"...the best extant map of our sonic shadowlands, and it has changed how I listen."—Alex Ross, The New Yorker"...an essential survey of contemporary music."—New York Times"…sharp, provacative and always on the money. The listening list alone promises months of fresh discovery, the main text a fresh new way of navigating the world of sound."—The Wire2017 Music Book of the Year—Alex ...

This is the first introductory survey of western twentieth-century music to address popular music, art music and jazz on equal terms. It treats those forms as inextricably intertwined, and sets them in a wide variety of social and critical contexts. The book comprises four sections – Histories, Techniques and Technologies, Mediation, Identities – with 16 thematic chapters. Each of these explores a musical or cultural topic as it developed over many years, and as it appeared across a divers...