Almost every advertisement on television features music, either prominently or as a sonic background, to a point where we hardly hear it anymore. However, the association between advertising and music hasn't always been a natural one, and this is what Timothy D. Taylor demonstrates in this book. How has music been used to sell goods in the United States, from the radio days to the digital age? Taylor, a professor of ethnomusicology and musicology, tackles this vast question via interviews with workers in the advertising industry and archival research; the incredible amount of people cited and trade journal excerpts attests to the 10 years this research project has taken. Without celebrating nor condemning the work of advertising agencies and musicians, Taylor is nevertheless clear in the introduction: ‘if one examines the long haul of the production of the cultural industries, as this book does, it becomes clear that […] the cultural industries have triumphed, and are continuing to triumph, over the nearly century-long history covered in this book. […] Today, we fashion selves mainly through the products we purchase’ (p. 2).

The book contains nine chapters, which can be divided into three major parts following the importance of the jingle in advertising. The ‘pre-jingle’ chapters, the first and second ones, deal with the rise of radio during the 1920s and 1930s. Radio advertising had to be learned because it was a brand new medium. The strategy was for advertisers to sponsor whole programmes. And music was a convenient means by which to fill programmes, as it was available and free (or at least, a lot cheaper than writers and a cast of voice actors). Hence it was very important to choose the right music to attract listeners/consumers. One solution was to aim for ‘large and diverse audiences while offending the fewest people’ (p. 32), hence choosing a variety of musics, so the product sponsoring the programme inspired goodwill in the listeners/consumers. Another solution was to impart personality to a product, or to animate it with music supposedly representative of its features (such as a banjo orchestra for a ginger ale, as both are ‘sparkly’). However, this wide audience was still to be discovered, for the idea that the function of radio was to sell audiences to advertisers was growing. Chapter 2 deals with the early polling of the audience, mainly via asking the listeners to write in for free items. As a matter of fact, even though the widest audience was sought after, knowing the composition of an audience for a given programme counted more and more.

The Depression accelerated this process. Goods had to be sold, competition was rough and the goodwill strategy moved towards hard-sell tactics. A way to sugar-coat more aggressive sales techniques was a catchy, happy little tune: the jingle was born. Taylor demonstrates how the jingle came to dominate advertising until the 1980s in the course of three chapters (Chapters 3, 4 and 5). He explains, with many examples, how jingles came to be not only more and more standardised, symbols of an industry walking hand in hand with the advertising industry – but also how jingles were more and more attuned to mood and affect. This process began after WWII and the rise of parity products. The industrialisation of jingles contributed to its demise. Being in almost every advertisement, its effectiveness waned during the 1970s and 1980s: ‘the more advertisements sounded like advertisements, the more objectionable many found them to be’ (p. 140).

But this ‘post-jingle’ era does not mean advertising music has died, far from it. The music has changed forms since the 1960s, with the onset of the Creative Revolution and the ‘discovery’ of the youth market. These two factors taken together instilled what is now known as the ‘conquest of cool’: ‘a strategy of co-opting the cool and the hip in popular culture for use in advertising and the marketing in order to appeal to youth’ (p. 7), something that is still used to this day. Increasingly, the music used in advertising consisted of adaptations of whole songs, performed by many star singers. Rock music itself made its way slowly into commercials, helped by baby boomers taking command of advertising agencies, and also with the arrival of MTV in 1981. Music videos changed the game, as ‘the music itself, commonly thought of as an accompaniment to visuals, was now driving the production of visuals, which had a tremendous impact on the production of commercials as music videos directors shot commercials’ (p. 185). Major changes in both the advertising and music industries meant that the licensing of songs became a widespread practice. Of course, co-optation comes with its part of ‘danger’, as is well known in rock culture. However, Taylor argues convincingly that these dangers have lessened to the point where advertising agencies are now purveyors of hits and good taste; in a sense, they now act as the new record companies. Thus, advertising is now conquering not only ‘cool’, but culture itself.

In the last chapter, Taylor analyses the composition of the field of advertising music production, using Pierre Bourdieu's concepts. His update of the new petite bourgeoisie, the social group composing workers in the advertising industry and musicians, is compelling. In short, these people not only believe and hold on to their view of the hip and the trendy, which distinguishes them from the dominant group, but they are able to shape culture; they have access to the means of production by which they can impose their tastes on the rest of society. This is precisely why The Sounds of Capitalism is an important book for the field of popular music studies: this book helps readers to better understand how music shapes consumption, this major cultural and social phenomenon. Also, it is fortunate that this last chapter, revolving around concepts and theories, is included. On many occasions, Taylor claims that he is telling a story. And this is exactly how it feels: a simple story, a succession of examples. The book would certainly have benefited from more of Taylor's exceptional theoretical insights, as demonstrated in the introduction and in the last chapter.