The Penguin encyclopedia of popular music

Abstract

Clarke (author of The Rise and Fall of Popular Music, 1995) here updates and revises the decade-old first edition of this broad-based source (CH, Feb'90).Adding 146 pages and hundreds of new entries, Clarke continues to focus on performers while also covering songwriters, producers, labels, and genres.For this cheaper paperback edition, the typeface is smaller and the paper quality decidedly poorer.Abbreviations of states help condense the telegraphic entries.New entries broaden coverage of minority and world music (especially Latin America), rectify notable absences from the first edition, and add artists who have come to prominence in the last ten years (e.g., John Hiatt, Tracy Chapman, Dick Dale, Morphine, Tito Nieves, Nirvana).A few entries have been deleted (e.g., Joy of Cooking).Many performers are still omitted (Alice in Chains, America, Crowded House, Gentle Giant, Korn, Luscious Jackson, Midnight Oil, Poi Dog Pondering, Split Enz, Waterboys, World Party).A few errors persist (Lars Ulrich of Metallica was born in 1963, not 1955).Cross-references have been dropped in favor of the extensive 109-page index.Other sources provide better coverage of specific popular music styles (e.g., The New Rolling Stone Encyclopedia of Rock & Roll, 1995), and The Guinness Encyclopedia of Popular Music, (CH, Mar'93; 2nd ed., CH, Sep'96) has a far greater number of more detailed entries, but Clarke's work contains the broadest coverage of a century of commercial music in one volume.Useful to all music reference collections.

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