At the turn of the twentieth century, with the newfound ability of song publishers to mass produce sheet music for a growing middle class, popular songs moved from being a novelty to being a major business enterprise. With the emergence of the phonograph, song publishers also discovered that recorded tunes boosted interest in and sales of sheet music. Thus, songwriting and Tin Pan Alley played a key role in transforming popular music into a mass medium.
As sheet music grew in popularity, jazz developed in New Orleans. An improvisational and mostly instrumental musical form, jazz absorbed and integrated a diverse body of musical styles, including African rhythms, blues, and gospel. Jazz influenced many bandleaders throughout the 1930s and 1940s... among the most popular of the swing jazz bands... rhythmic music also dominated radio, recordings, and dance halls in their day.
The first pop vocalists of the twentieth century were products of the vaudeville circuit, which radio, movies, and the Depression would bring to an end in the 1930s. In the 1920s, Eddie Cantor, Belle Baker, Sophie Tucker, and Al Jolson were all extremely popular. By the 1930s, Rudy Vallée and Bing Crosby had established themselves as the first crooners, or singers of pop standards... Meanwhile, the Andrews Sisters’ boogie woogie style helped them sell more than sixty million records in the late 1930s and 1940s. In one of the first mutually beneficial alliances between sound recording and radio, many early pop vocalists had their own network of regional radio programs, which vastly increased their exposure.
The Replacements - Takin' a Ride
- Composed by: Paul Westerberg
- Vocals by: Paul Westerberg
- Duration: 02:29
"Hailing from Minneapolis, The Replacements careened through their early years earning a reputation for beer soaked concerts and sloppily recorded albums."
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