Customer Reviews

Pop Music: Early Years 1890-1950

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This album only has one track from 1890, Sousa's marching band. And another from 1911, Gene Greene. Then comes a 1918 recording from Nora Bayes. A wonderful compilation, but you might want to check out American Pop; Minstrel to Mojo, which does a better job with the 1910's.

What I most enjoy about this compilation is the obscurity of so much of the music. Most compilations tend to include the same music that is available on countless other collections. This features a great deal of tunes I'm sure most people do not own and in many cases probably never even heard before! If you enjoy the unusual...the different...give this compilation a try. It's not necessarily music you will just want to pop into the CD player and listen to straight through, but put it on shuffle with some other cd's and you have a wonderful counterpoint to more familiar music.

You know all those songs you hear and you think, "old"? Not new wave old, not even rockabilly old--REAL old. Well, they're here on this great budget-priced collection, the songs that you hear nowadays on commercials, period movies, and re-runs of ancient cartoons: "Yes, Sir! That's My Baby"; "If You Knew Susie"; "Makin' Whoopee"; "Happy Days Are Here Again"; "Brother Can You Spare a Dime?"; "Prisoner of Love"; "Buttons and Bows"; and even "Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer. These and other great songs are beyond classification--they are part of American culture, something that all Americans share no matter what genre of music they prefer. If you're at all interested in the history of popular song, check this out. You'll find it irresistable.

Sony Records released several compilations like this one, to celebrate the turn of the century. However, the only genre that had three part collections, spanning so many years, was pop.

It starts out, ten years early, in 1890. To me, it's like a prologue. After that, there isn't another tune until 1911. That makes the first track even more of an introduction. Some people might complain, but there wasn't really that much music recorded that early on. This was when people started actually using personal record players. This album spans fifty years although the other two only span twenty-five years each. I think it's due to the way that the music became.

This compilation shows how the music grew from something much more low-quality, into something very big and extremely well-produced. Afterwards, it shows the development from ragtime, to swing, to the more modern Frank Sinatra style. It is definitely a great part one of the trilogy.

Got this item for an older Aunt and she was thrilled with the early songs.