Customer Reviews

History of Pop Radio 1920-1951

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If you are interested in the history of popular recordings from 1920 to 1951, this 15 CD collection of these great songs and recordings is a must. Except for the 1920s, and due to the poorer sound of those early recordings, the AAD remastering is quite good. Included in this box set is an 80 page short bio of each artist that may be helpful, but is rather poorly written and not authoritative. But otherwise, what a great bargain, and what a great pleasure to have listened to these 300 full length recordings, many of which are rare and interesting including the many old standbys. Recommended!

It was only with the advent of radio that people all over the nation were able to listen to the same versions of the same music by the same artists and as the record companies produced them, and with this the pop song was born.

The aptly titled History of Pop Radio traces popular music from 1920-1951 and does a good job of introducing a diverse mix of both well-known and forgotten melodies.

The sound quality is generally good and this box set includes the 15 CDs, each with around 20 songs and approximately an hour long. It also contains an 80-page booklet in lieu of liner notes, but the information contained in it isn't particularly noteworthy.

The real problem with this collection is the quality of the music. when I listened to these CDs I discovered that I don't really like the hits of yesterday any better than currently popular music. Of course there are a good number of gems by the likes of Arthur Cruddup, Louis Jordan, and Glen Miller, but these songs are greatly outnumbered by syrupy crooners like Bing Crosby and Dinah Shore.

Listening to the 15 CDs was interesting and so I recommend it as a learning experience, but there's only about 2-3 CDs worth of good music here.