Music Wars is a useful introduction to the mid-twentieth century for readers not familiar with standard works in the field that helped establish popular music study in the United States in the 1970s and 1980s. In short, Music Wars is a political and business history of this culture industry at a time of great disruption.

Journal of American History

Music Wars should be essential reading for researchers, teachers and students of 20th-century popular music.

Popular Music

Utilizing an abundance of primary sources and writing in a style that is highly accessible, John C. Hajduk provides an intriguing approach to evaluating rock and roll. He centers on the commercial, political, and social establishment that reacted to musical and cultural forces from below that threatened the post-World War II status quo. His up-to-date focus on the ‘gatekeepers’ rather than the ‘gate crashers’ adds a fascinating lens from which to understand how the values of regional, racial, ethnic, and working-class outsiders eventually helped transform contemporary mainstream culture.

Michael T. Bertrand, Tennessee State University

In Music Wars, John C. Hajduk revisits some of the best-known political and legal conflicts over American popular music in the 1940s and 50s, from the ASCAP broadcast ban before World War II to the Congressional payola hearings in the 1950s. With special attention to the intersection of fans, artists, and the industry’s economic and cultural gatekeepers, he cogently analyzes how the American popular music industry came to terms with diverse audiences with diverse tastes and made room, albeit often reluctantly, for previously marginalized musical voices.

David Suisman, University of Delaware

Music Wars is an affecting account of a fascinating period—one with which most of us can identify. We live in a culture imbued not just with rock and roll, but with the history of rock and roll, and John Hajduk’s new book gives us a window into that reality.

Aaron Weinacht, University of Montana Western, professor of history, New Books Network