In New York City near the end of the nineteenth century, writers and publishers near a part of Union Square nicknamed “Tin Pan Alley” developed an elaborate process of plugging new music. They would pass out song sheets to local musicians, who would play each tune in different neighborhoods, from the Lower East Side to the Upper West, and report back on which songs clicked. The American standards that came out of this period—such as “The Band Played On,” “Take Me Out to the Ball Game,” and “God Bless America”—were the products of an elaborate testing and distribution strategy that ran on sheet
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