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| Bubblegum: The History of Plastic Pop | 
 enlarge | Author: Nick Brownlee
Publisher: Sanctuary Publishing, Ltd.
Category: Book
List Price: $19.95
Buy New: $2.00
You Save: $17.95 (90%)
New (21) Used (18) from $1.79
Avg. Customer Rating:  1 reviews
Sales Rank: 1056322
Media: Paperback
Number Of Items: 1
Pages: 224
Shipping Weight (lbs): 0.9
Dimensions (in): 9.2 x 7.5 x 0.3
ISBN: 1860745121
Dewey Decimal Number: 781
EAN: 9781860745126
ASIN: 1860745121
Publication Date: October 2003
Availability: Usually ships in 1-2 business days
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Product Description
Has the global phenomenon that is Pop Idol ruined pop music, or is it just the natural evolution of a genre of music that has always been manufactured? From Tin Pan Alley to The Monkees, Bay City Rollers, Spice Girls, and boy bands, Bubblegum showcases the rise of Pop Idol and its many predecessors, in the process creating a witty, thorough history of what is arguably the most popular musical genre ever. This colorfully illustrated look at pop's manufactured mega-brands includes original interviews with the movers and shakers of the pop world.
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| Customer Reviews:
Svengalis all August 1, 2005
6 out of 6 found this review helpful
I've been reading up on bubble-gum music and I found this to be one of the better books. It follows a chronological pattern and covers "prefab" music from the 1950s (not really Tin Pan Alley) through about 2002, treating it by decades. Especially interesting was the focus on managers who, realizing they had the formula down, would reinvent it in the next wave of music with a new band in a new style. The author also admits the fuzziness between "well-packaged" and "plastic," including a discussion of Beatles vs. Stones as nice boys/bad boys. The vignettes about individual stars and groups were useful to read in counterpoint to the narrative, but the layout meant every 4 paragraphs I was interrupting my train of thought to read about another band. The book is British (read "gigging" for "jobbing"), and as such is probably more balanced across the Atlantic than some American books on the subject, but it also means they make a few mistakes about American phenomena like understanding Toni Basil only in terms of the song "Micky" and omitting Davy Jones' pre-Monkees Broadway stint as the Artful Dodger in Oliver. The typos are pretty minimal for this sort of book, and the photos are great. The author's tone is generally pretty matter-of-fact about his subject in a "that's show-biz" sort of way: he only occasionally scoffs at a group or fawns over another one. Occasionally he is quite witty.
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