"There's Something Really Slippery About the Pop Identity"

"'This is a book about musical obsession, and the ways in which different people have defined themselves by their musical identities,' he tells Pitchfork. 'It seemed to me, necessarily, it was also going to have to be a book at least partly about my musical obsessions and my musical identities.' By the book's end, Sanneh’s critical obsessions have become the reader's."

Mark Richardson at Pitchfork interviews Kalefa Sanneh, author of Major Labels: A History of Popular Music in Seven Genres.