One-Track Mind

One-Track Mind: Capitalism, Culture, and the Art of the Pop Song brings together sixteen writers to weigh in on sixteen iconic tracks from the history of modern popular music. Arranged chronologically in order of release of the tracks, these essays zig zag across the cultural landscape to present one possible history of pop music.

The song remains the most basic unit of modern pop music. Shaped into being by historical forces-cultural, aesthetic, and technical-the song provides both performer and audience with a world marked off by a short, discrete, and temporally demarcated experience. One-Track Mind: Capitalism, Technology, and the Art of the Pop Song brings together 16 writers to weigh in on 16 iconic tracks from the history of modern popular music. Arranged chronologically in order of release of the tracks, and spanning nearly five decades, these essays zigzag across the cultural landscape to present one possible history of pop music. There are detours through psychedelic rock, Afro-pop, Latin pop, glam rock, heavy metal, punk, postpunk, adult contemporary rock, techno, hip-hop, and electro-pop here. More than just deep histories of individual songs, these essays all expand far beyond the track itself to offer exciting and often counterintuitive histories of transformative moments in popular culture. Collectively, they show the undiminished power of the individual pop song, both as distillations of important flashpoints and, in their afterlives, as ghostly echoes that persist undiminished but transform for succeeding generations. Capitalism and its principal good, capital, help us frame these stories, a fact that should surprise no one given the inextricable relationship between art and capitalism established in the twentieth century. At the root, readers will find here a history of pop with unexpected plot twists, colorful protagonists, and fitting denouements.

One-Track Mind: An Introduction

Asif Siddiqi

1. Le Grand Kallé and African Jazz-"Indépendance Cha Cha" (1960)

Simon Zagorski-Thomas

2. Gerald Wilson-"Viva Tirado" (1962)

Oliver Wang

3. Moby Grape- "Omaha" (1967)

Susan Schmidt Horning

4. Led Zeppelin-"Immigrant Song" (1970)

Esther Liberman Cuenca

5. David Bowie-"Rebel Rebel" (1974)

Glenn Hendler

6. Donna Summer-"I Feel Love" (1977)

Simon Reynolds

7. X-Ray Spex-"Oh Bondage Up Yours!" (1977)

Helen Reddington

8. Prince-"When You Were Mine" (1980)

Scott Poulson-Bryant

9. Neil Young-"Transformer Man" (1982)

George Plasketes

10. The Replacements-"Unsatisfied" (1984)

Gina Arnold

11. NWA-"F- Tha Police (1988)

Austin McCoy

12. Salt-N-Pepa-"Shoop" (1993)

Amy Coddington

13. Hanson-"MmmBop" (1997)

Louie Dean Valencia

14. Elton John-"Candle in the Wind 1997" (1997)

Christine Caccipuoti

15. LCD Soundsystem-"All My Friends" (2007)

Gabrielle Cornish

16. MIA-"Paper Planes" (2007)

Asif Siddiqi