) introduces this examination of American pop music by looking at recording and mass distribution technologies, from sheet music to records, tapes, and CDs to today's digital bounty. But the rest of the book does not measure up. He hones in on the ways recording technologies enabled and revolutionized the marketing and distribution of popular music, but doesn't engage in a deeper or more elucidating analysis. He makes clear that American pop music is the result of a complex relationship between creativity, business, and technology. Yet his assessment of what makes pop music a driving artistic and cultural force falls short of Richard Crawford's America's Musical Life: A History or (the dated) The Rolling Stone Illustrated History of Rock and Roll. The chapter on hip-hop in particular could have dug deeper; readers interested in learning how this genre became a musical and merchandising juggernaut should check out Dan Charnas's The Big Payback. VERDICT A solid premise in need of greater depth and polish.--Genevieve Williams, Pacific Lutheran Univ. Lib., Tacoma

Copyright 2019 Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.

February 10, 2020
Rachlin (The Songwriter’s Handbook), coordinator of the music business program at Manhattanville College, expertly lays out the history of pop music by framing “the evolution of the music business with the evolution of the popular song.” From the rise of the Tin Pan Alley music publishing industry in 1880s New York City to the global streaming services of Apple and Spotify, Rachlin traces the “symbiotic relationship” between songs and the music business “as the songs shape the business and the business shapes songs.” He shows, for example, how the careers of thousands of bands and hundreds of composers were helped by the success in the 1930s of coin-operated jukeboxes in nightclubs and bars. He also expertly illustrates how sales of pop songs of the 1960s were boosted when music industry distributors and wholesalers expanded their operations beyond music stores to include large chain department stores. And he is unsparing in his look at the way streaming companies have prospered while cutting into songwriters’ profits, and how, for better or worse, technology is intrinsically linked to the music industry’s future. Rachlin’s informative and highly detailed narrative will resonate with music geeks and industry folks alike.