Sound recording, radio, television and mass distribution have transformed the face of music far more radically than individual composers and performers. Public demand and the cultural realities of the time posed the same problems for different directions, to which they reacted and responded differently, tempering their identity.

This book is based on a series of lectures delivered by Artyom Rondarev at the Higher school of economics as part of a course on contemporary music, where he was able to describe the entire spectrum of the main genres, trends and styles of the 20th century: from the academic avant-garde to jazz, rock and roll, hip-hop and electronic music.

The publisher's layout of the book has been saved in PDF A4 format.