{"product_id":"pump-it-up-popular-music-and-whos-really-calling-the-tune-1900-2025-9798278030270","title":"Pump it Up: Popular Music and Who's Really Calling the Tune (1900-2025)","description":"\u003cp\u003e • Author(s): Jason Wardle\u003cbr\u003e • Publisher: Independently Published\u003cbr\u003e • Publisher Imprint: Independently Published\u003cbr\u003e • BISAC: History \u0026amp; Criticism - General\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e\u003cb\u003eYou know that feeling that the music you love is also somehow exploiting you?\u003c\/b\u003e \u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e\u003c\/p\u003eThat your favourite songs are also ads. That your playlists know too much about you. That the artists you care about are getting screwed while someone else gets rich.\u003cbr\u003eThat feeling is accurate. This book explains the machine that produces it.\u003cbr\u003e\u003ci\u003ePump It Up\u003c\/i\u003e is not a history of popular music. It's an investigation into the industry that captured it - the specific infrastructure that emerged in Anglo-America at the turn of the twentieth century, became the global template for how recorded and broadcast sound is owned, distributed, and monetised, and now dominates how most of the world hears music through streaming platforms.\u003cbr\u003eFrom minstrel stages where Black sound was first stolen and sold, through parlours, radio towers, vinyl plants, MTV studios, and server farms, popular music has been progressively transformed from collective human expression into a planetary grid for organising time, capturing feeling, accumulating catalogue wealth, and training populations in the rhythms of managed consumption. \u003cp\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cb\u003eThis book traces that transformation across 125 years and asks a simple question: Who's really calling the tune?\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003eDrawing on declassified intelligence documents, court records, financial filings, investigative journalism, and academic research, \u003ci\u003ePump It Up\u003c\/i\u003e follows seven investigative threads through five historical phases: \u003cp\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cb\u003eThe threads: \u003c\/b\u003e\u003cul\u003e\n\u003cli\u003eState-sponsored cultural warfare - from Jazz Ambassadors to platform-government partnerships\u003c\/li\u003e\n\u003cli\u003ePolicing and criminalisation - from cabaret cards to drill lyrics prosecuted as evidence\u003c\/li\u003e\n\u003cli\u003eLive music cartels - from vaudeville circuits to Ticketmaster's monopoly\u003c\/li\u003e\n\u003cli\u003eCatalogue financialisation - from Tin Pan Alley to billion-dollar IP funds\u003c\/li\u003e\n\u003cli\u003ePlatform power - from radio formatting to algorithmic mood management\u003c\/li\u003e\n\u003cli\u003eNightlife under siege - from speakeasies to venue closures as gentrification tool\u003c\/li\u003e\n\u003cli\u003eOccult panic and real class power - what Illuminati theories get wrong, and what they accidentally point toward\u003c\/li\u003e\n\u003c\/ul\u003e\u003cb\u003eThe phases: \u003c\/b\u003e\u003cul\u003e\n\u003cli\u003e\n\u003cb\u003eFormation (1900-1945): \u003c\/b\u003e How the extraction template was built on racial theft\u003c\/li\u003e\n\u003cli\u003e\n\u003cb\u003eCapture (1945-1980): \u003c\/b\u003e Cold War weaponisation abroad, COINTELPRO at home, rebellion packaged and sold\u003c\/li\u003e\n\u003cli\u003e\n\u003cb\u003eEnclosure (1980-2010): \u003c\/b\u003e MTV discipline, CD windfalls, live cartel formation, catalogue as asset class\u003c\/li\u003e\n\u003cli\u003e\n\u003cb\u003eGrid (2010-present): \u003c\/b\u003e Platforms as factories, surveillance nodes, and soft police stations\u003c\/li\u003e\n\u003cli\u003e\n\u003cb\u003eTerrain (present-forward): \u003c\/b\u003e Where the cracks appear and struggle becomes possible\u003c\/li\u003e\n\u003c\/ul\u003e\u003ci\u003ePump It Up\u003c\/i\u003e is ruthless toward the owners and respectful toward the people - listeners, musicians, workers - navigating a structure they didn't build. It names the racial extraction at the industry's foundation. It tracks the state-corporate alignment without conspiracy theory. It shows how your personal refuge became their behavioural infrastructure.\u003cbr\u003eAnd it shows where the walls are weakest. \u003cp\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cb\u003eIf you've ever felt that something was wrong with how music works - that the joy was real but so was the trap - this book will show you the whole picture.\u003c\/b\u003e \u003cp\u003e\u003c\/p\u003eOnce you see it, you can't unsee it. And once you see it, you can start to fight it.","brand":"Independently Published","offers":[{"title":"Paperback","offer_id":47593512501399,"sku":"9798278030270","price":1973.0,"currency_code":"INR","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0666\/3471\/1191\/files\/9798278030270.webp?v=1774982227","url":"https:\/\/atlanticbooks.com\/products\/pump-it-up-popular-music-and-whos-really-calling-the-tune-1900-2025-9798278030270","provider":"Atlantic Books","version":"1.0","type":"link"}