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Music critic David Hajdu shares his love

By ANN LEVIN, Associated Press
Published: October 23, 2016, 6:05am

Ever wonder what makes pop music so irresistible? David Hajdu, a music critic and professor at Columbia’s School of Journalism, has spent a long time thinking about the question.

In “Love for Sale,” he explores the combination of luck, talent and hard work that goes into making a hit: this “product of mass culture that reaches millions of people … at one time and works for each person in a personal way.”

He begins his story in the 19th century with the cultural changes wrought by the widespread publication of sheet music and continues on into the 20th and 21st centuries with the rise of new music-making technologies: Tin Pan Alley, recordings, MTV and digitization.

Along the way he pauses to explore the Cotton Club, Billboard charts and transistor radio, and analyzes the complex roots of rock ‘n’ roll and a half-dozen other musical genres.

For the most part, it’s an exhilarating read, though not surprisingly for such a self-described music nerd, Hajdu is prone to digress and never misses the chance to untangle the convoluted genealogy of a song.

Hajdu admits hiding his enthusiasm because he doesn’t want to destroy for his son the signature experience of all great pop music — the way he felt, for instance, listening to the Rolling Stones’ “Ruby Tuesday.”

“Like a million kids around the world,” he says, “I thought of the song as mine and mine alone.”

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