...an exceptionally astute and stimulating account of music in the United States from the late 19th century until the early 21st. Hajdu’s propensity for stepping away from the hit parade in order to mingle with its architects as well as members of its audience not only militates against the monotony that a straightforward chronicle of the charts would generate, but it also fleshes out the social context of the songs under discussion ... Hajdu goes on to provide an indispensable guide to developments both sudden and long-gestating in pop during the 20th century.
...a very personal and utterly wonderful book ... as idiosyncratic and vehemently personal a book as it is reliable, readable and enduringly important. One of the year’s best music books.
In addition to one man’s nuanced romance with pop, Love for Sale is an engaging history of our century-old infatuation with mass-produced music ... enlivened with snippets of interviews that Mr. Hajdu has conducted with musicians over his long career ... It is disappointing that, in a book documenting technology, there is no mention of the eight-track tape...Even so, Mr. Hajdu brings verve to his journey from his Silvertone transistor to SoundCloud.
David Hajdu is a considerate writer more interested in taking care of his readers than in baiting them ... traces the history of pop from the sheet-music past to the streaming present with the friendly authority of a favorite teacher ... If it were an album, it would be a collection of singles and B-sides meant to hold the fans at bay until the next major release ... his critical observations are measured and nuanced, if not correct.
Love for Sale is a sweeping but casual book ... it doesn’t pretend to be comprehensive, but it does touch on most major developments in how pop music has been produced and consumed in the United States from the 1890s through the present ... Hajdu is writing with the general reader in mind...But even the sort of people who file their doo-wop 45s by region ought to learn something from Love for Sale, and Hajdu’s affinity for a range of genres lend even the more familiar stories the dimensionality of a stereo mix ... Hajdu has good ears and ideas, so one wishes he would more frequently delve deeper into a record; as it is, his analysis sometimes seems incomplete.
