Bob Stanley - Yeah! Yeah! Yeah!: The Story of Pop Music from Bill Haley to Beyoncé

Yeah!

Yeah!

Yeah!

THE STORY OF POP MUSIC

FROM BILL HALEY TO BEYONC

Bob Stanley

W. W. NORTON & COMPANY

New York | London

Copyright 2014, 2013 by Bob Stanley

First American Edition 2014

First published in Great Britain by Faber and Faber Limited

under the title Yeah Yeah Yeah: The Story of Modern Pop

All rights reserved

For information about permission to reproduce selections from this book,

write to Permissions, W. W. Norton & Company, Inc.,

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Book design by Marysarah Quinn

Production manager: Devon Zahn

The Library of Congress has cataloged the printed edition as follows:

Stanley, Bob, 1964 author.

Yeah! Yeah! Yeah! : the story of pop music from Bill Haley to Beyonce / Bob Stanley.

pages cm

Includes bibliographical references and index.

ISBN 978-0-393-24269-0 (hardcover)

1. Popular musicHistory and criticism. I. Title.

ML3470.S73 2014

781.6409dc23

2014002223

ISBN 978-0-393-24270-6 (e-book)

W. W. Norton & Company, Inc.

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For Tessa

Very special thanks to Cassandra Gracey and Alex OConnell who encouraged me to start writing a book in the first place; Daniel Scott and my agent David Godwin, who both read a piece I wrote for the Guardian about the folly of condensing the story of pop, then convinced me that I was the kind of fool who should try and take it on; Martin Green for coming up with the perfect title; my editor Lee Brackstone for his enthusiasm, patience and good humor; Dave Watkins and Becky Fincham at Faber; my copy editor Eleanor Rees; proofreader Ian Bahrami; and especially to Mark Sinker, who put in an extraordinary amount of work dissecting my first draft, offering many insights and enriching suggestions, happy to talk things through at a moments noticehis invaluable contribution helped me to make sense of my often conflicting thoughts.

I received considerable help on some chapters from Tom Ewing, Kevin Pearce, Jane Bussman, Tim Hopkins, Daniel Scott, Martin Green, and Cecily Nowell-SmithI am very grateful to all of you. Alex Conway, Travis Elborough, Paul Kelly, Matthew Lees, Adrian Lobb, and Pete Paphides all plowed through early drafts of the book out of sheer kindness, which kept my spirits up during tough times.

For support and inspiration, direct and indirect, I am indebted to Mike Alway, Danny Baker, Rob Baker, Jeff Barrett, Malcolm Baumgart, Jane Beese, James Brown, Sheila Burgel, Ian Catt, Emma Chambers, Lucienne Cole, Nick Coler, Elaine Constantine, Paloma Cordon, Fabrice Couillerot, Paul Coyte, Scot Crane, Ossie Dales, Matt Dixon, Anna Doyle, Julian Fernandez, Lora Findlay, Jo Forshaw, Tariq Goddard, Steve Hammonds, Elain Harwood, Brian Henson, Emma Jackson, Jerry Jaffe, Gerard Johnson, Shoichi Kajino, Johan Kugelberg, Lawrence, Keith Lee, Andres Lokko, Niamh Lynch, Dorian Lynskey, Lucy Madison, Robert McTaggart, Anneliese Midgley, Leanne Mison, Caitlin Moran, Gail OHara, Ben Olins, Bryn Ormrod, Carolyn Parmeter, Mick Patrick, Sian Pattenden, Tris Penna, Alexis Petridis, Emma Pettit, Alison Poltock, Simon Price, Paddy Pulzer, Robert Rider, Michael Robson, Jude Rogers, Andy Rossiter, Andrew Sandoval, Jon Savage, Neil Scaplehorn, Andrew Sclanders, Dale Shaw, Caroline Sullivan, Gareth Sweeney, Jonny Trunk, James Turner, Robin Turner, Kieron Tyler, Adam Velasco, Audun Vinger, Isabel Waidner, Quentin Walshe, Emma Watkins, Liam Watson, Andrew Wickham, and Harvey Williams. For eleventh-hour help on fine details, thanks to Emily Bick, Michael Daddino, Sonny Marr, Stephen Spong, and Joni Tyler. Special thanks to my bandmates, who had to put up with my furrowed brow and scattered piles of half-finished manuscripts for five yearsmuch love to Pete Wiggs, Sarah Cracknell, Debsey Wykes, our liaisons officer Andrew Pep Peppiatt, and the hardest-working person I know, our manager Martin Kelly.

For keeping me supplied with new records and new sources of inspiration over many years I am deeply grateful to my dear and generous friends Geoffrey Weiss and Ian Hector Black. I am also lucky enough to be within a bus ride of four record shops run by some of the most friendly, knowledgeable, and helpful people I know: hats off to Alan Dobrin (Alans Records), Derek Burbage (Record Detective Agency), Darren Reed (Vinyl Frontier), and Roger Spiers (Oxfam Crouch End).

To my mum and dad, thanks for giving me that stack of old 45sRed River Rock, Teen Beat, FBIwhen I could barely toddle. Look where it got me! Its all your fault! And to my sister Jules, lots and lots of love.

Finally, I could never have finished this book without the constant love, belief, and tenderness of my wonderful girlfriend Tessa Norton, who never flinched from reading and rereading drafts, then added all the best jokes. I love you very much.

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