Recorded Music in American Life

Kenney examines the interplay between recorded music and the key social, political, and economic forces in America during the era of the phonograph's rise and decline as the dominant medium of popular recorded sound--from the appearance of the first commercial recordings to the postwar years when the industry became more complex and less powerful. He argues that the phonograph and the recording industry served neither to impose a preference for high culture nor a degraded popular taste, but rather expressed a diverse set of sensibilities whereby various sorts of people found pleasure. As detailed in this study, recorded music provided the focus for active recorded sound cultures, in which listeners shared what they heard and expressed important dimensions of their personal lives by way of their involvement with records and record-players.