Yeah Yeah Yeah: The Story of Modern Pop – $525

An addictively readable, encyclopedic history of pop music in chapters as short and adrenaline-fueled as the best pop songs themselves.

A monumental work of musical history and a book as fun to argue with as to quote from, Yeah! Yeah! Yeah! is divided into sixty-five brief, chronological chapters about individual songs, bands, musical scenes, and styles from Bill Haley & the Comets’s “Rock Around the Clock” (1954) to Beyoncé’s first megahit, “Crazy in Love” (2003). Bob Stanley—music critic, pop fan, and musician—recounts the progression of bands from the Beach Boys to the Pet Shop Boys to the Beastie Boys, explores what connects doo-wop to the sock hop to hip hop, and reveals how technological changes have affected pop production.

For anyone who has ever thrilled to the opening chord of the Beatles’s “A Hard Day’s Night” or the bubbly beginning of Cyndi Lauper’s “Girls Just Wanna Have Fun,” Yeah! Yeah! Yeah! is a vital guide to the rich soundtrack of the second half of the twentieth century.