A freelance writer, researcher, and publisher, Steve Sullivan writes on aspects of American popular culture. In the Encyclopedia of Great Popular Song Recordings, Sullivan compiles over 1,000 recorded songs gleaned from numerous discographies, charts, best lists, historical studies, periodicals, and listening. His selection of songs, which range from the Gay Nineties into the twenty-first century, is based on a “weighted point system” and, as he admits, “personal taste.” The songs are then divided and chronologically arranged into ten titled “playlists,” each of which Sullivan believes presents “a reasonable balance of eras and genres” (viii).

When compared to Chris Smith’s 101 Albums That Changed Popular Music (Oxford, 2009) or Nigel Harrison’s Songwriters: A Biographical Dictionary with Discographies (McFarland, 1998), Sullivan emphasizes the qualities of the performance of a particular song over the album as a whole or the perspective of the composer. This he does in a good degree of detail; some of the song articles range up to five columns in length.

Sullivan states that the playlists themselves are ranked, with the songs in playlist 1 being “the greatest classics of all, and down from there” (viii). This leaves one to puzzle over what inspired the particular playlist titles. For example, how are the songs in “Playlist 4: Good Rockin’ Tonight, 1904–2005” greater than those in “Playlist 5: Jazznocracy, 1897–2010” or lesser than those in “Playlist 1: Crazy Blues, 1906–2004”? Perhaps some guidance on what characteristics to look for in a particular song grouping would also have been helpful.

This said, the encyclopedia is likely to stimulate some thinking on the part of the reader. One of Sullivan’s goals is to erase the artificial boundaries that distinguish one genre from another (ix). For example, in the chapter titled “Playlist 3: Sitting on Top of the World, 1890—2011,” he includes, to interesting effect, the Johnny Mathis rendition of Erroll Garner’s Misty and the Rolling Stones’ Sympathy for the Devil. The encyclopedia also looks soundly documented. There are footnotes on each page, a lengthy bibliography classified by topic, and a scattering of documented photographs.

The plethora of informed books that sets out to weigh “the best” in music is bound to be subjective to a certain degree. It is this subjectivity that often makes them engaging to their readers, who enjoy comparing their own insights and opinions to those of the writer’s. While it is not a replacement for the numerous discographies that already line library shelves, Encyclopedia of Great Popular Song Recordings is a good supplementary title for any academic or public library that serves interests in popular music.