Major Labels: A History of Popular Music in Seven Genres

by Kelefa Sanneh

But even those of us who are nominally grown-ups may find that we never quite outgrow the sense that there is something profoundly good about the music we like, something profoundly bad about the music we don’t, and something profoundly wrong with everyone who doesn’t agree. We take music personally, partly because we learn it by heart; songs, more than movies or books, are designed to be experienced over and over, made to be memorized.